If you are reading this, you are in trance.

Or are you? Here’s how to tell…

Devin Ryback
Aug 24, 2017 · 11 min read

Hi and welcome to the first article of this publication. I am Devin, and I am your guide. By reading this article, you will gain a greater conceptual understanding of the trance state, and perhaps a greater experiential understanding as well, if you take my suggestions and put them to use. Now then, let’s begin.

Chances are, even if you were in trance before beginning to read this article, you are no longer. That’s because you are now more alert. Your conscious mind has sounded an alarm and roused your attention to be at the ready. “What! I’m not in trance..I think.. What is trance anyway? How would I know?” And simply by becoming more aware of your awareness, you find yourself in the present moment, and you are here! Brilliant. (Perhaps it didn’t happen like that, but no matter.) Now, if you actually were in a trance, how would you know? First let’s get a better idea of what trance is.

If you practice meditation, yoga, or qigong, you probably have a good understanding of the trance state. Likewise, if you practice dancing, singing, driving a car long distances, playing a musical instrument, or getting lost in books, movies or video games, you also probably have a good understanding of the trance state — you just don’t know it. Trance is somewhat difficult to describe, and it is much easier to just enter trance for yourself. So, here’s a short exercise you can do to enter trance:

Sit comfortably in a chair, or lie down if you won’t fall asleep, and stare directly ahead of you. Breathe deeply in through your nose, filling your belly then your chest, hold the breath for a second, then exhale slowly through your mouth while pressing your lips together. The exhale should be longer than the inhale. Do this two more times, and on the third exhale allow your eyes to close, then breathe normally. Relax your entire body beginning with the top of your head, moving your awareness through your scalp, your face, your neck and shoulders, down your back and chest, down your arms to your fingers, down through your belly and hips, down your legs all the way to your toes, letting go of any tension in these areas as you move through them. By the time you reach your toes, you may be very relaxed. Then, in your mind, count down from 10, slowly, imagining each number with each exhale, breathing naturally. By the time you reach 0, if you have successfully relaxed, you will be in trance. While in trance, simply be aware of your inner space, taking note of how this experience compares to your typical conscious awareness. Relax there, and enjoy the peace. When you are ready to leave trance, simply count up to 10 in your mind, open your eyes, and stretch back into your body. This whole process can be done in 10 minutes, and even faster with more practice.

Now, practicing that technique will give you the experience of intentional trance as it is entered while sitting or lying down with closed eyes. But what about “waking trance”? What about “unintentional trance”? To understand these aspects of consciousness, it’s helpful to know a bit more about what elicits a state of trance, aside from progressive relaxation and meditation.

There are five main types of experiences which elicit trance in the conscious mind. They are:

  • experiences with authority figures
  • experiences with peers
  • high-emotion experiences
  • repetitive experiences
  • hypnosis (although trance and hypnosis are often explained to be synonymous, as I even do so on my website, here I use the terms to refer to different aspects of awareness. In another article I will explain this in greater detail.)

All of these experiences do something very special to the part of the mind called the critical factor, which is essentially the semi-permeable membrane between the conscious and subconscious mind. (To be clear, I am describing the anatomy of the human mind, not the human brain, but I think you knew that. I’ll write an article about the anatomy of the human mind sometime soon.) The critical factor can often be experienced as the “voice” inside of your head which, if you are like many other people, talks a lot of shit. Mostly about you, which doesn’t really make sense, seeing as it’s your own mind. You may have even come face-to-face with your critical factor if you tried that little exercise above, and also if you have any meditation experience at all. It may have been saying things like, “What are you even doing? Are you some kind of hippie now? Weirdo. This isn’t even working. See? See? It’s not even working!” Why would it do that?

Well, the subconscious mind, which is metaphorically as massive as the rest of the iceberg — if the conscious mind is the tip — is driven mostly by survival mentality. This is the part of the mind which maintains all involuntary bodily functions, stores long-term memory, fashions dreams, channels emotions, and, most importantly in my line of work, holds beliefs. The beliefs stored in the subconscious mind are, as you might guess, subconscious, meaning that the conscious mind, the part of the mind which we tend to identify with — sometimes detrimentally so (another article to come) — doesn’t know about them. And because the conscious mind is unaware of these beliefs, these beliefs covertly and continually shape our thoughts, and consequently our emotions, and consequently our behaviors, which consequently reinforce the belief over and over again. This wouldn’t be an issue if these subconscious beliefs were beneficial to self and others. Often though, they are unhealthy, self-destructive, and consequently other-destructive, beliefs.

