A useful way to approach an understanding of the mental phenomenon which we call trance is to closely examine images of meditation practitioners who are presumed to be in a deep trance. Nowadays, such a study is easily made with the help of the Internet. If, for example, you type “Buddhist monks meditating” into your browser and then click on “images,” you will bring up hundreds of images of men in red robes who are sitting with their eyes closed in a cross-legged position with either their wrists resting on the knees or with their hands lightly clasped in their lap.
The first thing you have to do is to disregard all images that appear to be artwork created by AI. The images which seem to be authentic photographs, on the other hand, should be closely examined, one after another, especially those which show the monks in facial profile. The next step in this study is to try to determine what, if anything, the monks in these photographs have in common. It’s true; the monks are all sitting in about the same position; their eyes are closed; they seem to be very relaxed; and, of course, they’re all dressed in robes and wearing sandals. These are various aspects of monkhood that an actor pretending to be a monk in meditation can replicate. But one thing that these monks all appear to share, something that an actor pretending to be a monk in meditation cannot replicate, is their facial expression, an expression that we can label as that of a person who is in a trance state of consciousness. The facial features of every monk appear to have been flattened and smoothed out into an expression that lacks expression. From a scientific perspective, we know that this particular facial expression is due to an extreme relaxation of the facial muscles. To put it more simply, a person who does not have this look, is probably not in a trance.
Performing the study exercise that I have prescribed above should help to convince you that an entirely disparate state of consciousness called trance really does exist. It can be faked, but not convincingly. Self-inducement of trance through meditation, which essentially is a form of autohypnosis, is by far the most difficult way to attain a state of trance. In comparison, hetero-hypnotic induction is a piece of cake, especially when the therapist is a trained professional and the subject is reasonably susceptible to hypnosis. An important, almost self-evident fact of the matter is that you either learn to induce the trance state of consciousness through the diligent practice of meditation—or you do not. Sitting in a half-lotus position for five or ten minutes a day while repeating a mantra to yourself certainly won’t hurt you, but neither is it likely to affect your mental stamina or your physical well-being to any noticeable extent; nor will it likely change your personal outlook on life. When it comes to talking about and understanding the self-induced state of trance, motivation and perseverance are two important keywords.
Most of the monks in the photographs that you have examined achieved a state of trance by means of a mental exercise that Buddhists call anapanasati, a Sanskrit word which is usually translated into English as “mindfulness of breathing.” It’s a simple enough exercise. The following exercise, which in the Majjhima Nikaya collection of scriptures (3rd century BCE-2nd century CE) is described as mindfulness of breathing, can be practiced by the novice for ten or fifteen minutes without any debilitating frustration. Sit comfortably in a chair—no lotus position is necessary—relax, close your eyes, and focus on your breathing, following intently your inhalations and your exhalations, but without disturbing the natural rhythm and strength of your breaths. Once you are focusing your attention on your breathing, begin to count your breaths, always counting at the tail end of each exhalation. Count from one to a hundred, and then start over, from one to a hundred. If your mind wanders from your self-imposed duty to perform the exercise, you will probably lose count of your breaths. In this case, all you have to do is start counting again from breath number one. This exercise will quickly put you into a mental state of focused attention. If you can practice this exercise for long enough, that is to say, much longer than ten or fifteen minutes, you will eventually fall into a state of meditative trance.
For the novice practitioner of meditation, however, the length of time that must be spent in a state of focused attention before the trance state occurs is often a matter of hours, and not minutes. Few people have this much deployable perseverance. The monks in the photographs trained for years before they learned to do what they do. Moreover, a monk who resides in a monastery has little choice but to follow the rules and meditate together with the other monks for the specified amount of time every day. If he can’t manage this, if he tries to fake his way through the daily routine, he will eventually be found out, and he will be obliged to return to a secular lifestyle. Regarding those of us who have not committed ourselves to life in a monastery, that is to say, those of us who are not religiously or philosophically motivated to a point of obsession: we normally feel that we have more pressing things to worry about than the self-imposed duty to perform some tedious mental exercise for a specific amount of time every day with the vague hope of alleviating at least some of the emotional anxiety that we experience, thereby strengthening our well-being.
