What is hypnosis anyway?
Again this is a difficult question to answer. Some people believe it is nothing more than ‘social compliance’ (doing what you believe you should be doing), whereas others are adamant it is an altered state of consciousness. There is no scientifically measurable change in brave wave patterns during hypnosis compared with normal consciousness. When an individual is hypnotised he usually feels very relaxed, although this isn’t always the case. Often he will feel as if he is half asleep, and then at the exact moment that he opens his eyes (at the end of the session), there is sometimes an awareness that for a split second ‘something had been different’.
Yes. Say the word “hypnosis” and many people think of stage shows and people doing silly things. Other people think of pocket watches, or spirals twirling. But it is now common for hypnotists just to ask a willing person to stare at a small, stationary object, such as a colored thumbtack on the wall or to simply close their eyes during the “induction patter,” which consists usually of soothing words about relaxation and suggestions to focus and concentrate… to the point of distraction and surrender into hypnosis. The net affect is the over-whelming of and the eventual bypass of one’s critical, conscious faculties. Hypnosis has been given a clear and easy to understand definition by the U.S. Dept. of Education, Human Services Division, as follows: ‘Hypnosis is the bypass of the critical factor and the establishment of acceptable selective thinking.
