WHAT IS HYPNOSIS?

One definition of Hypnosis I came across described as:-

“An altered state of awareness effected by total concentration on the voice of the

therapist. it will result in measurable physical, neurophysiological and psychological

changes which may produce distortion of emotion, sensation, image and time. “

This sounds a bit of a mouth full but don’t worry entering into a “trance state”
is very simple, natural, and very pleasant. As the course progresses you will
learn more about the technical background of Hypnosis but for the time being
this is not necessary.

Believe it or not all of us go into a kind of hypnotic trance state at least twice a
day. Once just before we drift off to sleep and similarly just before we wake up
in the morning. It’s that twilight and very enjoyable stage between actual sleep
and the waking state.

Even daydreaming could be described as a form of self-hypnosis. After all we

seldom know how much time elapses during a daydream.

Simply put most scientists believe the human mind can be split into two
different entities. One being the conscious mind and the other the sub-
conscious or unconscious mind.

The conscious mind predominately deals with analytical problems on a

day to day basis. It responds to information it receives by processing it and
categorising it according to its view of life. For example if someone told you
that father Christmas was having a cup of tea in the next room your conscious
mind would reject this as impossible. We all know father Christmas only
drinks coffee. No seriously the conscious mind obviously does not believe in
father Christmas and will not accept this statement at face value. It filters the
suggestion and rejects it. This is known as the critical factor.

The subconscious mind is far bigger and does not have a critical factor
as such. It is the subconscious mind that keeps your heart beating and gets
you to fill your lungs with air without you having to make any conscious effort
to do it. If you reach out for a cup of coffee your conscious mind makes the
decision to do so but it is the sub-conscious mind that gives all the myriad of
instructions to all the muscles involved to bring the cup up to your lips.

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 The subconscious mind is an incredibly complex kind of computer with
a huge memory bank. Basically everything you do or have done in your life is
stored there. The memory of every sound you have heard, everything you may
have smelled, tasted, or touched. Your brain retains all this information and it
is never forgotten unless you suffer some form of brain damage.

Under Hypnosis you can recall memories of your early childhood which
your conscious mind has forgotten totally. Your subconscious mind draws on
this giant memory bank to solve problems by accessing the information stored
there. When you are mulling over one problem and the answer to a totally
separate problem suddenly pops into your mind this is when your
subconscious mind is at work. It never ever sleeps and is constantly working
for you.

The Israeli police force have used Hypnosis to get accurate details of a
crime from witnesses. Sometimes people are able to remember the number
plates of cars parked in an area a few weeks before a bank robbery. In one
instance, under Hypnosis, some witnesses were able to produce accurate
descriptions of the occupants who were seen drinking cups of coffee while
observing a bank from across the street several days before a robbery. This
information may not have appeared important at the time but their
subconscious still stored it away.

One of the most important jobs of the subconscious is to control and

regulate the involuntary functions of your body. The pace your heart beats at,
your blood pressure, your rate of breathing, your digestion, and much more,
are all controlled by your subconscious mind. It is for this reason that Hypnosis
is such a powerful tool in dealing with psychosomatic illnesses since it can be
used to influence your subconscious mind to reduce stress and high blood
pressure.

(Of course anyone with health problems should get a

competent medical diagnosis and proper treatment. If you
have food poisoning or a serious infection Hypnosis may help
speed up your recovery but you may need a dose of strong
antibiotics.)

Emotions: -
The subconscious mind is where your emotions are held. If you like it is
the real you. If you think about it is our emotions that control the strength of
our desires and this is why our subconscious mind will always control our
conscious mind since our desires govern our behaviour. Our subconscious

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 computer has been programmed since birth to believe and behave in a
certain way according to the image it has of you. This is why an alcoholic
knows full well consciously that his over drinking is doing himself great
harm he will continue to drink because his subconscious mind has some
hidden reason to make him do so. If our subconscious minds have been
programmed badly then our thoughts, decisions and actions will be bad for
us and as a result our lives. Our subconscious mind cannot discriminate or
analyse what it is told and will believe anything the conscious mind believes
and allows through.

You know this to be true because when you dream at night and find
yourself being chased down 22nd street in New York by a two hundred foot
pink blancmange, (you mean you don’t ?), its your subconscious mind at
work. Obviously your conscious mind would reject the idea out of hand but the
subconscious mind accepts it without question.

Imagination:-

The subconscious is where our imagination is housed. Our imagination is governed to

some extent by our early life experiences. Our upbringing and experiences as children

are of vital importance to the way we perceive ourselves later in life. Our imagination

is coloured by those experiences. Imagination is a very useful tool when programming

the subconscious. There is an interesting theoretical experiment I came across many

years ago used to describe how our conscious minds cannot overrule our subconscious

mind. It went something like this:-

Put a twelve foot by half afoot plank of wood on the ground and walk along

it to the end This would be quiet easy to do because your subconscious mind finds

no objection to your doing this. Now put the same plank between the roofs of two

four storey buildings and try to walk across it again. You will find yourself filled

with apprehension because your subconscious mind will make you imagine that you

could fall. In fact if you attempted to cross you probably would fall! This is despite

the fact that your logical conscious mind knows it is the same plank of wood you

walked across before quiet safely.

