The relationship between madness and genius is intimate. So, too, the relationship between what we might call trance and metaphysics. Genius partakes of madness, but represents, perhaps, a more stable instance of the associated phenomenon. Metaphysics may similarly involve trance — yet is not precisely an extrapolation of it. In the latter case, we might say that trance is often a side-effect of conscious contact with the metaphysical. But it may often mimic this, and be little more than a kind of inspired (or even mad) dreaming.