The Feeling of Hypnosis

     Hypnosis feels a bit different in my office than just naturally going into it.  After I induce the state of hypnosis, which most of the time is instantly, the person starts thinking even though my instructions were to not think.  First they are thinking, "Am I hypnotized?  I don’t think I’m hypnotized, is this working?  I don’t feel any different."  You see, most people have a preconceived idea about what hypnosis is going to feel like.  They expect that they will be out of control or sleeping but it’s just not like that.

     After these thoughts die down then people generally start thinking about moving or adjusting their body.  "I’m uncomfortable, is it okay to move?"  "I have an itch, can I scratch it?"  Of course it’s okay to move around.  I remember I had two clients in my office, one after the other, on two consecutive days for smoking cessation.  Both of them were squirmers.  They squirmed around so much that I actually swiveled my chair around and was kind of looking the other direction because they were bothering me!  So yes, it’s okay to move while in hypnosis, actually the definition of hypnosis says nothing about relaxation.  I could hypnotize you standing up, with your eyes open.

     After the person gets by these sets of thoughts they all pretty much say the following after the session has been completed.  "Well… I was listening to you and heard most of what you said but I kind of tuned you out here and there, I stopped listening to you after a while but then I came back and started paying attention again."  This happens much more when I’m doing most of the talking.  If I’m doing a direct suggestion kind of session where I’m rambling on and on then yes, the person tends to tune me out here and there.  This tuning out does not mean that they aren’t "Getting it" though, in fact I believe my suggestions are getting in there even better during this time because they are so deep.  Hypnosis is similar to a sleep pattern.  When you sleep at night you go through cycles of sleep where you shallow out for a while, meaning you are in light sleep, and then go into REM sleep, rapid eye movement where you are in deep sleep.  The same holds true for the state of hypnosis.  That’s why it’s important to deepen your subject so when they "Shallow out" they aren’t "Coming out" of hypnosis.

     Interestingly enough most people don’t even think they were hypnotized when we have concluded our session no matter what took place.  I was taught that it’s very important your client knows that something was going on.  Maybe that is important but I focus more on results.  Nonetheless I use to do all kinds of things to prove they were hypnotized such as, "In a moment I will count from fifteen down to one.  At the count of one or before, your right arm will be so light that it will just float up to the ceiling."  I won’t bore you with the patter, (patter is the term used by hypnotists, it’s what they say during a session), but their arm would be floating on up, waving around in the air.  Sometimes I would have them open their eyes and look at their arm floating around, they generally laugh and think it’s funny.  Then I might tell them that when I snap my fingers the sensation in their arm goes from very light to extremely heavy and that arm will just plop on down at the snap of my fingers and, Snap!  Their arm falls as if it’s filled with lead, I then have them close their eyes and go much deeper.

     After the session when I ask them what they thought about their arm floating up like it did they say that it was pretty neat but they still don’t think they were hypnotized!  I would do things like the floating arm or just regress them back to being two or three years old.  After the session they were amazed, "Wow, my mom looked so young!"  Of course they still didn’t think they were hypnotized.  You see that’s the thing, people expect hypnosis to be this wild out of control kind of feeling, it just isn’t.  Once in a while I get the metaphysical types coming in wanting an "Experience" so if I take my usual approach they won’t think they were hypnotized either.  Here’s the thing though, if you want someone to absolutely know they were hypnotized then you must deepen them quiet a bit.  We’ll discuss deepening later in chapter three.  Extreme deepening of trance isn’t generally necessary for most clinical hypnosis sessions.  I generally spend about five to ten minutes or so in deepening my subjects.

     The biggest convincer that you were in hypnosis is that time is very skewed.  If a person is in hypnosis for an hour or ten hours, it pretty much feels like around twenty minutes or so for them.  But again, the more they are talking the longer the session feels.  The more you deepen the person, the more this feeling of being hypnotized increases.  By counting, breathing, suggestions of letting go and imagery, it is possible to have an "Experience" while in hypnosis.

     Another huge aspect of hypnosis is that you cannot induce hypnosis without someone’s knowledge or consent.  Most of the time I use an instant induction to place a person into hypnosis.  We will talk about inductions later but if I were to just walk up to you and snap my fingers in front of your eyes and command "Sleep", you’d look at me funny!  If you knew I was a hypnotist and you wanted to be hypnotized and I did that same thing, then you would be placed in a wonderful state of hypnosis.  Mental expectancy is huge for this to work.