Clarification of Myths:
The field of hypnosis has been a victim of misconceptions for a long time. Time has changed, but the misconceptions continue to exist even today. I have been analyzing the nature of misconceptions prevalent
in the society. I formulated that the central misconception relates to the perceived nature of hypnotic trance as characterized by “Total Loss of Awareness”.
Some people mistakenly think that there is a ‘total loss of awareness’ in a state of hypnosis.
This is an error at the conceptual level because total loss of awareness occurs in a state of unconsciousness due to generalized anesthesia, coma and head injury. This
is an organic condition produced by a chemical, injury to the brain or pathological
changes in the brain.
A person with total loss of awareness cannot sense, perceive,
attend or participate in any communication or interaction. In hypnosis a person can
hear and respond to the suggestions and interactions of the hypnotist. So if a person
remains aware of the hypnotist’s voice then he cannot be considered in a state of
“Total Loss of Awareness”. For psychotherapy and healing under hypnotic trance, a
person must remain aware of the hypnotist’s suggestions, else it would not be
possible to do any kind of therapy.
Instead of Total Loss of Awareness there is a Duality of Awareness in hypnotic
trance. This indicates that a part of the awareness remain and must remain active
in hypnotic trance. The language of the subjects seeking hypnosis and past life
regression can quickly reveal this major myth. For example, after experiencing a
hypnotic trance, if a person says, that he was aware of the surroundings and he did
not get lost into the experience readily reveals the existence of this myth. Since a
part of the awareness remains active in the present, it can be construed as a rule
that the person in hypnotic trance would remain aware of the surroundings to a
more or less degree determined by his suggestibility in the session. To a person who
complains of not getting lost into the experience of hypnosis, I do bring out this
myth to the surface with a simple question, did you want to have an experience of
total loss of awareness; and if the answer is yes; then I proceed for clarifications on
the lines of explanations given above.
A major apprehension relates to the possible loss of control over oneself and
becoming slave of the hypnotist during hypnotic trance. That one may reveal dark
secrets of one’s life under hypnotic influence; or engage in such a behavior which
otherwise one will not like to do. This is a myth because a part of awareness remains
active even in deeper levels of hypnotic trance; a person retains control over oneself.
Let us conceptualize the total awareness on a continuum of zero to 100. Zero means
total lack of awareness as in coma and 100 is total waking awareness. The altered
awareness in hypnosis would lie somewhere between zero and 100. To what extent
a person’s awareness is altered under hypnosis is determined by the subject’s
suggestibility at that particular moment.
A query can be raised by a subject that if he is aware of the surroundings
during trance then how he could ensure that he was under the influence of hypnotic
trance. This can be done through trance testing. Hypnotic trance results in
characteristic subjective and objective experiences. A hypnotist can perform trance
testing to determine if a subject has passed into hypnotic trance. If the subject passes
those tests, then it can reasonably be ensured that the subject is under the influence
of the trance.
The other major apprehension relates to the possibility of getting stuck in
hypnosis; which I call as failure to exit from hypnotic trance. A person cannot
remain hypnotized permanently. The hypnotic awareness keeps on oscillating
towards waking awareness. If a hypnotic trance is not formally terminated then the
hypnotized person would either return back to normal waking state after a few
moments or pass into natural sleep and return back to the waking state in a few
minutes to hours. There is no risk of getting stuck into the process.
Similarly, a person cannot infinitely remain in past life regression. Hypnosis
based past life regression is not a time machine which physically transports a person
into older time; it is a psychological experience and a person maintains duality of
awareness that is, awareness of former life experience as well as current life. It can
be easily explained through the analogy of dreaming. While dreaming, a person
remains absorbed in the dream experience and believes in all the reality of the
dream experience and once out of dream and in waking state, the same person
comes out with the feeling Oh! It was a dream, I was asleep. In dream, the person
remains largely shut off from the current life experiences and remains involved in
the experiences released by unconscious layer of one’s own mind. The regression
experiences too are released by the unconscious mind of a person. It is a smooth and
natural process. This also explains why some persons get clues to their former lives
in dreams.
