Hypnosis is a natural state of mind where the body is very relaxed, often deeply so. In a clinical situation as you are sitting in my chair you would look like you were asleep however when a person is asleep at night they are unconscious and unaware. Unaware that they are asleep and unless there is a major disturbance unaware of what is going on around them - this is because the conscious mind is asleep and while in this state of sleep incapable of reviewing any thought, feeling or sensation.
A person in Hypnosis will experience something completely different .....
When you are in hypnosis or in the hypnotic state, you are definitely conscious. You will hear very clearly and be aware of where you are and who is there with you. You are very conscious, you can think and reason and you have full control of yourself.
By now you may be wondering about those people in hypnosis on stage and how they seem to be under the control of the hypnotist with their willpower completely overcome. Up on stage in the bright glare of show business each subject knows full well what they are doing and if they needed to they could control themselves (i.e. they could refuse a 'command'). However, they are volunteers in the performance. In addition if you have ever been to a performance of stage hypnosis you may have noticed that not everyone who volunteers gets to perform and are sent back to their seat. This is because the hypnotist through observation is looking for a particular kind of personality (an extraverted kind of person who may well perform the same kind of stunt after a drink or two). So no matter what you may have been told when you are in hypnosis you are conscious, you are aware, and totally in control, and while a small proportion of people actually perform embarrassingly stupid tasks for a stage hypnotist, you will not undertake dangerous things or act on suggestions which are against you moral code. Unless you are of a criminal mind you will not steal, cheat, murder or do anything else that ethically / morally distasteful. Any suggestions that you disagreed with would result in you opening your eyes and coming out of hypnosis. To sum it up hypnosis is a conscious state where the body is asleep and the mind is awake and in control.
You the client are totally in control, not me the hypnotherapist (however you are after my skills to guide you there). There is a phrase you often hear in stage hypnosis that a person is "under hypnosis". This is 100% wrong. You the client are never "under hypnosis", however a stage hypnotist likes his subjects and audience to believe that they are under his or her power. It is not my hypnotic power that puts you into the hypnotic state, but rather the consent of you the subject that results in hypnosis. All hypnosis is self hypnosis and any reputable hypnotherapist knows this*.
* A subject can be taught the skill of Self Hypnosis enabling them to provide their own clinical hypnotherapy
1 comment:
Paul, good post and very accurate. As you say, no-one will do anything they don't want to do whilst in a state of hypnosis.
Dave Sabat DCH DHP
Clinical Hypnotherapy
Clinical Hypnotherapy Blog
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