The other day I met a man who didn’t believe there was such a thing as hypnosis or trance. He was telling me how it’s just down to picking people that are suceptible to suggestion and social pressure to perform (he was speaking about stage-hypnotism). It can be difficult to convince these kinds of people because they know how the world works and resist anything that conflicts with their world view. Now I could of course put them into trance right there and then, but that would be unethical.

By far the best introduction to hypnosis and trance is contained with this book. Don’t get me wrong, Paul McKenna’s main stream introduction to NLP is great in itself, it’s easy to read, covers all the basics you need and even introduces some EFT.

But it’s the CD enclosed which is the real reason to get this. It’s a 45 minute hypnotic induction that will put you into trance guaranteed! Some people do need to listen to it a few times, but it will put you under. And you’ll know that you weren’t just sleeping when you consistently ‘wake up’ to Paul saying ‘3, 2, 1, Wake Up!’

I always love reading crazy theories and have recently heard about something called Bicameralism. Julian Jaynes wrote about his theory in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

The basic ideas is that ancient humans to an extent functioned as ’schizophrenics’ in that they had frequent auditory hallucinations. They literally heard voices speaking to them and interpreted these as the voices of gods.

Julian uses this explain how language and consciousness developed in humans and why early humans really believed that their gods were speaking to them. It’s a fascinating theory that touches on many interests of mine, ancient history, psychology, evolution of humans.

What’s particularly interesting for readers of this site is that it might help to explain how and why hypnosis works. Maybe we were used to taking ‘commands’ from one half of our brain for many thousands of years before both hemispheres started working together.

It’s also interesting that some areas of the brain that deal with language use also help us to recognise and distinguish rhythm. If you know anything about hypnosis you’ll know that speaking in certain rhythms (and listening to repetitive rhythms) has a hypnotic effect. Tribes in Africa engage in dances to rhythmic music for hours in order to go into a trance, and in the west we even have a whole sub-genre of dance music called Trance. This is the reason why for example Richard Bandler does hypnosis work with a musical backing track.

Read more about Bicameralism at Wikipedia: Bicameralism

and

The Julian Jaynes Society

Although hypnosis and trance have been in use for thousands of years, it still suffers from many misconceptions and misunderstandings that shroud it in mystery for the average person. But slowly mainstream science is starting to investigate it more thoroughly and you can read about the latest research at Mind Hacks

The editorial of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute discusses a recent study that found that hypnosis can be successfully used in breast cancer surgery to reduce pain, nausea, painkiller use, tiredness and emotional impact of the surgical procedure.

I’m still incredibly fascinated by the fact that someone speaking to you in a certain way can affect your mind by literally changing where blood flows to in your brain.

To be honest, on my more paranoid days I wonder if certain groups of people have been using hypnosis on an unsuspecting public for a while. Just listen to the ‘unspeak’ of politicians or the mesmerising phrases used in advertising. Maybe they just spread a meme that ridiculed the idea to keep people from taking it too seriously?

If you want to learn this powerful skill (drug-free pain control / powerful sales techniques / protection from unwanted influence / engaging copy-writing) then I suggest you check out probably the best course by the best Hypnotist around:

Igor Ledochowski’s Conversational Hypnosis

I had been interested in NLP and Hypnosis for a few years when my friend Magnus invited me to go on a two day Mentalism course by Igor Ledochowski. (Mentalism is the blend of Psychology and magic that performers like Derren Brown and David Blaine practice). Although I have only a passing interest in practising magic I know that many effects make use of the way human psychology works and that’s what interested me most. So we drove down to London for the weekend to see if there was anything for us to learn.

Now Igor is amongst other things an NLP Practitioner and Hypnotherapist and it turned out that some of what he would be teaching would involve using some of the skills from these disciplines. I felt quite a lot anticipation when I sat down in the room with 40 or so other people because I had heard that Igor was good at putting people into deep trances. Well it turns out he is phenomenal at it.

He started off by telling us a story about how Milton Erickson discovered his particular method of hypnosis.. But this wasn’t an ordinary story. Because as I was sitting there, listening to the words, allowing them to run through my mind, I started to feel my arms getting heavy. This feeling started to creep around my body and I found my attention completely transfixed on Igor. I was going into trance and so where the other 39 people in the room. I couldn’t believe what was happening and fought to regain control over my body. But the only part that I could still move was my left big toe, everything else felt warm and good. Yet I couldn’t move a muscle. Out of the corner of my eyes I even saw people’s heads drop towards their chests as they nodded off, and all he was doing was telling us a story about how some other guy discovered how to put people into trance.

That was the first time I had really experienced deep trance and it was one of my first ‘Seeing the Matrix’ moments. When you have an experience like that it makes you realise the power of the mind and how little most people know about it. I wonder why hypnosis still has such a pseudo-scientific image as it’s obviously very powerful and is being used increasingly in the context of mainstream medicine for things like pain control. If I were paranoid I’d think that the powers that be don’t want us to have these kinds of skills and knowledge.

So what where the three things I learned?

1. Go into the state you want to induce in others.

People naturally follow each other into various states; energetic, relaxed etc. So if you want other people around you to start feeling relaxed and at ease you have to feel that way yourself first. Once you do that you’ll find that your voice and body language will reflect this and the people around you will start to feel the same.

2. Pace and Lead.

Hypnotism is nothing more than leading someone through different states, and in order to do that you need to first describe what the other person is experiencing in that moment. For example: ‘You are sitting, reading this sentence, saying the words in your mind’.

Then you lead them into a new thought or feeling; ‘and as you’re sitting there reading this sentence your mind might wander off and start to think about in what ways learning this skill could be useful’.

3. The hypnotic state is something you do to yourself.

This literally blew my mind, though now it seems obvious. A hypnotist isn’t sending out magical brain-waves to put other people into trance. They only help us find that state within ourselves. We are the ones that are creating the bodily sensations and thoughts. That’s why the more you trance you experience the better you get at it.

Remember those people that were nodding off during Igor’s story? Those were actually the people that have been practising hypnosis the most. They’ve built up the skill that allows them to go in to trance very quickly.

Those three points raise many interesting questions. First and foremost: Are people putting themselves in and out of trance all the time naturally? What do you guys think?

Anyway, if you want to find out more about Igor Ledochowski and how you can learn these ‘Jedi-level skills’ yourself, check out his site: Conversational Hypnosis.