What is trance like for you?

[PSAlexandria]

Describe how the experience of trance is, for you. How do you know the difference between waking life, and trance?

For me, I think fully entranced and fully awake are two opposite ends of a continuum. The levels of the continuum blur into each other, but here is how they are for me:

1. Fully awake - I'm experiencing full or even heightened awareness to all of my surroundings. My thoughts are directed by logic and intellect. This is the state in which I would solve a complex math equation or have a debate.

2. Not 100% - Still clearly awake, but relaxed. I still have access to my logical and intellectual mind, but am not "in the zone" intellectually speaking. It can be any number of things, from completing simple tasks that don't require intense thought, to being awake but tired, to feeling "in the moment" due to a happy event. I spend most of the day at this level.

3. Trance ready - The feeling I get immediately before or after trance, or when intensely wanting trance. Still mostly awake, but almost in a light trance. I tend to feel either "floaty," as in relaxed and full of joy, or "flickery" as in, my consciousness keeps going back and forth between hyper-awareness and light trance. Examples would be when I'm daydreaming or "driver's hypnosis."

4. Meditative trance/submissive trance - The first level of trance, for me. I feel trusting and submissive. I go along with the suggestions of the hypnotist, but it still takes some conscious effort. My awareness isn't altered, but I still feel suggestible. It's similar to the feeling one has when one is wide awake, but trying to get to sleep, and so allows one's mind to wander a lot.

5. Medium trance - A very "trancey" state where my analytical brain feels asleep. It's almost like the feeling right before I fall asleep, where I am still aware of some stimuli, but my awareness of the outside world is diminished. I feel very relaxed, and stimuli other than the hypnotist's voice are "muted" for me. If the hypnotist suggests a movement to me, I do it, but I otherwise tend to be still with my eyes closed. If the hypnotist suggests a sensation to me, I feel it in my mind, but I don't feel it in my body as if I were physically experiencing it.

6. Deep trance - Almost asleep. At this point, I'm barely conscious of the hypnotist's voice. If the hypnotist suggests a movement for me, I tend to be too deeply relaxed to move. I might hallucinate sensations if they're suggested to me, almost as if they were physically present.

[lew897]

My trance is somewhere between 4-6. I just keep getting better and better as time goes on. At the same time, I think hypnosis takes away all the stress of my day, as well as improve anything that I want. I haven't yet had any trances where it felt like the file forced me to do anything that I wasn't conscious of it doing. Which is kinda where Im wanting to head.

[TheTurretCube]

I seem to rarely go beyond 4, I'm quite analytical. I would love to know how you go into a 6 like trance, it sounds amazing.

I've been trancing regularly for about 2 years, so I'm decently experienced

[PSAlexandria]

^ I don't get to that point often. Trance for me is not a stable state, I go quite easily from one level of trance to another. I can be in a deep trance for a split second, then go back to a medium/light one, or conversely, go from being trance-ready but normally aware into a medium trance quickly sometimes, but it depends on my mood.

[Endo]

I've been meaning to answer this topic for some time now, but my situation is rather unusual, so I'm unsure of how to answer properly.

Most of my hypnosis activity comes by way of my tulpa, who acts as a hypnotist and a sort of tour guide for whatever metaphorical adventure or experience she's using to hypnotize me. This is a sort of expansion upon the idea behind my post from several months ago "The Great Nate80 Method". Because it requires me to be a bit more awake than typical hypnosis, as it is "interactive", I'd say its usually at about 3 or 4 for depth, but I will have physical hallucinations if required. Every now and then, I may sink into 5 and go into one of those odd auto-generated hallucinations, but those are rather rare.

I hope this was useful for you, I know it's definitely not "normal" in a community full of file -users and -'tists.

[CyrilMtl]

Often when I trance I am 3 or 4, relaxed on my bed, still aware of what is around me (feeling of the bed under me, noise ...) but with a strange feeling in the back of my brain very hard to explain.
The hypnotist suggestion has a light effect on me, like you though are slowing down, mindless ...

Sometime when I go a little deeper, I loose spacial reference, I 'feel' my body forming a weird S shape on my bed even if I know that I am just straight on the bed, I can have the feeling that the I am floating floating around, like slowly rotating in space ... I guess is around 5

Hypnotist suggestion still have very little effect on me, I don't move, I don't go on my four legs like a dog, or stuff like that ...

