How to know that I am in trance in hypnosis?
I had a client who went into trance within ten minutes without any routine induction. There is a way to induct without asking to close your eyes or keep looking at an object.
His muscle tone, eyeball movement, voice, and change in skin color all indicated that he was in trance. I also knew he was deep as I was also with him.
Yet he did not trust. He kept saying, ‘No sir. I am not deep. This is not it. This is not real’ and so on.
After around five minutes or so, I woke him up with a snap.
On waking up he realized that he was in a deep trance. It took around five minutes or even more for him to come back to normalcy.
He left with guilt and sadness for not trusting.
The reason I am sharing this example is, when you ask the question, how to know I am in trance, you may have to ask as to from where the question is coming.
Firstly, trance is a state of mind where the vibrations in the mind are very low.
Normally the brain vibrates at around 18-32 Hz.
In trance, you go below 18 and can go up to even 3 depending on the practice, trust, and experience you have.
Now, the “I” that is asking the question, ‘How will “I” know? Is the repository of beliefs, opinions, and ideas that operates at a vibration above 18Hz.
Those who are very analytical, and critical; those who have developed ideas about trance from books, online videos, etc may find it difficult to even accept that they are in trance, as they have imagined expectations. The more they imagine more is the brain active at a higher vibratory state.
So, what is the way out?
Will those who have analytical minds or those who have tried to go to trance never be able to go to trance?
The answer is no.
Yes, you can.
How?
First, let us know what is a trance state in Hypnosis.
Being in a hypnotic state is like being in a dream state.
When you get a dream at night you are aware of the dream, but you are not aware that you are dreaming.
Second, you cannot take any action on the dream. If you try to act, you wake up and the dream is gone.
Third, you are also not aware of anything that is happening around you as you are sleeping.
In a dream state like this, your entire mind could be below 12 HZ and if it goes below 1HZ it becomes a dreamless sleep state.
Since the entire brain oscillates in a certain wavelength, you cannot take any action. You are just a witness, without even knowing you are a witness.
Trance is like that but with a difference.
1. You will oscillate between a 12- 18HZ or even higher to lower vibratory states like lesser than 10 or so.
2. We use the 12-18 HZ state of mind to communicate back and forth. In Hypnotherapy, the therapist and the client in trance together make changes in the unconscious mind, by conscious interference with the conscious mind of the client.
3. You will see the happenings of the unconscious, you be aware that you are aware of that and to an extent, you will also be aware of what is happening outside you in form of sounds, smell, etc.
4. The idea that ‘I will be put to sleep and the hypnotherapist will plant the affirmation inside me’ is not practiced today due to many reasons. That is a type of subtle hypnosis that can be done even going through the process of formal induction. Actually what happens when you watch a movie or a series is this type of hypnosis, where you seem to be awake and conscious but the change keeps happening. That is one reason why cine stars and celebrities have a large fan following and most followers want to imitate them though consciously they know that the life they project is illusionary.
So, coming back to the question, will I go to trance if I am analytical?
1. Hypnosis begins with trust in the process of hypnosis.
2. Then trust in yourself. You go as deep as you go and you trust that. Trust takes you deep as long you do not judge. It is like this. If a student has been getting 50 out of 100, then 60 out of 100 is good progress and it gives the change that is required.
3. In hypnotherapy, you go with what the therapist says. The trust you have in the therapist, in yourself, and in the process, all help you go deep. Many people come and say to me, “X therapist, Y therapist tried to regress me, but I didn’t. Can you?” I send them back with a salute as I would not want to sit arguing with them during or after the session. Yes, the therapist makes a difference in creating an internality, but those who come with such challenging critical minds should meet a hypnotist and not a hypnotherapist. Yes, they could be good candidates to be made to walk like a duck or hen for demonstration. Hypnotic sessions cannot transform.
The goal of hypnotherapy is transformation. Yes, with the amount of information available on the internet, the most well informed which increases the critical thinking mind.
Yet, if one is ok with what happens and trusts the functioning of the unconscious mind then transformation happens powerfully.
For example, the most powerful impact of our conditioning happens when we are less than a year old. Yet, there could have been many other impactful events that could have happened by the time a person gets to become 38 years of age.
Now the goal is not to clear what happened at the age of 1.
We form a contract with the goals based on current issues and regress. If the root of the current challenges lies in an incident that happened when one was 37 years old, then we resolve it. Sometimes it can go straight to a time when one was six months old.
The subconscious shows what is needed for resolution.
The subconscious shows and opens to an extent one can handle what opens up.
So, hypnotherapy starts with trust.
A sense of surrender to the process of the functioning of the existential mind.
When one approaches the process with this state of mind, transformation happens.
Going to trance or not does matter, because you are already in trance.
How is it that I am already in trance?
We will see that in the next article.