| What is Hypnosis?
The brain operates in four general states determined by the
frequency of the electricity generated by the exchange of chemicals
in the neural pathways. The four states include Full Conscious
Awareness, the Hypnotic State, the Dream State, and the Sleep
State.
These four states correspond to electrical activity in the
brain and are defined by frequency ranges on an EEG. Full Conscious
Awareness occurs when the majority of the electrical activity
in the brain is in the beta range (14-35 Hz). The Hypnotic State
occurs when brain activity is in the alpha range (8-13 Hz).
The Dream State occurs when brain activity is in the theta range
(4-7 Hz), and the Sleep State occurs when brain activity is
in the delta range (.5-3 Hz).
Full Conscious Awareness is where which we spend most of our
waking hours. In this state, our mind is attentive and uses
logic to reason, evaluate, assess, judge, and make decisions.
Unfortunately, when making life changes, the conscious mind
often gets in the way.
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 yourself
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 subsconscious 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.
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Hypnotherapist Bill Williams can help you harness the power
of your subconscious mind through his CDs, tapes and personal
sessions.
Riley, G. Edward and C. Newton.
Hypnosis, Hpynotherapy, and Hpynotherapists
TherapistFinder.net MentalHealth Journal. April, 2001.
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