Trance experience - A question

[Genesis]

I'm unsure if I'm posting in the correct section. If I am not, please forgive me :).

Anyways, I've had an experience a while ago and was wondering if it was a trance.

That day, before going to bed, I was reading on the internet about trances. When I went to sleep, I told myself I would have one. I didn't try a method or anything of the kind, I simply told myself I would have a trance that night. So anyways, fast-forward a couple minutes; I'm laying in bed, I can't move my body at all but I'm still conscious. My mind is still awake though, but for some reason, I thought I was not laying in my bed and that I was on my computer chair. Because of that, I tried really hard to move a body part, because I didn't want to fall asleep on a chair. After a lot of effort, I finally got out of it, only to realize I was in fact in my bed.

I was wondering though, is it normal to be confused in a trance and to think you're somewhere else when you actually aren't? I mean, I knew I was in my bed when I went to sleep, but in my trance state, I thought I was on my computer chair.

Also, any tips on inducing a trance? I haven't had any other trance experiences since this one. I admit I haven't tried very hard though, but I found it odd that I had one on my first "attempt" and nothing since.

Thank you all for reading.

[Beekeeper]

It could be you were in a trance but so close to sleep you became a little disoriented. The paralysis is a sign that your body had been fooled into thinking you were asleep and had started preparing you for dreaming.

My guess is that you were lying still and you were already quite tired. You may have had an impulse to roll over or scratch, which you would have ignored. That signal is your body's way of testing if you're ready for dreams. You may have actually had an exit that you didn't feel because you were so relaxed and so you may have in fact been in your dream body in the chair.

Trance can be acquired in many ways. Robert's suggestions are here: http://www.astraldynamics.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63:part-3&catid=62:treatise-on-astral-projection&Itemid=70

[psionickx]

I didn't try a method or anything of the kind, I simply told myself I would have a trance that night

It is in good probability that you might have "auto-suggested" yourself into trance as opposed to taking time and working your way into it - that might mean being taken by surprise with ASC.


I was not laying in my bed and that I was on my computer chair

Your probably went a tad bit further then trance towards mind-split/di-placed conciousness/bi-locality.All good though.


is it normal to be confused in a trance and to think you're somewhere else when you actually aren't?
Like i said had you conciously changed locality of conciousness this wouldnt have felt as confusing.
but yes for me i do feel all manner of "misplacement" in trance.Limbs feeling disproportionately big or small or the body itself feels shrunk or immensely expanded..those signs for me are the heralds of trance wherein from there i work forward towards what my agenda is at the time.



I admit I haven't tried very hard though, but I found it odd that I had one on my first "attempt"

I wish i were that lucky myself.

[Korpo]

Hello, Genesis.

Trance happens whenever you tune out a bit of your physical surroundings and inwardly. Light trance would be a state where you don't pay so much attention to the outside world anymore, like often happens when practicing energy work. Deep trance can lead to a state where the outer senses are mostly or fully absent and one is predominantly experiencing inner sensations of some kind.

The state you describe is somewhere along this continuum of experiences, and has for example characterized as "mind awake / body asleep" in the terminology of Robert Monroe and others. This state is helpful to practice, and depending on the depth of the trance Robert Monroe characterised it as "Focus 10" (the onset of the experience) or "Focus 12" (a deeper variety thereof).

The cause of the confusion you experienced is very well explained by Beekeeper, I just want to add that this can change due to trance training. The more often you either consciously induce a trance or just experience trance, the deeper you might get without losing "lucidity" - the quality where you aware of the experience you're having and more or less remember what is going on and your situation (like that you remember that you lie in bed even though your body feedback no longer tells you so).

In the beginning, the trance experience can vary wildly, so don't experience to have the same trance every time. The fact that you had a deeper trance right of the bat is probably because you did not have any expectations about what constitutes a trance. Expectations can get in the way of recognizing what is actually going on. Since you only set an intention and only had a vague understanding, you got an experience first and could process it directly and in hindsight, which is basically the ideal way for any experience.

For comparison: The first time I ever tried to have a conscious OBE through a HemiSync tape, I had a strong experience of floating upward and seeing through my closed eyelids precisely because I didn't know what to expect. I was so surprised (and a bit overwhelmed) that I aborted it despite it was what I had wanted. I wasn't even aware of that anymore of that at that moment, hence the notion of lucidity.

All in all, congrats to your nice experience.

Cheers,
Oliver