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Hypnosis is often misunderstood by those who have not experienced it in a clinical setting. Many base their impressions of hypnosis on movies such as “The Manchurian Candidate” or television shows such as "The Mentalist" or "Deception". Others base their image on stage hypnosis wherein people sometimes do exhibit some really silly behaviors. Let me clear up what hypnosis really is: Hypnosis is a normal state of awareness wherein your attention is highly focused inward. Nothing a professional certified hypnotist will do causes you harm.
That said, we often encounter this state daily. Perhaps when driving to work, almost as automatic as your car’s transmission. Sometimes you wonder where the time went upon your arrival at the job. Or, perhaps you were so engrossed in a television program or book and you never heard the call to dinner...that’s hypnosis. Yes, hypnosis is a trance. Most of us experience trances in our waking days, even if only for a few seconds.
Therapeutic hypnosis is experiencing that trance for a specific purpose and in a planned and orderly fashion. There is no mind reading, no magic, no loss of control, just heightened awareness focused internally on a problem the hypnotic subject wishes to resolve.
WE ARE OF TWO MINDS: Have you ever tried to remember the name of an actor seen in a movie or Television program, only to find the name temporarily escapes you? Then later on—perhaps minutes, hours, or days later the name suddenly comes to you? Or have you had to awaken extra early to make an event or catch an airplane and you set your bedside alarm to that earlier time but you actually awaken just before the alarm goes off? Most of us have experienced these phenomena. These are examples of our subconscious mind at work.
Your conscious mind is the one through which you are reading this document. Unknown to your conscious mind, your subconscious mind is also reading and storing this information. In fact, your subconscious is reading the document, monitoring your vital signs, recording the temperature, time of day, your clothes of the moment, and a myriad of facts you may never need. This is simply the nature of the subconscious. You see in the examples of the actor you could not remember or the early wake up time, your subconscious eagerly accepted from your conscious mind the assignments and continued to process the problems without bothering your conscious mind until the answer was at hand. The subconscious is a powerful tool, much like a computer. OUR DAILY OPERATING SYSTEM (DOS): Your two minds operate daily. The conscious mind is that which you are most acquainted with. The conscious mind makes decisions for you all the time. You are most aware of those decisions—to buy brand X instead of brand Y, or to turn left instead of right. In fact as you read these words, your conscious mind is deciding if this information is useful, true, and believable. If your conscious mind decides the answers to those questions are yes, then the conscious mind strives to file the information in a place where it can be retrieved at a later date. If the answer is “no”, then the information may be put in the “junk pile” of your mind. We often discharge the junk thoughts through our dreams. Those more bizarre dreams where you get a rabbit, a rubber suit, and a tricycle in the same dream might just be an example of those disparate “junk” thoughts being discharged in the same dream. Our minds tend to try and make stories out of any thoughts that flow through, regardless of how strange or silly these may be.
The subconscious mind lacks in critical thinking and accepts most inputs at face value.Your subconscious comes to the forefront at various times. When confronted with fear, strong emotions, confusion, pain or injury are all examples of times when the subconscious takes over and runs the show. You’ve heard of the “flight or fight” response…that’s the subconscious taking over the operation of the body. If your conscious mind was in charge you might be standing there assessing the danger, what options you had, how soon you need to act, which direction to go, and a host of other calculations that simply slow you down and expose you to harm. Your subconscious is charged with protecting your body and your mind. CORRUPTING YOUR DAILY OPERATING SYSTEM: Just like a computer, we are usually born with a perfectly good daily operating system. Whether it is Windows, Linux, or another system, there is a system there. It organizes information, makes conclusions, establishes rules, and even creates beliefs to govern our lives.
Sometimes one or both of these minds is affected by corrupt data, emotional inputs, or misunderstood stimuli. Let me give you an example of how your mind might mislead you. Read the following lines and count the number of times the letter “F” appears: Finished Files Are the Result Of Years Of Scientific Study Combined With The Experience Of Many Years.
