Over the years many definitions and theories have
been presented about what the hypnotic state is. Some scientists
even deny that there is a state called hypnosis! In fact, you experience
the hypnotic or trance state every day, probably without even being
aware of it. If you have ever been so involved in a book, movie,
television program, or even a daydream, that you did not hear someone
speaking to you, you have experienced trance. Or, if you have driven
somewhere in your car and, upon arriving, been unable to remember
the journey, you have experienced trance. As well, brain scientists
tell us that we all experience a light trance state approximately
every 90 minutes as part of the way our brains process and store
information. This is part of what are called the Ultradian Rhythms.
Although books, movies and television have often portrayed hypnosis
as strange and mysterious, the province of sideshows and faith healers,
hypnosis is not in the least supernatural or mysterious. You have
been in trance literally thousands of times without noticing because
it is a natural state of mind. That is why people often disbelieve
at first that they have been hypnotized because trance is not a
unique feeling. Unfortunately, the myths and misunderstandings presented
in the popular media have of clouded the value of hypnosis for making
positive changes to how you feel and act.
Science has demonstrated that we are all of two minds, a conscious
and an unconscious mind. Although your conscious mind directs your
moment to moment activities, the conscious mind is very small and
limited in its capacity, being able to process only 5 to 9 pieces
of information at any time. That is why telephone numbers tend to
be only 7 numbers long! All the other millions of pieces of information
you receive each moment are processed and stored by the unconscious
mind.
Hypnosis is a process designed to assist a person to enter that
state of mind called trance, during which the critical function
of the conscious mind is by-passed and direct communication is established
with the unconscious mind. Contrary to popular preconception, you
do not give up any control in the trance state. In fact, since your
core beliefs and values are stored unconsciously, you are more in
control, and less likely to act against your values in trance than
while “conscious”. Indeed, trance is achieved only when
you voluntarily agree to cooperate in being lead by the hypnotherapist
to learn a process, called hypnosis, for the purpose of entering
trance and accessing unconscious resources. All hypnosis is really
self-hypnosis. You are always in control of the process.
The conscious mind is designed to analyze, reason and judge. It
decides what is right and wrong, and what can and cannot be done.
Consequently, the limitations that you experience in your life are
often the result of limitations in your conscious understanding
of “map” of the world, not in the world itself. Facilitating
direct communication with your unconscious mind through hypnosis
provides access to powerful resources. Your unconscious mind is
the reservoir of everything that you have experienced and learned
throughout your lifetime.
Your unconscious mind also runs your body, managing blood flow,
heart rate, digestion, and communicating on an ongoing basis with
the immune system. Scientific evidence exists which indicates that
mental processes, including beliefs, thoughts and emotions, affect
your body down to the cellular level. In hypnosis, the conscious,
critical mind is bypassed and you can access and make changes on
the emotional, psychological, even chemical and physical levels.
Hypnosis has been around since the dawn of recorded time, and at
least to the time of the ancient Babylonians, Greeks and Egyptians.
It was know to Hippocrates. Indeed, hypnosis is named after the
Greek word for sleep, hypnos, although the actual state of hypnosis
is very different from sleep. It has, however, been called different
names, by different cultures, different religions, and different
individuals. The use of chants, drumming, and monotonous dancing
rituals to change or alter consciousness fall under the definition
of hypnosis. Such methods have been used successfully by the Druids,
Vikings, Indian Yogis, Dervishes, Hindu priests, and holy men of
all religions and denominations for centuries. In 2600 BC, the father
of Chinese medicine, Wong Tai, wrote about techniques that involved
incantations and passes of the hands. Accounts of what we would
now call hypnosis can also be found in the Bible, the Talmud, and
The Hindu Vedas written about 1500 B.C..
1775: Dr. Franz Mesmer developed healing by animal magnetism
or mesmerism, which was later renamed hypnosis.
1784: Count Maxime de Puysegur discovered a form of deep trance
he called somnambulism.
1821: First reports were received of painless dentistry and surgery
in France using magnetism. Many breakthroughs were made by such
Frenchmen as Ambrose Liebeault (1823-1904), J. M. Charcot (1825-93)
a Paris neurologist, and Charles Richet (1850-1935).
1791-1868: John Elliotson, president of the Royal Medical and Surgical
Society of London and a professor at London University, professed
belief in mesmerism and used hypnotic trance to perform 1,834 surgical
operations.
1795-1860: A Scottish eye doctor and physician, James Braid, renamed
mesmerism as hypnosis.
1845-53: A British surgeon in India, James Esdail, performed 2,000
painless operations, even amputations, with the patients under hypno-anaesthesia.
1857-1926: Another Frenchman, Emile Coue, pioneered the use of autosuggestion
and the use of affirmations such as his now famous phrase, “Day
by day in every way I am getting better and better”.
1883-1887: Sigmund Freud, father of cathartic method, free association
and psychoanalysis, became interested in hypnosis and began to practice
it. Not being very good at it, he went on to develop psychoanalysis
instead!
1891: The British Medical Association reported favourably on use
of hypnosis in the field of medicine.
1901-80: Milton H. Erickson MD, the recognized leading authority
on clinical hypnosis and a master of indirect hypnosis, was able
to put a person into a trance without even mentioning the word hypnosis.
1914: World War I ushered in a new era of hypnosis. The revival
was due to the multiplicity of paralytic and amnesia cases with
psychogenic origin and few psychiatrists available.
