The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain involved in focus, planning, emotional regulation, and decision making.

When you enter a One ONEIRA trance-like state, stress chemistry reduces which allows the prefrontal cortex to re-engage more effectively.

This supports:
• clearer thinking
• better emotional regulation
• greater capacity to respond, rather than react

So much of this work is about restoring access to the part of the brain that helps you lead yourself well.

The Default Mode Network (DMN) is active during self-reflection, imagination, and internal storytelling. It also plays a role in rumination and overthinking.

During guided trance work, the DMN becomes more flexible and receptive to new interpretations and perspectives.

This creates the conditions for:
• quieter mental noise
• softer self-criticism
• new identity narratives to establish

It’s one of the ways “I AM” statements begin to feel more true.

The Reticular Activating System (RAS) helps filter what you notice in the world, based on what the brain believes is important or relevant.

When you repeatedly focus on your Future Self, desired identity, and solution-focused intentions, the RAS begins to orient your attention toward experiences that confirm and support those directions.

In simple terms: what we repeatedly attend to becomes easier for the brain to find.

The nervous system learns through felt safety and repetition.

One ONEIRA sessions support parasympathetic activity: the state associated with rest, repair, and emotional steadiness.

From this place, the brain is more able to:
• release stress responses
• integrate new learning
• build stability from the inside out

Neuroplasticity refers to the brain’s ability to re-wire connections based on experience.

When identity-level suggestions are paired with:
• emotional congruence
• repetition
• safety

Your brain begins to rehearse new internal patterns. Over time, these can become the default.

Polyvagal Theory describes how the autonomic nervous system continually scans for cues of safety or threat. Depending on what it detects, we move between different physiological states; from calm and connected, to mobilised and stressed, to shutdown and withdrawal.

Hypnosis and guided state work help the system register felt safety, supporting a shift toward the ventral vagal state, the branch associated with:

• grounded calm
• emotional steadiness
• clearer thinking
• social connection and openness

From this regulated state, the brain becomes more receptive to learning and change. Insight integrates more easily. Self-protection softens. Internal narratives can gently reorganise, without force or overwhelm.

Over time, this helps build nervous-system flexibility and the ability to return to steadiness more easily after stress.

*Applied insight offers a helpful lens for understanding regulation and safety. Human experience is complex and individual, so responses to this work naturally vary.