How to hypnotize yourself and other secrets of our consciousness

A subject who is under the influence of hypnosis concentrates on the suggestions made by the hypnotist. This is precisely the essence of hypnosis, i.e. a person is immersed in a trance state for subsequent suggestion, although hypnosis without suggestion is acceptable, just as suggestion can be made without introducing a trance state.

Interest in how to learn hypnosis on your own is often due to the fact that experimenting with your own consciousness is extremely interesting, and the trance state is quite pleasant, allowing you to solve a variety of mental problems, “clear” your brain, activate brain activity or relieve tension by falling into state of relaxation.

It should be remembered that by learning the basics of how to learn hypnosis at home, we expose ourselves to potential danger.

You can fall into such a deep trance that you will not be able to get out of it without the help of a specialist.

But in order to learn how to enter a trance state so deeply, it will take more than a year of hard training.

In order to learn how to learn hypnosis, you need not only to study the relevant literature, but also to learn not only to record, but also to enhance the state of spontaneous trance.

The ability to independently fall into a trance comes gradually. A number of people, for example, some merchants, do not feel the need for training that provides knowledge on how to learn hypnosis on their own, but at the same time they are able to unconsciously hypnotize customers, provoking them to make unnecessary purchases.

The main task of immersion in a trance is to concentrate attention on the internal, and not on the external, state of a person.

After several such trainings, you can quickly and easily fall into a hypnotic state.

Together or apart?

Varvara, St. Petersburg: – Which hypnosis is better – group or individual?
Igor Salyntsev : – A group hypnotherapy session, in which up to 50 people can participate, is suitable for working with people suffering from the same pathology - alcohol or drug addiction, stuttering, enuresis, etc. At the same time, in a collective session the effect of influence increases: from person to person A hypnotic induction is transmitted to a person (from more hypnotizable people to less), and the instillation of attitudes necessary for recovery in this case penetrates deeper into the subconscious.

An individual hypnotherapy session is more targeted and focused directly on the person and his problem. In this case, the hypnologist uses exactly those suggestions that are based on concepts that are basic to the patient, based on the typology of his nervous system. Thus, for visual learners, visual images are more understandable, auditory learners are focused on auditory information, and kinesthetic learners understand the world through touch, smell and taste.

By the way, some diseases can be diagnosed by the nature of the suggested images. For example, patients with depression in a state of hypnotic somnambulism see the “picture” in black and white, and when the depression goes away, the inspired images suddenly begin to play with bright colors.

Technique of hypnosis due to the furnishings of the room

Subdued soft light, relaxing quiet music is possible, convenient location. You ask the person being hypnotized to relax and get ready to fall asleep. Bring your open palm to the person above eye level at approximately a distance of 8 to 12 centimeters, then ask him to look at the central part of the palm and not be distracted by extraneous thoughts. Induce and then direct a stream of heat from the palm of your hand to the person being hypnotized. Due to intense eye strain, they will become tired. There will be a desire to close your eyes. After 3-5 minutes, you can apply the suggestion formulas:

• In a few minutes you will fall asleep
• You will only hear my voice
• Above the desire to fall asleep increases every minute
• You can't resist the urge to fall asleep
• Now I'll count to ten and you'll fall asleep
• Once. Your eyelids are getting heavy
• Two. You only hear me
• Three. The desire to sleep intensifies every second
• Four. You are relaxed.
• Five. Your eyelids are heavy and your muscles are relaxed
• Six. You gradually fall asleep
• Seven. You fall asleep and fall asleep
• Eight. You can no longer resist sleep
• Nine. You fall asleep and fall asleep
• Ten. Are you sleeping

As a result, learning hypnosis is not as difficult as it seems at first glance. There are also other hypnosis techniques, but the most common are the 4 ones described above.

Remember all

Elena, Moscow: – They say that under hypnosis a person can even remember what happened to him in early childhood. Where does this come from and what is it for?

I.S.: – It’s no secret that any event that took place in our lives, starting from our birth, remains in memory, but goes deep into the subconscious. In this “pantry” there is not only positive, but also negative. And this is the protective properties of our memory - erasing what can cause us mental pain. But sometimes these far-hidden experiences can emerge in the form of phobias (fears), psychosomatic disorders (gastritis, bronchial asthma, etc.). Hypnosis helps to reproduce, release from the subconscious negative moments that were once experienced and change their significance through special suggestion.

Self-hypnosis

To hypnotize yourself, you need to provide an atmosphere of complete silence. It is not recommended to be distracted by external factors; they can disrupt the settings in the subconscious. Step-by-step process of high-quality self-hypnosis:

• You should sit comfortably and close your eyes;
• It is recommended to imagine yourself on the shore near the water;
• it is important to concentrate on the goal and put yourself into hypnosis;
• the internal dialogue gradually turns off;
• light and goodness are drawn into the body;
• phrases appear on the cinema screen - “life is going well”; “Anxieties are dashed against my defenses, I create wonderful things that are useful to society.”

