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Trance – The Inherent Wealth of ‘Altered States of Consciousness’

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I’ve recently had opportunity to be in the presence of Daniel Pinchbeck (bestselling author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl), Flordomayo (one of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers), John Kimmey (a carrier of the Hopi Prophecy), José Arguelles (initiator of the Harmonic Convergence and the 13 Moon Calendar), Richard Tarnas (besteselling author of The Passion of the Western Mind), and John Perkins and Llyn Roberts (DreamChange.org).  I can accurately say that I have never been in the presence of so many people who understand, respect, journey, and facilitate others to journey in ‘the dreamtime’ all together, all at once.

            When I was a child, I was told by a voice audible only to my inner ears, that “It is possible to experience altered states of consciousness without the use of drugs”.  Gently at first, then increasingly as I matured into my young adult years, I was taken into a state so deeply resembling sleep yet non-sleep.  The longest of these experiences was two and a half months.  Knowing that I was not ‘sick’, I didn’t yet know what I ‘was’!  To be sure, I had a doctor confirm that I was not experiencing mononucleosis.  I was declared perfectly well – simply experiencing something unnamable.

            As these experiences continued, I came to have a name for them – ‘trance’.  When in trance (with slight variation to this), the majority of my energy would acquiesce itself from my physical – my body and all of its processes would ‘power down’ to require as little energy as possible – so that the majority of my energy was available on more etheric, ‘beyond conscious’ levels.  I became very familiar with this, and soon I was able to recognize quite quickly when I was in a trance state.

            The nature of these trances is to awaken me – to show me essential principles of existence beyond the currently perceived limitations of form  as we know it. 

            The longest of these trance states, without interruption, was seven and a half months plus entry and exit from it – a period of my life which I call ‘seclusion’.  (See Birds’ Eye View – A Travel Guide to the Universe.)

            As I became more and more familiar with the experience of being in trance – swept into it without conscious awareness of a decision to enter it – I learned how to facilitate and allow these states – and to value them more deeply than my ‘normal’ day-to-day states of consciousness.  For ‘in trance’, information of enormous potency and value is being downloaded.  To receive it I (and other humans, too) must learn to be quintessentially still.  For this information is in forms and frequencies unrecognizable to our collective general states of consciousness.  They are fine, fine frequencies.

            This brings me to a question – a curiosity of sorts.  How does the natural, non-drug / plant induced trance that I experience with such ease and fluency differ from the trance experienced through induction via herbs / chemical drugs and / or via drumming, chanting, or dancing?

            A concern I have gently held for years regarding non-shaman-guided trance journeys, particularly in western culture, is that – without the safe passage assured by an experienced shaman – malevolent and ‘wandering’ energies can enter a journeyer’s energy field.  These can be extremely difficult to expunge. 

            When trance is experienced without drugs, can it be more fully integrated?  Can it be more – or less – deeply understood by the trancee?  Is there more or less context available for the integration and meaning-making of the experience?

            To quote an exchange between Swami Sivananda Saraswati of Rishikesh and Swami Sivananda Radha, one of the first western women to become a teacher of the great Yogic Vedenta wisdom …

            “Have you heard of the bhang or pang leaf, to induce a state of awareness by inhalation, or something like that?”

            “Yes, I have.  But there is no shortcut.  Sorry.  Neither bhang nor pang will remove egos.  You experience a different state of mind, a different sensation, but you still don’t know any more than before.”  (Page 155, Radha: Diary of a Woman’s Search.)

            Trance states – whether induced by drugs, plants, or other shamanic initiations – or naturally, as I seem to have a gift of – expand exponentially the journeyer’s awareness of possibility and infinity, well beyond the contexts conceivable by the day-to-day functions of the mind.  As such, they have the potential to massively expand our awareness of trajectories of collectively constructive evolution.

            Our culture – globally – lacks present-day-relevant rites of passage – initiations that mark our maturation from one stage of life to the next – be it as teens becoming adults, or as societies outgrowing old modes and expanding into new, more holistic states of governance and self-governance (as examples).

            What if we incorporate trance states – visioning, entering the dreamtime, and returning with our visions, being appropriately assisted and supported to integrate this wealth of newly acquired wisdom into the fabric of the intelligent, heart-centered guidance of our culture?  This is how indigenous cultures throughout human history have guided themselves. 

What if we were to develop safe, grounded, integrated ways to tap this enormous resource?

Questions to Ponder:  Have you ever experienced anything akin to a ‘trance state’?  What was the nature of what you experienced while in this state?  What was the potential value of this experience – to you?  To your culture?  Have you completely integrated / digested / extracted the nutrients from this experience?

