By that I mean... whenever I try and go into trance, I start itching. I don't think trancing itself causes me to itch, but rather, it's just normal itching and because I'm so relaxed I notice every little itch with extreme detail.

There's also things like minor muscle cramps or twitches, sneezing, coughing, etc.

Basically I can't fucking go under because my body refuses to shut the fuck up and just listen to the voice telling me to do sexy things.

What do?

I know what you mean, I'm so twitchy that I just notice everything moving in my body when I try to relax. I wear glasses and when I relax I notice they're crooked and I can't get them straight but I still try to adjust them when I take them off. And then I eventually notice my heartbeat and I can't not hear it or feel it pounding in my chest.

The more I think about relaxing the less it happens. Getting to sleep is a hassle too....

I'm probably not the best person to give advice on this since I've yet to have a successful hypnotic experience (damn it all to hell), but I've had this problem too sometimes when trying. Especially



that. One thing I can advise is to make absolutely sure that the position you're in is comfortable for you. And not just for a few minutes. I once had a time when I thought I was in a comfortable position, and then after about 10 minutes, my leg cramped up and started having a spasm.

I've been lucky with most physical distractions, though, since my body tends to go entirely numb when I relax enough. I still get itches occasionally as well as the heartbeat problem, but sometimes it just takes concentration to get past them.

As Mindwipe said, comfort helps, but I've always found meditation to really make good hypnosis "practice". And I don't mean sit and think for a while. Quite the opposite.

When meditating, the point is to focus on nothing. Usually the beginner works on only paying attention to their breathing. Everytime the mind strays you breathe deeper and focus on that breath.

What I used to do when I couldn't sleep was just repeat in my mind over and over, "Go to sleep, PomPom" very quickly. Id try to minimize stray thoughts and only focus on those fast moving words. Now I can just kinda slip into that unfocused state after I weened myself off of even thinking of the words I had been repeating. That unfocused state helps, although the practice is best with just focusing on the words. Hear, don't listen.

Does that make sense?

I do exactly this. When I have trouble sleeping, I focus on thinking only of sleep. Eventually, I just drift off. It works perfectly 99% of the time.

This is a bit off-topic, but bear with me. Who knows, something I say here might help you discover a way to solve that itching problem.

There's actually science behind this. When your thoughts are everywhere when you're trying to sleep, it's because your mind believes those thoughts are important. When your mind thinks something is important, it brings it up for consideration.

Remember that you are not just one, single, whole being, but a being made up of a number of smaller systems, which are made up of billions upon billions of smaller, more specialized beings. Even if your conscious mind may want to sleep, the rest of your systems might have other ideas.

What you need to do in order to stop these rampant thoughts is to convince your mind that they are NOT important, at least not at the moment.

One reason your mind has these thoughts is to keep focus on them, lest you forget to handle them. As such, one way to sleep when experiencing these thoughts is to write them down. If you write them down, your mind realizes that it doesn't have to think about them anymore in order to not forget, because you made a physical record of the thought that you can return to after you sleep, thus allowing it to focus on sleeping instead.

Another way to convince your mind that they're not important is to forcefully focus on just the concept of sleeping. If you consciously force yourself to focus solely on sleeping, the rest of your mind will inevitably realize that you're prioritizing sleep over those other thoughts and let up. The conscious mind is the overall decision maker - it came to be in order to handle decisions that required time and critical thought - as such, if the conscious mind adamantly says "sleep", then the rest of the mind will eventually cave in and follow suit.



The interesting part with me and meditation is that I have an extremely hyperactive mind. My stream of thoughts literally cannot be interrupted. It is impossible for me to think of nothing and focus on that nothing. Every time I try, my natural curiosity in psychology gets in the way as I start to study the very state of my own mind. Rather, the only way I can enter a state of meditation is to give a quality to that nothing.

