How does hypnosis work? FAQ

Frequently Asked Questionsabout how hypnosis works

By Linda

 

Can you really hypnotize people?

Yes.

Really?

Yes.

No kidding?

Yes.
(I don't know why, but people often ask me three time, as if I was going to change my mind!)

 

And can you hypnotize with just a text chat, or just by phone ?

Yes. Yes. Yes.
*Smile*
As long as there's some form of communication, hypnosis is possible. It's just a matter of telling them how to go into trance, or leading them to think or act in a particular way. Classical hypnosis does it by telling people what to do, think and feel ("Your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier..."). Ericksonian hypnosis does it more subtly, and resembles a conversation ("And tell me, can you remember a time when you were really relaxed?")

 

Once I'm hypnotized, can you make me do anything you want?

No.

No matter how deep in trance you are, you are always aware and conscious, and can choose to accept or reject any suggestion you're given. When you accept a suggestion, rapport deepens and you go a bit deeper into trance. When a suggestion is rejected, rapport decreases, and the person comes a bit up out of trance. So really, as a hypnotist, I only want to give you suggestions I'm pretty sure you'll want to accept. Willingness to accept suggestions is based on trust, rapport, and how appealing what I suggest sounds to you.

Consent is the key. Everything depends on consent. A hypnotist can only affect you up to the point that you allow it. However, you won't have your usual conscious inhibitions. It's a bit like when a person is drunk... they can be more easily talked into doing things they wouldn't normally do. And that's exactly what happens during hypnosis shows. First, the person knows full well that if they volunteer, they will be made to do silly things. They know this, and they volunteer anyway. That is consent. But since she was hypnotized, she thinks it's not her fault. The hypnotist "controlled her totally"! Therefore, she wasn't responsible for her actions, and let herself be silly without feeling shy or guilty. Giving up responsability for your own actions... is actually one of the attractive points of hypnosis for some people. It's why a lot of people drink, to reduce inhibitions so they can do the things they want to do, but think they shouldn't. In the case of stage shows, the best subjects are often shy people who don't allow themselves the chance to be silly in public. But once on stage, they feel absolved of social norms, and they get to be the stars of the show and get the attention they crave. It's a socially acceptable way for them to get what they need. Whether they remember what they did after the show or not, it is something they chose to consent to while it was happening.

So basically, if you give the hypnotist permission to do anything they want to you... then they can! But that permission can be withdrawn at any time. You really are in control during trance, as much as you need to be.

 

Can anyone be hypnotized?

Yes. Some people find it easier to go into trance than others, but everyone can do it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to go from wakefulness to sleep and back again! The transition between waking and sleeping always goes through trance, though only briefly. Like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Also, studies show that more intelligent people can generally go more easily into trance. Also, if you're good at daydreaming, you'll probably be skilled at going into trance.

However, very analytically oriented people may have a harder time going into trance, *IF* they don't know how to turn off their analyzing and just enjoy themselves.
You can watch a movie to enjoy it and really get into it, feeling sad or happy for the characters depending on what happens, OR you can analyze plot devices, camera angles and acting ability. To the extent that you do one, you will be doing less of the other. You can either live the adventure and emotionally participate in the story, or you can be a dispassionate observer.

The same thing applies to sex. Would you rather participate and feel what's happening, or be just a disembodied observer? Unless you're studying mating rituals, you'd probably prefer to be a participant.

Analysis and trance are two extremes of a mental spectrum. They are both useful, but for different things at different times. It's perfectly all right to analyze your performance in a sport, such as tennis. But it's far more useful to do the analyzing *after* the game, or to make plans *before* a game, otherwise you won't be able to focus on playing properly. Similarly, feel free to analyze what happened to you during trance. Just make sure you save all that mental dialogue for when it's all done, and you'll get a much more intense experience of trance.

The kind of mindset you want for the trance is the one kids use when playing pretend, playing mommy, playing dressup, or playing cowboys and indians. This is not an exercise in logic, it's one of imagination. And you have a great imagination, don't you? :)

 

What if I don't wake up?

Staying in trance requires constant focus from you, and deepening techniques from your hypnotist. If for some reason you didn't hear the voice of your hypnotist for 5 consecutive minutes, you would simply wake up. Or perhaps fall asleep if you were very tired. It takes constant effort to keep a person in trance.

Think of it this way: if you were attending a conference, how many minutes or hours could you manage to pay attention to the lecturer before starting to mentally wander and daydream?

In this case, it's the reverse... how long can you daydream before coming back to waking consciousness... ?

 

What is hypnosis?

It's a method for bringing people into trance.

 

What is trance?

It's a state of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep. You can think of it as being close to dreaming. It's totally natural and quite common. When you're watching TV, and you're totally involved in the story... or it might be a really good book... you're in a light trance. It allows you to believe in the story, to forget it isn't real, and to have feelings for imaginary characters. I mean, who cares if a roll of film has images of an actor pretending to die? Yet we care about characters as if they were real. That's a hallucination, and we do it for fun.

