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and get some regular practice in. The physical and mental tiredness that naturally causes the trance state while falling asleep can be replaced by a deep level of physical relaxation and a clear surface mind. If you allow yourself to react to distracting sounds during trance work, you can develop a habitual response to them, becoming easily distracted and irritated. This can seriously affect your ability to enter and hold the trance state. It may cause you to use artificial aids like music or tapes to create just the right conditions for you before you can trance effectively. This will make your trance state dependent on those conditions. A dependency like this is an unhealthy trance habit, as it makes the habitual foundations of the trance state weak and sensitive, rather than strong and resilient. If you are a beginner with no trance habits, please heed my advice on this. Accept sounds and let them wash over you, without tensing, reacting, or mentally complaining about them in any way. Accept and tolerate sounds kindly and without irritation. Look upon unavoidable distractions as valuable opportunities to test your powers of focus and concentration, as sound waves crashing gently over you. This problem will progressively ease with time and patience. The need for total quiet denies the pleasure of trance medita tion outdoors, amid all the many wonderful distractions of life: water gurgling over rocks, animal sounds, wind and storm sounds, rolling waves crashing on beaches, children's sounds, and the sweet morning chorus of bird song. These are nature's gift to us all, and all can be better appreciated in a tranced meditational state. Different Levels of Trance I have divided the trance state into three basic levels, and have used sensation descriptive names (rather than the more commonly used technical terms like alpha, beta, theta, and delta) for simplicity's sake, and to help avoid confusion while working in these levels of trance. This will enable you to tell what level of trance you are in simply by noting the sensations you are experiencing. The three basic levels of trance given here are meant as a basic guide for beginners only. Light Trance Light trance is the first level of trance, very similar to the daydream state. While relaxing, your physical body starts feeling warm, cozy, and lethargic. Your eyelids suddenly feel heavy and your eyes begin to glaze over and droop. A mild wave of heaviness and warmth flows over you. Your mind takes on a mildly fuzzy quality and tends to begin drifting. You have some slight difficulty focusing thoughts, especially if you are mentally tired and need sleep. Patterns of light and color (hypnagogic imagery) are seen occasionally during the light-trance state. Mind's-eye visions may also be seen if natural clairvoyant potential is present. Cobweblike tickling is occasionally felt in the facial and neck areas, caused by energy movement through the energetic support structures of the brow and crown centers. (The trance state on its own causes an increased flow of energy, hence the resulting sensations.) With this level of trance comes a mild, whole-body feeling of warm comfortable fuzziness and a slight dissociation from the physical body and the surrounding environment. Time appears to slow down a little and sounds appear to be slightly louder and from further away than they really are. Once light trance stabilizes it is easily held for long periods of time. Great internal mental clarity can be attained with it, as long as tiredness is not a problem. This is the trance state most usually attained during early-light meditations and led-group meditations. If this level of trance is accompanied by a deep-enough state of physical relaxation, conscious-exit projection becomes possible. This level of trance, while easily held, is also quite delicate and easily broken. Physical movement, even walking and talking, must be slow and deliberate to hold the light-trance state. Full Trance The full-trance state has many similarities with light trance, but trance sensations are more pronounced. Entry into full trance is marked by a quite noticeable wave of bodily heaviness and a very slight falling sensation. This comes on fairly quickly, like a warm, heavy wave flowing through you, seeming to sap your physical and mental strength as your body falls away into sleep. 91