Are You Capable of Being Hypnotized?

Are You Capable of Being Hypnotized?

People often question whether they can be hypnotized. Amazing, but true: There are professional hypnotists and hypnotherapists today who appear to think that only a specific proportion of individuals can be hypnotized, and they teach this via their books, courses, websites, and seminars. These fallacies may be traced back to many hypnotizability scales.

The Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scales (developed in 1959) and Harvard Group Scales (created in 1962) are two of the most popular. Based on the results of the tests, the researchers who developed these hypnotizability scales concluded that 5% of people cannot be hypnotized and that only about 10% can experience deep trance phenomena such as auditory and visual hallucinations, as well as the ability to remain deeply in hypnosis while keeping their eyes open.

If you are inexperienced with hypnotic phenomena, visual hallucinations may be "positive hallucinations," which occur when you see something that does not belong to mainstream reality, or "negative hallucinations," which occur when you do not perceive something that is right in front of you. It's also worth remembering that we typically see what we expect to see. The same is true for auditory hallucinations, which occur when what you hear subjectively differs from accepted reality.

Now I'd like to ask you a question: Have you ever gone looking for something, such as car keys, that were right in front of you but you didn't notice?That is an example of "negative hallucination," a profound trance phenomenon. Of course, if you were hunting for the keys, your eyes were most likely open, and you were in a profound trance, according to these hypnotizability scales. Did you feel as if you were in a trance?

Perhaps you have had the experience of someone calling your name, but you were so preoccupied with other things that you just did not hear the person calling. It often occurs with youngsters. They become so engrossed in playing "let's pretend games" that they temporarily lose consciousness of the outside world, or the outside world becomes a part of their subjective reality. That is hypnosis.

Let's look at some more hypnotic phenomena

Time Distortion: When you subjectively perceive the passage of time as slower or faster than the consensus time, you have time distortion. In some ways, since it takes considerably less time to think about an action than it does to execute it, you may achieve more in your mind in less time than it would take to physically do the action. You can go anywhere in an instant with your thoughts, and you can do anything with your mind in an instant.

We've all experienced moments when time appeared to either drag or fly by. If you're standing next to a kettle waiting for the water to boil or in line at a bank or post office, time may seem to drag on indefinitely. And when you're really busy or having a lot of fun, and you're involved in something you don't want to finish, time can seem to fly by, leaving you wondering where it went.

Another hypnotic effect is amnesia (forgetting things). Have you ever done something, said something, or had someone tell you something and then forgotten about it, even if it happened only a second ago in the middle of a conversation? This occurs naturally when you redirect your focus away from the activity you just completed. Your attention wanders to another issue in a second, and you forget what just transpired.

When hypnotists employ conversational hypnosis to generate amnesia for what transpired during the session, they utilize the same approach that occurs naturally. They divert your attention to something else before you have completely recovered your normal awareness, and you forget what just transpired.

If you pay attention to your everyday experiences, you will become aware of a wide range of hypnotic phenomena, including catalepsy. Catalepsy happens when a portion of the body behaves as if it is frozen in space, is inflexible, and frequently adopts an odd posture, and you are not even conscious of that part of the body for a short period of time.

Maybe there was a moment when you were so deep in contemplation that when you restored your attention to the outside world, you were shocked that your arm was floating in front of you or was simply put in some position, possibly hoisted toward your face, and you didn't even realize when it occurred.

And maybe you've had the experience of going to another room to search for something, but your attention wandered to something else on the way there, and by the time you arrived, you couldn't remember what you were doing there?

You may have realized by now that all of these hypnotic phenomena entail some type of mental distraction: your body may be doing one thing, merely implementing the programming in your subconscious to execute a specific action, while your mind is thinking of something else. If your mind is elsewhere, you are not aware of what is going on in your body and may experience various hypnotic experiences.

Analgesia and anesthesia are two more hypnotic effects. Whether you had a terrible headache or other pain and then something captivated your attention, perhaps an interesting phone call or watching an engaging movie, perhaps a comedy on TV, you were completely free of pain for a while. You were absolutely unconscious of any feelings in your body, and your eyes were open the whole time.

There are many more hypnotic phenomena, and the point I want to make is that almost everything that individuals may experience when hypnotized by a professional hypnotist in so-called deep levels of hypnosis, people from all walks of life have experienced at some point as part of their regular everyday lives.