How many “F”s did you count? Three, four? If you counted six (6) you were the exception. Most people overlook all or one the “Of”s on each line. Because your ear hears the sound “ov”, not the hard “F” as in “off”. So even though your conscious mind is looking for the “F”, the subconscious overrides what is seen by giving preference to what is mentally “heard”. That is why two people observing the same accident might have two entirely different versions of what took place—we truly are selective in what we consciously record.
Since our subconscious fails to apply critical evaluation to its inputs, sooner or later some incorrect or unwanted material gets recorded. Imagine a small child caught red-handed by the parent taking money from mom’s purse. “You little brat! After all I’ve done for you, you sneak around and steal from your own .” “You’re just a worthless thief who will never amount to anything!”
If that child is scared, and most will be scared, this exchange will go right into the subconscious without any critical evaluation by the child. So until it is “overwritten” or otherwise overturned by more positive messages, this little recording could play continuously on a closed loop: “You will never amount to anything!”, “You will never amount to anything!” etc., etc. and so forth. Perhaps that child will grow up trying to prove they do amount to something but never finding success, or maybe they will sabotage their own success by creating blockages that prevent them from ever achieving success. Certainly no parent ever consciously would do this to their child, but how many have planted one of these nasty-grams deep in the subconsciousness of their child? HOW WE REPAIR CORRUPT FILES: Having explained how we develop corrupt files or inputs, how do we fix these? Sometimes these are repaired by later messages accepted by the subconscious. But most often, we don’t even know the messages are in there playing away. Hypnosis is a means of accessing the subconscious directly. We can by-pass the normal critical thinking of the conscious mind and take our efforts directly to the subconscious via hypnosis—whether through a professional hypnotist or through self-hypnosis.
This brief article is not intended to explain how to accomplish this “reprogramming” of the mind, but to simply shed some light on how we get these negative messages imbedded in our psyche. However, once the “corrupt files” are discovered, the healing process can begin and change even long held beliefs if the client wishes to make that change. Note I said “if the client wishes to make that change”. We do not do things against our own fundamental beliefs or do harm to ourselves intentionally. There may be benefit in even the most negative behaviors. The hypnotic process is to identify these negative behaviors, and solutions that are beneficial and acceptable to the client.
Even a smoker may understand the logical reasons to quit smoking but still resist. Why? Likely there is some belief of benefit to smoking deep inside that individual. That belief may simply be hidden from the consciousness of the smoker. It is necessary to either change that belief or convince that individual that the benefits of not smoking are a greater good for the client. There are numerous hypnotic techniques to address such problems and a good hypnotist will know several.
WE ARE THE SUM OF OUR PARTS: Just as our autos are made up of parts, so are our bodies and so are our personalities. We all have different “parts” of our psyches residing in the same vessel. I have a musician hiding in me that sticks a fresh song in my head at least once a day. I also have a spendthrift and a conservative banker often whispering in each ear simultaneously each time I go to the mall. I have a wild and crazy imp that wants to play tricks on complete strangers and a staid conservative uptight citizen who deplores recklessness. Sometimes these “parts” are in conflict…just like my spendthrift and conservative banker at the mall. One says “you gotta’ have this!” and the other says, “you can do without it”. This is how we function.
However, sometimes these parts are fundamentally opposed to one another’s goals. One part wants to lose weight while the other thinks it needs weight. These traits don’t make us crazy—we all have some. But these do account for many of our failures or inabilities to accomplish goals we truly desire. You see, we can’t see every part residing within…at least not consciously. Therefore, we once again turn to the subconscious to find those disparate parts and learn the scope of the problem. We access the subconscious via hypnosis. Often times, the resolution to conflict within our many parts is nothing more than compromise; again a process best handled by a trained professional.
Phil Hamilton is a practicing Hypnotherapist in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a member of the National Guild of Hypnotists and can be reached at phil@trancepathways.com
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