For example, rather than think of "an empty, white abyss" as my nothing, I'll give it a texture, such that it becomes an "empty, white abyss that is rough to the touch", and then imagine running my hand over its surface. Or I might watch it change shape in my head. That "empty, white abyss" might end up turning into a cube, then a sphere, then a cone, and I'll just end up focusing on imagining the shifts between the shapes.

In other words, rather than think of nothing, I have to bombard my mind with sensory information, real or imagined. Doing so and focusing solely on this sensory information gives order and structure to my thoughts, allowing me to enter a sort of meditative trance. If I use outside sensory stimulation for this, it can end up literally making me feel like I'm part of the environment around me. It's a lot like you imagine the cliche concept of "one with nature" to feel.

When I have trouble sleeping I try to relax my whole body and feel like I'm paralyzed. It helps that my sheets are really soft so they sort of start feeling like some sort of plush foam I'm stuck in. It's really comfy; I used to do it in the pool, but that just looked like I'd died, so I stopped.

I don't do too well in attempted trances, though, as I just end up doing metacognition and thinking too much about the thoughts I'm having or supposed to have and keeping myself too aware of what's going on. I pay lots of attention to things I find weird or don't match up with others, so it's really easy for me to snap out of it. So far, I haven't really been able to tell whether any suggestions I've been given actually worked or not.

I always have.... similar issues when trying to go under trance or even just sleep.

My mind races around like crazy and I'm always thinking or worrying about... SOMETHING. It's almost impossible for me to not think of anything...

Then if I end up getting an itch or become uncomfortable, well the whole thing gets messed up and I just can't relax.

Reading to what Vanndril said about trying to focus on one thing and focusing on that thing only instead of focusing on thinking of nothing I think could help me with that, specifically since when I try to think about "nothing" my mind begins to think about other things even more and I can't seem to push those thoughts away for the most part.

If that makes sense.

First off, I'm pretty sure I suck at this meditation stuff, so I'm not sure how useful/effective this trick is, but no harm telling it here I guess.

I'm one of those types who can't really think of nothing, as something always seems to float up from the subconscious stream of thought whenever I try. And focusing on one thing doesn't really work that well since my mind's trying to go on tangents all the time. What I do is focus on the act of focusing itself, making a mental hamster wheel of sorts, and that kind of works for me. For some reason when I'm doing this I get a feeling of 'looking' inward, like my eyes suddenly rotated 180 decrees.

And just to remind folks, I'm horrible at this shit, so for all I know I'm just getting so bored I mistake that for relaxation.

You sound like the sort who should try thinking of only one thing at a time instead of one thing ever. If you have trouble focusing on one thing and one thing only, then let your mind shift gears when it feels natural to do so and focus intently on whatever it is you're thinking about at that moment, pushing everything ELSE away. The way I see it, meditation is all about giving a strict structure to your usually-bombarded mind's thought processes, which allows the mind to relax. Granted, that can be a difficult concept to grasp, let alone put into action.

You also might just want to keep trying whatever it is you're doing. I mean, focusing on the art of focusing is pretty much focusing on one thing and one thing only, so, to me, it almost sounds like you're contradicting yourself a little.



That's more or less what happens to me. When I try to think of nothing, I start thinking about how I'm trying to think of nothing and consider the impact on the psyche that thinking of nothing has. In addition, I tend to start pondering if one can actually be empty of thought at all, or if the closest we can come without being dead is simply thinking of an "empty page of thought" (like the empty, black/white plane most people visualize when "thinking of nothing"). In other words, the very fact that I'm trying to think of nothing amuses and intrigues me, which is kind of self-defeating.

I figured that we really can't think of nothing and that we just use the thoughts of "thinking of nothing" as an abstract focus. It's something the human mind can't easily wrap itself around, so it keeps the mind busy, but it's also a very relaxed sort of busy which is distracting you from all of the stress the mind would otherwise be focused on. By extension, I believe that any singular focus can do the same. That's why I do what I do, and it certainly seems to work for me.