The answer to the above question may not, perhaps, be as straightforward as you might think. Of course, if you’ve had hypnotherapy previously, or been up on stage to experience hypnosis as entertainment, then the answer is easy. But even if you haven’t experienced those things (yet!), I can fairly confidently suggest that you have been hypnotised before, although you might not have called it that.
And that’s because hypnotherapy is a very natural mental state that most of us slip in and out of, probably several times a day. One of the more common experiences is dubbed Highway Hypnosis, and, as the name suggests, is a form of hypnosis experienced while driving. If you’ve ever arrived at your destination (usually going from somewhere back home, because it’s easier to engage the mental autopilot) and found yourself utterly unable to remember the drive, then you’ve just experienced spontaneous amnesia – a hypnotic phenomenon.
In my last blog I discussed feeling intense emotions over characters and situations we know to be fictional. And this too is a hypnotic phenomenon. More than that though, when you watch TV you’re usually in a much larger room, but all of your attention is focused on a (comparatively) small box in the corner. Your mind blocks out everything else around you whilst you are absorbed and engrossed. This focused attention is a classic sign of hypnosis!
And while your attention is absorbed and focused you may also find that time skips by without you noticing. This can happen with a good book too. And again, that sense of time dilation is another hypnotic phenomenon.
So whether you’ve experienced formal hypnotherapy, or done crazy things at a stage show, I can pretty confidently say that everyone (including you!) has been hypnotised before. Hypnosis is everywhere, and in my next blog I’ll talk about some of the crazy ways people have created hypnosis in the past. I might even have a demonstration of my own to show you!
If you only remember one thing from this blog entry, it should be that hypnosis is not a magical process, it’s a naturally occurring state of mind that we all experience daily. And once we recognise that we can start to utilise it – take advantage of communication with the unconscious mind to affect profound changes in our lives.
