Go into a trance to get out of the pain

The rhythm of the percussion is heavy, low and slow like a heartbeat. It induces swaying movements. Slowly, he accelerates, when the body is in tune with the stick striking the skin of the drum. The movements are less and less controlled, faster, sometimes accompanied by cries in an oppressive atmosphere. We have seen these images, read stories of shamanic rites, with all that they entail of mysteries, “show” and decorum.

“This type of rite has always existed through the ages. Even today in certain communities”, recognizes Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, neuropsychologist and researcher at GIGA Consciousness at the University of Liège. “But historically, the advent of science has gradually pushed back what we did not understand. Hypnosis or trance have been considered as role-playing, spectacles without objective reality. Today, the movement is clearly reversed and there is more and more interest in these states which can help to better understand how the brain works and consciousness.”

The University of Liège enjoys international recognition in the study of the brain and consciousness thanks to the work of Pierre Maquet on sleep disorders, Steven Laureys on coma and associated states and Marie-Élisabeth Faymonville on hypnosis. It is therefore quite naturally that Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse and Olivia Gosseries, researchers from the GIGA Consciousness created by Steven Laureys, became interested in this modified state of consciousness.

“Like hypnosis or meditation, self-induced cognitive trance is a voluntary altered state of consciousness. The question is whether, like these other altered states of consciousness, it can have positive effects on the quality of life or the treatment of certain pathologies“, asks Gosseries.

The researchers are following in the footsteps of other work launched in the wake of Corine Sombrun. At the time a composer and director of a music school in Nantes, Sombrun discovered Mongolia about twenty years ago to recover from a loss of love. She discovers the shamanic rites there, between herself in a trance when she was only a spectator and becomes a wolf! After this first experience, she swings between perplexity and curiosity, finally leaning towards the second attitude. She continues her initiation until she becomes a shaman herself. But above all she tries to give scientific truth to the trance state.

“The state of trance results in sounds, uncontrolled movements and above all very intense mental imagery, a different perception of reality. Patients who experience it feel animal, take on body with their environment… “, says Gosseries. Corine Sombrun shares her experience with the scientific world which studies the functioning of his brain in this trance state. Because far from the theatrical side of ancestral rites, trance actually modifies brain activity. While in a normal state the left hemisphere is usually predominant, that of analytical intelligence, in a trance state it is the right hemisphere taking over, working on perceptions and intuition.

Corine Sombrun has since developed a method to voluntarily go into a tranceusing a digital sound loop in particular, but also by “simple” self-induction, in total autonomy, without using sounds. And it works, which increases the number of subjects for analysis and research.

But research to lead to what, beyond the fact of observing the functioning of the brain in such moments? “Already, we must understand why some may reach this state more easily than otherseven if in absolute terms everyone can do it,” notes Gosseries.

And like hypnosis, self-induced cognitive trance can intervene in the management of disorders, to better treat them or control them. “Schizophrenia, for example, is a state similar to that of trance. Progress in the study and understanding of this phenomenon would make it possible to better dominate crises. It could also help to better manage other types of psychiatric pathologies“, believes Vanhaudenhuyse. “Today, we can no longer separate the body and the spirit. A global approach is needed to restore well-being to the patient. The approach to consciousness is no longer reserved for philosophers alone.

An additional tool to better care for the well-being of the patient, that’s what it’s all about. Various studies are carried out in this direction around the world. In Liège, research focuses in particular on patients in oncology and how trance can help them deal with the fatigue, sleep disturbances, chronic pain, anxiety or subjective cognitive disorders that are a consequence of their treatment. In Geneva, the approach aims to treat epilepsy…

“Subjects in a state of trance claim to see their strengths multiplied. What impact can this have on the management of pain or weakness resulting from treatment? This should allow them to feel better and to fight against certain physical or psychological blockages“, believes Gosseries again.

But the researchers insist, these trances are done in a medical setting with trained people (three years of training necessary!) “and only if we can do the same thing without using trance“. “As for hypnosis, the use that is made of it in a medical environment has nothing to do with that which can be seen on a show stage…”