Trance

Trance is an altered state of consciousness in which a person seems detached from their immediate surroundings while remaining active in another way. In many divinatory traditions, it is the path through which the seer, the shaman or the medium says they receive their perceptions: the Pythia at Delphi, possession cults, trance mediumship. The human sciences study it as a real cultural and psychological phenomenon, whatever spiritual interpretation is given to it.