But that doesn’t matter to the critical factor, which simply acts as the gatekeeper to the subconscious mind. It has two sides: One side faces the conscious mind and is the part we can “hear” blabbing and mouthing off about how fat and worthless we are; the other side faces the subconscious mind and is the part which has access to all of the stored beliefs. If you have an experience which contradicts the beliefs held in your subconscious mind, it is likely that your critical factor will have an averse reaction — a defense mechanism, essentially. The c.f. is so defensive because it identifies as the beliefs and so attempts to sustain its own self-ness by rejecting experiences which would force it to change. And when you actually attempt to change it intentionally through some kind of technique, like meditation, it fights for its life out of fear of dying. It kinda sounds like we’re talking about the ego, huh? For our purposes here, we can equate the critical factor with the ego. When your c.f. is telling you that there’s no point in applying for that job because you’d never get it anyway, or that your voice is terrible so you shouldn’t perform at the party, or that everyone will gag if you show up in that dress, it’s really just trying to protect you (protect itself) from harm. And, chances are, it has created those assertions, those beliefs, based on past experiences. Now let’s circle back around to those five types of experiences I mentioned earlier.

All of these experiences bypass the critical factor, either by relaxing it, scaring it, coercing it, or any combination of these and other ways. If you think about it, you can probably remember some experiences you’ve had which fall into these categories. Most of our belief programming happens in early childhood, before the critical factor is more developed. Kids are sponges. They absorb everything, and all the while that information is being processed into ideas and beliefs about themselves and the world around them. Then, once the critical factor is formed, it acts as a seal, separating the conscious mind from the subconscious beliefs which guide thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Unless we do some inner searching and really dig around, we might never know why we act the way we do.

Parents, teachers, doctors, coaches, friends, siblings, cousins, classmates, are all examples of authority figures and peers, interactions with whom allow the critical factor to be bypassed, which then allows new information — for better or worse — to enter the pool of beliefs. High-emotion experiences, from traumatic to celebratory, also bypass the critical factor, making it easier to create or reinforce beliefs. And repetition repetition repetition essentially bores the c.f. into submission. Let’s look at some examples.

It’s a Tuesday in Trevor’s Third Grade class, and Mrs. Thompson is going over some spelling words from yesterday. Trevor didn’t study, again, and is trying very hard to not make eye contact when the teacher looks around the room for a student to spell the word “alphabet”. Of course, she calls on Trevor to come up to the board and spell. “ALFABIT,” he writes. There are snickers from the other students, and instead of using more positive reinforcement, Mrs. Thompson appears very concerned and scolds Trevor with an annoyed tone, saying, “You’ll never learn to spell!” Trevor is very embarrassed as he returns to his desk.

Oh my. So here we have an authority figure, a classroom full of peers, and a high-emotion experience! You can bet that Trevor’s mind is formulating a belief about him, probably something along the lines of, “Spelling is bad because people will make fun of you,” or even straight from Mrs. Thompson’s mouth, “You will never learn to spell.” Now, from our perspective, this belief is obviously unhealthy and obstructive to growth. However, from the perspective of Trevor’s 9-year-old mind, this belief will protect Trevor from further harm. It is a defense mechanism. In this same way, when Trevor’s critical factor fully develops, which will probably be by 11 years old, it will valiantly protect him (protect itself) from any information which could jeopardize its invaluable store of beliefs. Let’s see another one.

During her shower before bed, Martha finds a lump in her left breast which was not there before. The next morning, after a very worrisome, sleepless night, she calls her doctor and makes an appointment. It has been a week now, and she sits in the waiting room, too nervous even to read a book. Dr. Connor says it could be cancer, but he has to do a biopsy to know for sure. After another stress-filled suspenseful week, Martha returns for the results, and Dr. Connor tells her she has stage 4 cancer, and that she won’t live longer than 6 months…

Well shit, doc. Didn’t they teach you how to not program harmful beliefs into your patients in medical school? Oh, probably not, because the way doctors talk to their patients couldn’t possibly affect their overall health or their recovery from conditions we “know” to be terminal. And the human body definitely isn’t affected and transformed by the human mind. *Ahem* So here we have Martha interacting with an authority figure in a chronically high-emotion state. You can bet that her mind is formulating beliefs right about now, probably along the lines of, “You will die over the next 6 months.”