Since the name "hypnosis" refers to a state of heightened suggestibility, a state of mind in which the door to your subconscious is open enough for thoughts to be impressed onto it, everything in your subconscious mind today was obtained via some sort of hypnosis.

You would have no memories and no programming if you were non-hypnotizable (i.e., if the door to your subconscious could not be opened). That is why the hypnotizability debate is absurd. All of the knowledge, concepts, and beliefs you have gained and stored in your mind were stored there via hypnosis, and you are under hypnosis whenever you focus your attention on your subjective experience. All hypnotists do is stimulate the natural processes that occur to produce certain outcomes.

Perhaps as a result of hypnosis stage acts and movies, some individuals think that the only way to be hypnotized is if a "hypnotist" tells them, "You are becoming extremely tired now. You are entering a profound trance, and you are going to accept every instruction I give you now!" Nothing could be farther from the truth.

There are also some psychologists, psychiatrists, medical experts, and even hypnotists and hypnotherapists who attempt to persuade individuals that they are powerless and can do nothing on their own or that the best someone can expect to do on their own using hypnosis is to get somewhat calm.

Those who say such things may be saying them because they don't know how to do more with their minds on their own or because they don't want you to know that you can accomplish great things with your mind and that you have already accomplished great things with your mind even if you don't know how.

Here's how you can and do hypnotize yourself and others, even if you're doing it absolutely accidentally and unconsciously. Self-hypnosis is practiced when you experiment with your own subjective experience.

For example, if you go to school to learn a skill, you are deceiving yourself into thinking you have already mastered it. This serves numerous purposes: it motivates you, it opens your mind to learning experiences, making it simpler to absorb knowledge and acquire the skill, and it makes the trip to mastery enjoyable.

You are practicing self-hypnosis if you pretend to be a famous musician while learning to play an instrument, or if you pretend to be a lawyer while studying. If you are a male and you see a beautiful lady and begin to fantasize about going on a date with her, you are engaging in self-hypnosis. What you focus on in your subjective experience, in your imagination, may have a significant impact on whether or not you end up with that lady.

When you manipulate other people's subjective experiences, you hypnotize them. Of course, inductions might be used to induce trance, but they aren't required. All that is required to mesmerize others is to engage their imagination (and you can do that with any or a combination of several senses, visual, auditory, kinesthetic, etc.). The whole hypnotic procedure may also be nonverbal. A lady may just need to put on a miniskirt to fascinate a male.

While certain ladies should be covered from head to toe, everyone may provide a genuine, pleasant smile. What you do in particular will be determined by your desired goal and what is suitable in the present scenario. Even if you were interviewing for a job, dressing as if you were already a member of a team would help the interviewer imagine you as one of them... and make it easier for you to get the job. You get the picture.

And when others manipulate your subjective perception, they hypnotize you. Can you recall a time when you watched a movie you liked, read a book you liked, or talked to someone you liked? Perhaps you were so absorbed in that person, book, or movie that provided certain mental and emotional stimulation and engaged your imagination that the outside world faded from your awareness for a while.

When someone says that only a certain percentage of people are hypnotizable or that they are hypnotizable to this or that degree, what they mean is that at that point in time, with that particular hypnotist, given the hypnotist's repertoire of skills and given the person-to-be-hypnotized's mood and state of mind, the person may be willing or in the mood to do what the hypnotist suggested, or not.

Throughout the day, we all experience a variety of states and emotions. There are times when you feel like eating, times when you feel like sleeping, times when you feel like resting, times when you feel like leaping about, times when you feel like working, times when you feel like watching a movie, and so on.

If someone were to suggest something you'd like to do at that precise moment, you'd gladly comply and be labeled as "very hypnotizable." If, on the other hand, someone recommended something at a time when you didn't feel like doing it, you may be characterized as a "resistant hypnotic subject" or even non-hypnotizable. It's also conceivable that you like doing something specific right now, but not with that certain person or people.

I want to educate people about several methods of self-hypnosis since you may like to practice it in a different manner at different times. That is why several sorts of recordings exist. It is not about whether one is better than the other but about whatever fits you best at any particular moment based on your mood and tastes.