HYPNOSIS

[reasonemotion]

Milton Erickson
Erickson is probably the most influential hypnotherapist of the 20th century and the originator of a novel and distinctive style of hypnotism, referred to as “Ericksonian.”


It [hypnosis] is a state of consciousness –not unconsciousness or sleep– a state of consciousness or awareness in which there is a marked receptiveness to ideas and understandings and an increased willingness to respond either positively or negatively to those ideas. [Collected Papers, vol. IV, 224]

Has anyone been hynotised?

I have and was surprised I was responsive to it. I am strong willed, LOL, and was surprised it was successful in my case. I had been to a friends house, lots of people there, a guy was rolling his own cigarettes, offered me one and I loved it. I smoked for three years, until I had nagging thoughts, hey, this may be bad for my health. Duh! The hynotherapist was a doctor of medicine, who specialised in quitting smoking. I walked out of his office one hour later and never smoked again. That was six years ago.

A sign of weakness?

[The Voice of Time]

Believe it when I'm tried it

Before that I have my doubts. But then again, if he/she says "take down your guard" then how can I know if it is hypnosis or just simple acceptance of the situation? Am I doing it to play along or am I doing it because I somehow must?

[duszek]

I have never been hypnotised but I suppose that the hypnotiser tries to persude his patient that one course of action is better than the other one.
So the will power of the hypnotised person becomes weaker and not stronger, because the hypnotised person follows the will of the hypnotiser instead of his own.

[chaz wyman]

There is no doubt about the effectiveness of hypnosis. Before it was that it was known as Mesmerism after its discoverer Franz Mesmer. Although based on an 18thC theory of magnetism he uncovered this bizarre tendency of humans to enter a suggestive state. I would hazard that the same phenomenon is what we have witnessed in Trance Dancing and other states we might call 'transcendent'. So call it Mesmerism, hypnosis, trance,or whatever - for some reason at least some of us are able to let go of our quotidian mode of consciousness.
Clearly there is a difference between the method by which this state can be achieved. With hypnosis and mesmerism the state is imposed upon us by another, whereas the Shaman or Healer or the sort we find in some h/g cultures such as the !Kung this state can be self imposed.

it is easy to see why one would want to believe that such states are somehow touching the infinite or some such mystical interpretation - but I think modern hypnosis and the universality of this leans us towards a biological mechanism that has sadly not attracted enough study.

[Arising_uk]

Milton Erickson
Erickson is probably the most influential hypnotherapist of the 20th century and the originator of a novel and distinctive style of hypnotism, referred to as “Ericksonian.”
...

A sign of weakness?

Nope, as it was you that convinced you to give-up.

You might like NLP and the books by John Grinder and Richard Bandler, "The Structure of Magic I and II". As Erickson was one of the models they used in developing the system, he liked them. As such Ericksonian hypnosis and hypnosis per se is a subset of the NLP techniques.

Although that does remind me of the oft repeated story of the hypno-therapist who got someone to quit smoking by making them revolting but forget to get them to quit buying them.

Ecology check anyone?

[reasonemotion]

Yes, I think you may be right. The power of my own mind influencing my mind. Dualistic? One part of my brain influencing another part. That's scarey. Interesting. I will check out those books. Thanks. I might add, a friend came with me and it didnt affect her at all. Still smokes. Nevertheless, the actual person who was performing the ritual, for want of a better word, did seem to play a part in this. I was mesmerised by his face. Very intense man. I cant altogether disregard his influence on my mind.

[chaz wyman]

Yes, I think you may be right. The power of my own mind influencing my mind. Dualistic? One part of my brain influencing another part. That's scarey. Interesting. I will check out those books. Thanks. I might add, a friend came with me and it didnt affect her at all. Still smokes. Nevertheless, the actual person who was performing the ritual, for want of a better word, did seem to play a part in this. I was mesmerised by his face. Very intense man. I cant altogether disregard his influence on my mind.

I don't think this is dualistic. Different parts of an engine affect each other.

[duszek]

But what would be the difference to brain-washing then ? If there is any.

Propaganda works by repeating again and again the same things so that they are accepted unconsciously as axioms or dogmas or eternal truths.

In a story by Thomas Mann ("Mario und der Zauberer") a man agreed to come on stage during a life presentation and the hypnotizer convinced the man that he (the hypnotizer) was the woman the man loved, with the name Silvestra, and so the man kissed "Silvestra" and the public was amused. And when the man woke up again and realized what he did he took a gun and shoot the hypnotizer.

Does hypnosis work only while you are in this special sleep-like state of mind or is it supposed to have long-term effects, that is also when you are awake ?

Hypnos = Sleep (Brother of Tanatos = Death)

[chaz wyman]

But what would be the difference to brain-washing then ? If there is any.

Propaganda works by repeating again and again the same things so that they are accepted unconsciously as axioms or dogmas or eternal truths.

In a story by Thomas Mann ("Mario und der Zauberer") a man agreed to come on stage during a life presentation and the hypnotizer convinced the man that he (the hypnotizer) was the woman the man loved, with the name Silvestra, and so the man kissed "Silvestra" and the public was amused. And when the man woke up again and realized what he did he took a gun and shoot the hypnotizer.

Does hypnosis work only while you are in this special sleep-like state of mind or is it supposed to have long-term effects, that is also when you are awake ?

