CHAPTER 9 TRANCE MASTERY INS AND OUTS OF ENTRANCEMENT Delineating when and how entranced partners can move in and out of trance will be presented. With skill and practice, partners can begin to master specific conditions and situations that, in the past, would have helplessly enmeshed them in entrancement, but now having mastered trance, they can skillfully resurface and emerge through the masterful utilization of the following methods and strategies. Trance mastery presupposes partners' personal responsibility and creativity (relating is creating) for the quality of their encounters. Being willing to acknowledge that at some level of consciousness (continuum of conscious to unconscious) partners can cocreate even the most illogi- cal and absurd of relationship encounters is critical to trance mastery. One approach to mastery utilizes the "as if" game, where partners act as if whatever the relationship's desirable or undesirable conditions both have somehow created. Such acts of creation can be initiated by either partner at some level of conscious and/or unconscious pattern(s) of response. It is the ultimate responsibility of each partner to identify and master whatever hidden and distracted (disguised) triggers of response each has created and manifests in perpetuating entrancement. Partners can seek to answer questions such as "How do I create my fan- tasy/nightmare with my partner?" If partners had to show or teach someone how to create this, what would be the very first thing they would need to imagine, feel, say and/or do to begin the enmeshment? Would he have to imagine the way she smiles or the wonderful lilt in her voice? What would be the very next thing to do to continue and deepen -167- |