Trance

Trance denotes a variety of processes, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.

The term "trance" may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer. It may also be related to the earlier generic term, altered states of consciousness, which is no longer used in "Consciousness Studies" discourse.

Etymology

Trance is from Latin 'transīre': to cross, pass over and the multiple meaning of the polyvalent homonym "entrance" as a verb and noun provide insight into the nature of trance as a threshold, conduit, portal and/or channel.

Trance, n. [F. 'transe' fright, in OF. also, trance or swoon, fr. 'transir' to chill, benumb, to be chilled, to shiver, OF. also, to die, L. 'transire' to pass over, go over, pass away, cease; trans across, over + ire to go; cf. L. 'transitus' a passing over. See Issue, and cf. Transit.

An intransitive usage of the verb 'trance' now obsolete is 'to pass', 'to travel'.

Etymology

[a. F. transe fem., in OF. transe m. and f., passage, passage from life to death (St. Alexis, 12th c.), great apprehension or dread of coming evil (15th c. in Littré); verbal n. f. F. transir to pass, depart (esp. from life), to die (12th c.), also (later) to benumb or be numbed by fear or cold, ad. L. trans{imac}re to pass over, cross, f. trans across + {imac}re to go. (Cf. Sp. trance danger, last stage of life, Pg. trance, transe a dreadful circumstance; cf. It. transito ‘a passage or going over; also a trance’ Florio).

Palsgrave has ‘Traunce a sickenesse, trance’, and Cotgr. has ‘also, a traunce or sowne; a great astonishment, amazement, or appallment’, but these senses do not appear in Littré or Godef.; perh. they were Anglo-Fr.; otherwise the chief mod. sense of the Eng. word does not appear in F.]

Definition 1

A state of extreme apprehension or dread; a state of doubt or suspense. Obs.

Quotation

c1374 CHAUCER Troylus II. 1257 (1306) Troylus..That lay, as doth {th}ese loueres, yn a traunce By-twixen hope and derk desesperaunce. 1390 GOWER Conf. III. 321 This cherles herte is in a traunce, As he which drad him of vengance. 1412-20 LYDG. Chron. Troy IV. 1536 {Th}e verray custom & {th}e pleyn vsaunce Of {th}is loveris, hangyng in a trance. c1477 CAXTON Jason 46b, She was in a traunce what she shold saye to her. 1523 LD. BERNERS tr. Froiss. I. cccxliii. 542 Thus these maters hanged in a traunce. 1577 GRANGE Golden Aphrod. etc. Pijb, In this traunce of troubles my trembling tongue was partly enioyned to silence.

Definition 2

An unconscious or insensible condition; a swoon, a faint; in mod. use, a state characterized by a more or less prolonged suspension of consciousness and inertness to stimulus; a cataleptic or hypnotic condition.

Quotation

c1386 CHAUCER Frankl. T. 353 And longe tyme he lay forth in a traunce. a1533 LD. BERNERS Huon lxii. 215 She fell downe in a transe, more lyke to be deed than alyue. 1604 SHAKES. Oth. IV. i. Stage direct., [Othello] Falls in a Traunce. 1617 MORYSON Itin. I. 249 Most of the night he had lien in a trance. 1715-20 POPE Iliad XI. 462 Hector rose, recover'd from the trance. 1821 BYRON Two Foscari I. i, Happy to escape to death By the compassionate trance, poor nature's last Resource against the tyranny of pain. 1852 H. ROGERS Eclipse of Faith (1864) 296 Paulus thinks that Christ was only in a trance when he seemed to be dead. 1857 DUNGLISON Dict. Med. s.v. Ecstasis, In catalepsy, there is..complete suspension of the intellectual faculties. This last condition is in general described as trance. 1861 GEO. ELIOT Silas M. vii, When Silas Marner was in that strange trance of his. 1899 Syd. Soc. Lex., Trance, catalepsy; ecstasy. The hypnotic state: a prolonged abnormal sleep, in which the vital functions are reduced to a very low ebb, and from which the patients cannot ordinarily be aroused.

Definition 3a

• An intermediate state between sleeping and waking; half-conscious or half-awake condition; a stunned or dazed state.

Quotation

c1386 CHAUCER Sompn. T. 508 The lord sat stille, as he were in a traunce, And in his herte he rolled vp and doun. c1420 ? LYDG. Assembly of Gods 15 And as I so lay half in a traunse, Twene slepyng and wakyng he bad me aryse. Ibid. 2063 All thys I saw as I lay in a traunce. c1530 LD. BERNERS Arth. Lyt. Bryt. (1814) 245 The noble courte..is all in a traunce, in a maner halfe a slepe. 1549 Compl. Scot. xv. 123, I dee daly in ane transe. 1656 W. MONTAGU Accompl. Wom. 17 [They] cannot imagine pensivenesse to be any thing but such a trans, as mad men or sick persons are in. 1757 GRAY Bard 13 Glos'ter stood aghast in speechless trance.

