Guided Imagery and Trances

I was asked if I wanted to sit up or lie down. I wanted to lie down on the couch. I was asked to uncross my legs. I did so. Then in a soft monotone voice, I was told to concentrate on my breathing. In and out. I was asked to slow down my breathing. Two counts in and two counts out. I concentrated on my breathing for some time and it was suggested that I listen to the sounds around me, sounds of the office, sounds of her voice, sounds of the clock on the wall. It was suggested that I then filter out the other sounds and just concentrate on her voice.

I was told that there was a person there beside me to protect me. I was asked If I could sense the person near me, and if so, to raise the index finger on my right hand. I thought about it for a moment then raised my finger.

Her narration went like this:

You are in up in the mountains. There are trees there, perhaps fir, pine and aspen with the breeze blowing. The sun is shining down through the trees. You hear a brook close by and you can hear the water flowing down the mountain. You decide to follow the stream. There are twenty rocks by the side of the stream. You start to walk down them. The numbers are counted slowly following my breathing 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 - take a deep breath in and hold - 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Then continuing, you have reached the bottom and see a meadow with grass, flowers and trees. You walk down a path. Is the soil tan, brown, or grass? You look and see a little girl by a tree. She is all alone and you go towards her. You see that she is sad and you give her a hug. As you hug her, all of her pain comes to you. You exchange your love with her pain. Your love goes to her. You can hold her as long as you want to. There is no need to rush. When you feel it is time to go you shake your head. You can decide to take the little girl with you or leave her near the tree. If you decide to take her along, shake your head.

I decided to take the little girl with me. We walked to an empty field except there were parcels scattered around. They were parcels of pain. You have experienced pain in your life and you go around and gather up the parcels of pain. The little girl helps you to lift and stack them up. Some are harder to lift than the others. At some point, she asked if it was all right to touch my hand. I acknowledged that it was. She held my hand for a time. Some are too hard to lift. You need help lifting them. The little girl lifts some of them for you and I will help you. Once you have stacked all the parcels up on top of each other you find some matches and kerosene. Together you and the little girl light a fire and burn up all the parcels. One by one they start on fire and the smoke rises up from the parcels. At first the smoke is think, but after a while the smoke becomes lighter and thinner. You watch as the parcels of pain burn away and you feel relief.

You want to return up the mountain, and you want to take the little girl with you. You find a very special place for her beside your heart and begin to walk back through the meadow, past the trees, and back on the ledge where you climb the rocks one by one. When you reach the place where you began, you listen for the ticking of the clock in the office, the sounds of the office and then on count of three you feel yourself lying on the couch and wake up.

This was the first time I had experienced guided imagery. I had a hard time at first relaxing, but after a while, I could follow along on the journey. I did feel better afterwards and believe it is a great way to get over certain hangups.

As I was telling my husband about the experience, I was sharing with him how the therapist spoke in monotone and taking him along with the images. He was driving me home, and I noticed that he was sitting at a totally green light - rather than going through it. I think I had him in a trance. So, if you plan to use this for your family or children, make sure no one is using machinery of any kind.