Exploring Hypnosis and the Mind
Most hypnotists and psychiatrists will agree that hypnosis involves the mind and a state of being in a heightened imaginative - trancelike state in which extreme suggestibility can take place where the subject is in a state of being alert while appearing to be unaware of what they are doing or saying. They come out of the hypnotic state feeling refreshed.
We can go in and out of hypnotic-like states during the day. Examples of this are when you are driving somewhere and when you get to the destination you wonder how the heck you got there because you do not remember the drive or parts of the drive. There are people who can become really intent on reading a book and appear as if in a trance-like state so much so, that they are totally unaware of their surroundings. There are other circumstances where droning noises like those made by machinery can put us into a trancelike state where we are unaware of other events happening around us, so absorbed are we in the droning of machinery. We observe our spouses or our kids as they sit in front of the TV set totally submerged in a television program and appear to be in a trance-like state, unaware of what is going on in the room outside of the TV program. Researchers call these trance-like states - self-hypnosis. Psychiatrists can then duplicate the observation of how we daily put ourselves into this type of state and hypnotists then purposely put clients into a state of relaxed and focused deep hypnosis. Many describe these intentional states as being a “relaxed mental state somewhere between wakefulness and sleep.
During hypnosis, the client is aware of the suggestions and reacts to them as if they were experiencing the suggestion but do so, subconsciously as if they are playing a childhood game of make-believe; one foot firmly planted in reality. A suggestion of something scary will make them react in fear with all the physical signs of one who is really fearful yet they will understand that they are safe because it is after all, just a really intense level of pretend.
Those who are under hypnosis can feel a sense of being uninhibited, or being really relaxed because they are really in tuned to what the hypnosis is saying and are tuning out all the stresses of their world. The same phenomenon happens when you watch a television program. You become engrossed in what the characters are experiencing on the screen and all the pressures and cares of your world melt away.
While the client is in this trance-like state you are open and suggestible to whatever the hypnotist tell you to do. This is why those who practice stage-hypnosis can do so and make the audience laugh at people doing ridiculous things on stage that they would not normally do when they are inhibited by their normal everyday surroundings. They are doing things with no fear of being embarrassed. The client/subject will however not be able to do anything morally or ethnically that they would not otherwise be willing to do.