On the brink

Vladislav, Voronezh: – If hypnosis is used to treat, does that mean it can have side effects and complications?

I.S.: – The most common is the loss of rapport (the connection between the hypnotist and the hypnotized), when a person goes from a hypnotic state to sleep, that is, practically falls asleep. Sometimes this can be accompanied by a sharp drop in blood pressure, even to the point of fainting. It also happens that in a hypnotic trance a person experiences erotic reactions, or even serious psychotic outbursts. This is why in hypnotherapy it is very important to know the personality of the person you are treating. Before each session, I carefully study the patient’s medical history and the characteristics of his personality. Otherwise, hypnosis can be harmful and dangerous.

What happens during hypnosis

While putting the patient into trance:

1. The work of the left hemisphere of the head, which is responsible for logic and accumulated experience of knowledge, is completely disabled.
2. Only the right hemisphere operates, which cannot control or analyze anything.

Conclusion: during trance, only the right half of the cerebral hemisphere is active in people. People, while in a trance, can see their past, even their distant lives. Sometimes people manage to travel back to past centuries and see the cause of their fears or pain. Having dealt with the cause, the pain goes away without treatment or visiting doctors.

An example of this is that if a patient was wounded in the thigh in a past life, then in this century he experiences pain for no reason. Having seen the battle and his own injury using the regressive method, the patient understands that this is phantom pain and instantly recovers. Thus, during life, the patient’s brain is given a command that for this century he has no injury - he is healthy. There are quite a lot of such phantom patients; they require a regressive approach.

Obvious-incredible

Oleg, Moscow: – Do mysterious, inexplicable things happen in hypnosis?

I.S.: – One of these phenomena is the suggestion to the hypnotized person of progress or regression of age, time dates in which he did not live and could never live: in 1905 or in 1812. The most amazing thing is that people begin to speak in the same phraseological phrases that were used at that time, and accurately describe the historical events that took place then.

But, perhaps, it is even more interesting and mysterious when I “send” my patients into the future. After checking the “visions” of one of my patients a year later, I was stunned: they came true exactly. I don’t know how to explain this phenomenon. This remains to be explored and studied.

Mindfulness Process

To go into hypnosis, you first need to turn on the maximum awareness mode. A person cleanses himself of negative programs from the external environment, formats his consciousness to introduce imposed thoughts and finds access to the inner divine child.

It's worth asking yourself a few questions:

• who forces me to act against my will?
• What sources does false information come from?
• What do I really want?
• Why do they want to instill this in me?
• Why apply this information in your own life?

Your own hypnotist

Mikhail, Tver: - Tell me, can a person hypnotize himself?

I.S.: – Maybe. For example, Hatha yogis practice self-hypnosis. Once upon a time I was also into this and fell into a hypnotic trance. The sensations that arose surprised me and... frightened me. Having felt for myself how powerful this effect is, I stopped practicing such experiments with myself.

However, the state of hypnosis sometimes arises spontaneously, as a reaction to psychological trauma - a fire, a disaster, the death of a loved one. This state is a defensive reaction to shock. There is also such a thing as amputation hypnosis, which occurs after physical trauma. Thanks to him, a person does not feel pain for some time. This occurs due to the release of dynorphin into the blood, a hormone-like substance that is produced in our body and which is 200 times stronger than morphine.

How to learn hypnosis on your own?

It should be said that there are two types of hypnotic influence:

• open (when a specialist puts a person into a trance with his gaze and he knows about it),
• closed (when the patient does not even suspect that he has become the object of hypnosis).

To learn hypnosis, which can put a person into a trance against his will, it is carried out at the closest possible distance.

Having approached his interlocutor closely, the hypnotist begins to non-stop copy his gestures and poses.

Having achieved physiological connection, he finds out what type (auditory or kinetic) thinking his patient has, and then uses different methods to finally convince him.

Place the person being hypnotized on a chair, and sit opposite yourself. For hypnosis it is necessary that your eyes are above the level of his face. With your right hand, grasp the left hand of the person being hypnotized at the level of the pulse. Place your left on the right shoulder of the person sitting. Use your tone of voice to tell him to relax and look you in the eye. Look at the bridge of his nose for exactly five minutes. Then, during hypnosis, speak slowly and with careful intonation:

• You feel exhausted
• You feel sleepy, don't resist this urge
• Soon you will fall asleep, but the sleep will be short-lived and beneficial for you
• Then you will wake up and feel vitality in your body and a surge of good mood

After these words, remove your hands from the person being hypnotized, go around the person sitting, stand behind him and order the person to close his eyes. With your hand, move over the eyelids of the person being hypnotized from top to bottom. After 5 minutes, say the words several times: “Sleep! You are already asleep!

The best option

Igor, Saratov: – Tell me, how long does a hypnosis session last and how many of them do you need to go through to be of any use?

