Newbie to Trances

[KiruGX]

Well,This is your average thread that I hope will help others,but most importantly me.This has several questions I hope you guys/gals can answer.

-Do trances cause you to sleep?
-Do trances still work if you sleep?
-Will you be at all aware during trances?
-Does every trance require closed eyes or just a few?
-Can anyone explain a state of mind?

I do realize that redoing trances several times in a row conditions someone,but i'd rather not waste time and mess up.

[Jonathan-Hypnotist]

Any time that you are doing two things at once - holding a conversation while working at work, while doing the dishes, listening to the radio while surfing the web or mowing the lawn, while driving, while eating in front of the television - most of those times you are probably partially in trance, doing at least one activity at a time without continuous conscious effort.

-Do trances cause you to sleep?
No. It has been said that 15 minutes in trance is as refreshing as a four hour nap. There's certainly something to this, but the deepest hypnotic trances generally get midway in brain wave herts(cycles per second) between spacing out or daydreaming and actual sleep.

-Do trances still work if you sleep?
No, not really. Hypnosis inductions are aimed at bypassing the critical aspects of the mind to communicate with and get a response from the subconscious. Trying to hypnotize someone who is asleep is like trying to send an email on a computer while it's shutting down or booting up - something might eventually get through but only barely.

-Will you be at all aware during trances?
It really depends. The best way I can put it is that in hypnosis clinics a person might space out and not remember anything, or they'll hear footsteps in the hallway outside and claim "I wasn't hypnotized because I could hear stuff going on"
But really, trance is a state of intense focus. You can be focusing internally, externally, start with one and move to the other a few minutes later. Some people remember everything, some people remember hardly anything. It really varies, just like when your sit and daydream.

-Does every trance require closed eyes or just a few?
The deepest trances usually occur with eyes closed just because it's more comfortable, but you can do stuff like stage hypnosis, or the common everyday types of trance with eyes open no problem.

-Can anyone explain a state of mind?
The answer to that is complicated, depending on which field of knowledge you speak of, ranging from biology to psychology to philosophy. It could mean a state of
attitude
awareness
consciousness
health(as judged by a qualified professional)
etc

Drugs can force your state of mind to change - caffeine might make your state of mind different than alcohol does. Same for attitude, you could have a good day or a bad day, make friends or make enemies, just because of your attitude and state of mind on a given day.
A group of girls chatting together and finishing each others sentences might be in a different state of mind than while speaking with their bosses or with their lovers.

Here's a copy/paste from wikipedia about Flow, which is the best way to do anything in my opinion.

"" In his seminal work, 'Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience', Csíkszentmihályi outlines his theory that people are most happy when they are in a state of flow— a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing. This is a feeling everyone has at times, characterized by a feeling of great absorption, engagement, fulfillment, and skill—and during which temporal concerns (time, food, ego-self, etc.) are typically ignored.[6]
In an interview with Wired magazine, Csíkszentmihályi described flow as "being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."[7]
To achieve a flow state, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur. Both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, then apathy results.[5]
The flow state also implies a kind of focused attention, and indeed, it has been noted that mindfulness, meditation, yoga, and martial arts seem to improve a person's capacity for flow. Among other benefits, all of these activities train and improve attention.
In short, flow could be described as a state where attention, motivation, and the situation meet, resulting in a kind of productive harmony or feedback. ""