In order to follow the meditation protocol that I prescribe in this tutorial you need to pledge an hour of your time every day for about three months. This is, perhaps, just a little too much to ask of most people without giving them some sort of guarantee that the protocol is going to achieve the desired result. Most of us need a guru, that is to say, a mentor or a coach whom we feel we can trust, a knowledgeable individual who can spur us on in our endeavour, and who can ensure that we do not take any convenient but debilitating shortcuts in our training program, that is to say, a professional therapist. Unfortunately, few of us will ever have the opportunity of getting our own personal therapist, and thus we are left to our own devices. A device which could become one of your own is the Muse EEG Headband; and let me assure you—at least, on the basis of my own experience—that the protocol for the Muse device which follows will really work. If it works for me, and I don’t have much propensity for falling into a trance, then why shouldn’t it work for you? I am asking you to trust me on this as you would trust your personal therapist.
The easiest way to obtain a Muse Headband is to purchase it directly from the manufacturer, InteraXon Inc., a company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The company has two websites from which a purchase can be made; https://choosemuse.com/ for North America and https://eu.choosemuse.com/ for Europe. They offer two versions of the headband at present (as of May 2026): the Muse 2 headband ($305, €270) and the Muse S Athena headband ($514, €450). Of these two, the Muse S has the more secure connectivity, but is also much more expensive. I have been using the Muse 2 headband since 2018. I have personally logged more than 2,000 hours on the headband without any problems, aside from the occasional need to readjust the sensors that are positioned behind the ears before a session can begin.
Once you have purchased the headband, download the standard Muse application software to your smartphone, and you’re ready for your first session, that is to say, once you have thoroughly read the instructions for use that accompany both the devise and the software. In this tutorial, I shall not offer much in the way of explanation for the neuroscience which underlies the standard Muse meditation algorithm and the use of the Muse device itself. Suffice it to say that the device will work for the purpose of self-inducing the trance state of consciousness if you diligently follow this protocol.
For your first session, choose an hour of your day that is the most convenient for you to hold your daily sessions for at least the next three months, a total of about 90 sessions. I think that for most people the best solution is to get up an hour earlier in the morning and hold the session then. For this protocol to have a decent chance at achieving the desired results, it is very important that you keep to the schedule: one hour a day at the same time—every day. You can miss a daily session every now and then without detriment, but not any more often, because your brain may decline to take advantage of the operant conditioning that the Muse algorithm provides—in other words, you must try to be more conscientious in the future if you want to get positive results.
Before you go to the Muse app on your phone, set the timer on your phone to one hour and five minutes. Choose a ringtone that is as unobtrusive as possible. Once you have started the device and have clasped it to your forehead while following the instructions that are provided for in the Muse software, choose the “Mind Biofeedback Meditation” that is labelled “Just Birds” (unguided), or the one that is labelled “Just Seagulls (unguided).” Just Birds/Just Seagulls were not available in the original Muse app; however, turning the feedback volume down to 0, while retaining the “Birds” volume at 1, on any of the other feedback soundscapes achieved the same result as choosing “Just Birds” or “Just Seagulls” would have if these options had been available. What is important here is to dispense with the various other soundscapes entirely. I have found these to be much more of a distraction than a positive reinforcement for a focused state of attention.
Choose a session length of 30 minutes. Choose “Start Session,” and then “Pause Session.” Go to “Volume Control,” which is the button that is to the left of the start button, and adjust the “Master Volume” to 1.00, the “Birds Volume” to 1.00, the “Voice Volume” to 0.00, and the “Ending Bell Volume” to 1.00. Exit the volume control and click on “Start.”