Have you ever experienced a ‘trance state’ that confused you, that frightened you, that you ‘shut down’ for any reason? 

Have you ever experienced a ‘trance state’ in which you felt fully supported by wise way-showers – be they shamans accompanying you on the journey, or non-physical guides?

Have you ever experienced a ‘trance state’ without adequate external support?

Want more info on trance states?  Want personal mentoring in how to safely explore trance states? 

* Images with gratitude to South African Rock Art and 7junipers.com 



Comments

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    • My pleasure!

      “A breath of fresh air” is one of my nicknames since childhood. “Sunshine”, “The light before the dawn”, “Minerva – tearer of the veil”.

      Be who you are – and you will effect change.

      Warm regards!

      🙂 Ariole

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  32. Hi, my name is ann and reading about trance states
    was so interesting. i also read closely what jan rosgen had to say. please let me know more about lifting the lid. i have so much to share.
    fantastic site.blessings u.r.light ann

  33. P.S. …and yes, now that I’ve written the previous comment, (“getting that out of the way”!) re-reading your replies, especially your 1st reply about short-circuiting, does add to more understanding of what may have happened. In these highly intense energy-times these days, this is a relevant topic as more & more people have trance experiences just naturally.

    • Yes, my sense is too that trance experiences are becoming more and more common. Yet, as we don’t have ‘shamans’ in our western culture (at least not easily recognized as such) there is tremendous new territory to chart and – from within it – to understand. From this understanding we can then lend comprehension to others as they begin to de-code their own ‘new’ experiences.

      It is wonderful to read your comments 🙂

      🙂 Ariole

  34. I look forward to your new book. 😀
    The paranoia experienced by the person I referred to wasn’t about the trance, itself, but about someone else (me) in the person’s social circle, and who should (?) have been outside the actual experience seeing as how I wasn’t in her presence or interfering in her process. I wasn’t even aware that she’d been in a trance. Therefore, it was a surprise, bewildering and painful to be treated as a harmful person when I felt only love for her. The relationship was then exceedingly confusing for me.
    There was an explanation much later, that boundaries had been set against some perceived evil energies and not against me. HOWEVER, it was me, as a real flesh-&-blood human being, who was banished, at the time, without explanation or investigation into what it was about.
    AND now a question: Seeing as how my consciousness was of admiration and love and support for her as a dear friend, would this not have been perceived during the trance?
    I’d rather not have those memories sitting there “in space” between us! They are irrelevant, although as I said, the trauma of it seems to have affected my sense of trust within the relationship. This topic is something I haven’t wanted to bring up with her! See what I mean?! (ha!) But your forum here is a good way to explore. So, thanks.
    This leads me to consider the responsibility we have, when going into trance, to make sure we are completely out of it afterwards and have resolved any issues that have come up during it, before rushing into words and actions that have consequences. This would be where a trusted, objective confidante or shaman could be of value, in order to sort out strong reactions such as paranoia (even if the fear feels logical and valid).—Just my thoughts on this small aspect of the topic for now. And thanks for your previous replies, too, Ariole.

  36. The experience of trance can be lovely, certainly. On the other hand others have shared with me that a state of paranoia is often brought on by the trance state and that this is very common. I’ve experienced something like this from a lovely friend who was in an extended trance and who suddenly felt so alarmed by my presence & my attempts to communicate with her that she refused further contact with me in any form. Perhaps, as you suggest, this was a trance in which the person was unsupported by a shaman who could have correctly seen and interpreted the fright she felt? It was regretable, as it led to a very drawn-out negative situation and lingering damage to my own sense of trust, although there is continued friendship, so love does prevail over paranoia! 🙂

    • Trance is such a subtle-energy-experience that those of us ‘witnessing it’ – observing someone else in a trance state – must equally learn the subtle art of how – and if, and thus when – to interact with the person ‘while they are in trance’. From my personal experience, trance states can be so deep that they are like Tibetan Buddhist ‘Oracles’ whose body must not be touched whilst they are in trance – else they be ‘electrocuted’ (metaphorically and somewhat literally) by the interface of ‘thought’ states with trance states. We’re truly discussing electricity here. Short-circuiting – an element of being insufficiently grounded to allow for migration between worlds whilst in a trance state – is a key element in the territories of trance.

      There is much to be learned and discovered in and about trance, by those individuals and groups willing to respect the potency of this experience and to honor its power.

      Does this assist you a little in making sense of – and hopefully coming to peace with – the experience which you describe as having had a traumatic element?

      🙂 Ariole

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