Sleeping with myself

There are mp3’s out on the web that lead one through hypnotic induction, deepen the trance, offer suggestions, and wake one. Such things, if one can trust them, seemed to be a good way to get to where I wish to be. Professional level of manufacture, human voice, easily portable in the mp3 player…great idea.

I found some of these, loaded them up, listened to them with care – making sure I wouldn’t become that hypnotic chicken folks talk about – and put them to use. I’ve been tired lately, a bit overtaxed, and I find that trancing is much more rejuvenating than a nap, so I have been trancing at lunch. Concentration is enhanced, my mood gets a lift, I am alert and pleasant…it’s all good.

I’d downloaded a new mp3, attached it to another mp3, and was all ready to get to the programming. The first one ends with “you enter through the door, and are in the room deep within yourself where all the most profound changes can take place, where what you decide can easily become real,” then the second one kicks in. In tacking them together, I’d left about a minute of dead space. A bit more than I like, but sitting quietly in trance is very pleasant, so I left it.

I entered through the door, and there was a dim space with, I eventually realized, a small table from some coffee shop, with chairs. Someone gestured for me to sit, and I did, and he (it was a he) poured tea from the teapot I use at home into my cup. I drank. Mango-Ceylon tea, a hint of honey, just right for slurping. I knew where I was, and what I was doing here, so I asked if this was helping me allow myself to write.

He (whoever he was) handed me a small book. It was mine, the one I’m writing. I flipped through, seeing what I’ve written, and, when I got to the bits I haven’t, read. It had continuity, and made sense, and was moderately well done. I read a couple of pages. My host seemed pleased, although I sensed more than saw him.

Then the other part of the file kicked in, and I moved on.

I remembered what I’d read, though, and it stuck with me all day. That night, I went home, did all the night things, and spent 15 minutes writing two pages, pleasantly and easily. It almost felt like cheating.

Very odd. I’ve met whomever once or twice more in there, in my head, and it’s been pleasant and productive. I’m pretty certain that it’s me. I don’t particularly care, and I’m not trying too hard to find out. It’s helping, that’s enough for me.

I have refined it somewhat, and no longer need that particular file. Working on the theory that it’s me I’m having tea with, I sat in a coffee shop the other night and played some Enigma for blocking-out music, closed my eyes, and exercised awareness of ideomotor responses (I decided ahead of time that lifting the pen to writing position meant “yes”) to have a chat with me. I self-induced a light trance state, told me to walk through the action written down so far, and let me stew on it a bit, not trying to decide what needed to happen next, nor what should be written next. When it felt like a good time, I asked me if I was ready to write the next page.

After a bit, my hand moved the pen into position. I wrote four pages, quickly, without pause, well, with notes in the margins for later scenes and revision of prior scenes. And, halfway through, again without pause, shifted to the top of the page I was working on and wrote the outlines of a poem that I can finish later.

Does trance-state work for writing? Or does trance just let me focus, removing all my side-issues that I allow to distract me? Or have I some spirit-guide with a literary bent? Maybe I’m simply delusional, and have to be really special, so special that I must be in an ficticious altered state to write.

I. Don’t. Care.

I’m spending zero time trying to suss this out. It’s working. It’s working consistently. I’m getting what I want. I refuse to analyze this until it doesn’t work any longer.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s luchtime and I’ve a date with me.

Crossposted from Epinepherine & Sophistry