When you start to hear the calibration signal, adjust your phone volume to a level that is engaging, but not uncomfortably loud. (I always use the phone speaker, but you can use earbuds instead if you do not wish to disturb others.) Allow the device to record your baseline EEG. For this protocol, you should relax, but keep your eyes open and your mind active while the device calibrates. (I discovered early on in my personal work with the Muse device that an eyes-open baseline makes it less mentally strenuous and frustrating to achieve the feedback signals [birds].)
Once the device has recorded your baseline EEG, close your eyes, relax, focus on your breathing, and then begin to count your breaths from one to one hundred while you intently focus your attention on the physical sensation of inhaling and exhaling. You should begin to hear the feedback signals (i.e. the birds) almost at once. If not, then just be patient and go on counting.
It’s important to understand that counting one’s breaths while relaxing with the eyes closed is a method of inducing the meditative trance that goes back to at least two-thousand years before the advent of electroencephalography. You can learn to achieve the meditative trance without the help of electronics and computer software; it just takes much more time and perseverance. What the muse device does for you is to signal you when your EEG indicates that you have been in a state of focused attention for more than five seconds according to the algorithm that is employed, an algorithm that defines this state of attention in accordance with a predetermined EEG pattern. Now this algorithm will work better for some people than for others. You just can’t know how well it works for you until you’ve tried. It is also important to remember that it is the audible feedback from the software which provides the operant conditioning. If you are hearing a constant stream of bird chirps, you may safely suppose that you are doing something right.
If you are holding your session in the early morning, you will probably make it through your first hundred breaths without losing count, even though this is your first session. (Keeping track of how many breaths you have taken is much harder to manage if you have chosen to hold your session at a later time in the day when your mind has been active for hours.) However, at some point during the first thirty minutes of your session you will probably lose count and have to start over at one. Usually, you will be aware of the thought that suddenly jumped into your consciousness and made you lose count, although you will probably forget the context of the thought once you have started counting again from one. You will, however, probably remember whether or not the invasive thought made any sense. And in addition to you losing count of your breaths, the feedback signals will often stop sounding within the space of four or five breaths after you lose count, although they will almost invariably begin sounding once you are again concentrating on your breathing. Continue to count your breaths until you lose count again, and then remedy the situation in the same manner as before.
Continue with this exercise until you hear the “gong” which signals that the first thirty minutes of your session are over. At this point, the feedback signals will stop sounding, although the device will continue to record your EEG. Keep your eyes closed, but stop concentrating on your breathing, and focus instead on maintaining the utmost of relaxation, as if you didn’t have any expectations whatsoever concerning the next thirty minutes. This second half of your session is the difficult part. By relinquishing your concentration on your breathing, you are effectively restarting your habitual thought processes; you are making space in your mind for an inner dialogue with yourself. If you get hooked on the thought that you could be experiencing an authentic state of meditative trance within the timespan of the next thirty minutes, it is very doubtful that you will. In order to remain in the state of mindfulness that focusing your attention on your breathing for thirty minutes has resulted in, you must remind yourself to relax whenever you experience a thought coming into your consciousness during the second half of your session. Some of these thoughts will make no sense at all; others will seem to make all the sense in the world. Although not the true trance state, mindfulness is a light—and rather pleasant—hypnotic state in which you allow yourself to have thoughts and emotions, but without being judgmental about them and without allowing yourself to be caught up in them. (To put this in a more assertive manner, I would say that any prolonged period of focused attention will usually bring about a state of mindfulness, which, if maintained for long enough, will usually result in a state of meditative trance.)
