What are your thoughts on hypnosis? Have you ever been to a show where they have a hypnotist who gets an audience member to come up on stage for a test? I have never been but have always wondered if it is possible or just a trick. Apparently there are alot of skeptics out there. Thus the need for some tests.
The following article I found very informative as to how the whole mind,body and consciousness correlate to give a solid foundation to the probability of hypnosis.
Mind and Self Hypnosis: A Short Introduction
Copyright 2005 Eldon Taylor
Mind and Self Hypnosis
by Eldon Taylor, Ph.D., DAPA, Ct.H.
Introduction
First, I want to suggest to you that all hypnosis is
fundamentally self hypnosis. This idea is not new from me,
for one of the real pioneers of modern hypnosis, Dr. Milton
Ericcson made this statement many years ago. The fact is,
hypnosis is based on suggestibility and you must be willing
to accept the suggestions or their is no so-called trance
state to follow. Now, that is not to say that gifted
hypnotists are not able to disarm defenses one might have,
but it is to say that YOU are the key to a successful
hypnotic session. The common fear of hypnosis, that someone
else has control over you, has no place in a self-hypnosis
session, for you are both the hypnotist and the
subject--and just to be clear, the fear is mislaid and
false to fact.
You will learn that hypnosis is a natural state that can be
objectified by brain wave activity. This special brain wave
state known as alpha and theta (we'll look at those more
closely later in this text) is not only a powerful state
for mind training, deep relaxation, accelerated learning
opportunities and so forth, but a state that most move
through several times each day. All of this and more is
covered in these programs, so let's get into some important
matters that are not discussed there.
Self Hypnosis to Condition Belief
Not long ago I was preparing a literature review of
hypnosis. One of the texts I used is written by two
scholars with impeccable credentials. The book is called
"Hypnosis, Will and Memory" (Laurence and Campbell, 1988).
It is essentially a psycho-legal history of hypnosis.
Repeatedly the text cites a time when hypnosis was believed
to be either of the devil or pure unmitigated fakery.
Finally, the scientific community investigated hypnosis.
Scientists who doubted hypnosis used a test to determine
true hypnosis from fakery. The test was largely based on
body levitation evidence. In other words, it was assumed as
a result of direct observation that a subject truly in
hypnosis could and would levitate!
Now skeptics tested for fakery and often reported finding
hidden wires and ropes and pulleys. However, these same
skeptics reported true unfaked levitation on many
occasions. Not only did they report it, the evidence was
sometimes offered in the courts. Okay, levitation was not
such an unnatural act until the laws of Newton became
popularly known. Suddenly, everyone knew that the human
body was heavier than air and could not float. Levitation
suddenly disappeared from the scene and the literature.
Prior to that, levitation was often witnessed by the most
reliable of even the skeptics in instances of hypnosis,
spiritual enlightenment and so-called demonic possession.
Indeed, levitation was one of the criteria for determining
the guilt or innocence of a witch.
It would appear that belief, individual and collective,
directly influences the physical world. Physicists have
often reported the role of the "observer" in influencing
the outcome of physical measurement and observation.
Indeed, many physicists believe that consciousness
interacts with matter. A recent study employed some
sophisticated statistical measurements to evaluate the
mind's interaction with matter. The data clearly suggested
an information exchange between mind and matter.
Belief in ourselves, abilities, powers, and the influence
over our own lives and the world around us, is at the crux
of what each and every one of us experiences in life.
Belief literally may define and delimit our every
experience. Eroding belief is doubt. Self doubt is the most
personally damaging belief we can hold.
Monkey Conditioning--Behaviorism
Regaining our inherent self-confidence, self-belief,
self-respect, and self power is relatively easy, if we're
willing to make the proper choices. The difficulty is in
the choices. Humans can behave very much like the
conditioned animal. It is for this reason that Classical
Behaviorism gained such popularity in psychological schools
of thought. Behaviorism essentially argues that the human
condition is entirely a product of nature/nurture and is
conditioned to believe, behave and otherwise execute life.
There is no such thing as a higher principle or a need for
self-actualization. The human is but a shabby animal with
higher cerebral processing mechanisms than other animals.
It behaves in habitual patterns and treatment consists
chiefly of changing the patterns. The assertion seems
simple, change behavior and you change the person. This
assertion has some very pragmatic applications and we'll
use it as we progress with the material at hand. However,
just so there is no ambiguity, the underlying hypothesis
which asserts no higher principle is as false a notion as
any one will ever encounter! In fact, it is my opinion that
only one with true cognitive dissonance and/or absolute
ignorance of the world around us would hold such a view.
Altered States Of Consciousness
For some, an altered state of consciousness is a taboo. It
portends to "mess" with the mind. The mind is not to be
messed with. I have always found this assertion naive for
the reason that every human being experiences various
states of altered consciousness daily. When the typical
person turns on the television, an altered state generally
ensues. Indeed, children become conditioned to enter an
altered state within minutes after beginning to view TV.
