What is Hypnotism
You’ve seen it done at fairs and magic shows: the sharp-eyed, goateed magician swings a gold fob watch in front of the female assistant, casts some spell and she goes rigid. She then follows like a robot every instruction the magician says, while you wonder if it is all authentic and not staged.
This stereotype description of how hypnotism affects a person, however, is really a far cry from true hypnotism. An individual under hypnotism is seldom the complete slave of his ‘master’ he retains his ability to refuse orders all the time. And he is never half-asleep only extra-receptive.
Hypnotism has been used –and abused—for ages now, yet how it happens is not fully documented, even by those who study it for a long time. The effect is all too explicit, but the causal workings of how it comes about is little understood. The puzzle is perhaps locked within a larger enigma: how the human mind operates. Thus, no answer the mystery of hypnosis may be forthcoming in the near future.
Hypnotism defined
Various sources define hypnotism as ‘a wakeful state of focused attention and heightened suggestibility with diminished peripheral awareness.’ Or, ‘a trancelike state, artificially induced, in which a person has a heightened suggestibility, and in which suppressed memories may be experienced the art or skill of hypnotism.’ It is also ‘a state that resembles sleep but that is induced by suggestion’.
Whatever is the definition, there is no suggestion there that says the person is deprived of his will, nor is he a robot to the hypnotist. He is not even in a trance, only highly receptive and intently focused. The state is similar to daydreaming, when the individual is ‘lost’ and has tuned out all external influences: nothing is important but the thing at hand.
Some hypnotic states
Several hypnotic states have been suggested to explain it: driving a car, reading, or watching movies. Others are when there is great adrenaline flush and the person is particularly absorbed on what he is doing: playing competition chess, watching an engrossing movie, playing a fish, saving one’s self from a burning building and nearing panic. Meditation is also a form of self-induced hypnosis, many doctors say.
The conscious and the subconscious minds
When you do an act, it is not always that you should think about doing it: some actions are voluntary and necessitates almost no thought. You simply decide to do it and afterwards do it. This system of voluntary action is the work of the subconscious, that part of the mind that is after the conscious, and is working without stopping or rest even when you are sleeping. It is concerned with the body’s senses -taste, touch, sight-, feelings, imagination and impulses as well. The subconscious is ergo not confined to the five senses nor the reasonability of social mores but is much freer and creative.
How hypnotism induces the mind
Psychiatrists believe that taking the mind to a single focus pacifies the person and suppresses the conscious mind enough for the subconscious part to dominate. While the individual realizes what is really happening he submits to the subconscious which the hypnotist is able to control with directly. As thus, hypnotism occurs as we recognize it.
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Article By: ankit
Listed In: Health