A Better Understanding of Hypnosis
In order to practice hypnosis for therapeutic reasons you will need three elements: imagination, concentration, and a real motivation to be hypnotized. Every time someone works with a group to induce hypnosis we can still say we are talking about self-hypnosis. It is every person’s individual option if they wish to collaborate with the operator and experience hypnosis.
Releasing the power of your subconscious mind takes some time and practice, but it can then be used to improve most aspects of your life. Therapeutic hypnosis is not available to all people, but most of us can reach light or medium states through concentration and patience. Deep levels of hypnosis produce the best therapeutic results, but beginners may also achieve efficient states of relaxation and inner peace too.
Lighter levels of hypnosis usually enable their operators to experience feelings of relaxation and calmness. Various perceptions of physical changes may also occur: tingling sensations in the fingers, blinking eyelids, a sensation of weight in some parts of the body etc. The intensity of these experiences is low, but a few weeks of practice can teach you how to develop these skills even further. Another element that often relates to initial hypnosis is time distortion. Most subjects will believe they were hypnotized for a shorter amount of time than it is in reality. After a few hypnotic experiences a person will start to get a better perception of the passing time.
The altered state becomes more enhanced as we progress to medium levels of hypnosis. Physical perceptions gain more importance and the subject may experience heightened tingling feelings or heaviness in the lower body. Some subjects experience floating sensations and all these feelings are perceived as being very real by the one being hypnotized. This stage allows the hypnotist to suggest stronger visual images in the subject’s mind. At this level, creating illusions becomes more accessible. New thresholds that were unavailable previously now become apparent. Conscious awareness may fade out for the patient when the level of hypnosis deepens.
Even better mental and physical responses can be achieved through the somnambulistic levels of hypnosis. Several physiologic responses can be observed, such as the REM (rapid eye movement) usually associated with dreams during sleep. At this stage the patients may experience complete conscious amnesia, being virtually absent from their surrounding reality. This is also the level where strong hallucinations occur, during the actual hypnosis process and even after it ends. Hypnosis is seen as the sleep of the nervous system. There is a decrease of the rate of respiration, not as strong as the one experienced during sleep. Circulation also slows down, together with the brain waves.
Brain waves variations in intensity start with beta, the fastest, then slow to alpha, theta and delta. Beta waves are primary when the mind is under a normal state of consciousness. Reduced levels of hypnosis decrease the brain wave activity to alpha and deeper levels may take a subject’s brain waves all the way to theta. Various applications of hypnosis include therapeutic pain relief, psychological treatment and many more.
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