| |
What is Hypnosis?
By Adam Eason
Before anyone experiences hypnosis and starts using it to
make wonderful, beneficial changes in their life, this article
is designed to perhaps to answer a few questions you may
have and also to dispel a few myths and misconceptions
about hypnosis.
You know, I still meet people that believe that experiencing
hypnosis is like being unconscious. I always reply, ¡°What
would be the point of that? Spending money and time to
be unconscious in someone else¡¯s company?? If I wanted
you to be unconscious we would simply bash you over the
head!¡± So it is important that you also know that hypnosis is
not about being unconscious and that you have the correct
expectations about the hypnotic experience that you are
going to have, should you choose to invest in one of our
products or experience hypnosis for yourself with a
hypnotist.
In order to understand hypnosis, it is important to
understand and differentiate between our minds. By that I
am referring to our conscious mind, where we are now and
just below that level of awareness is our unconscious mind
(also known as the subconscious mind, for the purpose of
easy understanding they are the same thing).
The conscious mind is where we usually spend most of
our waking time, you know that internal dialogue we have
that thinks ¡°hmmm, what shoes shall I wear today¡± that is
your conscious mind. Your conscious mind basically does
four things;
Firstly, your conscious mind analyses. What is that? Well
that is the part of us that looks at problems, analyses them
and tries to create solutions to those problems. It is that
part of us that makes decisions all day every day ¡°shall I
open the door?¡±, ¡°Shall I have something to eat¡±, even
though they are automatic behaviours, we make a
conscious decision about whether or not to do these
things.
The second part of our conscious mind is our rationale, the
part of us that, especially in western cultures, always has to
know ¡°Why¡± things happen and ¡°Why¡± we behave in
particular ways. This can cause us so many problems as
we give any problems more and more credence and
power. More conventional and traditional methods of
counselling or psychotherapy are often very much
concerned with looking at causes of our problems and it is
my opinion that all this does is teaches us ¡°why¡± they
happen as opposed to giving us the skills required to
changing unwanted habits and behaviours. The more we
think about ¡°why¡± we do things the more we seem to
embed the unwanted behaviour into our psyches!
The third part of our conscious mind is will power, that
teeth-gritted determination that so many of us are proud to
demonstrate. How many times have we used our will
power alone to make changes and found that our will
power weakens and that change is temporary or non-
existent.
The final part of our conscious mind is your short-term
memory. By that I am referring to the things that you need
to remember to function on a day-to-day basis, so that
when your phone rings you know to answer it rather than
stare at it wondering it is, or ensuring that you cross the
road without being run over.
That is the conscious part of your mind, it is logical, rational
and analytical, a bit like Mr Spock from the Start Trek series
and as much as it pains me to say it, our conscious mind is
frequently wrong about things.
Your conscious mind is wherever you happen to be
pointing it at any given time. I am sure you have been in a
busy, noisy environment, such as a restaurant or a bar and
have been engaged in a conversation with another
individual, and all the sounds going on around you just
seem to blend into the background. Then someone else
ten metres away can punctuate their sentence with your
name and you pick it out as if it was being spoken to you.
This illustrates that unconsciously, you are aware of many,
many pieces of information every second of your life,
sounds, colours, thoughts etc, yet your conscious mind
allows you to focus upon what is pertinent or relevant to
you at that moment.
If you take that conscious awareness and point it inside of
yourself instead of outside into the world, you begin to
become aware of your inner self, your unconscious self,
which is the part of you that we work with in hypnosis.
Your unconscious mind is tremendously powerful and
automates as much behaviour as it possibly can so that we
do not have to think about it. For example, there was a time
in your life when you had to be shown how to tie your
shoelaces, and you concentrated on doing this. I suspect
that by this stage in your life you know how tie your
shoelaces very well and you don¡¯t even think about doing
it, you just do it. I have a lonely Auntie who as a boy, my
mother would ask me to phone on a weekly basis as she
thought this would make her happy and I vividly remember
hearing her lighting up a cigarette and heavily exhaling the
smoke while on the phone, she didn¡¯t even think about
what she was doing, she just associated smoking with
being on the phone.
