Meditating is really no different from self-hypnosis. When you meditate, you are putting yourself into hypnosis. Usually. If you are doing it right. Hypnosis is an extremely relaxed state where your consious, critical mind is pulled back somewhat from your subconscious, and is not sleeping, but is like a second cousin to it. Very much the way meditation is described here. I prefer to know it by the name hypnosis, because then you can do some really interesting things with it.