What is hypnosis?
In fact we cannot define exactly what hypnosis is. Scientists are still trying to figure it out. Is it a state or is it a process? The one thing that is very important to realize is that hypnosis is a very natural state of mind. You can enter this state naturally several times a day without even noticing. Some examples include: becoming emerged in music or a movie; being engrossed in your work; being so lost in thought while driving you almost miss the next exit. The latter we call highway hypnosis. This can happen when your normal consciousness, i.e., the analytical part of your mind is engaged with a problem at work or a family issue while your subconscious mind is taking over the driving. For the subconscious mind your safety is of greater importance than finding the right exit. Being in hypnosis means being in a state of great focus, whereby critical and analytical thinking is less involved.
Through hypnosis we can understand who we truly are and what we feel. Hypnosis is capable of amazing things. How hypnosis works is easily explained by using the working of a computer.
When a human is born he/she has access to a basic operating system that takes care of important functions that are mostly executed automatically, such as breathing, regulating blood pressure and temperature and much more. A baby is like a new computer out of the box.
The young child starts a learning process through interaction with other people and events taking place in their environment. It does so without being critical; a child absorbs information very easily like a sponge. It is easy to install many different programs onto a computer so that it has the capacity to do different things. A child can very quickly learn different things. For a child, it is important to learn very fast; being critical about everything it learns would only hamper the speed of this learning process.
However, a human in fact does need something to filter information. At around the age of seven, a child starts to develop critical thinking skills. However, it is important to realize that the way in which a child views the world is for a large part pre-determined by its family and the environment in which it grows up. The moment critical thinking starts, it already processes information through the filters that are, in part, installed by events and people from its surroundings.
You can compare critical thinking skills with the firewall of a computer where it is determined what dataflow or program is allowed in and what must be blocked. This critical factor is at work most of the time without us being aware of it. To demonstrate this critical factor while you are reading this book we would like you to think about a square ball, blue grass, or purple snow. Do you accept the idea of a square ball, blue grass, or purple snow? At least it triggers the following thoughts: I never thought a square ball or blue grass could be possible; and I have never seen purple snow. So something happens in your mind that makes you attentive when a sentence is made with two pieces of information which do not match. You evaluate the information and probably reject the possibility of a square ball and in this case you reject it with your conscious mind. Now pay attention. This way a lot of information that enters your mind will be rejected subconsciously; the filter in your mind will block it without you even being aware of it, because of all previous programming that went into your mind.
Critical thinking skills are important. It enables us to filter information, determining what is relevant and what is not. However, this ‘firewall’ can also work against us, for instance when a person wants to quit smoking. Smoking is very much programmed into the subconscious; consequently, the subconscious believes the behavior is important, which makes quitting very hard, as the suggestion to quit smoking needs to be accepted by the subconscious. This is where hypnosis can help. Hypnosis can help you to change behavior permanently.
The basis for hypnosis is that the critical thinking aspect of the conscious mind can be passed and acceptable suggestions can be established into the subconscious mind. In this way we can work on many mental and also physical issues that seem otherwise very difficult or impossible to address.
In our work we use the definition of hypnosis as suggested by Dave Elman:
Hypnosis is a state of mind in which the critical faculty is bypassed, thus making selective thinking possible.
The definition of hypnosis is constantly evolving and no agreed upon definition has been reached. From the early 1800s until our present day, the endeavor to define hypnosis has created much controversy. Some definitions refer to hypnosis as a procedure and other definitions describe hypnosis as a product.
Extract from the book Hypnosis the Key to Self-Empowerment
Through hypnosis we can understand who we truly are and what we feel. Hypnosis is capable of amazing things. How hypnosis works is easily explained by using the working of a computer.
When a human is born he/she has access to a basic operating system that takes care of important functions that are mostly executed automatically, such as breathing, regulating blood pressure and temperature and much more. A baby is like a new computer out of the box.
The young child starts a learning process through interaction with other people and events taking place in their environment. It does so without being critical; a child absorbs information very easily like a sponge. It is easy to install many different programs onto a computer so that it has the capacity to do different things. A child can very quickly learn different things. For a child, it is important to learn very fast; being critical about everything it learns would only hamper the speed of this learning process.
However, a human in fact does need something to filter information. At around the age of seven, a child starts to develop critical thinking skills. However, it is important to realize that the way in which a child views the world is for a large part pre-determined by its family and the environment in which it grows up. The moment critical thinking starts, it already processes information through the filters that are, in part, installed by events and people from its surroundings.
You can compare critical thinking skills with the firewall of a computer where it is determined what dataflow or program is allowed in and what must be blocked. This critical factor is at work most of the time without us being aware of it. To demonstrate this critical factor while you are reading this book we would like you to think about a square ball, blue grass, or purple snow. Do you accept the idea of a square ball, blue grass, or purple snow? At least it triggers the following thoughts: I never thought a square ball or blue grass could be possible; and I have never seen purple snow. So something happens in your mind that makes you attentive when a sentence is made with two pieces of information which do not match. You evaluate the information and probably reject the possibility of a square ball and in this case you reject it with your conscious mind. Now pay attention. This way a lot of information that enters your mind will be rejected subconsciously; the filter in your mind will block it without you even being aware of it, because of all previous programming that went into your mind.
Critical thinking skills are important. It enables us to filter information, determining what is relevant and what is not. However, this ‘firewall’ can also work against us, for instance when a person wants to quit smoking. Smoking is very much programmed into the subconscious; consequently, the subconscious believes the behavior is important, which makes quitting very hard, as the suggestion to quit smoking needs to be accepted by the subconscious. This is where hypnosis can help. Hypnosis can help you to change behavior permanently.
The basis for hypnosis is that the critical thinking aspect of the conscious mind can be passed and acceptable suggestions can be established into the subconscious mind. In this way we can work on many mental and also physical issues that seem otherwise very difficult or impossible to address.
In our work we use the definition of hypnosis as suggested by Dave Elman:
Hypnosis is a state of mind in which the critical faculty is bypassed, thus making selective thinking possible.
The definition of hypnosis is constantly evolving and no agreed upon definition has been reached. From the early 1800s until our present day, the endeavor to define hypnosis has created much controversy. Some definitions refer to hypnosis as a procedure and other definitions describe hypnosis as a product.
Extract from the book Hypnosis the Key to Self-Empowerment
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