A mental health care professional from Columbus, Ohio contacted me. He wants to know why he should add hypnosis to his practice.

Ironically, he’s already using hypnosis but doesn’t know it. We all experience hypnosis several times a day. Despite misconceptions, hypnosis is synonymous with trance. (Hypnosis = Trance) I will use the term “trance” for the remainder of this article.

A short lesson on dictionaries...

The editors of dictionaries monitor which words humans use most often and how they use them. The common-use definitions make their way into the dictionary. Problems arise when the words used by humans are misunderstood.

The dictionary definition of trance...

Most humans learn what trance is from television and films. The definition of trance below is from the Oxford Dictionary, and it is inaccurate at best. Hypnosis does not induce trance—hypnosis and trance are the same mental state.

Trance

noun: trance; plural noun: trances

A half-conscious state characterized by an absence of response to external stimuli, typically as induced by hypnosis or entered by a medium.

“She put him into a trance.”

What trance really is...

Learning what trance is, how to create one, and why you should be utilizing trance will exponentially increase your efficiency and effectiveness when communicating with humans.

Every human experiences trance. It’s those moments when…

• You miss your exit on the freeway because you were lost in thought,

• You become engrossed in a good book,

• You find yourself singing your heart out in the shower while “holding” an imaginary microphone, or

• You have a strong attraction to another human being and can’t get them out of your mind.

Just this evening, I was really into a television show when I noticed I was getting choked up and had tears in my eyes. That’s trance.

The conditions of trance are…

• Fixation of Attention

• Distraction of the Conscious Mind

• Focus Directed Inward

To better illustrate this, remember a time when you found yourself fully immersed in an activity. This could have been reading a good book, watching a great film, or listening to fantastic music.

• During that time, your attention was focused on one thing… the book, the film, or the music.

• Your conscious mind was distracted. In other words, you were so into what you were doing (reading, watching, or listening) that you weren’t aware of what was going on around you. For example, there have been moments when I have stood next to one of my children and said their name multiple times while they were playing a video game—they had no awareness that I was speaking to them.

• You were in your head. You were creating the story from the book within your mind, virtually living and feeling what was happening in the movie, or not just hearing the music but feeling it move through your body. (Some people even “see” music.)

You can recognize someone in trance. They tend to gaze off and have that “far away” or “blank” look, or they may even close their eyes. Their body tends to become relatively immobile. For example, things like swallowing, blinking, and breathing become slower. Humans in trance also seem momentarily unaware of their surroundings.

Everyday life is in constant flux between external reality and momentary trance states.

This is why trance is essential…

When humans are in a trance state, they set aside their critical minds and become more suggestible. In other words, they are easily influenced and are primed to accept new ideas and possibilities.

When you learn to create trance and utilize it, you can make profound shifts in humans in much less time.