First point, and perhaps the most fundamental point tonight. You are in a trance. How do you feel about that?

A bit nervous. You are in a trance and even recent research backs that up. In your day to day waking consciousness, your visual scanning pattern (rather than being drawn by actual physical stimuli) follows a rhythmic pattern of scanning and sampling.

Is trance the same as transition? Because I do feel changes. Actually, trance is the same as stasis. Homeostasis, if you prefer. It’s a resting state of consciousness. Are you conscious of your consciousness process?

Well, I can think about thinking. Can you feel how your mind moves as you go about your day, from one thought to another and one perception to another?

I notice if my awareness is compromised. I don’t like it.

Only if I take a real effort to enter into a mindful state.

I can try to think about how I’m thinking. I’m not sure it’s any more than hearing the hamster wheel spin.

Do you remember what colour of shirt the first person you spoke to outside was wearing today?

I guess you are aware when you need to be? Actually, you are unaware when you need to be. This is the essence of the basic trance. It conserves your body’s energy.

Watching your thoughts is focusing your attention on the trance “beat.” Your daily thoughts and emotional reaction to these are repetitive. Any disturbance from this repetition is innately stressful.

I know people that get really unravelled in the slightest interruption to their daily routine. If they miss something their whole day is off.

I remember hearing about a study that concluded well over 90% of the thoughts you have are the same every day. I found this very disturbing at the time. Indeed, it’s true. It’s why your reality seems consistent.

How often have you missed some detail of an event that someone close to you picked up on and even felt strongly about? Too often. Almost every day.

Trances loose details in translation. They are like different languages, and even the perception of the same physical object can have a radically different context between one person’s trance and another.

I ponder “trance” and “naiveté.” Ah, the naive state is the most awake. The mind unconditioned by experience has the most minimal trance, but to begin and maintain a trance is natural. Our bodies and brains naturally want to do it. Failure to achieve a functional waking world trance can lead to insanity. This is why children start out so imaginative. They have to be able to fathom the otherwise very bizarre things adults tell them in order to achieve the skills and understanding necessary to function as they are expected to. This is why people with autism are described as unimaginative to the point of having an almost universal distaste for fiction. For them, the invasive nature of their senses confuses the imaginative process they would have to engage in order to translate an experience as they are expected to. This applies even to language. It takes imagination to translate these funny squiggles to mean anything at all.

I didn’t enjoy reading fiction until I was over fifty. It is an acquired taste. I developed an enjoyment of it earlier, but I was attracted to it as an experimental medium. I saw a clearer explanation of what people believed was real in their works of fiction than anything they ever tried to convince me of in their earnest belief in “reality.”

I like fiction for the different perspectives it gives. I guess that is breaking the trance just a bit? Yes, indeed. So let’s go into that…

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~