Spirituality • Pedagogy • Philosophy • Movement

The Quiet Trance: Meditation as a Gateway to Altered Consciousness

Meditation functions as a profound gateway to altered states of consciousness. Our standard waking state is characterised by beta brainwaves - a busy, often reactive mode of processing external stimuli. Meditation disrupts this baseline, inducing a state that shares significant structural features with trance and psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies. It creates a unique paradox where physical awareness diminishes while internal clarity is drastically enhanced.

The shift begins with a specific modulation of attention. Whether through focused concentration (samatha) or open monitoring (vipassana), the meditator redirects sensory input. As the mind settles, neural oscillations slow from the rapid beta range into the calmer alpha and theta frequencies. This transition facilitates a state akin to hypnotic trance, where the critical, self-referential self-awareness relaxes, and the boundary between self and environment becomes permeable.

This convergence with trance is most visible during deep absorption into the meditative state. Here, the meditator experiences and moves from a form of pratyahara  - a withdrawal of the senses, towards a state long described as those experienced by mystics. Ambient 'physical' sounds and bodily sensations fade, creating a kind of hypnotic seal from the external world, leaving only a sense of pure, embodied consciousness.

In that advanced state, meditation generates gamma waves. While lower frequencies relax the body, gamma waves are associated with high-level information processing and insight and illuminate the mind. This characteristic state builds a form of vibrant lucidity. Advanced practitioners often exhibit this high-frequency synchrony, allowing them to witness thoughts and emotions with metacognitive precision rather than getting lost or absorbed within them.

Meditation, in its characteristic manner, increases the brain's neuroplasticity to reveal profound depths in human consciousness.