Trance Best Quotes

People always want to know what it feels like, so I’ll tell you: there’s a sting when you first slice, and then your heart speeds up when you see the blood, because you know you’ve done something you shouldn’t have, and yet you’ve gotten away with it. Then you sort of go into a trance, because it’s truly dazzling—that bright red line, like a highway route on a map that you want to follow to see where it leads. And—God—the sweet release, that’s the best way I can describe it, kind of like a balloon that’s tied to a little kid’s hand, which somehow breaks free and floats into the sky. You just know that balloon is thinking, Ha, I don’t belong to you after all; and at the same time, Do they have any idea how beautiful the view is from up here? And then the balloon remembers, after the fact, that it has a wicked fear of heights. When reality kicks in, you grab some toilet paper or a paper towel (better than a washcloth, because the stains don’t ever come out 100 percent) and you press hard against the cut. You can feel your embarrassment; it’s a backbeat underneath your pulse. Whatever relief there was a minute ago congeals, like cold gravy, into a fist in the pit of your stomach. You literally make yourself sick, because you promised yourself last time would be the last time, and once again, you’ve let yourself down. So you hide the evidence of your weakness under layers of clothes long enough to cover the cuts, even if it’s summertime and no one is wearing jeans or long sleeves. You throw the bloody tissues into the toilet and watch the water go pink before you flush them into oblivion, and you wish it were really that easy.

What's coming out of the stereo is like a genre unto itself, a charming, fucked-up fairy tale that immediately breaks my heart in all the best ways. I stretch out on the floor with my ear parked next to the speaker, in a trance. I place the album cover over my face to block out any interruption as "I'll Be Your Mirror" seduces me. I immediately add the song to my mental list of top ten songs ever. And as I'm bobbing my head with dreamy abandon, I hear a voice. "Nice choice, DJ," it says. I slowly slide the album cover down past my eyes and look up. My eyes spy his shoes first--paint-splattered brogues. My heart stops when I look at his face. Pale skin, messy black hair, emerald eyes...Senor Smolder! He's eighteen, maybe nineteen. And no, my imagination didn't lie, he is just as devastating now as he was the first time I saw him. Only even more, because he just complimented my taste in music.

How about from now on, anytime I feel my ego getting out of control, I come see you?” He lowered his voice. “Let you take me down a few notches.” Fighting the trance I was sure he was trying to put me in, I licked my suddenly dry lips. His gaze flicked down to watch. “I, uhh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, my voice breathy. His eyes locked back with mine. “Why not?” “I don’t have the availability for that kind of time commitment.

Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded. Here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking, oh, you start. You do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it later, and in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she dies, and in trance she is UnDead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when the UnDead sleep at home," as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was 'home', "their face show what they are, but this so sweet that was when she not UnDead she go back to the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep.

Forgetting herself entirely, Pandora let her head loll back against Gabriel's shoulder. "What kind of glue does Ivo use?" she asked languidly. "Glue?" he echoed after a moment, his mouth close to her temple, grazing softly. "For his kites." "Ah." He paused while a wave retreated. "Joiner's glue, I believe." "That's not strong enough," Pandora said, relaxed and pensive. "He should use chrome glue." "Where would he find that?" One of his hands caressed her side gently. "A druggist can make it. One part acid chromate of lime to five parts gelatin." Amusement filtered through his voice. "Does your mind ever slow down, sweetheart?" "Not even for sleeping," she said. Gabriel steadied her against another wave. "How do you know so much about glue?" The agreeable trance began to fade as Pandora considered how to answer him. After her long hesitation, Gabriel tilted his head and gave her a questioning sideways glance. "The subject of glue is complicated, I gather." I'm going to have to tell him at some point, Pandora thought. It might as well be now. After taking a deep breath, she blurted out, "I design and construct board games. I've researched every possible kind of glue required for manufacturing them. Not just for the construction of the boxes, but the best kind to adhere lithographs to the boards and lids. I've registered a patent for the first game, and soon I intend to apply for two more." Gabriel absorbed the information in remarkably short order. "Have you considered selling the patents to a publisher?" "No, I want to make the games at my own factory. I have a production schedule. The first one will be out by Christmas. My brother-in-law, Mr. Winterborne, helped me to write a business plan. The market in board games is quite new, and he thinks my company will be successful." "I'm sure it will be. But a young woman in your position has no need of a livelihood." "I do if I want to be self-supporting." "Surely the safety of marriage is preferable to the burdens of being a business proprietor." Pandora turned to face him fully. "Not if 'safety' means being owned. As things stand now, I have the freedom to work and keep my earnings. But if I marry you, everything I have, including my company, would immediately become yours. You would have complete authority over me. Every shilling I made would go directly to you- it wouldn't even pass through my hands. I'd never be able to sign a contract, or hire employees, or buy property. In the eyes of the law, a husband and wife are one person, and that person is the husband. I can't bear the thought of it. It's why I never want to marry.

