Need some advice.

[stephy]

I'm trying to reach trance, I combine focusing on breathe and counting to/from 100 and repeat. If I really try for awhile, I can reach to 30minutes I think of meditation. I get to a point to where the hands that are sitting in my lap touching feel as if they have vanished, that feeling though doesn't spread to anywhere else. I don't focus on that vanishing feeling much but just go back to what I'm doing like focusing on the breathe. I don't know how to get deeper.

[SiriusTraveler]

Have you tried some relaxation exercices? Like tensing and relaxing all the muscles prior to meditating? I have found that in the past year I have meditated and tried to reach trancestates, it really takes practice to get to a really relaxed state. I have found that the time of day matters alot as does the ammount of energy contra how physically tired I am. Alot of factors play a part here (at least for me).

I have not yet reached a deep trance but rather some lighter stages of it. But generally what I do is to practice meditation and trancework when I am in a relaxed state (not to tired and not to energized). I try and relax my body by doing muscle relaxation techniques and then I do some breathing exercices to get a nice slow breathing. I just relax and let my monkey mind play its part for a while, perhaps about 10 minutes or so. Then I usually begin to feel that I drift into a deeper relaxed state and in that stage I try and focus om my breath, and that alone. If I do that for long enough i usually experience deeper trance states and thats where I am today.

Hope that was of some help.

Regards
Linus

[stephy]

I don't like that type of thing really where you tense up everything, people say that breathe relaxes you anyways and I feel over time that groups of muscles just relax on there own. I've noticed a lot of times that when a daydream happens it really clicks off everything and I get a much deeper relaxation going for a few seconds but it wears off to quickly. I think I found a site long ago that even said to use those to jump into a trance, makes sense since they can happen a lot.

[Korpo]

Hello, stephy.

If you can do 30 minutes of counting exercises without losing awareness too often you do really well. This may not be the most ideal way to reach deeper trance states, but it is hugely beneficial in terms of maintaining continuity of awareness. The thing here is that once you for example OBE the ability to keep your mind "on task" will make it easier to experience without random jumps because you don't get distracted that much.

The hands vanishing is a good sign of an oncoming trance, and you can try various other techniques to play with such results. I for example used to combine Robert Monroe's Focus 10 techniques with Robert Bruce's recommendations for trance work. I would sometimes happily float with no awareness of a body like on top of a bubble, or my awareness of certain things and people around me would just vanish. This part is mostly about experiencing the trance state and allowing oneself to go deeper. It's about getting deeper without falling asleep, sometimes crossing the border and blanking out and coming back. Over time the experience deepens.

Following the breath can be a gateway to both, but it takes time (in sense of many sessions) to become more accessible. If that's all the relaxation you need, that's fine. Tensing up and letting go can be very helpful if you tend to carry some tension all the time. It was very helpful for myself for initiating deeper relaxation right off the bat, Robert Monroe's Focus 10 technique is both - a reaction to a counting cue (counting to ten) and also a routine to do a gradual relaxation technique. IIRC Robert Monroe doesn't require you to tense anything, but to feel a series of location in the body and to try to relax them, telling them "to fall asleep, become numb, fall asleep." The resulting state should be one of "Mind Awake/Body Asleep" - a state Monroe termed Focus 10.

[stephy]

It's like an annoying game of tug of war lol, that beautiful warmth/relaxed feeling comes and goes a bunch.

[SiriusTraveler]

Korpo, what do you do to deepen the trance from a light trance state?

[ButterflyWoman]

I don't know how to get deeper.
Honestly, I think it just comes with practice. It sounds like you're doing quite well with this, so don't get discouraged. The more you do it, the easier it will become to get into that state and the longer you'll be able to maintain it and the deeper you'll be able to go.

[Korpo]

Korpo, what do you do to deepen the trance from a light trance state?

Hello, SiriusTraveler.

Back when I was pursueing this very earnestly and had lots of time on my hands, I did practice, practice, practice. I would trance on the commuter train, at home in my bed room, I would get the Gateway Experience tapes and use them over and over. This lead to many interesting variations on trance, the ones with variations in the perception of time being most memorable:

On one occasion Monroe's voice seemed to come from very far away, and it sounded like half-speed. Only my CD player certainly couldn't do that. Everything Monroe said on the recording was running only half as fast, like if I was experiencing a slow motion sequence.

On another occasion I was in the exercise, when Monroe started to count backwards to C-1, I experienced the time between counts to stretch out arbitrarily long. I was honestly wondering why he did it so slow, it was taking seemingly forever from count to count, and I was getting annoyed, as if the next count would never come. Only in hindsight I realised that my sense of time advancing had gotten lost every time I did not have a clear cue - I heard his voice in normal speed, but when it was gone, nothing told me time was advancing at which speed, and so I experienced the actually short gaps between counting like annoyingly long stretches of time.

When it comes to having fun with trance, Focus 10 and 12 have worked best for me so far.

[SiriusTraveler]

Hey again, thank you for a great answer. So I get practice is the only way to go, and to explore what works for me alone. Guess that answers the OP question to.

I have spend alot of time with Focus 10 and also with audacity mixes of the Monroe tracks to extend the time in actual Focus 10 so to speak. Have found many variations of trance that way but none as deep as I need to go for trying an exit technique. Anyway, recently began practicing with Focus 12 and that seems to take me even deeper.

Guess we all have to take our own time to find what works best for our selves! :)

[Korpo]

Hello, SiriusTraveler.

I certainly agree. Besides using the tapes itselves, I found it most helpful to train the cue. Monroe encourages you early in the Gateway Experience to use the counting cue to put yourself in trance without the aid of the tapes. I think this is kind of a hypnotic cue established in self-hypnosis. When sitting on the train I would just count myself repeatedly into trance, repeating the cue, taking me deeper.

I would then combine this with various techniques from Robert Bruce's MAP book and try to get deeper, and explore and see what happens. I think a curious attitude is very important indeed. I also did a lot of energy work in these states. One day I would do my meditation technique and my energy work, another day I would do tranceing practice and energy work, and it all sent me deeper.

As you said, experimentation is key. This leads you to get in touch with various aspects of your own consciousness, and results can be quite unexpected. Those are the best, even when we don't realise that on the spot and try to change our experience.