ok…this is weird. Because I went back and checked, and you’re right. He had his eyes closed when he was on the train and then whacked the snake.

I was like, nah…this isn’t a thing right? So I went back to the first time where he saw the snake, ALL the way in chapter 2, and he ALSO had his eyes closed then. And that was when he didn’t have an idea of the Spirit-state at all.

So Max is able to immediately and unintentionally go into the second layer on his own without any assistance.

But with his eyes closed, we still don’t know if he is using the regular powers the other spectrals used to get into this form, or if there is something else going on.