Faced with a totally controlled, monitored and owned online world, in which every utterance is immediately scanned and filed away, many have yet to make the connection that the best solution may not be running Tor and eighteen proxies, but writing things down on paper and talking face-to-face. Remember the mail? Remember conversations? Yeah, those still exist. Want to shake somebody out of their online trance? Send them a letter. Send them art. Want to record something that will last longer than a few seconds on Facebook or Twitter? Write a book. The physical world didn’t go anywhere. In fact, physical artifacts and experiences have only grown in totemic power the more we’ve pushed them away.

The best thing that can happen to me when I'm writing fiction is to lose sight of the fact that I'm writing at all. It's as though I enter into a kind of trance. I know I'm writing, but I don't THINK about it. I just let my fingers type--it's as though the feeling comes out directly through them, bypassing the brain altogether. When that happens, I feel completely transported. There is nothing else like this feeling, very little else is more important to me. That intimacy I feel between myself and my work is what makes me feel at home on the earth. I am basically a shy person, basically a loner and an outsider; and I have been all my life. But when I achieve the kind of connection I can through writing, I feel I'm sitting in the lap of God.

You’ve probably also noted the impacts of virtual distraction on your own and others’ behaviors: memory loss, inability to concentrate, being asked to repeat what you just said, miscommunication the norm, getting lost online and wasting time you don’t have, withdrawing from the real world. The list of what’s being lost is a description of our best human capacities—memory, meaning, relating, thinking, learning, caring. There is no denying the damage that’s been done to humans as technology took over—our own Progress Trap. The impact on children’s behavior is of greatest concern for its present and future implications. Dr. Nicolas Kardaras, a highly skilled physician in rehabilitation, is author of Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids—and How to Break the Trance. He describes our children’s behavior in ways that I notice in my younger grandchildren: “We see the aggressive temper tantrums when the devices are taken away and the wandering attention spans when children are not perpetually stimulated by their hyper-arousing devices. Worse, we see children who become bored, apathetic, uninteresting and uninterested when not plugged in.”17 These very disturbing behaviors are not just emotional childish reactions. Our children are behaving as addicts deprived of their drug. Brain imaging studies show that technology stimulates brains just like cocaine does.

We should expect artists to be more sensitive and more open to abstract thoughts and ideas. If they are more open, they should be capable of tapping into the mystical static that is bouncing around the collective ether. True inspiration is a mystery, and any artist can describe how getting lost in this zone can create a sort of timeless trance where things just flow magically. An artist’s best work comes from a mindless place, unhindered by logic and intellect. This could be the concert violinist standing on stage, or the illustrator hunched over in the corner with a sketchbook. Although it almost always falls short, the Hollywood machine is continually trying to come up with the next UFO-themed product. But where do these ideas come from?

The sagas, however, do not mention any entheogens in any context that I can discover: the special meal prepared for the seeress in Eiriks saga rauöa is of the hearts of animals and is eaten the night before her seiör is to occur. References to drinking in the Eddas (e.g. Mimir's well, the mead of poetry) are ambiguously metaphorical at best (though in a highly speculative mode, Steven Leto (2000) suggests that the use of both A. muscaria and R semilanceata may be represented metaphorically in various poems or sagas). Archaeology, however, gives some evidence, from several hundred henbane seeds found in the pouch of a burial considered to be that of a seeress (Price, pers. com.) and a very small number of cannabis seeds present in the Oseberg burial (often considered to be that of a seeress or a priestess), carefully Placed, Neil Price tells me, between the cushions and feathers piled by the bed.

