Trance States
Trance is a word usually related to hypnosis, and unfortunately, quite often in a negative manner. It has also been related to Native American Indians in relation to shaman’s going into a drug induced trance in order to reach the other side.
This type of explanation has brought a lot of mis-construed ideas coupled with a lot of negative association towards the word ‘trance’. Whilst the above may be true for some, for many, being in a trance is being in an altered state of consciousness without it being induced by drugs. For me, there are two main types of trance, a meditative trance and a hypnotic trance. The two reach the same sub-conscious part of our brain but are brought about by different actions.
A trance is a state of disassociation brought on by a repetitive cognitive loop. You go into a trance state because it is not necessary for your mind (consciousness) to put all its cognitive resources into maintaining a repetitive activity. This can happen any time of the day, a factory worker may just ‘go through the motions’ of packing boxes, they have disassociated due to the repetitive cognitive loop, (a repeated behaviour); they have gone into a trance. Day dreaming is also a trance state which is brought on by a repetitive cognitive loop.
Any time you go into a trance, your mind is divided into two parts, the observing you and the automatic you. When you walk down the street, you do not have to think about how to walk, you automatically disassociate with walking and just do it, because you’ve done this activity thousands of times before, so only very little consciousness is required. The same for when you drive the car, it is an automatic response, you can disassociate from it because you have done it for so long. The observing you is then free to think, dream, create, whatever, whilst the automatic you is operating your legs or driving the car, or packing boxes.
The difference between a meditation trance and a hypnotic trance is what causes the trance generating loop. If the trance generating loop is connected to a stimulus outside of your mind, like the voice of a hypnotist, a clock, music, or from listening or speaking mantra’s etc, I call that a hypnotic trance. If the trance generating loop is completely inside your mind, such as repeating a mantra to yourself, or focusing on silence, I would call that a meditation trance.
In hypnotherapy, the goal of hypnosis is to reduce some of the processing power of the observing you in order to be less able to critically sensor suggestions. With critical thinking taking a break, positive suggestions can by-pass the conscious mind, and be received directly into the subconscious mind bringing a positive change in behaviour. Once again, this is a hypnotic trance – White Eagle
