Trance Reality

Working as a hypnotherapist my primary work is to induce a state that we commonly call “trance” and do therapy there.

To call that a trance, we have to assume that we are awake in our normal conscious state.

But are we awake?

In what sense?

To a large degree, when we say we are “awake”, it is only on the level of us using our analytical and rational mind, the mind that is formed and conditioned by moral ideas, commonly accepted judgments (anything that we call right or wrong, good or bad is a judgment) and socially agreed-on concepts and assumptions.

The ability to analyze and rationalize comes from pre-accepted standards. So to be “awake” is to form an identity based on those standards. That judgmental and analytical mind identity is the egotistical “self”. This self needs to be validated and seeks approval.

Collective agreement makes us feel safe. Yet collective agreement is a TRANCE. We enter this trance, and call it “waking” state.

We are so conditioned to those standards that we fall asleep to our own inner senses. We become blind to what we truly know, inside, and we seek knowledge from outside.

Again and again and again, I’m amazed at how much resources, wisdom and creativity opening up when I induce a hypnotic trance with someone. The inner portions of a person’s identity are already aware of much that the person says he doesn’t know. My work becomes to acquaint one’s egotistical self with knowledge that is already known to a larger portion of one’s own consciousness, the one that is long ignored.

I remember there are cases where a client of mine would go into the hypnotic trance, I would present the problem, or a question, and in the trance state the person would receive information, from the larger portion of his/her consciousness, in such a direct, clear manner and at such a fast speed that it is more beneficial and efficient if the client doesn’t verbalize the information received – to do that would require translation from symbols or a direct knowing into language. So I instruct the client to remain silent when they download the information and only let me know when it’s received. Thus the session becomes content free, which is a very cool thing.

Now if that means awakening to a broader reality, wouldn’t it be logical to say that our normal socially inclined state is a deep trance state? In this deep trance state all of our attention is focused in a highly specialized way upon one shining, bright point that we call “reality”. There are other realities all about us – testified again and again by my trance clients when their inner eyes open, but we ignore their existence, and we blot out all stimuli that come from them, for ignorance or the safety of being in this world, socially accepted.

We look out into the physical universe, and interpret reality according to the information received from our “outer senses”. To have a hypnotic trance experience, is like to stand in physical reality and look inward for a broader reality of consciousness.

For about 3 years, I worked with a colleague and we exchanged and enjoyed the exchange of hypnosis sessions. When she was the hypnotherapist and I was the subject, she loved working with me as much as I loved working with her. I loved working with her because each and every time when anything bothered me, such as dealing with my young uncooperative tenant, or when I wanted to strengthen my inner connections for any reasons, all we needed to do was for her to hypnotize me and there we went non-verbal, or I automatically talked out solutions and insights. It was as if when my left brain had a question, my right brain would come up with an answer instantaneously.

For the same reason, she loved working with me because there was not a lot of work that she needed to do. She just put me into a trance, in which my deep inner senses opened and “woke up”, and let me have a dialogue with my self. She said it was a very easy task for her.

What is trance? What is waking state? From which perspective? In which reality?

Even though my hypnotherapist said it was easy to work with me, I always deeply appreciated her assistance. It was like I needed that permission slip to wake up from the trance that we commonly called “waking state”, and tap into my inner broader reality.

Once I worked with a musician. After our first session, he wrote me an email, in which he said,

I am normally a tense driver. I try my best to remain calm when I am driving but I don’t always succeed. After our session, I left your place and drove down Davie St, I realized something very strange. I was driving down the street and I was calm. I was stuck behind this slow moving vehicle but instead of getting frustrated, I looked at all the people on the street and really saw them. They looked liked zombies to me but I was not a zombie. I may have been in a trance but, to me, it was they that were in a trance. I was really observing them and being in that moment. And as people crossed the street against the pedestrian don’t walk sign, I did not get frustrated or angry. Instead I came to realize that there was still plenty of time for me to turn the corner once they had finished crossing. There was nothing to be angry about – these things are inconsequential. I came to realize that I am not my behavior. I am not even my thoughts. I am not my body. I am not my job. I am somehow beyond and above all of those things. I will still be me no matter what happens. Hard to explain but that is best way I can describe it…

Life itself is a paradox. In paradox there lies our power.

So let’s wake up together from the trance, paradoxically, through hypnosis.