#trance state

I made an app for generating drum patterns for shamanic meditation, or shamanic trance-like states.

Gentle notice: this writing has a calming, drifting rhythm. Follow only if you feel safe doing so. ✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦

Being hypnotized feels good. I don’t need to think. The thought circles softly — round, like breathing.

The hypnotist’s voice reaches me from somewhere distant. “Yes… you feel good, don’t you?” There’s a silence, but it isn’t empty. It hums — maybe the sound of my own mind folding.

My eyes are closed. Or maybe they’ve just forgotten how to open. I could try — but why would I?

Being hypnotized feels good. I don’t need to think. Words drift in and out of meaning. Somewhere between his voice and my thoughts, something aligns.

The world narrows. I feel the edge between surrender and curiosity. A hand without a hand, guiding without touching.

Beinhypnotizsd feels g—good— Yes. That’s right. That’s exactly what it feels like.

And in that small collapse, thought becomes rhythm. Rhythm becomes breath. Breath becomes obedience — not to anyone, but to the gravity of silence itself.

Being hypnotized feels good. I don’t need to think. It’s thinking me.

A small warning: the language here can feel trance-like for certain readers.

Read consciously, pause if needed, stay grounded.

✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦

we’ve talked about loops before —

why hypnotists use them, why subjects crave them.

but sometimes it’s not a loop.

it’s a mantra.

a word that feels sacred

not because of what it means,

but because of how it sounds

when your voice gives it life.

you repeat it — again, again —

until it stops being a word

and becomes a doorway.

somewhere between one whisper and the next,

your mind kneels.

not to worship,

but to surrender thought itself.

the hypnotist listens —

not as a god,

but as the echo of your focus returning home.

and maybe that’s the secret.

not prayer, not control,

but devotion to the moment —

to the rhythm that takes you

where language ends

and trance begins.

Across African, Afro diasporic, Indigenous, and ancient traditions, the drum is how you call the spirits, it is how you anchor ancestors, how you open the field. It's vibration, the beat creates a pathway a change in brainwave state and that's what lets spirit step closer.

That's why some people's bodies react on their own. It's not weird, it's sensitivity.

PHOTOGRAPHY ::: Jean Cocteau photographié par André Papillon, Paris, 1939

* * * *

“Many ‘primitive’ peoples … believe that almost every normal adult has the ability to go into a trance state and be possessed by a god; the adult who cannot do this is a psychological cripple.” – Robert O. Becker and Gary Selden The Body Electric [subhead 'Hearing Without ears’]

Astral art is art that is done without references, straight channeled from the Universe herself and the artist's own experiences in spirituality, anarchy, and revolution of the mind, body, and spirit!

The main effects I implement when creating "astral art" are magical/fantastical/whimsical colors, shapes and themes (like what you'd see during astral traveling), heavy use of symbolism to communicate to the viewer/audience, and channeled messages displayed in typically loose, abstract, or surrealist nature.

Astral art is like translating the deep subconscious directly onto paper. Any artist can do this part, but I only consider it astral art when the artist goes deeply into a state of trance to complete the work in its entirety, in one solid sitting. I do all of my art in one go, without looking away from the canvas or what I "see" in my mind's eye. There is no editing process, just flow and trust. Sometimes I use multiple materials in my practice, and other times it's just one media like sharpie, pen, or pure color.

This can be done with poetry too, but it's more complicated to describe and I will do this in a later post.

Here are some examples of my astral art:

Notice how everything is at least slightly disconnected from what you'd see in this world, but very spiritual in nature! It's directly translated from what I see when I travel astrally, scry into the future, and focus on the connecting threads of everything that exists.

All of these works are intended to be healing for both my subconscious and the subconscious of the viewers! This is more of a personal touch, as astral art doesn't have to be healing. It can be scary, or beautiful, but overall remains whimsical in nature!

This Jax piece of fanart is actually one of my favorites because the gun details in the mouth just came to me on the spot, and only recently did glitch release an episode involving guns and a shootout! It just felt right to include and I trusted it!

I really like experimenting with different styles and shapes I recieve visions of. This kind of art is deeply tied to my spiritual practice, and is meant to be healing because it dredges up things that are normally entirely subconscious and "unseen" for the artist and audience to be able to process! This is both how I have fun and experiment, and how I've healed my deepest traumatic moments in conjunction with therapy. Astral art is what allows all of me to have a real voice in my creativity, not just the "polite" or "kind" parts I show others on a daily basis. It's deeply healing and transformative.

