Hypnosis Demystified: Why You Won’t End Up Quacking Like a Duck

Hypnosis has a very scary reputation. This is because media has portrayed hypnotism as something supernatural; a mystifying phenomenon that compels you to surrender your will to a complete stranger. There are stories of hypnotists inducing the guileless into yielding their wallet. There are supposedly true accounts of men and women tricked into falling in love just by listening to a mesmerizing voice. And then there are the stage magicians, who can make members of the audience fall into stupor just by simply touching their foreheads.

Is there truth to the hypnosis’ notoriety?

Straight answer: no. Hypnosis is no more magical than, say, being so engrossed in a TV show, you begin to write fan fiction in your head. Hypnosis is utilizing your mind’s innate ability to concentrate and fixate as jumping board for a new awareness and learning. Simply put, it’s listening with laser-like focus to thoughts and ideas in the form of suggestions. Not that creepy, right?

How does hypnosis work? Hypnosis works with the help of two things: an altered state of consciousness and well-crafted suggestions.

An Altered State of Consciousness

If you observe yourself closely, you’ll notice that you have different degrees of awareness for different tasks. If you’re lost on an unfamiliar street at midnight, chances are, all your senses are attuned to nothing but finding the way back home. You can say you are 100% focused on avoiding the danger of dark alleys and strange neighborhoods. During a less demanding time at work, however, there’s a good chance you’re listening to the radio and running up numbers at the same time. You can split your mind’s focus, so that you’re able to pay attention to two things at once.

What hypnosis does is induce you into a particular state of consciousness, one characterized by total concentration and total relaxation. This is a state that is optimal for learning and understanding new ideas. In many cases, this is a conscious state; that is, you are completely aware of everything going on around you. It can be no different as how a person excited for school disposes himself or herself before every class. But in other cases, the hypnotist can induce you to a semi-conscious state of mind; that is, you are accessing a world that exists purely through the power of your mind. Think of the semi-conscious state as halfway between dreaming and waking up. Both conscious and semi-conscious states are within a person’s ability to control --- you can snap out of a hypnotic trance any time you wish.

Well-Crafted Suggestions

The second half of effective hypnosis comes in the form of well-crafted suggestions. As mentioned previously, suggestions are ideas presented by the hypnotist (which can be one’s self or a recorded audio message) designed to encourage insight and/or behavioral change. Suggestions can be in the form of value statements (“I find alcohol repulsive”), commands (“You will start to feel more at home in your body”) or a guide towards a mental journey (“You meet a familiar person at the end of the road. Who is this person?”).

Almost anyone can write a hypnosis script; after all, just by engaging in self-talk we’re technically hypnotizing our self. But effective suggestions for hypnosis are strategically made, so that they can optimize the change that they want to enact in the person being hypnotized. Intelligent phrasing, proper delivery and correct voice intonation can spell the difference between average and great suggestions. What divides trained hypnotists from the run-of-the mill charlatans is the ability to capture a client’s internal world through the use of well-thought of words.

So you see, there is nothing at all to fear about hypnosis. Altered states of consciousness are as normal to us as dreaming and waking up, and well-crafted suggestions are practiced by everyone from your parish pastor to your department store sales lady. Why don’t you start researching the many ways you can use hypnosis to improve your life today? You have nothing to lose --- and everything to gain!