In the Hypnotic State, the doorway between
the conscious and the subconscious is opened, memories become easily
accessible, and new information is stored. In the Hypnotic State, you
are not really "thinking" in the traditional sense.
You are "experiencing" without questioning, without critical
judgment or analysis, like when you watch a movie, and the hypnotherapist
can make suggestions that are very likely to"stick" - precisely
because your conscious mind is not getting in the way. You are not "judging"
or being "critical" of the suggestions.
We pass through all four bands sequentially
as the electrical activity decreases on our way to sleep and as it increases
up on our way to total wakefulness.
Regardless of whether we are on our way to sleep or to wakefulness,
when we pass through the upper theta/lower alpha range we go into hypnosis
automatically.
There is no power on earth that can stop it from happening but likewise,
there is no person or power on earth that can force you into it; you
must want to go into hypnosis and follow the hypnotist's direction to
the letter.
The will located in the conscious way of functioning
is always present, always working. If for some reason you will your
self not to allow the suggestions to be accepted, they won't be.
The smoker who comes in to quit smoking but is not really committed
to that goal, cannot be forced to do so.
As to the issue of the subconscious' chief
concern for the clients' health and welfare, the subconscious function
of the mind begins to operate long before the conscious mind, in early
childhood. On the level of instinct, the strategies for self-preservation
and survival are irrevocably etched in the subconscious.
The conscious along with its critical faculty
develops later in early childhood.
By this time, the subconscious had firmly embedded in it the instinct
to survive---to keep the organism well and healthy.
A less technical definition of hypnosis is:
A naturally occurring altered state of consciousness in which the critical
faculty is bypassed (mind in the conscious mode) and acceptable selective
thinking established.
This simply means that the reasoning, evaluating,
judging part of your mind (conscious) is bypassed.
While we wonder how this could possibly happen, we are subject to it
all the time. The advertising industry is dedicated to bypassing our
critical judgment all the time in order to influence our buying behavior.
We suspend our critical judgment other times
when an authority figure makes some sort of comment; doctors, clergy,
professors, and many more fall into this category.
Children suspend their critical judgment frequently
in games of "let's pretend". Actors do it in playing a part;
they have to suspend their critical faculty, and they ask the audience
to suspend theirs to accept them as being someone else.
With the critical faculty bypassed, specific
thoughts/suggestions can be lodged in the subconscious where they can
propel the client toward a desired goal or change behavior in a positive,
permanent way. Any such suggestions must be acceptable to the client,
of course. They would have no effect otherwise.
This focus on a specific goal or behavior
is done with laser-like precision and intensity in hypnosis. It's a
little like looking through a telescope from the wrong end. You see
just one tiny spec of the environment in focus though you may be aware
of everything around it.
E-mail:
serenityhypnosis@shaw.ca