by Kharon » January 15th, 2008, 6:18 pm
Ah, a very good question. The simple answer has been stated. There is no "best" time for hypnosis or trance. After all, you enter trance-states throughout the day while doing things such as playing or video games, driving, walking, reading a book, listening to music, coding, writing, or whatever it is you do regularly.
However, there is another answer which is highly subjective. Like you, I listen to my filed typically before going to sleep. I am still awake after the files -- my headphones are just slightly uncomfortable, enough so that I have to take them off before I can sleep, but they don't impede my ability to relax and enter trance. For me, this is the best time to do it, as it can become part of my bedtime routine -- brush my teeth, turn off the lights, put in my headphones and listen to the CD before bed. Take my headphones out at the end and go to sleep.
The best time for a trance is a quiet time when you can focus on it completely and totally. What this means varies from person to person, and sometimes even from day to day or month to month. It means the best time to enter trance is whenever you feel is the best time to enter trance, and to work with hypnosis. FOr most people last thing before bed and first thing after waking up are excellent times, because they can spend 20-30 minutes (I wouldn't recommend longer pre-recorded sessions under normal conditions, though your mileage may vary; I personally get disoriented after around 40 minutes) in the quiet listening to a file and focusing on it before or after the day can distract them.
If the middle of the afternoon is when you think is best and you're able to, by all means, do it mid-afternoon. Figure out when you actually feel instinctively is the best time to do it, and consider the amount of time you have to listen to the file or files you want, as well as the likelihood of being distracted or interrupted. If bedtime is the only time where those two balance, it is probably your best time for trance, at least using recordings.