Are You Curious? More About – What Is Hypnosis?
Apart from the constant momentary and daily dips into hypnosis you also experience two significant periods of hypnosis every day and these are the sleepy period just before sleep and the dreamy state you are in every morning on awakening. The night time period is called the hypnogogic state and the morning period the hypnopompic state.
Both of these dreamy periods are hypnotic trance states. At these times your body is relaxed, you feel sleepy and dreamy and your eyes are closed, although you can open them at any time and your brain waves are at the Alpha level. While in this restful state you are aware of sounds, the clock ticking, people stirring, the rain against the window or even the boiler kicking in but you are choosing to stay relaxed and dreamy.
While in this ‘eyes closed’ relaxed state you are drifting and dreaming, thinking and imagining, (seeing internally). In this comfortable hypnotic state your conscious mind is more relaxed. It could be described quite accurately as being ‘off guard’ and while in this relaxed and ‘off guard’ state suggestions drop down easily into the subconscious mind.
The deliberately induced hypnotic state is the same. With eyes voluntarily closed and a willingness to relax you drop into a hypnotic state akin to the morning or evening state and in similar fashion you will still be able to hear any sounds in the room. You can allow yourself to become peaceful and calm and focus on the voice of your hypnotist or the voice on your hypnosis track.
During hypnosis you are directed into this relaxed and hypnotic trance for a special purpose, that of making deep and lasting changes. While in this ‘off guard’ state the suggestions made by the hypnotist will be accepted without question by the subconscious part of your mind. The subconscious is where all changes are made. That, in a nutshell, is hypnosis.
Even though you are in a restful hypnotic state you are still in charge, you can reject any suggestion the hypnotist gives although, unless the suggestion is harmful or detrimental it would be pointless to do so. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis and no matter how skilled your hypnotist is you cannot be hypnotised or made to believe anything against your will.
To ensure success the client and hypnotist must work as a team which means that for the purposes of the therapy it is best to suspend your judgement and become as agreeable as you possibly can.
Note: A professionally trained and ethical hypnotherapist would know exactly how to phrase things and only make positive suggestions that would benefit their client. It would still be advisavble to to use your personal judgement and disagree with anything any hypnotist said that you deemed to be negative or detrimental.