Studies have demonstrated that even when children are
hooked up to brain wave monitoring devices such as electro
encephalographic feedback and given substantial reward
motivation to remain in fully alert states of
consciousness, that in under five minutes they will fail to
maintain ordinary wakeful consciousness. The child will
slip into what is commonly termed alpha consciousness (more
on this in a moment). When a person day dreams, falls into
a light sleep or state of reverie, slowly wakes from a deep
sleep, or fixates on almost anything, they are almost
always in an altered state of consciousness. So what is an
altered state of consciousness?
Typically, consciousness is divided into four categories.
Normal consciousness is called "beta," lightly modified
consciousness "alpha," deep sleep "theta," and comatose
states "delta." States of consciousness are thought of in
terms of brain wave rates (cycles per second). Beta
consciousness is normally 15 to 30 cycles per second, alpha
is 8 to 14 cycles per second, theta is 4 to 8 cycles per
second and delta is less than 4. Now let's translate this
schema into something meaningful outside the realm of
definition.
Beta
In normal ordinary wakeful states of consciousness, the
mind operates from its most critical platform. It
constantly judges input from self (inner talk) and others.
It evaluates and reacts. Indeed, it chiefly reacts. For
even when one believes they are evaluating, more often than
not, the evaluation is settled before it begins. The belief
system of the unconscious not only places a lens through
which all matters will be disputed, but it also hides
behind a protective veil the information that may give rise
to mistaken decisions. That is, the unconscious mind during
normal wakeful states is operating as a software program
feeding the flow of everyday life through a mosaic of
interpretations that are written chiefly upon avoidance and
attraction principles (experienced and imagined).
Therefore, when the conscious mind says something like, "I
can do this. I'm good enough to excel and succeed," the
unconscious (subconscious if you prefer) sends some inner
talk message like, "Really, good enough for what? How
about‹? Do you remember?" etc.
Now, maybe the reason the unconscious sends the negative
message is due to some fear from the past, or some fear
projected through imagination. Perhaps the negative
feedback is due to negative input from peers, parents, and
so forth. It is also possible that the negative is due to
some deep sense of unworthiness that is the result of a
need to punish oneself. It could also be the result of some
deep belief that conflicts with our desire, such as the
desire to become successful and an inner belief that sorts
along a line of logic that goes something like this, "If I
want to be saved in Heaven, I must sacrifice here and now.
Further, money is the source of all evil." There could also
be a myriad of other reasons and a virtual labrynth of
entanglement between them all. The fact is, in ordinary
beta consciousness very little new information can really
get in. Now, "very little" in this reference is by
comparison to alpha consciousness. In fact, just as an
aside before going further, the methods of Superlearning
and Suggestopedia (Ostrander) clearly demonstrate the
advantage of learning school room information such as
language, math, science, and so forth, in alpha
consciousness states.
Alpha
Alpha consciousness is the state most refer to as the
primary state experienced in hypnosis. Hypnosis has been
viewed from many perspectives and historically has held
more than one definition. However, the agreed upon
definition today is a heightened state of suggestibility.
This heightened state of suggestibility is just what the
title implies. In alpha consciousness one is particularly
prone to the acceptance of skillful suggestion. The nature
of suggestion depends on who is suggesting. A
hypnotherapist will make healthy and positive suggestions
while a sales person trained in the art of hypnotic selling
may give personally self-serving suggestions (Moine,
Lloyd). The power of suggestion and the psychology of
compliance, mentioned in further detail in the next
chapter, are used every day in mass marketing strategies to
sell everything from illness to religion (Taylor).
When one is in an alpha state, whether naturally or
artificially induced, their inner talk tends to slow down
and become image oriented and/or guided as opposed to
constantly self-initiated, albeit often unconsciously.
Since we live in a modern society we are exposed to a
variety of stimuli that our forefathers never knew. Let me
provide a couple of examples.
Much of the television, radio and print media programming
of today dwells on violence, sex and so-called taboo
issues. The word is sensationalism. The more sensational,
the better the reviews, the more money, the larger the
audience and so on. Rather systematically over the past
twenty to thirty years, the threshold of arousal has
increased in the population, forcing an ever increasing
thrust into areas of an explicit nature in order to
maintain the sensational. Consequently, our inner talk, our
fantasies, our very ideation has been influenced. This new
tolerance for vengeance, anger, fear, violence, sexuality
and so forth has tilted our society. Values have diminished
to the point that we have younger generations without the
proverbial "clue" as to what life is about. The world is
for living and taking and minimizing pain while maximizing
pleasure. Twelve-year-old children walk into school and gun
down their teachers and school mates. Drugs, child
prostitution, gang violence, drive-by shootings, and so
forth are the chief worries of parents today. How did our
society degenerate to this point?
Many psychologists and psychiatrists, sociologists and
anthropologists, and for that matter, political scientists,
have made vociferous outcries asserting the neurotic nature
of our times and are lining up in an attempt to end the
media management of arousal thresholds and value
orientation. Television has probably the single largest
impact on people today. It guides our purchases, the
information most have about their world or any single
issue/event, merchandises everything from wearing apparel,
hair style, fashion in general to wholesaling the common
cold. "It's the flu season and it's coming to your town!