It's rich. And smooth. And thick. And fatty, but in a good way. Like butter, but with a deeper, fuller, nuttier flavor." Max's inky black pupils start to dilate as he gazes down at me, his mouth cracked open, like he's hypnotized and intrigued at once. I cease breathing. He clears his throat. "Damn..." I nod quickly. "On hot, crusty bread, it is divine. You need to try it." He nods right back, like he's in a trance. I'm in a trance too. I can't seem to stop looking at him as I wax poetic about one of my favorite food combinations. "How is it served?" he asks, his voice between a groan and a growl. "The marrow, I mean." I watch, mesmerized at the slow movement along his stubbled throat. I swear I can feel my skin tingling as my internal temperature rises. Who knew talking about bone marrow could get me this worked up? "Sometimes they cut the bone lengthwise and you can just scrape your knife along the hollow part of the bone and out comes the marrow," I say. "And sometimes they cut it into chunks and the marrow's in the middle, so you scrape out as much as you can, but there's almost always some left, so the best way to get it out is to just put the bone in your mouth and suck it out, really get your tongue in the hole and lick and...

Only when it comes to explaining psychic phenomena of a minimal degree of clarity are we driven to assume that archetypes must have a nonpsychic aspect. Grounds for such a conclusion are supplied by the phenomena of synchronicity, which are associated with the activity of unconscious operators and have hitherto been regarded, or repudiated, as 'telepathy' etc. Scepticism should, however, be levelled only at incorrect theories and not at facts which exist in their own right. No unbiased observer can deny them. Resistance to the recognition of such facts rests principally on the repugnance people feel for an allegedly supernatural faculty tacked on to the psyche, like 'clairvoyance'. The very diverse and confusing aspects of these phenomena are, so far as I can see at present, completely explicable on the assumption of psychically relative space-time continuum. As soon as the psychic content crosses the threshold of consciousness, the synchronistic marginal phenomena disappear, time and space resume their accustomed sway, and consciousness is once more isolated in its subjectivity. We have here one of those instances which can best be understood in terms of the physicist's idea of 'complementarity'. When an unconscious content passes over into consciousness its synchronistic manifestation ceases; conversely, synchronistic phenomena can be evoked by putting the subject into an unconscious state (trance).

The female is uniformly more easily hypnotised than the male throughout the animal world, and it may be seen from the following how closely hypnotic phenomena are related to the most ordinary events. I have already described, in discussing female sympathy, how easy it is for laughter or tears to be induced in females. How impressed she is by everything in the newspapers! What a martyr she is to the silliest superstitions! How eagerly she tries every remedy recommended by her friends! From their complete inability to attain personal truth, to be honest about themselves — the hysterical never think for themselves, they want other people to think about them, they want to arouse the interest of others — it follows that the hysterical are the best mediums for hypnotic purposes. But any one who allows him or herself to be hypnotised is doing the most immoral thing possible. It is yielding to complete slavery; it is a renunciation of the will and consciousness; it means allowing another person to do what he likes with the subject. Hypnosis shows how all possibility of truth depends upon the wish to be truthful, but it must be the real wish of the person concerned: when a hypnotised person is told to do something, he does it when he comes out of the trance, and if asked his reasons will give a plausible motive on the spot, not only before others, but he will justify his action to himself by quite fanciful reasons. All women can be hypnotised and like being hypnotised, but this proclivity is exaggerated in hysterical women.