I believe astral art can really be the "new thing" as a part of the revolution in the arts going on!!! I'd really like it to spread and become more of a common practice. Not just because I made up the concept and I'm proud of my work, but because I fully believe it will help folx let go of some of the more traditional artistic conventions and find their way back to play, healing, inspiration, and healthy communication through creativity. Which is what we all begin wanting to accomplish when it comes to art!! Every artist can relate to this! We just get lost in what others expect from us, fall into creative blocks, and end up struggling to do what we set out to do. Astral art for me has genuinely fixed all of these issues.

Confidence in art is a lost art (and one that people look at me weird for having at this point) so I also want to point out that astral art is where I've been able to build myself up the most, learn to trust my linework and use of color, and become the artist I've always wanted to be!! If you don't have a home in art quite yet, or are just completely sick of doing things a specific way (i.e. following what the algorithm wants, frequent art block, sick of capitalistic bullshit) maybe astral art is your calling!!! Fuck what's acceptable, let your true voice out!!!

A kind of lighter trance state has been a part of my practice a long time - doing a martial arts form (which I first did as a kid for Tae Kwon Do, though at that point I didn't yet think of meditation as a part of it in the slightest). I feel like the two decades of practice in MA in general is why this feels even remotely possible for me tbh.

-

Personally I find that imagining a fire and/or dance feels helpful in starting the movement while meditating without distracting the process too much. Trying hard to physically move any part of your body tends to just bring you out of the deeper state.

It still feels a bit sluggish and very heavy but strangely not like it requires that much physical effort - in a way, it's like I'm still paralyzed physically but as if I'm commanding or directing my body to do certain things rather than moving it myself. Like I'd still have to break the trance to intentionally move but at the same time, my body is moving on its own.

I guess this kind of in a way feels like when you get surprised and fall back on your reflexes - your body and practice takes over your movements. It's just... More direct. It's hard to explain, a bit like I'm trying to convey two completely opposite things at once.

-

I should mention that part of why I'm doing this is because I tried inviting Salvia (cat spirit familiar entity thing) to possess my body while in a deep trance.

I've done something similar with a more human-shaped spirit before to help me go through the motions of keeping myself alive (eating, hygiene) when I was deeper in depression and could hardly get out of bed... This one was very different.

Salvia agreed and as soon as she entered, I sprung up from sitting on the floor up onto all fours. It was fascinating really, watching from inside as she was getting used to my body - as short as the experience was. She pounced onto my pc chair and loafed there for a moment uncomfortably (have you tried fitting both your arms and your legs underneath yourself on an office chair? Adult human bodies are not made for that lol).

I encouraged her to try standing up on two legs so she leaned my body with front feet (hands) against the wall but then got startled by something (just the experience of human body in general I'd guess) and hopped out. I kinda faceplanted on the wall at that point but managed to catch myself before completely falling on the floor - needless to say, completely out of the trance at that point.

-

I did today invite her into control again and this time it went a bit better - we mostly walked on fours on the floor but tried standing up on two legs a few times. I advised her to try to use the physical balance organ of my human body...

...I'm not sure if that's how it works with possession and/or if she understood but the tries were a little better. We did fall back onto all fours after each attempt though and I can't say it'd feel nice on my hands. I think Salvia got a bit frustrated after a while - she left in like... two minutes I think?

It doesn't feel like this'd take that much effort for either of us (spiritually speaking) but it does take a moment to reach that deeper trance state. I might incorporate this possession stuff into my daily routine if she's willing, right after the projection practice - after all that's when I'm already in a trance.

...Or maybe I'll keep it more an occasional thing, or a modular time slot to use between the more "regular" deep trance moving and this, depending on how both of us feel at the time... It might not be something we want to do every day. Time will tell.

-

Oh, and the reason this spurred me to try more of the deep moving practice in the first place is that clearly my body is able to move quite sprightly even when I'm not (so to speak). It made me wonder if this is a skill that I could develop to a higher level, so that I could practice martial arts while maintaining a deep, deep level of trance for example - and how that might affect my skill in general, both in physical and spiritual aspects...