We are amazing learning machines and we learn
behaviours and habits and then our unconscious mind
automates them and does them on auto pilot so that we do
not have to think about doing them.
Your unconscious mind has within it all your long-term
memory. Just about every blade of grass that you have
seen in your entire lifetime is stored away in your long-
term memory that serves as an amazing storage centre.
These memories affect us in varying ways, some more
than others. Sometimes our ability to remember them is
not as fluid as we need, as it is often not necessary to have
all our memory in the forefront of our minds. For example,
right now you are unlikely to be thinking about everything
that happened to you on your last birthday, however, me
just mentioning it, you can dig into your unconscious, long-
term memory and remember.
Another example is if you have ever seen a live stand up
comedy show. You watch the comedian and laugh (or not
as the case may be!) heartily as you listen to lots and lots
of jokes. Then when you leave the venue, you can
remember none of them, or one or two at best! Then, a
week later, a friend that you were with can say to you ¡°do
you remember such and such a joke from last weeks
comedian¡± and you think ¡°oh yeeeaaah!¡± as you bring that
information out from your long-term memory. You know
that you know the joke, it was just not at the forefront of
your conscious mind, it was tucked away in the deeper
unconscious.
Your unconscious mind knows more about you than you
consciously that you know. Sound confusing? Well, just
think, you are currently breathing, your heart is beating (I
do hope!) you are digesting, your body is regulating its
body temperature, it is doing a range of wonderful things
without you having to consciously think about it. You are
not sat around thinking ¡°I really must remember to
breathe¡±. We are not machines, there is an intelligence
within us that knows how to do these things, and it is that
intelligence that we tap into with hypnosis.
Your unconscious mind is where you get your gut feelings,
your instincts and intuition that communicates with you
sporadically from time to time. Like when sometimes,
someone can be saying all the right words to you, but you
get a different feeling about them.
Your unconscious mind is a bit like a computer.
Throughout your entire lifetime it has been programmed
with all your experiences, relationships, interpretations of
the world, influences and all this has culminated in your
computer functioning with that programming. Hypnosis is
simply a way of accessing that computer and updating that
programming so that it becomes instinctive and intuitive for
you to make the changes that please you.
Your unconscious mind is the seat of your emotions and
where your behaviours exist and it is the part of you that we
work with in hypnosis. Hypnosis is a way of us stepping
over your conscious mind and accessing the unconscious
mind to make powerful and profound changes.
Now, I am sure that you have experienced natural trance
states many times before, in fact I know it. For example,
when you have been driving in a car and thought to
yourself ¡°ooh, how did I get here?¡± or when you have been
reading a book and you¡¯ve turned the page and thought ¡°I
have no idea what I have just read, I am going to have to
read it all again¡±. I can remember being at school watching
my history teacher teach me, yet my mind was a million
miles away wishing I was doing something else. All
common experiences, daydream like states that we all
experience, many times a day. The only difference
between these naturally occurring states and those that we
use in therapeutic hypnosis, is that with the hypnosis, you
intend to enter the state, you are in control of it and it is just
like a slightly amplified, deeper version of the state. That is
it. Sometimes it is simply like sitting in a chair with your
eyes closed, not the magical mystical or unusual
experience that some people are led to believe it is.
It is important here to know that you cannot be made to do
anything that you don¡¯t want to do. Very important. I had a
guy that a doctor referred to me, came to see me and said
to me ¡°my doctor told me come and see you as I have
emphysema and am going to die of it unless I stop
smoking¡±. I said to him, well I presume you want to stop, he
said ¡°oh, no, I love smoking, it is one of few remaining
pleasures.¡± I had to send him away as I cannot make him
do something that he does not want to. Can you imagine if
I could do that!! Wow. I could go and see my bank
manager and make him give me million pounds without
returning it! You never read about ¡°Baddy hypnotists¡±
making people rob banks or anything else absurd,
because it cannot be done.
