Backing up Blog Post 1 from DrakeG's blog
I am going to start a series of posts discussing different hypnosis topics and techniques about hypnosis. All of this is my own opinion and based on my experience. With that out of the way, I would suggest that if you haven’t already looked at my description of What is Hypnosis?, you should start there.
If you ask five hypnotists what is hypnosis, you are likely to get at least six different answers. As with pretty much everything involving the human mind, it is hard to pin down one single definitive answer. Making it more difficult is that different parts of the hypnosis community disagree on some basic terms. You may hear arguments about unconscious mind vs subconscious mind or waking someone from a trance vs emerging them from a trance. I try not to get bogged down by semantics, because while doing hypnosis, it doesn’t seem to matter. As long as the person you are working with has an understanding of what you are telling them, the specific words are less important.
So if defining hypnosis can be difficult, why not start from the other direction and eliminate what it is not? The obvious answer is because, like everything else, what it is not is basically infinite. That being said, due to hypnosis in media people tend to have strange ideas about what hypnosis is and what it can do. Media shows images of swinging crystals, pocket watches and spirals being used to mind control people. The rules of hypnosis tend to be more general guidelines. As such there can be cases or scenarios that deviate from the norm. Hypnosis cannot make you do something you don’t want to do. This is modified based on the circumstance and expectation.
For example, the idea of someone being brought on stage to act like a chicken. There is a certain amount of acceptance that person has because 1: they know they were going to a hypnosis show and 2: they agreed to come on stage. Under the same idea, a person who goes to a hypnotist because they are ready to quit smoking is more open to that idea than being told to act like a chicken.
While hard to define, it is not mind control. So it can be described as a state of learning. It can be used to help you learn new habits or prime your mind to be on the look out for new opportunities. The mind is a powerful thing, and hypnosis is just a way to help guide and focus that power.
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