What is Hypnosis?

Understanding Hypnosis: A Natural State of Transformation

What Is Hypnosis?

When you hear the word “hypnosis,” you may envision a mysterious, shadowy figure from television or movies—a stage hypnotist performing feats of influence on “willing” subjects, using a swinging watch or hand motions to induce a zombie-like trance, seemingly controlling their every action. From quacking like a duck to robbing a bank, myths and misconceptions abound. Perhaps you recall black-and-white Dracula films with Bela Lugosi, where his hypnotic gaze paralyzes victims into submission. These Hollywood and pop culture depictions are far from reality, fostering misconceptions that obscure the true nature of hypnosis.

Defining Hypnosis

Hypnosis is a natural state of awareness with numerous therapeutic benefits, such as supporting weight loss, quitting smoking, or overcoming negative behaviors. It is an altered state of consciousness where communication with the subconscious mind is enhanced, and the critical factor of the conscious mind—a filter that analyzes information—is relaxed, allowing selective thinking, or focused concentration, to predominate. This state facilitates a stronger connection between the conscious and subconscious minds, enabling transformative change.

Nature and Mechanisms of Hypnosis

Hypnosis is a universal human capacity, accessible under the right circumstances. It connects you with your subconscious mind’s problem-solving intelligence. The critical factor, part of the conscious mind, operates during waking hours, analyzing information passing between the conscious and subconscious. In hypnosis, this filter softens, enhancing responsiveness to suggestions. Selective thinking involves concentrating on a focal point, such as a hypnotist’s voice, a pendulum, or a phrase like “Look into my left eye,” initiating the shift from external reality to your inner world.

Definitions from Key Figures

Several pioneers have shaped modern hypnotherapy’s understanding of hypnosis:

• Gil Boyne: Defined hypnosis as a natural state with distinct characteristics:
  • An extraordinary quality of relaxation.
  • An emotionalized desire to act on suggestions, provided they align with the individual’s belief system(subconscious conditioning).
  • Self-regulation, normalizing the central nervous system (subconsciously controlled).
  • Heightened sensitivity to sensory stimuli (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell) and perceptions (hyper-acuity, time, space, body relation).
  • Softening of the critical factor, reducing psychic defenses. From Transforming Therapy: A New Approach to Hypnotherapy (Boyne, 1989) [1]. (Bold terms reflect expanded explanations.)
• Milton H. Erickson: Described hypnosis as “a state of intensified attention and receptiveness and an increased responsiveness to an idea or to a set of ideas” [2].
• Dave Elman: Defined it as “a state of mind in which the critical faculty of the human is bypassed, and selective thinking established” [3].
• Encyclopedia Britannica: Calls hypnosis “a unique, complex form of unusual but normal behavior… primarily a special psychological state with certain physiological attributes, resembling sleep only superficially and marked by a functioning of the individual at a level of awareness other than the ordinary conscious state” [4].
• Dictionary Definition: “Hypnosis: the induction of a state of consciousness in which a person apparently loses the power of voluntary action and is highly responsive to suggestion or direction… typically to recover suppressed memories or modify behavior” [5]. Derived from the Greek Hypnos (sleep), though hypnosis is not sleep but an active, focused state.

Hypnosis Occurs in Everyday Life

Hypnosis is so natural that we experience it frequently, often without awareness. Many of us slip in and out of hypnosis multiple times daily. For instance, have you ever driven on the freeway, absorbed in a favorite song? The music evokes positive memories of a person or event, causing you to “zone out” and miss your exit, possibly driving over the speed limit. Initially, you managed multiple mental inputs: monitoring speed, navigating, and staying in your lane. Then, the song captured your attention, acting as a mental anchor linked to a person or place, with the person or situation as the psychological trigger, capable of eliciting positive emotions or negative ones like anger, sadness, or fear [6]. Your conscious awareness narrowed to a single point—the song—while your subconscious mind, drawing on skills from driver’s education or repeated driving, took over. This sustained focus induced a hypnotic state.

Similarly, you enter hypnosis when engrossed in a TV show or movie, as physical reality fades and you focus on the characters or events. Daydreaming illustrates this: concentrating on a pleasant thought to escape tedious work tasks, you lose awareness of your surroundings, entering an altered state of consciousness. This can occur while reading a book, listening to music, or in the liminal moments before waking or falling asleep. These natural trance states demonstrate how focused attention induces hypnosis, a phenomenon leveraged in therapy.

Your conscious awareness is active when awake—while eating, working, or enjoying a shot of Captain Morgan, unless excessive alcohol renders you medically “unconscious” (anesthetized or unresponsive). In contrast, the subconscious mind is always active, like the Energizer bunny, tirelessly storing every experience and lesson, accessible 24/7, even during sleep.

All Hypnosis Is Self-Hypnosis

You enter hypnosis through your conscious intention. Even in a hypnotherapy session, by following the hypnotherapist’s guidance, you actively induce your own hypnotic state. The hypnotherapist facilitates the experience, guiding you. To enter hypnosis, you must be willing. You remain fully aware, hearing the therapist’s voice and ambient sounds, and can move any part of your body, though minor sensations, like an itch, may go unnoticed due to your focus on the therapist’s words. You can exit hypnosis at any time and leave the session if you choose.

Anyone can experience hypnosis, though experiences vary. Colleagues describe it diversely, from deep relaxation to an out-of-body experience, yet all fall under hypnosis. Hypnotherapists and stage hypnotists use tools like pendulums, hand waves, or phrases such as “Look into my left eye” to help you concentrate on a single point, initiating the shift from external reality to your inner world.

When I refer to actions or processes as “unconscious,” I am not using the medical term (anesthetized state) nor solely the psychological term (repressed memories, accessible via hypnosis) [2]. Instead, I encompass automatic reactions—like catching a glass, dodging a ball, or swerving to avoid a car, guided by subconscious defense mechanisms shaped by life experiences—and the broader subconscious mind, often synonymous with the “subconscious mind,” a reservoir of learned responses and experiences. In hypnotherapy, anchors and triggers, derived from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), are used to physically anchor positive emotions for therapeutic change [3].

Hypnosis enhances the subconscious mind’s responsiveness to positive suggestions, enabling you to achieve goals, quit smoking, lose weight, or transform negative beliefs and behaviors. The benefits are numerous, offering a powerful tool for personal transformation. Change your mind, change your life—this is the power of hypnosis, a power you hold, activated by your willingness to engage. It is the power of the subconscious mind. Gil Boyne, whose Transforming Therapy is taught at schools founded by his students, recognized these natural trance states, repressed memories, and the always-active subconscious as opportunities to reprogram patterns, using techniques like age regression, parts therapy, and emotional anchoring to resolve challenges such as phobias, habits, or suppressed traumas [1].

References

1. Boyne, G. (1989). Transforming Therapy: A New Approach to Hypnotherapy. Westwood Publishing. Describes Boyne’s methods, including subconscious reprogramming.
2. Kihlstrom, J. F. (1987). The cognitive unconscious. Science, 237(4821), 1445–1452. Discusses repressed memories and hypnosis.
3. Bandler, R., & Grinder, J. (1975). The Structure of Magic. Science and Behavior Books. Introduces NLP anchoring (note: efficacy debated).
4. Encyclopedia Britannica (2023). Hypnosis entry. Defines hypnosis as a psychological state.
5. Oxford English Dictionary (2023). Hypnosis definition. Describes hypnosis as a state of heightened suggestibility.
6. Dilts, R. (1990). Changing Belief Systems with NLP. Meta Publications. Discusses anchors and triggers in NLP, adapted in hypnotherapy.