No pointy-headed alien or scaly demon has taken charge of your brain. As a corollary, your behavior while in the trance feels automatic, autonomous, out of your control. You may make decisions as a surgeon, for instance, but your stance at the table, your tone of voice, and your habits of mind are unconscious, unguided, ingrained. A trance tends to repeat. If you just managed it better . . .
Trances are universal.
We can't operate for long without being in a trance of one kind or another. We often need them to narrow our focus. Erickson focused at length on ways to induce trance to help clients with the problems they brought to him. Psychologist Stephen Wolinsky has taken Erickson's work a step further. In the process, they gain control of the trance.