The Manifestations of Trance are as follows:
- A) Loss of abstract frames of reference.
- B) Loss of "waking" standards of judgment.
- C) The absence of doubt or the questioning of the reality
of an experience at the moment of the experience.
- D) Ceasing to be consciously aware of time, self, and
the surroundings.
- E) Loss of the distinction between imagination and
reality.
- F) Obliviousness to abstract meanings.
- G) Loss of awareness of the true reality.
- H) Loss of reality testing.
- I) Failure to take the larger meaning of events into
consideration.
- J) Failure to perceive logical incongruities.
- K) Loss of self-reflective executive monitoring.
- L) Loss of critical thought processes.
NORMAL REALITY ORIENTATION
WHILE WE ARE IN OUR NORMAL WAKING STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS,
there is a network of basic cognitive understandings about reality operating in the background of our attention. These basic understandings serve as the framework, or
Context within which all of our ongoing experiences are interpreted. If this context of cognitive understandings were in fact absent, our ongoing experiences could not have their normally wide, and abstract interpretative significance.
This normal
Context of cognitive understandings may be called our
Normal Reality Orientation (NR Orientation) .
In ordinary everyday life the NR Orientation is always intact as a background context to our conscious experiences. There are times, however, when for a variety of reasons it can be temporarily eliminated from the immediate background of consciousness, leaving the ongoing conscious experiences isolated (dissociated), devoid of both perspective and wide abstract interpretative significance. The extent of such temporary elimination of NR Orientation from the immediate background of consciousness (temporary dissociation) is called Trance ! 
SELF REFLECTION
ONE MAIN ASPECT OF CONSCIOUS HUMAN MENTAL PROCESSING is Self-Reflective Executive Monitoring (or Self Reflection). We humans not only act and think, but we also think about our thoughts and actions and we know that we are doing so. We consciously experience things and are also conscious of the fact that we are consciously experiencing. We are constantly inwardly watching, monitoring, constantly reflecting on our own ongoing experiences and evaluating them, critically interpreting their significance and planning ahead.
This superordinate awareness of self as self, and this executive monitoring of self is such a constant and pervasive feature of our normal alert everyday lives that it is often taken as the mark of alerted consciousness; when to some notable degree it is not so - as for example, in states of drowsiness and sleep, strong emotion, etc..
The Neocortex is essential for most of our thought processes even though it also can not function alone in this. It is within the lower centers of the nervous system, however, that cause Wakefulness in the Cerebral Cortex, thereby opening its bank of memories to the thinking machinery of the entire brain.
WAKEFULNESS
This state of wakeful consciousness may be defined as activity within the brain which is directed into the appropriate neurological channels to give an individual a sense of
conscious awareness
. While in the wakeful state, one is fully aware of one's self and the environment; external stimulus brings about a full response.
In order to maintain our reality-oriented state of waking consciousness, there has to be an optimal range of stimuli coming from the reality of the external world. Too little, as well as too much stimulation, will lead to an altered state of consciousness. One such alterted state of consciousness is the Trance State of Hypnosis.
While in a State of Trance, the ongoing conscious experiences are dissociated from their usual interpretative framework of cognitive understandings of everyday life. The individual is not consciously aware of such distinctions between imagination and reality. The subject ceases to be consciously aware of time, self, or his surroundings. As the state of Trance deepens, there is a progressive (temporary) loss of self-reflective executive monitoring.
What sort of person is Susceptible
to
The Hypnotic Trance ?
The Answer :
lies in the observation of people of all ages, and all walks of life,
who go inside a large room and sit comfortably facing a blank wall. They stare at this wall while a series of images are projected in front of them, and in the process experience a wide variety of emotions that range from great joy, to fear, anger, or sadness. In other words, anyone who can be entertained in a theater, can be hypnotized!
It should be noted, however, that the level of entertainment reached by the audience varies from one individual to the next. Analogusly, the same is true with level of Hypnotic Trance experienced. While there are great individual differences in progression and succession of the stages or Hypnotic States reached in Hypnosis; trance phenomena vary in intensity from the light Hypnoidal Trance where the subject may display no observable change, to that of the profoundly
Deep Trance in which the subject experiences negative visual or audible hallucinations and hyperaesthesias!
(See
The Hypnotic States )
What are the Mental Factors in Hypnosis?
The Answer :
Is two-fold ...............
A
(Communication),
and B
(Attention) !
A.
The most important factor in the production of the Hypnotic Trance is
COMMUNICATION !
The ultimate product of human mental activity is thought.
Language is one of the most important vehicles through which thought is encoded, modulated, and transmitted to others. A major share of our sensory experiences are converted into their neurological language equivalent before being stored in the various memory zones of the brain, and before being processed for other intellectual purposes.