Rather, I found through this experience that there is significant similarity between meditating under a waterfall and tidying. When you stand under a waterfall, the only audible sound is the roar of water. As the cascade pummels your body, the sensation of pain soon disappears and numbness spreads. Then a sensation of heat warms you from the inside out, and you enter a meditative trance. Although I had never tried this form of meditation before, the sensation it generated seemed extremely familiar. It closely resembled what I experience when I am tidying. While not exactly a meditative state, there are times when I am cleaning that I can quietly commune with myself. The work of carefully considering each object I own to see whether it sparks joy inside me is like conversing with myself through the medium of my possessions. For this reason, it is essential to create a quiet space in which to evaluate the things in your life. Ideally, you should not even be listening to music. Sometimes I hear of methods that recommend tidying in time to a catchy song, but personally, I don’t encourage this. I feel that noise makes it harder to hear the internal dialogue between the owner and his or her belongings. Listening to the TV is, of course, out of the question. If you need some background noise to relax, choose environmental or ambient music with no lyrics or well-defined melodies. If you want to add momentum to your tidying work, tap the power of the atmosphere in your room rather than relying on music. The best time to start is early morning. The fresh morning air keeps your mind clear and your power of discernment sharp. For this reason, most of my lessons commence in the morning. The earliest lesson I ever conducted began at six thirty, and we were able to clean at twice the usual speed. The clear, refreshed feeling gained after standing under a waterfall can be addictive. Similarly, when you finish putting your space in order, you will be overcome with the urge to do it again. And, unlike waterfall meditation, you don’t have to travel long distances over hard terrain to get there. You can enjoy the same effect in your own home. That’s pretty special, don’t you think?

Bored with Pisit today, I switch to our public radio channel, where the renowned and deeply reverend Phra Titapika is lecturing on Dependent Origination. Not everyone’s cup of chocolate, I agree (this is not the most popular show in Thailand), but the doctrine is at the heart of Buddhism. You see, dear reader (speaking frankly, without any intention to offend), you are a ramshackle collection of coincidences held together by a desperate and irrational clinging, there is no center at all, everything depends on everything else, your body depends on the environment, your thoughts depend on whatever junk floats in from the media, your emotions are largely from the reptilian end of your DNA, your intellect is a chemical computer that can’t add up a zillionth as fast as a pocket calculator, and even your best side is a superficial piece of social programming that will fall apart just as soon as your spouse leaves with the kids and the money in the joint account, or the economy starts to fail and you get the sack, or you get conscripted into some idiot’s war, or they give you the news about your brain tumor. To name this amorphous morass of self-pity, vanity, and despair self is not only the height of hubris, it is also proof (if any were needed) that we are above all a delusional species. (We are in a trance from birth to death.) Prick the balloon, and what do you get? Emptiness. It’s not only us-this radical doctrine applies to the whole of the sentient world. In a bumper sticker: The fear of letting go prevents you from letting go of the fear of letting go. Here’s the good Phra in fine fettle today: “Take a snail, for example. Consider what brooding overweening self-centered passion got it into that state. Can you see the rage of a snail? The frustration of a cockroach? The ego of an ant? If you can, then you are close to enlightenment.” Like I say, not everyone’s cup of miso. Come to think of it, I do believe I prefer Pisit, but the Phra does have a point: take two steps in the divine art of Buddhist meditation, and you will find yourself on a planet you no longer recognize. Those needs and fears you thought were the very bones of your being turn out to be no more than bugs in your software. (Even the certainty of death gets nuanced.) You’ll find no meaning there. So where?

