Learning Self-Hypnosis

In 1779, Mesmer published his theories and discoveries regarding "animal
magnetism." By 1825, the procedure was recognized as hypnosis, but not
understood. Although still not fully understood, hypnosis has more recently grad-
uated to medicine and dentistry. The power of hypnosis comes via suggestion.
Suggestion (positive or negative) can have startling effects on the mind/body
combination, but how does hypnosis differ from mere suggestion? The variable is
belief. Positive suggestion during hypnosis is the trigger that initiates the process of
belief for a positive outcome. Throughout your day, negative and positive statements
repeated enough times create a belief system for the subconscious mind to act upon.
During hypnosis, suggestions somehow bypass the normal channels of debatable
consideration and are simply accepted and believed. Just how readily they are
believed depends upon your already established moral and psychological personality
traits.
Perhaps there is an area in your mind governing doubt that is quieted or
circumvented completely through hypnosis. When you are hypnotized by another
person, you often develop a susceptibility to the hypnotic directives of that person.
With unstable individuals, there is also a potential danger that latent personality traits
might manifest outwardly like spirit possession or paranoid neurosis. Therefore if
improperly used, hypnosis via a hypnotist could potentially be dangerous. On the
other hand, self-hypnosis is a natural way to achieve more control over your own
life. There is no danger that you will not awaken or that you will suffer any harm
whatsoever.
When idiot savants illustrate memory feats, play music, create art or calculate
extraordinary sums easily, it appears to be largely due to the lack of interference from
the left or language side of the brain. Since you’re physically the same in or out of
hypnosis, the extraordinary abilities you exhibit under hypnosis must be
representative of the power within you at all times!
Self-hypnosis quiets many of the interfering factors of the left brain to allow more
control over your right brain functioning to take place. It's like shifting your
conscious awareness to a subconscious realm. If you've mastered lucid dreaming
(review "Exercise -- Lucid Dreaming: Conscious Awareness of Your Dreams"), you
already know what a different version of the same thing feels like. This shifting of
your conscious awareness also allows analgesic feats like sticking a needle through
your arm and experiencing no pain, infection or ill effects. Research has shown that
hypnotizable subjects that were primarily left brain-oriented (mostly right handed
people) switched to their right brain when they "went under." It was also noticed that
those who couldn't be hypnotized were mostly right brain-oriented.
Between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind, there is an 'invisible
screen.' The conscious mind can be likened to the objective reasoning area of the
brain, and the subconscious mind is associated with the subjective non-reasoning
area. The subconscious is amenable to suggestion and it also records all memories
that happen to the individual. The 'screen' allows all information to pour into the
subconscious memory, but eliciting the information back out for conscious use
depends on various factors.
To begin this exercise, go to your bedroom after dark and extinguish all lights
except one -- about the intensity of a nightlight or candle. Arrange the light so your
eyes look upwards or slightly higher than a straight ahead look. Now lie down in
bed or get comfortable in an armchair. Breathe abdominally and rhythmically for a
few minutes and let your mind wander. Start to relax all the muscles of your body by
progressively starting with your feet and working upwards towards your head
(review "Exercise -- Relaxation For Improved Awareness"). Bring your conscious
awareness to each area of the body and allow its relaxation to take place. Do this
slowly and methodically.
Continue breathing deeply and steadily without strain. Now take a deep, satis-
fying breath and hold it for a few seconds, and you will hear your pulse throbbing in
your ears. Release it slowly. Repeat the process once again. Now affirm to yourself
3 times that all your muscles are relaxed. With your conscious awareness, recheck
the whole body to confirm that no muscles have been overlooked. There should be
no tension anywhere.
After you do this several times, the relaxation process can be done almost
instantly. Now raise your eyes so that you can see your little nightlight. There
should be a slight strain on your eyes while gazing at the light. Continue looking at
the light until you feel pleasantly drowsy. (In lieu of the light, you can roll your eyes
toward your eyebrows and attempt to see the top of your head. Physiologically, a
suggestive altered state of mind is created by simply raising your eyes upward.) Take
a deep, abdominal breath. Tell yourself that your eyelids will close at the count of ten
and count -- "One - Two - Three - My eyes are heavy - Four - Five - I am becoming
tired - Six - Seven - Eight - I am totally relaxed and at peace - Nine - My eyes are
closing tightly - Ten - My eyes are shut." To go deeper, say the word "Deeper" over
and over again and count from 11 to 20. Now let your body float and relax.
By this internal auditory method, you set up a conditioned response so that in the
future your auto-hypnotic states will proceed in less time. All you'll have to do is
relax, close your eyes, look upward and count, and you'll be in a self-hypnotic state.
This is the same anchoring process you learned in “Exercise -- Anchoring Positive
States of Mind.”
Make sure that you clarify the goal that you want to accomplish ahead of time
though, or your mind will wander aimlessly unless you implant a purpose. Whatever
you decide you want to change in your life -- habits, memory, posture, personality --
can be acted upon at this point.
Design affirmations and visualizations for such changes and repeat them in
succession to yourself 3 times. For instance, if you want to improve your memory,
say to yourself 3 times, "My memory is improving every day in every way," and
visualize how you would feel with a perfect memory. Pretend you are an actor and
you're assuming a new role. The more you can crystallize your visualization, the
quicker you can obtain your objective. So practice putting yourself into a self-
hypnotic state. Then stress the virtues you wish to acquire, but remember that you
have to truly want to change, otherwise the mental conflict of saying something and
not doing it will continue. To bring yourself back out of self-hypnosis, suggest to
yourself to progressively wake up as you count backwards from 10 to 1, and affirm
to yourself 3 times, "I am fully awake, feeling fine and better than before."