Deep Trance
&
Its Induction

The hypnotic state is inconsistent and changes with each individual. Changes in the hypnotic state occur in relation to a person’s own experience and his/her reactions to the ongoing experience of hypnosis and its induction, in relation to time, the people involved, the purposes being served, and the ongoing situation.

Most importantly what every hypnotist, should recognize, is that the state of hypnosis is always dependent upon the ongoing interpersonal and intrapersonal relationship present. That is to say that one’s representational experience is dependent upon one’s own inner and outer experience and personal interpretation thereof.

For the purpose of hypnotic induction, and most specifically deep hypnosis, certain variables should always be considered. Such consideration should be made of the subject’s safety, and the hypnotist must protect the subject fully. The operator must also understand the situation and its needs because he must be able to recognize the work accomplished. He must also be able to accept and utilize whatever develops, and be able to create situations favorable to the subject’s needs and or functioning.

In order to reach states of deep hypnosis certain hypnotic techniques have shown greater promise than others. Certainly one eventually encounters an exception to every rule, and the naturally somnambulistic subject encompassing between 5% – 20% of the population does make things easy for most hypnotic operators, but one should become well adept at hypnotic techniques benefiting the rest.

Rigid procedures and fixed methods often meet with failure. The hypnotist can only guide, direct, and supervise while providing the opportunity for his subject to do the productive work, using her own capabilities, learnings, and experiential history.

Past common methods of hypnotic induction to facilitate trance have included behaviors such as crystal gazing, in which the subject fixates her attention upon an external object, or tuning in to the ticking of a metronome. Such methods may have proven adequate for some, but impossible for many others.

Past studies have found that most subjects seem to respond much better to internal fixations upon personally imagined object or sounds (intrapsychic behavior). This allows the subject to utilize her own capabilities, without having to adjust to external surroundings, or distractions. Accounts from many subjects elaborating upon this factor have been summarized as follows: “When I listen to the imaginary metronome, it speeds up or slows down, gets louder or fainter, as I start to go into a trance, and I just drift along. With the real metronome, it remains distractingly constant, and it keeps pulling me back to reality instead of letting me drift along into a trance. The imaginary metronome is changeable and always fits in with just the way I’m thinking and feeling, but I have to fit myself to the real one.”

Another important factor to consider as mentioned above is time. Some subjects enter hypnosis quickly, while others may take a great deal of time. Milton Erickson notes on pg. 143 of Vol. #1"The Collected Papers", that on average a total of four to eight hours of hypnotic induction training is required for most subjects. Along the same lines certain trance induced behavior such as the ability to speak while in a deep trance could take countless hours of training. Such abilities require learning, because subjects might yet have no understanding or realization that it is possible to speak at an unconscious level of awareness.

When functioning at a deep trance level, subjects perform with unconscious understandings, independent of ordinary conscious responses. Things are taken in a literal sense, and external realities are relevant only as utilized within the hypnotic experience.

Milton Erickson has conceptualized deep trance as somnambulistic and stuporous, hence his description of deep hypnosis: “Deep hypnosis is the level of hypnosis that permits subjects to function adequately and directly at an unconscious level of awareness without interference by the conscious mind.”

Recommended methods of hypnotic induction for deep hypnotic states include, hand levitation, confusion, rehearsal and multiple-dissociation techniques.

Hand levitation utilizes the subject’s ability to focus upon internal associations while paying attention to differences, which might match the operator’s hypnotic suggestions. The greater the fixation upon the internalized sensations, the deeper the trance insured.

Confusion techniques employ numerous individualized hypnotic suggestions differing from each other, coupled with contradictions requiring an apparent never-ending shift in orientation. This causes the subject eventually to come upon a loss of understanding so great, that a need to grasp upon a single, simple idea or suggestion is desired, and the subject soon falls upon the hypnotist’s simple suggestion to “just go into a deep trance … now.”

The rehearsal technique employs the subject’s imagination of rehearsing some simple hypnotic phenomenon such as automatic writing, then actually demonstrating physically the imagined behaviors. Repeating the procedure often insures a deep trance.

The multiple-dissociation technique employs the visualization of multiple hallucinations of different yet related experiences.

email: dr_frank@hypnoticadvancements.com

Mailing address:
Dr. Frank Valente Ph.D.(c)
Hypnotic Advancements
3126 McCarthy Court
Mississauga , ON
Canada L4Y-3Z5

© 2004, Dr. Frank Valente Ph.D.(c)

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