Continue your session until you hear the ringtone of the timer on your phone. Open your eyes; turn the ringtone off on the timer; go to the Muse app, which should still be displayed on your phone screen; make sure the “include added time in results” tab is checked; and then choose “end session.” On the screen that follows you have the choice of making notes on your session or cancelling this opportunity. Choose either proceed or cancel. Once the “results” screen appears, choose “save,” and then turn off the Muse device. To review the results from your session, choose the “Me” tab at the bottom of the screen, and then choose “session history.” I’m afraid that there is not much to be deduced from these results. You will need to do a considerable number of sessions before any trends in your training will become apparent. You will, however, notice that a substantial change in the so-called “mind graph” occurs at about thirty minutes into your session, that is to say, about the time you no longer heard the feedback signals. The graphical representation of the first half of your session will mostly or even completely be contained within the “calm” (blue) section of the graph’s x-axis. The results from the second half of your session will mostly be contained within the “neutral” (grey) section. You can also tap the “Brainwave Powerbands” button in order to pinpoint this change in consciousness when the raw EEG signal is broken down into the five bands (alpha, beta, theta, gamma, and delta) of its composite frequencies.
Although statistically unlikely, it is nevertheless possible that you will experience the trance state of consciousness towards the end of your very first session using the Muse headband. Considerable research into the matter of hypnotic susceptibility has shown that only one out of every ten individuals is very susceptible to hypnotic trance, eight individuals are moderately susceptible, and one individual is very resistant to all manners of hypnotic induction. If you happen to be one among the 10% of the general population who are very susceptible, then you are fortunate indeed when it comes to being immediately successful at meditation. How will you know that you have actually been in a trance? This is a question that is reasonably easy to answer: You will know that you have been in a trance, but not until after your session is concluded. Once you have saved your session and turned off the Muse device, you may find that the memory of the final portion of the second half of your session seems to be missing. The inability to recall such very recent mental events is, in this case, due to spontaneous post-hypnotic amnesia; in other words, you have actually been in a trance, but you cannot recall the moment of falling into it, nor can you recall much, if anything at all, of what transpired during this trance.
If, on the other hand, you happen to be one of those people who are only moderately susceptible to hypnotic induction, you will just have to be patient and look forward to your next session. The odds are that, sooner or later, you will experience the trance state of consciousness. Very few people, if any, are entirely incapable of falling into a trance. Learning to meditate is simply a matter of perseverance. You have to overcome whatever innate resistance you may have to entering the trance state of consciousness by repeatedly trying to do it. Like the alchemist, your hope of turning lead into gold is fundamentally grounded in that proverbial sentiment If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
But when all is said and done, there is a question that still begs an answer: Why? In following this protocol, you will be put to a considerable amount of inconvenience in order to achieve a state of mind that is infamously difficult to define. Let us attempt to define it, nevertheless.
A person who is in a hypnotic state of consciousness becomes much more suggestible than he or she is in normal consciousness. This would appear to be the case regardless of whether the hypnotic state has been induced through hetero-hypnosis or autohypnosis. Of course, a video recording from a session between a hypnotherapist and a client will accurately show the extent to which the suggestions given by the therapist have successfully brought about a hypnotic state of consciousness in the client. A recording from a succeeding session may even show the extent to which any posthypnotic suggestions have affected the client’s behaviour. A session of autohypnosis (meditation) can, on the other hand, only be documented with the help of some sort of post-session diary. Moreover, because of post-hypnotic amnesia, details of the most important part of the session, that is, the time spent in meditative trance, are often not accessible to the meditation practitioner. Thus, the manner in which the practice of meditation brings about lasting behavioural change is much more of a mystery than in the case of traditional hypnotherapy. In my opinion, there is no good reason to believe that the mindfully induced trance works differently to the hypnotic trance that is induced with the help of a hypnotherapist. In both cases, the most important factor is the practitioner’s or the client’s innate suggestibility. What can be done with the help of hypnotherapy should also be possible to do through autosuggestion. Hypnotherapy has in recent times become highly regarded as a form of treatment for a wide range of physical and mental health issues such as excessive anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome, various eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance addition, major depressive disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It seems to me that learning to meditate could very well be an excellent kind of health insurance.
For those of us who have a philosophical bent to our personality, I think it is important to realise that meditation practitioners often become more keenly aware of the ultimate mystery of existence; not that it is a mystery to which there is a solution—I, for one, do not believe there is a solution—but rather that the mystery does indeed exist, and that one can only aspire to come to terms with it in one’s own way.