What is hypnosis?
What is hypnosis?
Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness. It happens when a state of mind is achieved in which suggestions alter someone's awareness, memory, or thinking in a way that the hypnotized person responds to the alteration as if it were reality. It's supposed to be done with a specific, clear short-term aim -- to get to the bottom of something that the patient is not able to bring to mind or to consciously stop doing.
Hypnosis is not a form of sleep, but of concentration that bypasses the usual critical or evaluative activities of the mind to get to underlying matters. The patient becomes much more open to suggestion and guidance -- not so much a loss of control as an openness, agreeing to what someone else is suggesting.
Most studies suggest that about 25% of people can be easily hypnotized, while about 20% just won't allow it. You can't tell if someone is easily hypnotizable by how easily suckered they are, or how quickly they go along with whatever someone tells them to do. The hypnotizable person is more often the one who gets totally caught up in a movie or TV show -- they can block off what's happening around them, suspend their disbelief, and enter into the story as if it were real and happening in their presence. Those who practice Asian meditation techniques also find it easier to enter hypnosis -- they're used to being in a concentrative state. Also, children are usually easy to hypnotize, since their imaginative minds find it easier to fully enter into what the hypnotist is leading them to. Children also have not yet developed a large web of experience matching what they see or feel to what they think, so it's easier for them to simply follow the pattern the hypnotist suggests to them. The focus it takes to stay in a hypnotic state can be harnessed for recovery from mental illness or addiction.
Critical thinking is present during hypnotism, but it's 'bracketed out', not acted upon. We do such bracketing without hypnotism, for instance, while having fun, in sports, in worship, on retreats. But those forms of bracketing are done with safety nets : the Scriptures, feedback from others, use of means of discernment, and hard thinking beforehand. Hypnotism sets the nets aside for a while.
An effect much like this is 'trance logic', where real and hallucination coexist as equals. If asked to say which object is real, the hypnotized person can usually tell the difference. But the difference doesn't matter to them; under a trance, they'll deal with the real and the unreal in the same way. (There are some who fear that modern life is starting to resemble trance logic. To many others, the difference doesn't matter.)
Those who were in very deep states of hypnosis sometimes report that they can't remember anything that happened, even when given simple reminders. But this is rare, and only in the deepest states of hypnosis. In all except those few deep cases, the patient remembers what happened, even if instructed not to remember. (Occasionally, the remembering can be distorted by severe emotion, strong fantasy images, or drug abuse.) The patient's remembering often becomes an important part of treating their mental disorders. It helps them to know what they otherwise would not consciously know, so they can come to terms with it.
http://www.spirithome.com/hypnosis.html
Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness. It happens when a state of mind is achieved in which suggestions alter someone's awareness, memory, or thinking in a way that the hypnotized person responds to the alteration as if it were reality. It's supposed to be done with a specific, clear short-term aim -- to get to the bottom of something that the patient is not able to bring to mind or to consciously stop doing.
Hypnosis is not a form of sleep, but of concentration that bypasses the usual critical or evaluative activities of the mind to get to underlying matters. The patient becomes much more open to suggestion and guidance -- not so much a loss of control as an openness, agreeing to what someone else is suggesting.
Most studies suggest that about 25% of people can be easily hypnotized, while about 20% just won't allow it. You can't tell if someone is easily hypnotizable by how easily suckered they are, or how quickly they go along with whatever someone tells them to do. The hypnotizable person is more often the one who gets totally caught up in a movie or TV show -- they can block off what's happening around them, suspend their disbelief, and enter into the story as if it were real and happening in their presence. Those who practice Asian meditation techniques also find it easier to enter hypnosis -- they're used to being in a concentrative state. Also, children are usually easy to hypnotize, since their imaginative minds find it easier to fully enter into what the hypnotist is leading them to. Children also have not yet developed a large web of experience matching what they see or feel to what they think, so it's easier for them to simply follow the pattern the hypnotist suggests to them. The focus it takes to stay in a hypnotic state can be harnessed for recovery from mental illness or addiction.
Critical thinking is present during hypnotism, but it's 'bracketed out', not acted upon. We do such bracketing without hypnotism, for instance, while having fun, in sports, in worship, on retreats. But those forms of bracketing are done with safety nets : the Scriptures, feedback from others, use of means of discernment, and hard thinking beforehand. Hypnotism sets the nets aside for a while.
An effect much like this is 'trance logic', where real and hallucination coexist as equals. If asked to say which object is real, the hypnotized person can usually tell the difference. But the difference doesn't matter to them; under a trance, they'll deal with the real and the unreal in the same way. (There are some who fear that modern life is starting to resemble trance logic. To many others, the difference doesn't matter.)
Those who were in very deep states of hypnosis sometimes report that they can't remember anything that happened, even when given simple reminders. But this is rare, and only in the deepest states of hypnosis. In all except those few deep cases, the patient remembers what happened, even if instructed not to remember. (Occasionally, the remembering can be distorted by severe emotion, strong fantasy images, or drug abuse.) The patient's remembering often becomes an important part of treating their mental disorders. It helps them to know what they otherwise would not consciously know, so they can come to terms with it.
http://www.spirithome.com/hypnosis.html
posted by PREM WEB @ 12:00 AM
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