selopt.com

We encounter experiences similar to hypnosis commonly in every day life. We find ourselves absorbed into a book or a movie, encountering euphoric sensations of connectedness during sex, or feeling almost high after we finish our workout at the gym. Another vehicle for hypnosis meditation is dancing to a techno trance beat. While it is nearly impossible to explain in scientific terms, there is a marked shift that occurs, beginning with music and dancing, leading to physical changes, like a relaxing of the muscles and releasing of anxiety, and the altering of emotional components (euphoria, feelings of connectedness and a lowering of inhibitions).

The best way to learn hypnosis is to attend a nightclub or rave event where techno trance is being played. There are local sites focusing on these parties but www.grooveallnight.com lists some of the big name DJs coming to the major US cities. Large trance music festivals in America include: Burning Man (Black Rock Desert, Nevada), The Winter Music Conference (Miami), Love Fest (San Francisco), USC (Seattle), The Global Dance Festival (Colorado) and the Coachella Music Festival (Indio, California). While anyone can turn off the lights, turn on the stereo and dance at home, the feeling of being in a large room with laser lights, hundreds of other individuals, with professional sound quality is an entirely different experience.

When one enters a techno trance, they feel a lightness of body, perhaps even a numbness or disassociation, where the mind and body feel detached, as though a person is watching him or herself move. Blinking slows down, there is a distortion of movement, space and time, and the senses become more vivid. Another common occurrence is catalepsy, a condition where the muscles contract and remain soft, rather than rigid. The body’s natural endorphins and pain relievers flow freely, allowing dancers to continue moving for hours on end. While listening to trance music, people often report feeling that they are less inhibited and more able to talk about their emotions. Often a deep sense of interconnectedness takes hold and the dancer begins to feel a bond with those around him or her. It is almost as if these dancers are in another time and place, where rules do not apply and the outside world has ceased to exist.

Techno trance music is a large component of the transcendental experience, but drugs have gone almost hand-in-hand with these hypnosis techniques. On one hand, it is entirely possible to produce the feelings of euphoria simply through dance expression, similar to the classic “runner’s high.” However, few experiences can compare to the combination of certain drugs and progressive trance music. The most common drugs used to induce a hypnotic state include hallucinogens like acid and mushrooms, designer drugs like ecstasy and methamphetamine, dissociative drugs like ketamine and PCP. In his book “The Doors of Perception,” author Aldous Huxley explored the mind-drug-spiritual connection, writing, “The direct, total awareness, from the inside, so to say, of Love as the primary and fundamental cosmic fact… I was this fact; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that this fact occupied the place where I had been.” For him, the state of trance was a spiritual experience, as is the case for many techno trance fans around the world, drugs or not.