2. What is a hypnotic "trance" ?

2.2. Are there potential clues in 'trance logic?'

One particular researcher, psychiatrist M.T. Orne of the University of Pennsylvania, finally concluded that objective correlates werenot to be found in the available physiological measurements of the time, and that they were apparently of no value in determining whether a hypnotized subject was 'truly hypnotized' or 'simulating hypnosis.'

Orne, who did recognize from both highly consistent verbal reports of hypnotized subjects and from various clinical and empirical studies that there was indeed something unique about hypnosis in at least some subjects, concluded that that he would have to use verbal reports of subjective experience rather than rely on measurements. He carried out a series of clever experiments which seemed to establish a reliable way of distinguishing simulators from hypnotized subjects by their verbal reports. The resulting alteration of mental function was found to be present in nearly all deeply hypnotized subjects, and almost never found to the same degree in people who were not hypnotized but were motivated to simulate hypnotic phenomena.

The most obvious aspects of this alteration of function were dubbed 'trance logic,' and appeared to correlate well with the anecdotal reports of the clinicians like Milton Erickson who had long considered verbal reports of hypnotized subjects to be valuable in distinguishing what was going on in hypnosis.