Hypnotic trance is different from a state of sleep. In sleep state, a person cannot
communicate with other person. Any attempt to interact or communicate would
break the sleep and a person would return back to waking awareness. But in
hypnotic trance, a person remains in the trance and smoothly communicates with
the hypnotist. The hypnotic trance does not break even with prolonged
conversations.
Getting into hypnotic trance is not an indication of weak mind. The persons
with impaired cognitive functions such as dementia and persons with intellectual
disabilities could be considered as persons with weak mind because they have
difficulties in performing higher order intellectual functions such as reasoning,
judging and abstraction. Because of their limited cognitive ability, they are poor
subjects for hypnosis. Persons with average or above average intellectual functions
are good candidates for hypnosis instead of the persons with weak mind.
Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are two different things. Hypnosis plus therapy is
hypnotherapy.
Putting a person into hypnotic trance and bringing back to waking
state would constitute pure hypnosis and it does not involve any kind of healing.
Delivering positive suggestions, performing past life regression or any other healing
procedure under hypnotic trance would constitute hypnotherapy. No system of
medicine or therapy is 100% successful in all kind of ailments. Similar is the case
with hypnotherapy, it cannot cure each and every kind of ailment. It can be a
magical therapy in some isolated instances but not in all.
The acquisition of the skill of hypnotherapy and past life regression does not
require any kind of mantra, tantra or sadhana. There are specific procedures to
perform these therapies. Any professional with adequate background can learn and
perform these therapies.
One of the major myths is the concept that the power of hypnotizing rests with
the competence of a hypnotist. On the contrary, the capacity to experience hypnosis
depends upon the suggestibility of the subject. This can be explained through
following example. A hypnotist delivers instructions for hypnotic induction to a
group of 100 persons. If we analyze the response of 100 persons, we would find
that some persons are deeply hypnotized, some are medium, others are in light state
of hypnosis and remaining failed to experience any effect of hypnotic trance. The
hypnotist is the same, if it was his power, then all 100 persons should have equal
and the same response. The observed individual differences are due to the
differences in suggestibility of the audience instead of the capacity of the hypnotist.
To further extend the example, instead of a hypnotist, we can play an MP3
containing instructions of hypnosis. The same group listens to this MP3, again there
would be similar pattern of response of the audience. This clearly indicates that the
capacity to experience hypnosis is determined by the subjects’ own suggestibility
and hypnotist is merely a guide in eliciting the hypnotic response.
In summary, the hypnotic trance state is different from the waking and sleep
state. That is why some hypnotists like to consider it as a state of altered awareness.
What is this altered state of awareness? An altered state of awareness in the context
of hypnosis means a state of awareness which is different from waking awareness
hypnotist is the same, if it was his power, then all 100 persons should have equal
and the same response. The observed individual differences are due to the
differences in suggestibility of the audience instead of the capacity of the hypnotist.
To further extend the example, instead of a hypnotist, we can play an MP3
containing instructions of hypnosis. The same group listens to this MP3, again there
would be similar pattern of response of the audience. This clearly indicates that the
capacity to experience hypnosis is determined by the subjects’ own suggestibility
and hypnotist is merely a guide in eliciting the hypnotic response.
In summary, the hypnotic trance state is different from the waking and sleep
state. That is why some hypnotists like to consider it as a state of altered awareness.
What is this altered state of awareness? An altered state of awareness in the context
of hypnosis means a state of awareness which is different from waking awareness,
sleep and unconsciousness. Other hypnotists consider hypnosis as a state of (a)
heightened focal concentration or absorption (b) heightened suggestibility or
openness to suggestions. A dictionary may define hypnosis as a state resembling
sleep but not actual sleep. A broader perspective of hypnosis is bypassing critical
faculties of mind to deliver (messages) suggestion to subconscious layer of the mind.
For the purposes of past life regression, I mostly prefer to adopt the perspective of
altered state of awareness; and this awareness permits access to subconscious/
unconscious layers of the mind for retrieval of past life experiences.
