What is hypnosis?
To understand how hypnosis works a person should start by looking at the brain and it's functioning. The brain has two totally separate units known as a conscious and a sub-conscious.
The conscious
This is the little voice that is always with you, keeping you company 24 hours a day. It is the little voice which tells you when you are doing something right or wrong.
The subconscious
This part of your brain contains all emotions, thought, intelligence and memory. Every imagined idea is stored within. The subconscious also controls our daily activities necessary for life such as breathing, heart beat and digestion.
To place this in better context, imagine your brain as a large dark room stored with tons of items ranging in size. Your conscious would be a torch lighting up one of these items, although the other items will not be visible, they will still be there. Your subconscious would therefore be the big room.
We are exposed to tons of information and various sensory observations daily. It is our subconscious which gives meaning to this information, we get an edited version of what our subconscious experiences.
To test this theory place a tape recorder at the next party you attend and listen to the tape afterwards. All the sound will be a babble of noises, yet at the party, you were aware of the conversations going on around you. If somebody called you from across the room, your subconscious would have reacted and drawn your attention. Hypnosis is the tool we use to access the subconscious mind in order to aid, help or guide a person who is seeking attention.
What does it feel like to be hypnotised?
Most people find it strange not to experience anything at all while hypnotised. As we are all individuals, it is just logical that our perceptions of trance would also vary greatly. There is also the problem of people having a preconceived notion of what is should feel like to be in a trance, and when they awake, they believe that they were not hypnotised.
How would I know if I was really hypnotised?
Here are just some of the tell tale signs which tell one they are hypnotised. Although you will be experiencing some of these feelings, they don't all have to be present to indicate hypnosis; as a matter of face it is highly unlikely you would ever experience all of these.
a. Fixed thoughts – you become fascinated by a thought or object
b. Time distortion – an hour seems like 5 minutes
c. Effortlessness – images appear and disappear without any effort from you
d. Amnesia – some people find they experience a partial or complete memory loss while hypnotised. Most people however find they recall everything until told what they have been doing to realize some memory distortion has taken place
e. Sensory awareness – sounds become louder, crisper or quieter and feelings might become clearer or even quieter
f. Externally:
The conscious
This is the little voice that is always with you, keeping you company 24 hours a day. It is the little voice which tells you when you are doing something right or wrong.
The subconscious
This part of your brain contains all emotions, thought, intelligence and memory. Every imagined idea is stored within. The subconscious also controls our daily activities necessary for life such as breathing, heart beat and digestion.
To place this in better context, imagine your brain as a large dark room stored with tons of items ranging in size. Your conscious would be a torch lighting up one of these items, although the other items will not be visible, they will still be there. Your subconscious would therefore be the big room.
We are exposed to tons of information and various sensory observations daily. It is our subconscious which gives meaning to this information, we get an edited version of what our subconscious experiences.
To test this theory place a tape recorder at the next party you attend and listen to the tape afterwards. All the sound will be a babble of noises, yet at the party, you were aware of the conversations going on around you. If somebody called you from across the room, your subconscious would have reacted and drawn your attention. Hypnosis is the tool we use to access the subconscious mind in order to aid, help or guide a person who is seeking attention.
What does it feel like to be hypnotised?
Most people find it strange not to experience anything at all while hypnotised. As we are all individuals, it is just logical that our perceptions of trance would also vary greatly. There is also the problem of people having a preconceived notion of what is should feel like to be in a trance, and when they awake, they believe that they were not hypnotised.
How would I know if I was really hypnotised?
Here are just some of the tell tale signs which tell one they are hypnotised. Although you will be experiencing some of these feelings, they don't all have to be present to indicate hypnosis; as a matter of face it is highly unlikely you would ever experience all of these.
a. Fixed thoughts – you become fascinated by a thought or object
b. Time distortion – an hour seems like 5 minutes
c. Effortlessness – images appear and disappear without any effort from you
d. Amnesia – some people find they experience a partial or complete memory loss while hypnotised. Most people however find they recall everything until told what they have been doing to realize some memory distortion has taken place
e. Sensory awareness – sounds become louder, crisper or quieter and feelings might become clearer or even quieter
f. Externally:
- 1. Muscle changes – a feeling of relaxation over your entire body
- 2. Eyes – a rapid twitching of the eyelids take place. This is known as Rapid Eye Movement and is an indicator of a change in brainwaves
- 3. Breathing – one or two change take place, either slowing of breathing