Under Hypnosis if your subconscious was told that you could cross the

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plank perfectly safely and it was convinced of this then you would be able to
do so easily and safely.

Creativity:-
All creativity is found in the subconscious mind. It is where the great artists,
composers, scientists, and inventors draw on their inspiration. Many great
men have said that they carried out some of their greatest works while in a
kind of trance state or day dream. Mozart, one of the most intuitive composers
in history, claimed his compositions were formed in his mind like
dreams independent of his will. ln fact the list can go on and on Isaac Newton,
Coleridge, Goethe etc.

It is the subconscious mind that gives us the drive to push us through

life towards our goals. If you do not decide what those goals should be then it
will select them for you. This is why you should know how to direct your
subconscious mind in the direction YOU want to go and not the other way
round. Without guidance it can direct you in the wrong direction towards
illness, failure, and a wasted life, even self destruction, based on faulty
programming from the past. It has enormous power and always achieves
what it sets out to.

Anyone who has made a success in their life be it as a famous opera singer,
Olympic athlete, highly paid entrepreneur, or whatever have chosen to make
that success their goal. It does not make any difference how the goal got
there that fact remains that in every case their subconscious mind will have
been there to give them the inspiration and dynamic energy to push them
forward. Those who allow their path to be frustrated by distractions like
jealousy, anger, or resentment will find their task a lot harder and may even
fail. Many very capable people seem to get so close to success only to throw
it all away at the last minute, these people have been programmed to fail and
it happens time after time.

The fact is whatever we are in life and whatever we achieve is

governed by the view and aspirations our subconscious mind has of
ourselves. Even if we just want to do nothing at all but stay in bed all day this
goal has been buried in our minds somehow and from somewhere. This is a
big subject and it will be covered at a later date.

Remember your subconscious mind is like a guided missile except it

will always hit the target it is programmed for. This is why you should make it
the servant and not the master of your destiny. The subconscious mind is not
meant to reason but to react to the instructions you give it. It is actually meant
to serve you that is its role. If you are not happy in life then it is time for you to
put that right NOW. It is time you started calling the shots!
The fact is that the energy within you can be harnessed for your own
good or it can be turned against you. With Self-Hypnosis you can ensure that

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this incredible power within you can be directed for your own good and
personal development.

In order to use Hypnosis it is necessary to be able to talk to and

influence the sub-conscious mind unhindered. ln order to do this we have to
be able to go into what is known as a trance state.

The trance state enables us to relax or distract the conscious mind so

that the statements and instructions intended for the subconscious mind do
not get analysed and rejected by the conscious mind. There are a large
number of methods used by Hypnotists to help people into trance and we
shall cover these in detail during the course. However the most common
method used is the relaxation method. This is where you, if you are using
Self-Hypnosis, or the Hypnotist gets you to relax so deeply that the conscious
mind is not interested in the messages being sent to the subconscious mind.
It cannot be bothered to interfere because it is enjoying the beautiful relaxed
state it is in.

By suspending the critical factor or occupying it elsewhere the

Hypnotist can implant positive helpful suggestions into the sub-conscious
without interference. See fig one and fig two below:-

In Normal Waking State:-

Fig 1:

Suggestion Conscious mind

hears suggestion and Subconscious mind
made to a does not hear
analyse it according
person’s to its beliefs and suggestions.
subconscious. rejects it.

In Hypnotic Trance State:-

Fig2:

Conscious mind
does not register Subconscious mind
Suggestion suggestion. registers suggestion
made to a and accepts and acts
person’s upon it.
subconscious.

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 Hypnosis has proved very useful in dealing with people with serious
burns. By putting a person into trance and suggesting that their arm is
cooling down much of the blistering and inflammation can be reduced and so
lead to a much quicker healing process. Obviously that person’s feeling of
pain can be reduced. This would be difficult to achieve if the conscious mind
was up and running. After all it saw the arch welder burn the arm and it
logically knows it must hurt like hell!!

Some people have been Hypnotised into believing that an ordinary coin
placed on their arm was red hot. When the coin was removed the body
produces a blister in response to the mental image. This is despite the fact
that in reality the coin was cold and that no pain was actually experienced.

Your first task is to learn how to induce a simple trance state in yourself
Please don’t worry it is totally safe and even very good for you. If you have
ever practised any sort of meditation then you have already learnt how to
induce at trance state. Meditation be it transcendental or otherwise is simply a
form of Self Hypnosis by a different name.

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