Sometimes, you won't even notice what's going on around you during a show, unless something loud gets your attention and "wakes you". TV is a powerful hypnotic! If you watch children in front of their favorite shows... eyes staring wide open, glazed over, the face flat and expressionless, and sometimes the mouth partly open... you'll know what a hypnotized person looks like. They don't hear you, they don't see you, because you're not part of their imaginary reality. And even though they move a lot more, many women comment how men are "hypnotized" by sports on TV. They're right.

Similarly, some start thinking about something while driving... and end up at home remembering nothing of how they drove there! That's because they were on "automatic pilot" they say. And who is that automatic pilot? It's their subconscious mind, also known as unconscious mind. And it was doing the driving while the conscious mind was thinking of something else. Very convenient, isn't it?

Trance is an altered state of consciousness, meaning it's different from how you're normally aware of things. It's generally a state where you're very focused.

 

How do I know I'm in a trance ?

It's very hard to say exactly what it's going to be like for you, because people reacts differently. Think of how people act to when they're drunk. Some get happy, some get violent, some take off their clothes and dance on tables. Some get sad and moody, some just get very sleepy, while others seem to be completely sober! But we all agree that all of these things are "being drunk", because the person feels and acts differently than they normally do.

Things that are common to trance and being drunk: They're both altered states of consciousness, and none of these statements are always true.

-Less inhibitions, feeling less self-conscious. People can do and say things that would be too embarassing when sober.

-Relaxed. People are generally more relaxed, sometimes to the point of losing coordination and being unable to stand.

-Euphoric. People are generally pleasantly buzzed.

-Suggestible. People can more easily be talked into doing things or believing things.

-Aware. You're aware and conscious of everything that's happening. You're just not thinking in the way you usually do. You might feel ligh-headed, or find your thinking foggy.

-Forgetful. It helps get away from worries and responsibilities for while. Which can be a good or a bad thing...

Things that are specific to trance: Feeling light, heavy, numb, tingly, and usually focused. Any of these or all of these. You could become super-aware of noises around you... or not notice the neighbor practicing bagpipes...

 

What is the unconscious mind ?

(only read this if you want to understand the mechanics of the mind... otherwise, you can skip down to the "cool part" below... the rest is mostly theory)

It's the part of your mind that you're not aware of. It's the part that makes your heart beat and makes you secrete digestive juices. It also makes you breathe when you're not thinking about it. Breathing is an interesting example, because it's something you can either decide to control consciously, or forget about, and let your unconscious do the breathing on "auto-pilot".

Your unconscious mind also takes care of remembering things when you're not thinking about them. Quick ! What's your name? Do you remember what your name is? Yes? Good... I wouldn't want you to be so deeply hypnotized that you don't remember your name... at least not yet! *smile*

Obviously, you don't spend your time repeating to yourself what your name is so you don't forget it. The knowledge has to be kept somewhere. And it is. In your unconscious mind. Never mind the all the brain hardware with the neurons and all... we're talking software here. It's like your conscious mind is the program, and your unconscious mind is the operating system, like Windows. A program that needs to read the hard disk can't do it. It has to ask the operating system to fetch the information for it. Ideally, you want to forget the operating system, and just focus on the program you're using, be it a game or whatever. The operating system should be transparent to you. And it is. Just like your unconscious mind.

Your conscious mind is like the captain. It's in charge, but it depends on the rest of the crew to do the real work. and if the crew gives the captain some information, the captain has to believe it. He can't leave his post to check it out himself. So if the guy at radar says there's another ship ahead, the captain believes it. He gives the orders based on the information he gets.

Your unconscious takes all the data from millions of nerves, and packages it up in nice little bundles that your conscious mind can handle. There is no way your conscious mind could understand that much information by itself. We believe that what we see hear and feel are the real world. They're not. They're only the part that your unconscious thinks you want to know about. A whole lot gets deleted. Like the sounds happening around you now, that you probably weren't aware of until I reminded you.

THE COOL PART: so what this means is, if the unconscious tells you that your name is Bob when you try to remember, or that your name is Mary, then you kinda have to believe it. If it shows you that you're in a bedroom in a castle, then that's where you are. If it tells you you're feeling like a 15 year old with a major crush... then that's how you feel. Reality isn't something you can perceive directly. It's all coming from your unconscious. So if you get a hypnotist who talks to the unconscious... and you agree to letting your perceptions be changed... you can end up with a very interesting experience.

And since the unconscious is also the auto-pilot, you can allow it to be re-programmed to get rid of certain habits, or to start new ones. And this is without having to strain your conscious willpower.

 

Are there dangers?

Hypnosis is as natural as sleeping and dreaming. In fact, if you leave someone alone in trance, they wake up by themselves after a while. Nevertheless, it's best to have a competent hypnotist, as amateurs can mess things up unintentionally. It should also be someone you trust. The unconscious sometimes isn't very discriminating, and can accept suggestions that aren't completely good for you, as long as they answer to certain needs or desires.

 

What are trance triggers?