In short, words are attatched to experiences in the human Mïnd and then those experiences are stored themselves in language form. The language a person uses, especially the predicates (including verbs, adverbs, and adjectives) often reflects a person's favored information-processing style. In the human equation, Interpersonal activities envolving others depend heavily on one's ability to structure and transmit messages that are meaningful to one's intended recipient.
The process of attatching words to experience in linguistic terms is called Transderivational Search.
In Hypnosis, the conditioning property of words and experience is apparent both in the process of Transderivational Search the subject undergoes (in attatching the hypnotist's words to experience), and the resulting physical, emotional, and sensory changes that occur while the subject is mentally absorbed.
This is accomplished in the mind on two levels: the conscious level, and the unconscious level! Our conscious and unconscious minds have different sets of functions, some of which they share.
The Conscious Mïnd :
Operates primarily in the Left Hemisphere of the brain, and is that part of an individual's mind which provides him with awareness of the world around him, in the physical or the abstract.
The Left Hemisphere is called the Logical Hemisphere, and is thought to contain the reasoning, analytical and intellectual functions of the brain. Hence, the conscious mind is capable of many functions; such as analysis, critical reasoning, and judgement of right and wrong.
The Unconscious Mïnd :
Operates primarily in the Right Hemisphere of the brain. In psychoanalytic terms, certain aspects of right hemisperic functioning are congruent with the mode of cognition termed "Primary Process." The unconscious mind is the psychic structure comprising the drives and feelings of which one is unaware. It is that part of an individual's mind which provides him with an awareness of a more symbolic or metaphorical reality.
The Right Hemisphere is called the Intuitive Hemisphere, and as such is thought to contain a person's intuition and creativity. This includes the extensive use of images, lesser involvement in the perception of time and sequence, and a limited language of the sort that appears in dreams and slips of the tongue.
The Right Hemisphere is said to contain a person's world view and self-image, and is more likely to get the overview of things. Hence, the unconscious mind is capable of the creation and appreciation of art and music.
Language
when it is spoken, is structured for the most part on an unconscious level, and reflects our unconscious patterns of thinking through the specific words chosen to reflect our inner experiences. Research clearly shows that information is somehow processed from stimuli received but not consciously apprehended. Information that is integrated on an unconscious level, can be more influential upon it's recipient than information that is processed at the conscious level.
One's conscious awareness is limited to only a few perceptions at one time. While the conscious mind is, for example, occupied with the logic and rational analysis of words, it is the unconscious mind which is metaphorical by nature and is therefore concerned with their true meaning.
To use an analogy, the conscious mind's focus is upon detail making it more likely to, "See the Trees and not the forest!" Whereas the unconcious mind's focus is upon the overview making it more likely to, "See the Forest and not the trees!" As the saying goes.
The Hypnotic experience is one in which the subject's emotions and sensory experiences can be amplified to higher levels, which is appropriate for making more use of the person's resources in facilitating action or change. Intellectual, conscious willpower is hardly a match for the deepseated emotions and sensory experiences of the unconscious.
B.
The second major mental factor in the production of Hypnotic Trance is one's ability to pay
ATTENTION !
ATTENTION
(the ability to focus in a sustained manner on one activity), is a term used to designate a family of mechanisms for selecting that part of a stimulus array which is to capture the center of awareness, and for holding the other potentially distracting stimuli at bay.
Attention may be divided into
Two Major Classes:
-
The First Class:
- This class of attentional processes is a matrix of state functions that regulate the power of Concentration, the span of vigilance, the efficiency of detection, and the signal-to-noise ratio. It is this class of attentional processes that has been associated with the neural circuitry of the Frontal lobes and the Reticular Activating System.
-
The Second Class:
- This class of attentional processes could best be conceptualized in terms of vector or focal functions that regulate the direction and target of attention in one of the many behaviorally relevant spaces (extrapersonal, mnemonic, semantic, visceral,etc.).
This component is more akin to Selective Attention (also referred to as Focused Attention).
There is reason to believe that the Right Hemisphere is specialized for both types of attentional processes, but especially for the focal aspects of directed sensory attention.
Part of the focused attention mechanism of the brain lies within both the left and right Thalami. Experimental evidence has shown that it is the left Thalamus that helps us to pay attention to phenomena which can be translated into words, while the right Thalamus helps us to concentrate on visual images.
Focused Attention within the mind seems to be directed to only one region of the brain at a time. The conscious mind selectively attends to whichever of it's experiences that is given highest priority. It is during this period that brain wave activity shifts from beta to alpha rhythm. Focused attention is a characteristic of Hypnosis, where the subject focuses selectively on communications from the hypnotist and attatches the hypnotist's words to his own experience.
Communication designed to absorb and occupy an individual's conscious mind marks the induction (or starting point) of the subject's Hypnotic experience. In Hypnosis, responses are evoked by sending messages to both the Conscious and Unconscious Mïnd.
These messages are structured to convey
«Subliminal» meaning to the subject's Unconscious Mïind which it can act on, while preoccupying the Conscious Mïnd elsewhere.
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