Entering the trance state requires three things: deep physical relaxation, a clear surface mind, and a mental technique.
Deep Physical Relaxation: Do the full deep physical relaxation exercise until you are as physically relaxed as possible. Some preliminary physical exercise to get the kinks out of tense muscles, followed by a hot bath or shower, is advised for all beginners.
Clear Surface Mind: Allow your thoughts to wind down and settle while doing the relaxation exercises, then clear your mind by focusing on breath awareness. You may find this easier to achieve if you deal with any pressing thoughts your mind may throw up at this time. Simply consider and deal with these for a few moments each and then let them go. This will greatly ease their clamoring thought pressure.
Mental Technique: A mental falling technique speeds up the time it takes to enter the trance state, rather than waiting for the body to fall asleep of its own accord. Focusing on this also helps to occupy and hold your surface mind clear and awake.
In all the mental falling exercises given below, use your imagination to construct the falling scenario and feel as if you were there in reality. Produce the strongest internal whole-body awareness sensation possible.
Call on a memory of yourself doing something similar, or borrow a scene remembered from a movie. Use this memory to re-create the feeling of yourself performing
that same action with your imagination. Feel the falling action; don't just think about it or try to see it in your mind's eye.
Once you attain a level of the trance state, heralded by a wave of bodily heaviness and warmth, relax and breathe slowly and naturally. Keep your mind clear — thus holding on and settling in to the trance state X by focusing a small part of your mind on breath awareness. If you need to deepen your level of trance, continue with the mental falling exercise until you attain it.
I have given several variations here. Please try them all and find the most effective one for you, or the one you most like. When you find one that suits you, stick with it. This helps to program your subconscious mind to react to the technique, helping you shift into the trance state easier and faster each time.
You do not need to overdo the imagined details of scenarios used with mental falling exercises.
The rock wall in the elevator shaft below, for example, only needs to be an indistinct blur moving upward. It is the downward movement or falling sensation constructed by your imagination and felt in your body awareness that causes your brain waves to slow, thereby forcing it to enter the trance state. It is not the imagined scenario in itself that does the trick. Deep physical relaxation and a mental falling technique basically trick your subconscious mind into beginning the sleep process earlier, while you are still wide awake.
Elevator
Imagine that you are in an elevator with one side of it — the side you are facing — open to bare rock. Feel the elevator start moving down with you in it. Imagine you can see the rocky sides of the elevator shaft passing upward as you move ever downward, falling deeper and deeper into trance as you go. Imagine that this rock shaft has an irregular texture and features you can easily see, moving upward past you as the elevator carries you down, down, down.
If you like, imagine you can see a large number as you pass a floor every few seconds, and count these as the elevator moves deeper and deeper. Call on the memory of the last time you were in an elevator, or go and ride in one and memorize the sensation. Remember the slight feeling of vertigo it caused in your stomach as it started going down. Re-create this feeling; feel it in your body awareness. Keep imagining and feeling this, while making sure you do not allow your physical body to tense up. Feel your body letting go and sinking deeper and deeper into the trance state as you ride the elevator down, down, down...
Ladder
Imagine that you are on a ladder. Re-create body-awareness feelings of remembered arm and leg movements, and slowly begin climbing down. Move one awareness foot and its opposite hand down one rung. Then move the other foot and its opposite hand down another rung. If this is too complex, imagine you are holding on to each side of the ladder and climbing down only with your feet, with the sides of the ladder gliding easily through your hands. Continue down the ladder one rung at a time. Feel your body moving down the ladder. Imagine a rock face or brick wall in front of you,
close to the ladder. Imagine this textured face moving upward past you as you climb further and further down the ladder. Feel yourself climbing downward and falling deeper and deeper into trance with every downward step you take.
Steps
Imagine that you are standing at the head of a long flight of steps with a high stone wall on either side. These steps are large, imposing, and steep. Lift one imaginary foot at a time-carefully feeling yourself doing it — and take the first step down. Feel your body move downward as your feet move one at a time onto the lower step. Repeat this action and take the next step down, then the next and the next. While you are moving down the stairs, imagine you can see the textured stone walls on either side moving upward past you as you move one step at a time down the flight of
steps. Continue this, slowly and deliberately, feeling yourself moving downward and falling deeper and deeper into the trance state as you go. Count the steps if you like, slowly, as if you were counting your breaths, "Oneeee, Twoooo, Threeee", etc., taking one step down with each exhale.
Climbing down a Rope
Imagine that you are hanging by your hands from a strong rope and have your legs wrapped securely around it. Your arms are very strong and there is no chance of falling. Move one imaginary hand down, then the next, climbing down the rope hand over hand, with the rope sliding easily between your legs. See the textured rope moving upward past your face as you climb down it. Continue this, feeling yourself climbing downward and falling deeper and deeper into the trance state as you go.
Feather
Imagine that you are a feather and are gently floating down from a great height. Feel yourself gently falling, re-creating a falling sensation in your body awareness every time you breathe OUT.
Feel yourself holding position and floating in midair as you breathe IN. Feel the atmosphere around you; imagine strands of textured clouds moving upward as you fall gently through them. Continue this, feeling yourself floating gently downward and falling deeper and deeper into the trance state with your every falling breath. IN and OUT can be reversed to whatever feels most natural.
Smoke Rings
This versatile old favorite of mine can be done from any position, even while walking. Imagine that your feet are in the center of a dense smoke ring as thick as your arm. Imagine and feel this smoke ring rising up over your body and disappearing overhead. The smoke rings are very dense and move close to your body. Imagine that you can feel them moving over your skin as they rise.
Imagine that you can see these smoke rings as they move past your eyes. The smoke rings should repeat about two seconds apart, but this can be varied to suit the individual. Feel the rising smoke rings with your body awareness, puffing regularly up over your whole body. Feel an internal falling sensation as the imaginary smoke rings rise upward. Feel yourself falling deeper and deeper into the trance state with the caress of every smoke ring as it rises up over your whole body, over and over, from feet to head.
Personalized Trance Technique
Imagine any scenario that you are familiar with that involves going down, or any kind of downward movement or falling sensation. This can be anything: an escalator, a water slide, a fireman's pole, a parachute jump, mountain climbing, scuba diving, high diving — anything that could induce a natural falling or downward sensation of movement in your body awareness.
Trance Litany
Many people find it helps to repeat a simple litany or mantra, said over and over in their head, as an accompaniment to their mental falling trance technique. This also helps keep the mind clear and well focused, and in time you will become conditioned to react to the litany. It will program you to start falling into the trance state whenever the litany is used. Repeat: "Down, down, down... deep, deeper, deepest", or something similar, slowly and calmly and meaningfully. Say this over and over
inside your head and feel yourself falling down, down, down as you say it.
You can make up your own litany, but keep it simple and downward meaning and stick to the same litany all the time. The longer you use the same litany the more effective it will become and the more conditioned you will become to it.