A trance trigger is usually a word or sentence that will bring you back into trance very quickly by itself. It could be a song, a specific touch, or almost anything else that's distinctive. Normally, it's set so that it only works when the hypnotist says the trigger word or does the special action. Triggers can also be set to do other interesting things, like wanting to exercise, or feeling very confident. They can also be altered so that other specified people can use these triggers. Setting them so *anyone* can use them is a little risky...

 

Do triggers work forever ?

They tend to fade with time. How much varies from person to person, depends on how long it's been since they've been used, and how strongly they were put in in the first place. Some triggers can last forever. Your mileage may vary :)

 

Someone tried to hypnotize me, but I remember everything. I wasn't hypnotized, was I?

You were probably hypnotized. It's one of the pet peeves of hypnotists that people come out of trance, and often don't believe they were hypnotized. That's because they have an unrealistic idea of what hypnosis is. They often expect to be mindless zombies who remember nothing of the trance. And while that sometimes happens, it's usually not the case, at least in the first few sessions. Going into trance is a skill that a subject learns, and a hypnotist teaches. The more you go into trance, the easier it is to go deeper and faster into a more and more altered state. Those who learn to go very deeply into trance the first time may automatically forget the trance, unless the hypnotist tells them to remember.

To say you felt "hypnotized" is like saying you felt an "emotion". There are many different trance states, just like there are many different emotions. Some people will experience a given emotion as tightness in their chest, while others will feel the supposedly same emotion as warmth in their body. Some people experience hypnosis by feeling very heavy, while others experience a light-headedness and floating sensation. Most people don't "feel" like they're dreaming during a dream. Is there a "right" way to feel you're in love? Is there a "right" way to feel hypnotized? I don't think so...

 

So how do I know I was hypnotized?

Classical hypnotists use a scale of hypnotic phenomena (reactions) to measure how deeply hypnotized a person is. They use various hypnotic "tests", and depending on which ones a subject succeeds at, they determine how deep the subject is.

Ericksonian hypnotists don't care how "deep" the subject is, as long as they get the change they want. They use the hypnotic phenomena as "convincers", simply to let the person believe they were hypnotized. Without these "convincers" (ie. having an an arm move without conscious control) a person can get the change they want, be totally cured, and then talk themselves into having the symptoms again, simply because they don't believe they were hypnotized! It's a very annoying form of self-hypnosis which we try to avoid. So I'm going to give you the classical hypnotist's "scale", so you can tell for yourself how deeply hypnotized you are. Depending on what you experience, you'll be able to judge approximately how "deeply hypnotized" you are. Those with very analytical inclinations tend to love checklists like that... and if you're really into that, you can find scales with up to seven levels of trance depth on the net. In practice, three is plenty.

Trance depth	Hypnotic phenomena
Light trance	Tactile hallucinations (touch/feeling): - Tingling, numbness, heaviness, lightness, feelings of floating and drifting, light-headeness Visual hallucinations (seeing): -Double vision, where you can see the inside of your eyelids, and at the same time be imagining (for instance) colors inside your body. Other changes: - Muscles can get loose and limp, or tense and stiff. - Feeling passive is very common at this stage
Medium trance	Tactile hallucinations: -Numbness to the point of not feeling certain body parts -Having specific sensations produced such as: pleasure, arousal, joy, need, etc. -"Unable to move", in the sense that you feel so comfortable you really don't want to move, and so you "can't" move. -Feeling detached from your body: You can be feeling both your body on the chair, and feel yourself floating in an blank empty place at the same time, or feel your body on the bed while also seeing the bar you are hallucinating being in. Involuntary movements: -Twitches, blinking and little spasms may happen without conscious control. -An arm, hand or finger may start rising without conscious control in response to suggestions. Catalepsy: Unable to move, no matter how hard you try, when this is suggested. Mental changes: -Extreme passivity and openness to suggestions, awaiting the hypnotist's words -Focus narrows so that you can be aware of only the hypnotist's voice, or have acute hearing that lets you hear noises you normally wouldn't hear, or acute awareness of your own thinking process and internal dialog. -Thinking may become difficult or seems slower when focussing on something like the hypnotist's voice. Post hypnotic suggestions can be given: - To return to trance when a trigger word is said - To feel something specific when a word is said (desire, pleasure, etc.)
Deep trance	Hallucinations : Visual / Tactile (feelings/touch)/ Auditory (hearing) / Olfactory (smelling) / Gustatory (taste). The deeper the trance, the more real they seem. Like a dream seems completely real when you're in it. You can get these hallucinations in medium depth trances, but for most people they don't seem quite as real . Also known as the "Somanbulistic state" which means "sleepwalking". You can physically move, but you're in a dream state, which means what you perceive is only partly reality. In this state, you can look in the mirror and hallucinate you look like Cindy Crawford. You could also have tactile hallucinations and feel Cindy's shape when you touch yourself. Amnesia: unable to remember something the hypnotist asks you to forget. Memory creation: Can be made to remember things that didn't happen. Can be done in medium trance, but they're not as convincing. Personality changes: Can believe you are a different person. This can also be done in light and medium trances, but a small part of you is then aware of playing a role.

 

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