Definition 3b

• A state of mental abstraction from external things; absorption, exaltation, rapture, ecstasy.

Quotation

1434 MISYN Mending Life xii. 128 With swetnes of godis lufe as [he] wer rauischyd in trans, meruelusly rauischid. 1594 SPENSER Amoretti xxxix, Whylest rapt with joy resembling heavenly madnes, My soule was ravisht quite as in a traunce. 1598 BACON Sacr. Medit., Impostors, His..conuersation towards God is full of passion, of zeale, and of traunssis [mispr. tramisses; orig. plena excessus, et zeli, et extasis]. 1632 LITHGOW Trav. I. 32 This imaginary heauenly trance. 1696 PHILLIPS (ed. 5), Trance, an Extasy, a Ravishment or Transportation of the Mind, which puts a Man beside himself. 1756-7 tr. Keysler's Trav. (1760) II. 238 The saint is represented lying in a trance. 1817 MOORE Lalla R., Lt. of Haram Wks. (1824) 313 As, in a kind of holy trance, She hung above those fragrant treasures.

Definition 4

attrib. and Comb., as trance-coma, faculty, -medium, -mediumship, music, -personality, -sleep, speaker, -state, -subject, -utterance, -writing; trance-bound, -eyed, -like adjs.

Quotation

1860 J. G. WHITTIER Home Ballads 90 Shine on us with the light which glowed Upon the trance-bound shepherd's way. 1849 H. MAYO Truths Pop. Superstit. v. 82 So are there three degrees of trance-sleep... The middle grade deserves to be called trance-coma. 1957 C. DAY LEWIS Pegasus 15 A bright bewildered April, a trance-eyed summer. 1909 W. JAMES Mem. & Stud. (1911) viii. 190 All the resources of the automatist, including his or her trance-faculty of telepathy. 1903 F. W. H. MYERS Hum. Personality I. 5 The exceptional trance-history of Emmanuel Swedenborg. 1825 J. NEAL Bro. Jonathan I. 137 Waking out of a trance~like revery. 1878 EMERSON Misc. Papers, Fort. Repub. Wks. (Bohn) III. 389 The trance-mediums..exasperate the common sense. 1886 H. R. HAWEIS Christ & Chr., Light of Ages v. 143 At Delphi..the priests..uttered what a modern spiritualist would call trance-speeches; they became..what are known as trance mediums. 1870 Spiritualist 14 Jan. 37/3 One feature running through the whole range of trance-mediumship, is the fact that the media..feel symptoms of the death pains of the communicating spirits. 1961 Trance-mediumship [see CONTROL n. 4b]. 1970 Guardian 5 June 9/4 The records cover the whole range of Ethiopian music..through cow milking songs to Moslem trance music. 1890 W. JAMES Princ. Psychol. I. viii. 211 The poor passive trance-personality had stuck for weeks in the stagnant dream. 1920 Trance speaker [see AUTOMATIST 2]. 1890 W. JAMES Princ. Psychol. II. xxvii. 601 The suggestion-theory may therefore be approved as correct, provided we grant the trance-state as its prerequisite. 1978 Amer. Speech LIII. 59 Felicitas Goodman describes behavior in trance states accompanying glossolalia in congregations mostly in Mexico. 1880 Trance-subject [see ASSOCIATE n. 7]. 1890 W. JAMES Princ. Psychol. I. x. 394 One curious thing about trance-utterances is their generic similarity in different individuals. 1980 ‘S. WOODS’ Weep for Her 51 So many things are involved...telepathy, clairvoyance, trance utterance, [etc.]. 1911 W. F. BARRETT Psychical Res. xv. 218 The group of controls..manifested themselves also in the trance-writings.

Additional Comments

trance, n.1

Any of various types of music characterized by rhythms and sounds which are intended to be hypnotic or trance-inducing; spec. a type of electronic dance music derived from Acid House and techno (cf. TRANCE DANCE n. 2). Freq. attrib.

In the later spec. use, recorded earliest in trance dance (TRANCE DANCE n. 2): see quot. 1988.

1980 N.Y. Times 4 Aug. C15/1 Lar Lubovitch is one choreographer who has been drawn by the music of such ‘trance’ music pioneers as Steve Reich and Philip Glass. 1988 Times (Nexis) 18 Aug., Distinct styles began to emerge. One was the eccentric and predominantly instrumental sound that has been called a 1980s equivalent of free jazz, music for contemplation, the dance-floor's answer to New Age music, trance dance and acid. 1990 Blitz Oct. 74 Asked to describe his musical preferences, Bicknell..merely mutters the word ‘trance’. 1992 i-D July 78/2 Superb trance house full of spot-on drum drops and trippy noise. 1997 New Yorker 28 Apr. 186/1 During her trips to see Etienne in Marrakech, Blanca had..been inspired by Gnawa, Morocco's trance music. 2000 Big Issue 4 Sept. 30/2 Block and Lisa Lashes justify the extravagant price tag as they pump those burned little brains with an ungodly diet of non-stop trance.