Hypnosis is one of the most intriguing phenomena of our mental world. Hypnosis is full of apparent paradoxes: it is definitely not a dream, and yet not the waking state. Hypnosis depends on the attention and concentration, but most often can be characterized by relaxation and comfort. Hypnosis is most easily caused by a qualified professional (psychologist), using specific methods of verbal methods and, at the same time, only the product of human psyche. Hypnosis has been widely studied in a scientific manner for many years, and yet there is no generally accepted definition of hypnosis. However, fortunately, there is certainty in the agreement among researchers and practitioners about what usually happens when a person experiences a hypnotic state, and how hypnosis can be used to help people with a variety of psychological problems and disorders.

Hypnosis. What happens during hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a change in the concentration in humans. Attention is narrowed, and therefore images, memories, sensations are felt more intensely than in the normal waking state. Hypnosis can be compared to turning off the light in a room without windows, when a person looks around with a flashlight.

Under hypnosis, all the attention is directed inwards, so that people tend to feel all the thoughts, images, memories more vividly and clearly than they usually do. At the same time, things that do not belong to the narrow focus of attention at any given time can be forgotten. For this reason, people sometimes become temporarily disoriented under hypnosis, as in a dream they do not realize, whether they are in reality or in the imaginary situation.

Another characteristic of the hypnotic state is a subjective feeling of lack of will. People often say that under hypnosis, they feel that they become passive observers of what is happening.

For example, if you are asked to raise your hand under hypnosis, you can feel the hand, rising up from your side, without any conscious control. This automatism is sometimes considered to be a sign of a true hypnotic experience.

This is not really a helpless passivity. Experience shows that, if you really need or want, you can resist any direct suggestions from the hypnotist. You can even wake yourself from the hypnotic state, if you really want.

People usually experience a mental calmness and physical relaxation under hypnosis (but relaxation is not necessary for hypnosis, as a person can be both mentally and physically tense, and at the same time be in a state of deep hypnosis).

Various changes in perception are also common under hypnosis. Some people feel the weight of their body, while others feel a lightness, numbness or even immateriality.

Hypnosis is also accompanied by a sensation of swimming, flying, tingling in different parts of the body.

Other changes that accompany hypnosis, is that hypnosis makes a wonderful tool for mental and physical healing, and make possible the specialized hypnotic techniques.

For example, hypnotic analgesia, blocking pain with hypnosis, depends on the mind's ability to change the perception of the body in response to the suggestion under hypnosis.

Hypnosis makes it possible to age regression, where a man's mind recreates the experience of the past in vivid detail, as if the event is happening at the present time, it greatly facilitates access to remote memory.

Hypnosis enables automatic writing when a human hand is temporarily disconnected from the mind and allows you to write answers that reflect the unconscious material. Hypnosis makes it possible projective techniques, such as the identification of unconscious material to your problem. The use of advanced creative capabilities, is possible under hypnosis.

Finally, post-hypnotic suggestions that are the instructions given to people under hypnosis, and which are implemented by people after they come back from the hypnotic state, these instructions are designed to automatically increase susceptibility to suggestion in a hypnotic state.

In which cases hypnosis can help?

In psychotherapy, hypnotic techniques effectively accelerate the healing process. Hypnosis has been used effectively in order to facilitate understanding of the patients themselves or their problems, eradicate bad habits, uncover forgotten memories, reduce anxiety and fears, and to develop new and more adaptive behavior.

In psychology and medicine, hypnosis is used to effectively treat irritable bowel syndrome, to lessen the pain and discomfort associated with medical procedures such as childbirth, treatment of burns, in surgery, in cases where general anesthesia may be used. Hypnosis is also used to treat chronic pain and psychosomatic problems and get rid of bad habits that contribute to the disease.

In dentistry, hypnosis is an effective alternative to pain medication, hypnosis reduces bleeding and discomfort in oral and maxillofacial surgery, and is also used to treat teeth grinding, as well as enuresis among children.

Self-suggestion

You may be surprised, but it is not necessarily to attend a hypnotist to be hypnotized. It is enough to have the necessary knowledge, and then you can do it on your own. There is a phenomenon known as self-hypnosis, which allows you to use your subconscious mind in such a way that it influences your behavior in this way, which is not available to you on the level of consciousness. The method was invented by Emile Coue, who wrote a book called "Self-Mastery Through Conscious”, which describes how you can engage in self-suggestion to achieve the same effect as a third-party hypnotist.

Memory

If your knowledge of hypnosis is limited to movies and TV shows, you are likely to expect people to forget about what happened while they were hypnotized. There is some truth, but only if the hypnotized person wanted to forget about it, or if he was forced to do so by the hypnotizer. As it turned out, this memory is enough to be easily restored with the help of some clues, but suggestible people inadvertently block memories. Hypnosis is often used to recover repressed memories, but there is no evidence or possibility to verify that the memories of alien abductions or child abuse, recovered by hypnosis are actually true, or the patient imagined them.

Consciousness

Although the root of the word hypnosis is translated as “dream”, actually a person under hypnosis is not in a state of sleep. It turns out that the man is not only in full control of his actions during the hypnotic sleep, but according to research by scientists - a person is awake during the whole session. Once an experienced hypnotherapist would like to conduct an experiment to turn off the pain reactions using self-hypnosis during surgery (we do not recommend to repeat it yourself). Hypnotherapist claimed that it worked, and he felt no pain, but this is just an isolated case, and it requires verification.

Hypnosis is regarded as a kind of collective influence - a man may be, will think of something, as he would not do in a normal state would not have thought, but will not do what he does not want to do. Hypnosis is a very interesting phenomenon, which is being argued about by many scholar still.

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