Everyone will get it! You can relax and baby yourself,
pamper your whims and take some needed time off, maybe even
cement your relationships, if you have XYZ on hand." How
much sickness do you think is vended in the same way
attitudes and beliefs are sold through our media?
Some of you may want to say, "Taylor, you're nuts.
Television doesn't make anyone sick. You don't get the flu
from a TV!" Fair enough. Let's look a little deeper. When a
person is in a state of alpha, such as hypnosis, the
science and literature show us clearly, without doubt, that
the body can be suggested to health or illness. A hypnotist
can suggest a burn, place an ice cube on the arm, and a
blister will almost immediately appear. As a practicing
hypnotherapist, I personally witnessed phenomena that
illustrates the mind's control over the body to the degree
that suggesting a simple runny nose is, as Sherlock would
say, "Elementary!" But in order to tie this suggestibility
of alpha states in to the problems posed by television
viewing, we should also take a look at another area of
scientific enquiry that may surprise you.
Studies have shown that the average individual will enter
alpha brain wave states within four minutes of being
engaged by television (Taylor). If you think about it, this
should not come as any surprise. How many times have each
of us seen someone, or been that someone, who appeared so
engrossed in television that it required yelling at the
person to get their attention?
Okay, alpha consciousness and "cold season"‹I ask you
again, how much illness do you think is sold in order to
create the market that sells the cure?
It should be obvious that the state of alpha consciousness
is not only natural but can be a beneficial time to put
positive information into our bio computing brain/mind. The
essential use of alpha can also either be a matter of
choice or a matter of habituation. Recently I saw a sign in
the supermarket selling the publication: TV Guide. The sign
underneath the current issue said, "Check Out." A picture
of a television with the initials TV within it was all that
accompanied the sign. How many times have you heard or used
the phrase, "I'll watch television and check out"? Check
out, vacuum the mind, and so on; these are the terms we all
naturally think of when we think of TV. Turn our minds
over, let go of our concerns, oh‹and let someone else
program them. Why "check out"? In alpha states of
consciousness endorphin levels increase. Endorphin is the
body's natural opiate system. It feels good. Sometimes,
perhaps too good.
Before we continue with our discussion of brain states, let
me provide a visual analogy that may be helpful. If you
think of brain wave activity as the number of lines on an
inch of graph paper, then you have a visual image of mental
activity at least as we measure it with
electro-encephalographic instrumentation. Instead of
thinking of the lines on paper, think in terms of the size
of fencing. The closer the lines are to each other, the
smaller the fencing material. The smaller the fencing, the
more restrictive it is to both incoming and outgoing
"stuff;" in our analogy, let's say birds. The mind is very
much like this. The tighter the wire enclosure, the less
information (stimulus) we can process and remember. This is
why superlearning states use alpha consciousness. As the
brain wave activity slows down, the holes in our fencing
material become large and more information can get it. (See
the illustration below).
In future chapters we'll examine in more detail some of the
powers and practical applications of altered states of
consciousness. For the purposes of this chapter, our
introduction is only intended to serve as groundwork.
Theta
Theta consciousness is often associated with deep sleep and
very deep levels of hypnosis or meditation. It is generally
believed that the so-called super human feats of the many
spiritual masters, such as those reported eating hot coals,
controlling body functions, and so forth, are achieved
while in theta consciousness. Indeed, mystics tend to teach
that as the brain wave patterns slow, the vibration of the
body alters. By allegedly changing the vibration of the
body, many things thought to be impossible become possible.
The rate of vibration is seen analogically as light
vibrating at a rate much faster than
glass, therefore it passes through the glass. A stone,
however, vibrates much slower than glass, consequently
preventing it from passing through without breaking the
glass. Thus, there is an arguable inverse proportion to
brain wave activity and body vibration. As the brain wave
activity slows, the body vibration rate is said to increase.
Delta
Delta consciousness is ordinarily thought of as comatose.
For years this state of consciousness was believed to be so
turned in on itself that outside stimuli went totally
unnoticed, perhaps even unrecognized at any level of
registration. However, the work of Oliver Sacks showed the
world that even in this state of consciousness, there is
awareness. In his work with patients (see his book
Awakenings), he used massive doses of dopamine, and
literally awakened (at least for a short time) most of the
patients. Stranger than fiction, these patients reported
their various records and sensitivities to the history of
their treatment, the hospital protocol, their environment
and so forth.
This has just been a short introduction to hypnosis. The
bottom line is one that you may want to check out for
yourself. My suggestion, try it. If you still want to know
more first, then you will want to read the story in the
July 2001 issue of Scientific America. The article shatters
many common myths including those that attempt to debunk
hypnosis as either fakery, pleasing the hypnotist or
imagination. The hypnotic subject experiences a state of
consciousness that is independent from so-called ordinary
consciousness. It is not about compliance or imagination,
nor is it about placebo responsiveness, low intelligence or
the weak minded. Hypnosis is a safe state where many
wonderful insights and healings can and do take place.
----------------------------------------------------
Eldon Taylor is the Director of progressive Awareness
Research and the author of over 200 books, tapes, videos
and CDs,
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