Learn to create a light, momentary trance in people for various uses. When your conscious awareness is focused entirely on internal experience, NLP refers to this as “downtime.” The Downtime state is a subset type of trance phenomenon and can help initiate or deepen trance. It can help you manage an interaction as a brief, light trance, as occurs in a trans-derivational search.

Many techniques are used to stimulate downtime, and they are used not only to produce trance, but also patience, introspection, and receptiveness. On the other hand, uptime refers to a more worldly state of awareness that emphasizes external awareness that is effectively informed by internal awareness. Limit your surroundings.

Set up a distraction-free environment for this pattern. Focus on your internal representational systems (the sub-steps below will help you). Attend to each mode as fully as possible.

a. Pay attention to your auditory senses, including your inner voice and any memories or fantasies that arise.Remember something, and focus totally on the sounds involved.

b. Shift your mental attention to the visual mode.Include memories and fantasies that arise. Choose a memory and focus all your awareness on the visual aspect.

c. Attend to your emotional and physical needs for a while. Now think of a memory and focus on your emotional and physical reactions to it. Compare those feelings to how you feel about the memory and how your body feels right now as you recall it. How hard is the surface you are on now?

d. Recognize your preferences.Come up with a memory of eating something tasty. Notice that you have various senses involved in your memory.

Focus your mind entirely on remembering the taste.

Notice how taste is more than one sensation, since much of what we associate with food has to do with its consistency, such as chewiness.

e. Shift your awareness of this memory to smell. Notice how you can separate taste and smell.

You can anchor downtime. To do this, fold your hands and gradually increase the pressure of your palms pressing together as you progress through the rep systems. Then use it to create a basic trance or awareness meditation.

Doing the above tip and focusing on rep systems in sequence will improve internal sensory awareness. Imagine running through a hypothetical behavior sequence, rotating through the above rep systems. You could start with something simple like walking. Identify your weakest rep system and repeat this exercise several times, focusing on that system. To improve your ability to integrate your senses, practice this exercise while paying attention to all systems. You can start by quickly rotating through them or blending them as you would sub-modalities.