i meant to reply to this comment a while ago. i really appreciate the detailed response! a lot of this is super interesting to me.
i think (for me) the most interesting point you made is that being zoned out is a light trance state, and that, as i understand it, being focused (or "in the zone") is as well. in my experience these kinds of mental states are not only possible to induce through games but pretty commonplace. off the top of my head, i can say i have definitely experienced both of these kinds of states in minecraft, for example.
obviously as someone who has no experience being hypnotized specifically, i have no idea if it's possible to go from a state of being "in the zone" to any other interesting kind of trance state. that definitely seems like the most accessible kind of altered mental state, at least for someone like me... i can easily get "in the zone" in most creative games i think (e.g. i definitely have felt this kind of state when building stuff in mario maker or littlebigplanet).
along those lines, i think, you know, it's easy for me to accept "oh yeah, being zoned out is a trance state... that makes sense!" as i'm reading it now. but when i go into something that is explicitly stated to be hypnosis related, rather than say, a really chill kind of game to zone out to, i still do not know what specifically i am meant to be feeling, and i think that's part of why i come away thinking it didn't really accomplish anything at all. i think getting inexperienced players in one of these more commonplace mental states and then being like "yo, heads up, if you're zoned out right now, fun fact, you're in a trance state... do you want to go deeper?" might be a more effective strategy.
again, of course, i have literally no idea what i'm talking about. but. this definitely made me think. again thank you so much for this detailed reply!