alwayson4,

From hours of trancing continuously my experience is that trance is not the key ingredient, but happens along the way. I was capable of trancing well rather soon, but trance is not the secret of meditation, but only one of the things that happens along the way, IMO. While I got some interesting experiences during trance, only meditative training gave me experiences that are results of meditation, like increasing one-pointedness, detached observer state, etc.

I personally think that the key is more training the use of your awareness:

* Focus on a single thing continuously.
* Being capable of attaining a state of detached observation, like a meta-awareness.

Pretty much like Tom said.

What Robert describes is meditation according to the principles of pure concentration, what Tom described is meditation more along the lines of mindfulness. It seems to me for observing the mind mindfulness might be more appropriate, which I came to think also because of personal experience.

This requires training the mind, and trance itself does not help with it. I had trances where the incessant chatter just went on, the mind sped up or slowed, but the practice bestowed no peace. I think trance alone cannot do that or is the key. An untamed monkey mind stays an untamed monkey mind in trance, too, according to my experiences.

IMO trance is tuning to another frequency band, but it does not change the awareness perceiving that band. Meditation is actually changing the observing awareness gradually so that it can observe what actually is going on by detaching like Tom described. Trance just shifts the mind's primary focus out of the physical. If the mind is untrained, it still just goes on and on and not much is gained, IMO.

Oliver