The trance mirror

A point that I have seen made a number of times in my hypnosis literature has been the concept that in order to induce trance, one must be in trance oneself. Igor Ledochowski is very specific about this in his Deep Trance Training Manual.

I have been very aware of the "hypnotist's trance" ever since the first few people I've hypnotised. It's the same kind of trance state we all experience when we read a book or watch the television. It feels like a loss of, well not peripheral vision as such, more like peripheral awareness, as my attention focuses on my subject and reading their response.

One effect of this trance state is that if I am completely focused on my subject, and especially during the induction, other things that may be happening around me will quite often go completely unnoticed. Good examples of this have been people entering or leaving the room or people taking photographs. Recently at a party I hypnotised someone, having taken her and her boyfriend aside into a different room to do so. I was very surprised when a friend who had also been at the party made a few comments to me later about the hypnosis session and the subject's response, and yet I have absolutely no memory of her being present at the time!

Something else that happens though is that there is a natural tendency for people to subconsciously mirror others around them. Think of a time when someone nearby has yawned and you've found yourself wanting to yawn.

I'm even doing it now just thinking it! You don't have to yawn now though.

I have experienced this effect in a hypnotic context when a friend had me look her in the eye as she started her induction. As she went into her patter I became aware that she was blinking a lot. "Clever girl!" I thought as I sat there, instinctively analysing everything to death of course, and becoming aware of my own eyes wanting to blink and close. I filed that idea away for later use, even though it later transpired that my friend had merely been tired!

What this demonstrates... I think, is that it's possible to aid someone's transition into hypnosis by, as the hypnotist, entering a trance state oneself. I feel this is why I am taking the development my own skills to access the hypnotic state very seriously at present. How I can I possibly lead someone into a hypnotic trance easily with my instructions if I've not been through the process myself?

I guess what I mean by all of this is that I think that if I can get better at trance, I will be able to produce a better trance in my subjects.

This weekend has seen me getting some more practice at being hypnotised, courtesy of my friend. To my disappointment I've not accessed that really deep state again since that one time, but I do feel that my depth is also fluctuating a lot less. I still have no response at all to any explicit phenomena, although my friend did give me some positive suggestions which seem to have helped - although I really can't remember what they were! I cycled to work this morning for the first time in months and I've been able to keep my attention firmly on my work all morning.