Some time I black out on some of the file, little piece of time like going in and out of sleep, 'missing' moment in the hypnotist speech, in some case just coming back during the count down at the end (I can't pinpoint when I black out), I don't know if it's sleep or really blackout of my conscious part of the brain, Hypnotist suggestion still have very little effect on me.

I have a very analytical brain and trust is very hard to build.

I would like to go to 5 or 6, to react more to the hypnotist speech, perhaps move to some suggestion, feeling sensation physically or in my mind, I would love to 'participate' in the story of some file here like I am the main actor.

I would like to experience 'The Great Nate80 Method' describe by Endo or 'Cabin in the vast country' the JackDrago. I think they are more like self-hypnose/meditation to an internal imaginary place representing yourself.

[JackDrago]

I do two different sorts of hypnotic practice and the trance states are very different. For conventional hypnosis, I usually get to something like a 3 or 4 on your scale, occasionally a 5 if I pre - trance hard by the right process.

The Vast Country is much more like a "tulpa hypnosis" as described above. I have an inner hypnotist that trances me by telling Ericssonian stories of magic and power.

When my head is not so messed up, I will be working on a trance training file on the theme of the user finding and trusting their own internal hypnotist but at the moment I have to focus on recovery first.

[CyrilMtl]

Work on your recovery first, we want more files and story of you and Butch.
That file should be interesting, even if I don't know if I am ready to have Another me inside my head.

[lew897]

Re reading, the initial post, I never feel submissive, mostly because I take those suggestions out of the file that Im listening to. I also, add about 9 tracks of the same file playing at a slightly lower tone, then the suggestions that I want I put pretty low and have it play over and over again while the main file is playing through once. My files, also go from the many tracks slowly down to the single track. Mostly because, I feel like the mind has to be taught to trance for itself when it needs to. Relaxation(tts voice script by myself), visualize help, susceptible remix by Calimore, and reinforce mixed together in that order all help tremendously. Ive been wondering about uploading my version since, I felt that this type of file is direct and goes after the skills needed for trancing and doesnt waste time. But I really dont want to be stepping on the authors toes. I also listen for about 40 or 30 minutes, I think 30 minutes is enough to feel better overall and understand what I want from the file, but 40 minutes takes me out and puts me into a drowsy state. I also, think that every once and a while I have to do the <grey area> search. Which basically are the places that I really don't understand and just focus on spending all my time there. As for the part of not doing stuff without my awareness, Im mostly using hypnosis to gain control of parts of my life that I want to happen. Knowing that there is no submissive or begging or being a slave in my mind or in real life is extremely exciting. Its a lot of using your own thinking power for myself.

[ProfessorPig]

I had a really weird trance today that seemed more relevant in this thread than success stories. its normal for me to let my mind wander instead of focusing on the hypnotists voice. this was like that but different. in addition to my mind wandering i started getting visuals of places unrelated to my thoughts or what the hypnotist was suggesting. the weirdest of these was a completely immersive hallucination of me sitting where i was listening to the file with my laptop on my lap and my finger on the touch pad. i was completely convinced that i was using my laptop while i was listening to the file. after playing around on my laptop for a bit i realize it was not on my lap but a couple feet over to the right. it was a very surreal experience. it felt a lot like the early stages of dreaming but i regained awareness during the awakener.

[Alien4420]

Well, sometimes I'm not aware I'm in a trance at all. Someone has been doing some Ericksonian hypnosis on me and it just sort of works. Other times as I fall into trance I get that floaty feeling. At this point, since I've tranced so often, it sometimes happens to me when I'm just reading text that's supposed to be hypnotic or even some that isn't. I feel myself falling into a trance and if I'm not supposed to be I have to snap myself out of it.

I've also experienced the trances getting deeper and lighter. A hypnotist once told me that that's normal. Sometimes I'll go very deep and experience the brief hallucinations that Endo mentioned. It's like having a dream. But I can't really describe my deepest trances since those happen with a live hypnotist and I have amnesia afterwards, so I have no recollection of what happened.

Interestingly, if I listen to a file with an amnesia suggestion in it, I'll remember the suggestion and the amnesia happening even though I don't remember the stuff I was told to forget. I assume this is because I don't stay in deep trance throughout files. I've just never been able to disappear into the file and pop wake up without knowing what happened the way some other guys can, or the way I do with a live hypnotist.