The word trance often brings with it a wave of assumptions – loud parties, flashing lights, and altered states fueled by substances. For many, especially outside the electronic music community, trance is wrongly reduced to a reckless experience. As a Devotional Psytrance Music Producer and a Spiritual Person, this narrow view doesn’t sit right with me.
Because to me, trance is not a party. It’s a practice.
It’s not about escaping life. It’s about touching something far more real than the noise of daily existence.
What Trance Means to Me
For me, trance is energy. A spiritual frequency. A state of consciousness that connects us with our true essence.
When I create devotional psytrance music, I don’t just design sound – I open a portal. I work with rhythm and vibration to guide listeners into a deep meditative space, where the mind quiets, the ego softens, and the soul feels safe to emerge.
To me, trance is a state of bliss – not the synthetic kind, but a natural, elevated awareness that lives within all of us. It’s the same trance spoken about in spiritual traditions:
- the trance of a mystic in meditation,
- of a shaman in ceremony,
- of a dancer who becomes the dance.
- of an artist who becomes the art.
It’s the stillness behind the sound. The silence inside the beat.
How Trance Is Often Misunderstood
The modern world has confused trance with the environment it sometimes exists in. Yes, trance music often lives in clubs, festivals, and yes – those spaces can include substance use. But that’s not the music’s truth, nor its purpose.
Trance was never meant to be reduced to a “rave.”
TRANCE is a ritual.
TRANCE is a resonance.
TRANCE is a return – to self, to breath, to the moment.
It belongs to everyone, not just to a scene. It’s not reserved for the spiritually elite or the “party people.” It’s for anyone willing to listen with presence.
Rethinking the Word “Rave”
Much like trance, the word rave is often misunderstood. It’s been reduced in popular culture to mean substance abuse and reckless partying – but that’s far from its true essence.
A rave, at its heart, is a collective ritual – a space for connection, movement, energy, and emotional release. It’s a modern expression of something ancient: people coming together through rhythm and dance to enter states of deep presence and transformation.
A rave isn’t a rebellion. It’s a return.
Want to dive deeper into this idea?
👉 Read my blog post: “Rave – A Misunderstood Word”
Why It Matters
Words shape perceptions. And when we misunderstand something as powerful as trance – or reduce it to surface-level assumptions – we miss out on its deeper gifts.
In a world filled with distractions, noise, and disconnection, trance and raves can be bridges. They remind us that rhythm is ancient. That sound can heal. That altered states don’t have to come from outside, but from within.
That’s why I care about how trance – and rave culture – is seen.
That’s why I make the music I do.
Because I believe trance is not something we consume – it’s something we awaken.
And a rave is not somewhere we lose ourselves – it’s where we can find ourselves again.
An Invitation
So, I invite you – next time you hear a trance track, don’t just hear it. Feel it.
Don’t just dance to it – let it move through you.
Close your eyes. Breathe with the beat. Let go. Let in.
Let yourself remember:
Trance is not an escape.
Trance is a return.
[Kapalini Trance]