1925-1947: The use of hypnosis in dentistry was developed in the
United States.
1950s Both the British Medical Association and the American Medical
Association issued statements supporting the usefulness of hypnosis
as a form of therapy.
1962: A brain operation was performed under hypnosis in Indianapolis
in the United States.
1993: The journal New Scientist published the results of largest
survey ever recorded of stopping smoking methods reporting that
hypnosis was proven to be the most effective.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92) repeated names to himself like a
hypnotic mantra in order to access different states of consciousness
in which whole poems came to him.
Mozart (1756-91) apparently composed the famous opera Cosi
fan tutte while hypnotized.
Rachmaninov (1873-1943) reputedly composed one of his concertos
following a posthypnotic suggestion.
Goethe (1749-1832) writer and scientist and,
Chopin (1810-1849) pianist and composer both took classes in hypnosis
at the University of Strasbourg.
Thomas Edison (1847-193 1) inventor,
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) inventor,
Henry Ford (1863-1947) car manufacturer,
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) physicist, and
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) novelist all used trance-like states to
develop their ideas.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) politician counted backwards in
3s in order to stay awake all night and avoid tiredness during World
War II.
Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud developed modem psychiatry as a result
of learning about (and practicing) hypnosis.
Louis XVI of France appointed a committee to investigate the healing
powers of mesmerism. The committee included Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
U.S. statesman, philosopher and physicist, Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794)
father of modern chemistry, and Dr. Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814)
inventor and doctor.
Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits reportedly beat his smoking habit
through hypnosis.
Kevin Costner flew his personal hypnotist to Hawaii to cure his
seasickness during the filming of Waterworld.
Andy Bryant, hair care consultant, hit the headlines when he underwent
a vasectomy under hypnosis without anaesthetic and, immediately
after the operation, went back to work.
Paul Daniels, magician, lost his fear of closed spaces after hypnotherapy
in 1996.
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Hypnosis is caused by the power
of the hypnotist
The hypnotist will use his or her communication and
rapport building skills, making it more likely that
you will accept guidance through a suggested experience,
but only to the degree that you permit it. The hypnotist
may direct the your experience but this is, again, due
to willingness and consent on your part. It is clearly
a relationship of mutual responsiveness.
Only certain kinds of people can
be hypnotized
In practice, there are definitely some people more difficult
to induce hypnosis in than others, but this does not
mean that they are less capable of being hypnotized.
It merely indicates their resistance for one of many
possible reasons, (e.g., fear of losing control, difficulty
in distinguishing internal states such as relaxation
or tension, negative situational factors, fear of change,
etc.) Once the nature of the resistance is identified
and resolved, the person can become able to experience
hypnosis satisfactorily.
Once you have been hypnotized, you
can no longer resist it
This is, of course, not true. If you choose not to go
into hypnosis, for whatever reason, then you will not.
Prior experience with hypnosis, good or bad, is not
the sole determining factor of whether hypnosis is accomplished
or not. Even the most responsive subjects can refuse
to follow the suggestion of a hypnotist if they choose
to.
You can be hypnotized to say or
do something against your will
Since you retain ultimate control of yourself, it is
not possible to hypnotize you to do something against
your values and beliefs. For example, if you do not
already have anti-social behavior traits, it is not
possible to induce antisocial behavior in hypnosis.
It is true that brainwashing and other untoward influences
exist. However, the conditions necessary to effect such
a powerful influence do not typically surface in the
therapeutic context, nor are those conditions in and
of themselves hypnosis, and they are quite far removed
from the ethical and sensitive applications of hypnosis
promoted in hypnotherapy.
You can become “stuck”
in hypnosis and might not “wake up”
Hypnosis is a state of focused attention, either inwardly
or outwardly directed. You can initiate or terminate
the experience any time you choose and you are in complete
control.
You must be relaxed in order to
be in hypnosis
Since hypnosis is a state of concentrated attention,
you can be anxious, even in deep suspense, and still
be focused. Thus, physical relaxation is not a necessary
prerequisite for hypnosis to occur.
You are asleep or unconscious when
in hypnosis
Hypnosis is not sleep! Although physically there is
decreased activity, muscle relaxation, slowed breathing,
etc., you are relaxed yet alert mentally, with a level
of awareness of what is going on around you. Even in
deep hypnosis you remain aware of external reality to
some degree.
Hypnosis may be used to accurately
recall everything that has ever happened to you
The mind does not simply take in experience and store
it in exact form for accurate recall later. In fact,
memories are stored on the basis of perceptions; therefore,
they are subject to many of the same distortions as
perceptions. People can remember things that did not
actually happen, they can remember selected fragments
of an experience, and they can take bits and pieces
of multiple memories and combine them into one false
memory.
Hypnotized persons will tell secrets
or will always tell the truth
Hypnosis will not compel a person to tell secrets or
share any other information that they do not want to
share. Persons under hypnosis can lie purposefully or
recall information in a distorted manner as noted above.
Hypnosis is a satanic practice
Hypnosis and trance are perfectly natural occurrences
and are neither good nor bad in and of themselves.
Hypnosis will not work on highly
intelligent people
Innate characteristics of people, such as intelligence,
do not have any effect on the ability of a person to
be hypnotized. Any person can resist being hypnotized
on demand, either actively or passively, regardless
of their intellectual capacity.
Hypnosis is a therapy
Hypnosis is not, in and of itself, a therapy. It is
a specific state of mind which, to be useful in personal
change, must be used within a psychotherapeutic context.
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