200.08 - Monitoring

MMHA calls these External Trance Indicators - or ETI’s. We could have a Celebrity Deathmatch throw-down arguing back and forth if trance is important or not, or we could just join powers and add ETI’s to our toolbag. (And we could also agree to never bring up Celebrity Deathmatch again.)

ET Whats?

Here are things you can point out (and suggest increasing) if you see them happening.

• Breathing Change (And you may not have noticed your breathing slowing down…)
• Head Tilt (As your head slowly tilts forward…)
• Posture change (As you shift as you sink deeper…)
• A sigh (As that last breath out automatically allows the tiniest amount of tension to leave…)
• Slowed Movements (Point out how slowly their arm moves with a levitation suggestion… ask if it’s normal… do they usually move their arm like that, or is something happening automatically?)
• Slower Blink Reflex (And you may be noticing just how much harder it is to keep your eyelids up, each time they blink.)
• Eyelids Fluttering (Feeling your eyelids fluttering… as you find yourself relaxing…)
• Facial tone - (Finding all the little muscles in your face beginning to relax… your brow… your scalp… your jaw…)

Other stuff

There’s some other indicators - some of these you probably don’t want to point out for obvious reasons. I’ve never seen some of these before, but it was enough for MMHA to mention them. Worst case - you’ll be focused on your subject.

• Muscle Twitches (“And some people… when they begin to enter trance, find that they begin to twitch, almost as if they’re going to sleep… just like how your fingers moved a second ago.” Be careful with this one - calling out fidgeting can sometimes rouse your partner.)
• Skin color on the face and neck
• Hypnotic rash appearing in the hull of the throat
• Lacrimation (tearing up) - sometimes, your subject is just stressed or has dry eyes. If you’re new to working with them and they’re tearing up, you might want to check in.