Hypnos = Sleep (Brother of Tanatos = Death)

That's Thanatos

[Arising_uk]

But what would be the difference to brain-washing then ? If there is any. ...

The difference is that in brain-washing someone else is doing it.

Propaganda works by repeating again and again the same things so that they are accepted unconsciously as axioms or dogmas or eternal truths.

Hmm, not quite I think. It works by starting with the young.

... Does hypnosis work only while you are in this special sleep-like state of mind or is it supposed to have long-term effects, that is also when you are awake ?

Its called a trance-like state and it can have long-term effects, if by this you mean can the persons behaviour be changed permanently, but pretty much only if the person is either highly susceptible or they actually wish the change.

[The Voice of Time]

But what would be the difference to brain-washing then ? If there is any.

Propaganda works by repeating again and again the same things so that they are accepted unconsciously as axioms or dogmas or eternal truths.

In a story by Thomas Mann ("Mario und der Zauberer") a man agreed to come on stage during a life presentation and the hypnotizer convinced the man that he (the hypnotizer) was the woman the man loved, with the name Silvestra, and so the man kissed "Silvestra" and the public was amused. And when the man woke up again and realized what he did he took a gun and shoot the hypnotizer.

Does hypnosis work only while you are in this special sleep-like state of mind or is it supposed to have long-term effects, that is also when you are awake ?

Hypnos = Sleep (Brother of Tanatos = Death)

I think hypnosis is more than just repetition, and brain-washing is more long-term and personal. I really don't think hypnosis works in the long run, I don't think you can effectively build a person's life on it, though that is just my guess.

[duszek]

Arising

There are some changes lots of us would like to take place, for example to worry less.
Instead of numbing oneself with alcohol we could try hypnotizing ourselves.

My sister told me that she would like to stop analizing things (compulsively ?) all the time.

I would like to stop being annoyed by things.

Would you recommend telling oneself like a hypnotizer, in a deep soft and authoritative voice:

stop worrying, stop worrying, stop worrying ...

stop analyzing, stop analyzing, stop analyzing ...

stop being annoyed, stop being annoyed, stop being annoyed ...

stop lusting for a cookie, stop lusting for a cookie, stop lusting for a cookie ...

[The Voice of Time]

Arising

There are some changes lots of us would like to take place, for example to worry less.
Instead of numbing oneself with alcohol we could try hypnotizing ourselves.

My sister told me that she would like to stop analizing things (compulsively ?) all the time.

I would like to stop being annoyed by things.

Would you recommend telling oneself like a hypnotizer, in a deep soft and authoritative voice:

stop worrying, stop worrying, stop worrying ...

stop analyzing, stop analyzing, stop analyzing ...

stop being annoyed, stop being annoyed, stop being annoyed ...

stop lusting for a cookie, stop lusting for a cookie, stop lusting for a cookie ...

I feel very annoyed, I'm worrying about tomorrow, for some reason I just now wanted to have a cookie. I feel compulsive to analyse my analysis... for some weird reason ^^

Don't think it works

[duszek]

My question to Arising was servious.
I already tried this auto-hypnosis or auto-propaganda or auto-brainwashing and somehow it did not work.

What did work when I wanted to stop having a strong negative emotion was to explain it in full sentences to an imaginary interlocutor (a psychotherapist, an NLP-coach, or a guardian angel). It probably worked because the brain´s activity switched from the right (=emotional) to the left (=analytical, liguistic) hemisphere.

I did further experiments continuing this line of reasoning.
I tried to understand something from a book on the game theory or to solve some accounting problems.

I also observed that thinking about universal things, for example cosmic ones, also calms one down because the reasons for the excitement one experiences become small and ridiculous by comparison.

The bad thing about migraine is that the brain goes on analyzing and processing on its own like hell no matter what you try and this is hell.

[SpheresOfBalance]

I've dealt with hypnotism and post hypnotic suggestion, and it's pretty cool. Specifically, I tested ideo-motor-movement, while hypnotized, which is that, which is responsible for an honest Ouija Board session, (if no one cheats). In this particular case, it was a pendulum made from a wedding ring at the end of a 6-8 inch length of sewing thread, the end of which, I was holding in my hands. After the relaxation portion, which gave way to the hypnotic state, I was told to stare at and focus my attention on the ring, which was erratically moving and then tell it to stop. To my surprise, it stopped abruptly, with no discernible movement whatsoever. Then I was told to decide on a direction of swing that indicated yes and one that indicated no, typically forward and backward would be yes while side to side would be no, which is what I chose, Then he said, "now make it indicate yes," and as soon as I thought it, it moved in an extremely precise forward and backward motion just like that of a clock pendulum, then I was told to stop it, and as I thought it, it came to an abrupt stop, then I was asked to have it indicate a no, and sure enough it precisely did the same thing from left to right, then of course he had me stop it, and abruptly it did. After that he had me ask it a series of yes/no questions, first two control questions, one that I knew was true and one that I knew was false, and of course without fail it indicated the truth. Now the thing about this whole experiment, that I thought was utterly amazing, was that I was not consciously moving the pendulum, and that my mind was capable of sending unperceivable micro movements, vibrations, if you will, that caused the precision, instantaneousness, and thus absolute control of it's movement. I was blown away that the human body could do such things. I then new that a Ouija Board was not total BS, if only I could find someone that wouldn't cheat.