Can you forgive me? Men are complete idiots when a woman cries.” He gave her the smile he’d reserved for old ladies in the jury box. She nibbled on her lower lip, looking pensive and wary. The bluebird in his grandma’s cuckoo clock sprang from its door and chirped, breaking the silence. Maddie jumped, pressing her hand to her chest as though trying to keep her heart from jumping out. As the clock struck, he cursed himself for making her uncomfortable. How could he have made such a tactical error? From what he’d discerned, she might as well be a virgin. He’d simply forgotten himself. Lost in her charm and good-girl complex, he’d said the first teasing thing that sprang to mind. And since he was a guy, it had been sexual. He took two cautious steps toward her, hoping she wouldn’t bolt upstairs. “That wasn’t the best thing to say when I’m trying to get you out of your clothes.” Auburn brows drew together in what he could only suspect was disapproval. He shook his head. What the hell was wrong with him? This wasn’t the time to mention seeing her naked. Shit, it was like he had no experience with women. She still said nothing, just stared at him with those uncanny green eyes. And damn if it wasn’t making him a bit unsettled. It had been so long since he’d been anything but cool and detached, even before his troubles in Chicago. The knowledge caused a stirring of unease. “I swear, I didn’t mean it.” He was starting to sound like a sixteen-year-old apologizing for trying to get to second base. Quietly, she toyed with the fabric of her dress, picking at one of the sparkly beads. At a loss for how to make the situation right, he offered the one thing he wanted to avoid, but was guaranteed to put her at ease. “Do you want me to call my neighbor, Gracie, to come help you out of your dress? She eats shit like this up, so you’ll make her day.” Maddie shifted on the balls of her feet. He narrowed his eyes. No matter how hard he peered at her, she remained a mystery. He sweetened the offer. “She’s a baker, so I bet she even has some cupcakes or cookies lying around.” Maddie placed her hand on her stomach. Why wouldn’t she speak? He raked a hand through his hair. “Princess, take pity on me here. I can’t begin to guess what you’re thinking. Did I scare you away forever?” She blinked, her face clearing as though she’d suddenly come out of a trance. “I’m sorry. Other than being an emotional basket case, I’m fine.” This

Trance & Instinct The best poems come from trance and instinct; transcribing the unedited voice of universal consciousness.

Knowledge and information of almost any kind (even the strangest information) provide Fives with a sense of control and a defense against feelings of inadequacy. Fives also collect information or knowledge because they don’t want to appear foolish or uninformed, or be humiliated for not having the correct answer. They don’t want to feel incapable or inept, which is what they believe they are. Needless to say, the best and worst thing that ever happened to Fives is the advent of the Internet. Once they tumble down that bottomless wormhole, these information junkies fall into their trance of knowledge collecting and there’s no telling when they’re coming back and what new and fun information they’re hauling back with them.

ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD. 3. Life. Animula, vagula, blandula. Life! I know not what thou art, But know that thou and I must part; And when, or how, or where we met, I own to me's a secret yet. But this I know, when thou art fled, Where'er they lay these limbs, this head, No clod so valueless shall be, As all that then remains of me. O whither, whither dost thou fly, Where bend unseen thy trackless course, And in this strange divorce, Ah tell where I must seek this compound I? To the vast ocean of empyreal flame, From whence thy essence came, Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed From matter's base encumbering weed? Or dost thou, hid from sight, Wait, like some spell-bound knight, Through blank oblivious years the appointed hour, To break thy trance and reassume thy power? Yet canst thou without thought or feeling be? O say what art thou, when no more thou'rt thee? Life! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good morning. 1825 Edition.

More prosaically – and forgetting all about that alleged serpent and that hypothetical Kundalini energy – it appears possible to describe the processes in such experiences in modern scientific terminology. One of the best approaches can be seen in psychologist David Cole Gordon’s neglected little masterpiece on the subject of masturbation, Self-Love. It is Professor Gordon’s thesis that “unification” experiences appear on a variety of levels and are much more miscellaneous than has been realized hitherto. In fact, he insists that many experiences regarded as coarse or low are precisely similar, neurologically, to the cosmic trances of Buddha, Jesus, Blake or Whitman.

