Delimitations

In comparison to broad, panoramic mindfulness, any focused and therefore limited attention is considered a trance. The increased focus of attention on certain aspects of sensory experience is accompanied by a weak or strongly reduced alertness, depending on the depth of the trance state.

A more precise scientific distinction is made:
Degrees of alertness are referred to here as stages of vigilance.

The consciousness researcher Charles Tart describes the state of average or normal attention as an everyday trance. Tart describes attention in its social constitution and function as a consensus trance. In this perspective, any kind of concentration is considered a trance, so that hypnosis would prove to be the highest state of concentration achievable in waking life.

Trance-like states of consciousness can also occur during various activities such as sport, lovemaking, activities that also require a high level of concentration and in extreme (psychological) situations.