Hypnosis
as an Altered State of Consciousness
Most people have strong opinions about
hypnosis. Some people consider hypnosis to be a mysterious, unnatural
and possibly very dangerous phenomenon. Few of these same people
have made a careful or objective study of hypnosis. I’ve
noticed many react emotionally when they hear the word hypnosis
without being clear about their objections. This ignorance can
be found among the most highly educated, which is most regrettable.
Others who know a great deal about hypnosis
and feel positive about it have never had any personal hypnotic
experience. They may have observed the hypnosis being experienced
by others, but that’s the extent of their familiarity with
the phenomenon. Then there are those who have experienced hypnotically
induced trances without having systematically experienced a wide
range of hypnotic phenomena.
I suspect that a careful study of people’s
idea about hypnosis would reveal that even professional psychologists
and medical doctors don’t always agree what they mean when
they use the word. Some say all communication involves a degree
of hypnosis, while others say there is not such thing a s hypnosis.
If hypnosis is a kind of altered state
of consciousness, then, as has been suggested, poets, salesmen,
politicians, teachers, parents are all hypnotists. Personally,
I like to think that hypnosis is merely a special way in which
we use our minds.
Hypnosis is a phenomenon we can experience
on our own. It’s not always something someone does to us.
Hypnosis is something we do ourselves; it’s a special way
of using our own minds. Someone else may help us to discover
the various phenomena of hypnosis. For the most part, it is a
state of consciousness we can experience on our own.
Let me repeat. Sometimes we use our minds
in this special way with the help of someone else. That person
may be a professionally trained specialist who has been formally
qualified to work with us in this way. One person is getting
someone else to follow instruction under special conditions of
attention.
If this is so, then what doe we do when
we give someone, especially impressionable young children and
adolescents over whom we may have authority, a "negative
command?" Examples of negative commands would be "Don’t’
drop those weights on your foot." or "Don’t spill
any milk on your desks," or "I don’t want you
to worry about grades."
To act on these instructions students
have to re-present to themselves the command to do what is unwanted.
This is more likely to make happen what we don’t want to
happen. Think about it.
I agree with the suggestion that hypnosis
is a mental process, that hypnosis is not doing anything apart
from what we already are doing. In fact, the understanding of
hypnosis and the special ways in which we can use our minds can
only help us do better what we are already doing, and perhaps
do it with greater impact, and with greater power. Hypnosis is
a way of getting us to pay attention to what’s happening
to us inside our heads and in our bodies.
Much of what is happening to us in our
heads and bodies, and much of what is happening in our immediate
environment, we usually don’t notice. Hypnosis is a way
of getting us to notice what’s happening in and around us
with special focus and heightened awareness.
It is also a way of getting things to
happen in our heads and in our bodies that we may believe we
could not make happen; things that we thought happened only spontaneously
and involuntarily, with our ability to do anything mentally about
it, like lowering blood pressure, or recalling long buried and
forgotten memories.
Hypnosis is a way of expanding our consciousness
and a way of tapping into the power of the subconscious. It can
give us more information about what’s happening to us and
around us, and can give us more control over our lives.
My reasoning goes like this. Choice is
a function of consciousness. Consciousness is a function of information.
The fact that we don’t have the choices we want is a function
of limited consciousness.
If I were living in an authoritarian
community, I would not want people to know about the existence
of hypnosis, least of all to have them experienced in its uses
and abuses. In fact, I would do everything in my power to make
it illegal to teach or practice hypnosis, except for a few whom
I license to teach and practice it to the privileged few. I would
urge for the passage of such a law in the name of the good of
society.
I would also keep pointing out its potential
for abuse. I would want to frighten people so badly that only
in exceptional cases would it ever be used. Such fear of hypnosis
would be so widespread that people would even have great difficulty
entering into the hypnotic experience, because they would not
only have their ignorance and prejudice to overcome, but also
their irrational fear. Finally, practitioners of the science
and art of teaching people how to use their minds in this extraordinary
way could then command large fees.
This indeed is what has happened in at
least one North American jurisdiction with which I am familiar.
Certain professional associations and governmental agencies are
being lobbied to regulate by law who can teach and practice hypnosis.
The problem for the legal experts is
the definition of hypnosis. There is no commonly agreed upon
definition of hypnosis. How can a law against the illegal practice
of hypnosis be enforced when no one can say precisely what it
is? The first point to make clear is that hypnosis is not a something;
it’s a way doing something. It’s set of procedures
used to alter consciousness. It can be a way to expedite personal
changes in how we behave, feel, and think, if we want to so change.
Several questions about hypnosis are
worth asking. I’ll start with the one which I think is least
interesting and least important. What can we do with hypnosis,
supposing that there is such a possibility? Can use hypnosis
to do whatever we want with it? Finally, how can we move someone
to alter their consciousness naturally and for their benefit?
The benefit I would consider worthwhile is to achieve enlightened
reason and expanded awareness of reality.
These thoughts have been inspired by
John Grinder and Richard Bandler, especially in their original
and provocative work, Transformations. Neuro-linguistic Programming
and the Structure of Hypnosis (1981). |
