“Through Trance Dancing you are filled with Spirit, whole and present.

This is the opposite to an out of body experience.”

– Frank Natale

How Trance Dance Works and How It Feels

Endorphins

The theory of why trance is induced, at least initially, has to do with endorphins. Endorphins are neuro hormones, substances highly similar in structure and function to opiates. They are generated in the body and are released under various conditions, such as pain, stress, acupuncture, sex, long distance running and Trance Dancing.

Within contemporary endorphin science there is a theory that endorphins are also released in states of spiritual embodiment and during high energy dancing. In the 1980 conference on “Shamans and Endorphins” it was reported that “Hypnotic analgesia and endorphin-based analgesia result from drum and dance activity and that the powerful visions or dream states that occur through Trance Dancing may activate both hypnotic and endorphin analgesia.” In other words, the music, the dancing and the trance all create feelings of ecstasy.

Being Present

When you identify yourself as a body rather than a Spirited being, you will search naively for “out of body” experiences. Trance Dancing does not work like this. It invites Spirit to return home to the body, which makes you more Spirited. You merge with your greater self and become so filled with Spirit that your body is no longer your primary focus and identification. You then experience being one with the Universal Spirit or what I call the “Incomprehensible Collective Consciousness.”

Through Trance Dancing you are filled with Spirit, whole and present. This is the opposite to an out of body experience.

Being spirited or present means you become so filled with Spirit that it fills you totally until you overflow, so that you connect with the incomprehensible. This feels like you are out of your body because you identify yourself as Spirit or energy rather than just a body.

When this is done with other dancers your individual Spirits merge and a conscious collective ecstatic experience occurs. Energy, endorphins, organic opiates and healing energies are set free; a channel is opened up to the life-giving powers and a vital energizing takes place. The more dancers, the more Spirit; the more Spirit, the more energy; the more energy, the more intense the spiritual ecstasy.