SERVICE
Corine Sombrun grew up in Africa and returned to France to study musicology, piano and composition. She settled in London in 1999 as a musician but also undertook projects for the BBC World Service.
One of those reports (2001) took her to Mongolia, where a highly respected Dahrad shaman recognised her as having unique shamanistic capabilities. She was invited to spend several months a year at the border with Siberia to undertake the rigorous training to become a Shaman. After eight years she thus became the first Western woman fully trained in the Mongolian shamanic tradition.
Her unique experience in the practice of shamanic trance and her ability to self-induce it have been a topic of interest for scientists. She has been collaborating with researchers since 2006, in order to show that this shamanic trance indeed modifies the circuits of cerebral functioning (Flor-Henry et al. 2017).
Further research into it, including in the capacity of any human being to reach such a state in a self-induced way, lead her to develop with E. Le Quéméner (Research Expert, INRA, France) Cognitive Trance Training, a sound-loop based program to help people experience a trance state and teach them how to self-induce it. Tested in various research settings and workshops, a 90% average of the people underwent a trance state. It opens a door to inducing trance to non-trained people as a means to discover some of the neurologic processes at work during the induction. New researches are under way in Belgium with Steven Laureys at Liege University.
Corine collaborates extensively with artists, by leading workshops exploring the influence of trance on creativity (e.g. at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in France) and more recently with the HEC Paris Executive Education by leading Cognitive Trance Training programs.
She has written several books translated into many languages, including In Geronimo's footsteps, Les esprits de la steppe, La diagonale de la joie and Mon initiation chez les Chamanes (Adapted for cinema in 2019 Un monde plus grand directed by Fabienne Berthaud, with Cécile de France).
12.04.2021