Fantastic.

Alright, by now you get the idea, but let’s have one more. A nice one this time.

Jessica is awoken by her parents with the sounds of gentle singing and soft guitar… “Happy birthday to you…” She is 7 years old today. They tell her to get dressed quickly because they have a whole day of adventure planned. They go to the park and have a picnic on the hill to see the sunrise. They go to the stable and ride horses. They go to the beach and build sand castles. They go into town for all the smells, sights and sounds — wow! That night they return to the same spot at the park to watch the sunset, and stay a little longer to see the stars… Her parents hug her tightly and say, “Jessica, this world is full of magic and adventure, and you can be whatever you want to be. We will always be there for you.”

Awww. Now that’s a magical day, ripe with experiences for Jessica’s mind to formulate some healthy, constructive beliefs. Authority figures and high emotion. So by now you have a better understanding of what trance feels like and what kinds of experiences elicit the trance state. You also have an idea about why it is important to understand all that. Now let’s reinforce it.

At this point, you may very well be in trance … And at this point, you may very well no longer be in trance. While you are in trance, your critical factor is subdued, which could be a good thing if you are intentionally reprogramming your mind to facilitate wellness. It could also be a bad thing if you don’t mean to be in trance. Although the critical factor can be stubborn when we strive for inner change, it still acts as protection against harmful information, which are, for all intents and purposes, mental pathogens. Your critical factor is a part of your mental immune system. Most people don’t do much to strengthen or reshape their c.f.s, such as cognitive or mindfulness training, so they operate with stock functions, which are for the most part effective — as long as the critical factor is up and running, and then, as long as it is looking the right way.

Think about this. By this point your life you probably have many programs already running, and many habitual behaviors and patterns you follow. A routine, basically. This day after day repetition creates a kind of trance in the mind, especially if your activities are boring. After paying enough attention to a task that you do repetitively, it becomes automatic. Your conscious mind goes elsewhere and your subconscious mind takes over. You may have experienced this while driving on a particularly long or boring stretch of road; five minutes go by and you don’t know where they went. On the other hand, sometimes you focus your conscious mind so much on one idea or task that everything else seems to fade away, for example, when reading a book or watching a movie, even to the extent that you might not hear someone say your name. But something is still watching everything else around you — it’s your subconscious mind, unprotected by the critical factor, which is absorbed in the task at at hand. (There seem to be (at least) two different kinds of trance here. Another article!) Keep this in mind the next time you turn on the morning news while you prepare and eat breakfast, or the evening news while you prepare and eat dinner. As your conscious mind is focused on food and eating it, your critical factor is distracted, and anything coming from that TV can go directly into your subconscious mind, becoming new material for creating and reinforcing beliefs about you and the world around you. You’ve probably heard this one before: It’s called “television programming” for a reason! And my goodness, I do not want to be programmed by the News.

So then, what do we do about all of this? Well, since it isn’t practical to be in Buddha-consciousness all the time, which means there will always be some things we are consciously unaware of, the best we can do is to strengthen our mental immune system through regular practice of some kind, perhaps mindfulness meditation. This expands our awareness, like inflating a bubble, to contain more and more experience of the present moment. Another thing we can do is be more conscious of what we take in mentally and emotionally, very much in the same way we can be more conscious of what we eat and drink to facilitate our physical wellness. It is helpful to imagine that, on every level, we are “eating” our reality. We consume media in the form of books, movies, TV, etc., in the same way we consume substances in the form of meat, fruits and vegetables, water, alcohol and other drugs, etc. We must be mindful of all that we consume because, quite literally, it becomes us.

Now, are you in a trance? Who really knows. It is the act of asking the question which is the best protection against mindlessness. Stay mindful.

Peace & Love,

Devin

To learn more about hypnosis and trance and how these skills can help you achieve your goals, visit my website at dr-hypnosis.com. Contact me to schedule a consultation, or just to talk! As always, thanks for everything you are.

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Devin Ryback

Written by

Artist, Teacher, Healer. Wonderer, Wanderer, Friend, in benevolent service of the Cosmos.

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