The director said wonderful things about you, that you're very talented," I say, and then smell the cardamom Garrance had given me, and I'm instantly put into a trance from green, earthy, and perfumed aromas. It's like all my troubles are gone. I'm in India, envisioning dances and beautiful saris and delicious naan bread baked on hot coals. Charles taps me on the shoulder. "Kate, where did you go?" I wobble. "I think I was in Mumbai for a second. Maybe Chennai? I don't know. I've never been to India. I've just seen pictures in magazines." He places his hands on my shoulders. "Spices transport you?" "Yes," I say, still a little bit out of it. "Hers do." He grips my shoulders, pulls me in closer. I smell his vanilla scent, and my knees turn to butter. "And I now know why my mother likes you. It makes perfect sense. She was right." "About what?" I ask, breathing him. "Working together and letting go of the bad energy. I know we can do this." His eyes spark with a passionate fire, and he smiles, his dimple puckering. I might melt like fondue. "Let's create a meal for her---the best one she's ever had." He leans against the stove, his sexy, smoldering hazel eyes meeting mine. My neck goes hot. I race over to the prep station and pick up the bag of cardamom, breathe it in---earthy, sweet, smoky, and nutty. Big mistake. Because I'm now licking his muscled chest in one of my deranged fantasies, which is so wrong. I throw the bag down, and the grains scatter on the countertop. Charles saunters over and places a hand on my shoulder. "Kate, everything okay?" "Cool, cool, cool," I say. I shrug off his touch, dip around his shoulder, noticing how V-shaped he is. "I was thinking we add this into the peanut sauce for the satay." "Good idea," he says. "Grind it. Nice and fine." Stop. Stop talking with your lilting English accent. Stop smiling. I'm staring at his hands, his lips, his eyelashes. My mind, my thoughts, and my body are about to explode. "Kate, can you pass me the chilis? My mother likes things spicy." "So do I," I say, reaching for it. Our hands touch as I hand him the spice. I shiver. "Me too," he says with a teasing growl. "And I know you added more pepper into my dish the other day. Good thing I can handle the heat." I can't. It's getting way too hot in here.

My dad loved to drive, but more than that he hated to stop. This made him at best a questionable tour guide. The hours would drone on as we crisscrossed the country in the dank and ever more malodorous car. The four of us would grow restless and cramped in the backseat, perennially arguing with each other and inventing games to fight off the monotony. My dad would press forward relentlessly, trying to make six hundred miles a day, every now and then invoking the three shut-ups rule and lashing out into the noise and cramped restlessness of the backseat. In the front seat my mom would patiently act as his navigator, reading the map, periodically making Wonder Bread and lunchmeat sandwiches, and now and then twisting the dial on the radio to try to find some music and local news. I finally figured it out. My dad’s mind had been shaped by flying a B-29 bomber on long-range missions. As he drove, my mother became the navigator, and we were the crew, although it wasn’t clear whom he wanted to bomb. You could see the business in his eyes. He smoked constantly, the strong odors of his Camel or self-rolled cigarettes or of his weird metal-stemmed pipe piercing our nostrils and often bringing the rear windows down, even in the most brutal heat of the day. His eyes were intent, never leaving the road in front of us. But every now and then an alert for a coming historical marker would pop up along the side of the road, causing my dad to suddenly snap out of his trance and remember that this was not actually his air crew sitting in the backseat. A teachable moment had arrived, giving him a quick opportunity to exercise his parenting skills and a chance to shower us with some much-needed cultural immersion. “Okay, guys, historical marker coming up on the right. I’m going to slow down to forty-five miles an hour. There it is, here it comes! Jim, read the SIGN!” I

For example, those who have experimented with hypnosis find that, at a certain depth of trance, it happens not too infrequently that subjects, if they are left alone and not distracted, often associated with a perception of light and of spaces vast but not solitary. Sometimes the entranced person feels impelled to speak about his or her experience. Deleuze, who was one of the best observers in the second generation of Animal Magnetists, records that this state of somnambulism is characterized by a complete detachment from all personal interests, by the absence of passion, by indifference to acquired opinions and prejudices and by "a novel manner of viewing objects , a quick and direct judgment, accompanied with an intimated conviction...Thus the somnambulist possesses at the same time the torch which gives him his light and the compass that points out his way. "This torch and this compass", Deleuze concludes, " are not the product of somnambulism; they are always in us, but the distracting cares of the world, the passions and, above all, pride, and attachment to perishable things prevent us from perceiving the one and consulting the other." (Less dangerously and more effectively than the drugs which sometimes produce "anesthetic revelations" hypnotism temporarily abolishes distractions and allays the passions, leaving the consciousness free to occupy itself with what lies beyond the haunt of the immanent maniacs.) "In the new situation," Deleuze continues, "the mind is filled with religious ideas, with which, perhaps, it was never before occupied".