People usually then say to me ¡°ok Adam, I hear and
understand what you are saying and it all makes sense¡±.
However, I have seen stage hypnosis and seen people
dancing like chickens, are you telling me that they want to
do that?¡± I am saying that these people are not being
made to do things that they don¡¯t want to do.
When someone buys tickets to a stage hypnosis show,
they are being permissive to the notion that they are going
to see hypnosis for entertainment; they expect certain
things to happen. Secondly, when the stage hypnotist asks
the audience ¡°who wants to come on stage¡± the people
that agree to do so or put their hands up are saying ¡°yes, I
want to be hypnotised¡±, they are not being made to do
anything they don¡¯t want to do. The stage hypnotist
ensures that the individuals on the show are receptive and
follow a large number of compliance exercises and it
begins to create the illusion that these people are doing
things that they don¡¯t want to do, when they are not. The
hypnosis can step over the inhibitions of the conscious
mind, so that the individuals behave with more openness,
they just cannot be made to do things they don¡¯t want to
do.
Anyone can be hypnotised. I work with insomniacs, heroin
addicts, schizophrenics, people experiencing
chemotherapy, these are all people that are often
convinced that they cannot relax or cannot be hypnotised,
and as long as they want to, they all can and they all do.
All that is required is that you have an open mind, that you
expect it to work and have progressive, motivated thoughts
about the processes, follow the sessions and allow them to
help you help yourself to make the changes you want and
deserve.
Finally, at the beginning of the recorded hypnosis sessions
and/or individual NLP or hypnosis sessions with me (I
cannot speak for other therapists, we all do things
differently) individually, you may be asked to do a number
of different things with your mind and you can be forgiven
for thinking, ¡°well, he asked me to do this, and now
something else, and now another thing, what exactly am I
supposed to be listening to?¡± The simple answer is that
you listen and follow as much or as little as you want to,
remember that is your conscious mind thinking those
thoughts and that is not the part of you that we are working
with and making the change with. I am sure that there will
also be times when you¡¯ll be thinking ¡°hmmm¡ am I in
hypnosis, what am I supposed to be thinking or feeling.¡±
Again that is your conscious mind thinking that thought and
does not matter what it is thinking. It can be attempting to
follow everything that I am saying or just wandering off and
thinking about whatever you like, just trust that your
unconscious mind is absorbing all that you want it to.
There will be times in the sessions when you may be
asked to imagine things. Imagining things does not have to
mean visualising. If I ask you to think of a favourite place,
you can imagine what it would be like, you don¡¯t have to be
seeing a picture perfect cinema version of it in your mind.
You can imagine, sense, think, or just know it without
seeing it or picturing it in every detail. If I asked you to
imagine the sound your feet make when you walk across
gravel, you know the sound I am talking about and you can
imagine it, but you are not necessarily hearing it in your
ears, you can imagine it. That is all you'll need.
So, hypnosis is not like being unconscious, it is almost like
having heightened awareness, it requires you to want the
change, have an open, positive mind, as best as you can,
and allow whatever happens to happen, without trying to
grasp at what you think should happen, just letting it
happen.
I wish you all the very best with whichever hypnosis
product, or with any consultative sessions you are
considering having with any qualified therapist or any
training you plan to attend and I just know that having
come this far, you really can do it, and make the changes
that you want to make with hypnosis.
About the Author
To receive Adam's amazing bi-monthly newsletter, packed with modern, innovative, psychological tips, techniques and information visit http://www.adam-eason.com You'll also receive a free instantly downloadable hypnosis session to enjoy at home.
Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/author-articles/111/1.html
| If you wish to add the above article to your website or newsletters then please include the "Article Source: http://www.simplysearch4it.com/author-articles/111/1.html" as shown above and make it hyperlinked. |
| Some other articles by Adam Eason | |
| |
|