She and her feeling! She seeks a chance, A moment to feel and romance, To fulfill with life her last dance, Before she feels serenaded by a new form of trance, Her love, her passions for someone, With whom she feels there are just two them and no one, With whom time appears to have acquired a new semblance, where being two feels like one, Her dance has ended and now she is waiting for this someone, She seeks him in every corner, She thinks of him to be engulfed by feelings warmer, His thoughts make her feel better, But she can't help, but wander, and wander, Until she has met this feeling, That she has already felt and with it her heart is already dealing, It feels like a very high ceiling, That you can see, but you can't touch, and ah this helpless feeling! So she waits at the corner, looking at the ceiling and gazing at hopes, That dangle from the ceiling like ropes, That you can see but you can't touch, just like beautiful hopes, With whom your heart often in dreams elopes, The high ceiling, the visible and reachable ropes, all there, Tempting and challenging the feeling of love, within her growing everywhere, But where is he, although she has searched for him everywhere, Then one day her heart beats differently and she realises he was always there, Just like the ceiling that was waiting not to be touched but to be felt, And when she let this realisation melt in her, his true sensation she felt, He appeared everywhere, and now with him just like her heart her eyes too dealt, Because finally she had felt the way he always felt!

Immediately, like a fond old roué, I sought to introduce Danny to what used to be called the finer things of life. I brought him—my God, I burn with shame to think of it—I brought him to the Institute and made him sit and listen while I lectured on Poussin’s second period in Rome, on Claude Lorrain and the cult of landscape, on François Mansart and the French baroque style. While I spoke, his attention would decline in three distinct stages. For five minutes or so he would sit up very straight with his hands folded in his lap, watching me with the concentration of a retriever on point; then would come a long central period of increasing agitation, during which he would study the other students, or lean over at the window to follow the progress of someone crossing the courtyard below, or bite his nails with tiny, darting movements, like a jeweller cutting and shaping a row of precious stones; after that, until the end of the lecture, he would sink into a trance of boredom, head sunk on neck, his eyelids drooping at the corners and his lips slackly parted. I covered up my disappointment in him on these occasions as best I could. Yet he did so try to keep up, to seem interested and impressed.

The best way to help someone achieve a state of hypnotic trance is to get them to focus their attention inside.

C.H.I.P. was jumping all over the room as blasts were flying everywhere, taking chunks out of the wall and ceiling. One blast even hit my computer stuff! But C.H.I.P. finally dove onto the floor and grabbed the Fuzzy from behind. Then he smashed it to the hard cement floor, and its pieces went flying everywhere. PHEW! I looked over at Stella, and she was rubbing her eyes like she just came out of a trance. She looked around at all the holes in the wall. “What’s going on?” Then she saw her smashed Freaky Fuzzy. “YOU KILLED MY FREAKY FUZZY! You couldn’t stand me having one and not you, so you killed it! I’m telling Mom!

The false or at best imperfect salvations described in the Chandogya Upanishad are of three kinds. There is first the pseudo-salvation associated with the belief that matter is the ultimate Reality. Virochana, the demonic being who is the apotheosis of power-loving, extraverted somatotonia, finds it perfectly natural to identify himself with his body, and he goes back to the other Titans to seek a purely material salvation. Incarnated in the present century, Virochana would have been an ardent Communist, Fascist or nationalist. Indra sees through material salvationism and is then offered dreamsalvation, deliverance out of bodily existence into the intermediate world between matter and spirit—that fascinatingly odd and exciting psychic universe, out of which miracles and foreknowledge, “spirit communications” and extra-sensory perceptions make their startling irruptions into ordinary life. But this freer kind of individualized existence is still all too personal and ego-centric to satisfy a soul conscious of its own incompleteness and eager to be made whole. Indra accordingly goes further and is tempted to accept the undifferentiated consciousness of deep sleep, of false samadhi and quietistic trance, as the final deliverance. But he refuses, in Brahmananda’s words, to mistake tamas for sattvas, sloth and sub-consciousness for poise and super-consciousness. And so, by discrimination, he comes to the realization of the Self, which is the enlightenment of the darkness that is ignorance and the deliverance from the mortal consequences of that ignorance.

The best way to break the trance is to start asking yourself specific questions that will help you see the situation clearly.