I.S.: – It all depends on what disease the hypnotherapist is dealing with and what stage it is at. On average, a hypnotherapy session lasts 20–30 minutes. But it can reach 10–12 hours if it is hypnosis-rest, helping a person achieve the maximum degree of relaxation. The same applies to the duration of treatment. A small course usually lasts 3–9 sessions, a medium course – 10–15. But in some cases, patients need long-term hypnotherapy, which is carried out once a week for several months or even years.

How to hypnotize yourself?

How to enter hypnosis on your own?

In order to introduce into his consciousness the attitudes and commands necessary for a person, he needs to go into a trance state.

You can do this yourself in several steps:

1. Identification of the existing problem, its acceptance, determination of the results that a person expects to receive as a result of the practice of self-hypnosis (that is, determination of the final, desired result).
2. Complete relaxation , both physically and emotionally. A person should be completely alone; it is important to take the most comfortable position for his body (sitting or lying down, so that all muscles are as relaxed as possible), to protect himself from extraneous noise and other irritants. It is important to completely calm down, as anxiety and agitation will only get in the way. You need to drive away all negative thoughts and experiences and focus only on the present moment.
3. Mentally pronouncing introductory phrases that allow you to relax the body and clear your mind of extraneous thoughts (I am completely relaxed, my eyelids become heavy, I feel comfort and safety, my body becomes light, I feel peace and tranquility, I hear only my own voice, I trust only him, my breathing becomes calm and measured, I don’t feel my body, now I feel only my inner voice and obey only it). It is necessary to repeat such phrases until the person himself believes in them.
4. Stage of self-hypnosis , in which a person mentally pronounces the goals that he wants to achieve with the help of self-hypnosis.
   These goals must be spoken out many times, not in the future tense, but in the present, as if the desired situation has already occurred.
5. The final stage is exiting the trance state .

Creative Stimulus

Mikhail, Kostroma: – Is it true that a person can learn a foreign language under hypnosis?

I.S.: – Some of my patients under hypnosis actually begin to speak a foreign language. And from time to time, students come to me asking me to relieve the feeling of fear before the upcoming exam. With the help of hypnosis, you can also activate the thinking process and increase memory capacity. And some people develop musical and artistic abilities after hypnosis sessions.

You can read the previous conversation with Igor Salyntsev here >>>

What is self-hypnosis and why is it needed?

Hypnosis is a state of consciousness during which the hypnotized person focuses attention on a presented object, ignoring what is happening in reality. Superstitious people are afraid of being hypnotized and consider hypnosis to be something supernatural and magical. However, this is a misconception. The state of self-hypnosis is similar to meditation; you should not be afraid of it. Moreover, hypnosis is a type of psychotherapy. During self-hypnosis, a person undergoes self-hypnosis without losing control of himself. He can wake up at any moment. At first, this will happen even earlier than he wants.

Hypnosis is used to achieve the following goals:

• improvement of mental state;
• overcoming stress;
• formation of positive thinking;
• getting out of depression;
• development of self-confidence;
• getting rid of fears;
• calm after a hard day at work.

The state of self-hypnosis is practically no different from the state of hypnosis. The difference is that the person being hypnotized and the hypnologist are one person. Can a person hypnotize himself? The answer to the question is clear: any person, with effort, can hypnotize himself.

Self-hypnosis is safe for health; with its help you will not harm yourself or your mental state.

Models of therapy

• Hypnosuggestive programming

The therapist programs the patient under hypnosis for certain behavior, well-being and reactions. For example: “From this day on, you are calm and balanced, no matter what happens around you. Nothing can make you angry." This way a person can get rid of excessive irritability or temper.

• Hypnosuggestive modeling

The therapist instills in the patient an imaginary positive experience. He can slightly adjust a person’s biography to reduce the impact of previously suffered mental trauma.

For example, sex therapist and psychotherapist Garnik Kocharyan used this technique to help a 38-year-old woman who was raped as a teenager. At the age of 16, she dated a young man, and one day he took her to the forest on a motorcycle, where he and his friends abused her.

During hypnosuggestive modeling, the patient experienced an alternative history. The specialist suggested to her that shortly before the traumatic event she began to lose interest in her boyfriend. On the day of the rape, she refused to go with him, citing housework. After this, the girl allegedly saw the young man only a couple of times from afar. There was no abuse of her.

• Hypnocatharsis

The therapist guides the patient under hypnosis through a traumatic situation from the past: the death of a loved one, a fire, an attack. It is believed that with the help of this technique it is possible to release unreacted pathogenic energy, which feeds painful symptoms.

• Age regression and progression

During a regression session, the therapist takes the patient back to childhood. Seeing oneself as small from the outside, a person can discover the cause of his psychological problems. This technique is useful for subsequent diagnosis and development of a treatment plan.

For example, it is used by the main character of the mystical detective series “Insomnia” from the PREMIER online cinema - hypnotherapist Yuri Stahl (Gosha Kutsenko). Colleagues tell him about the competitive swimmer Alena Smirnova, who suddenly developed a panicky fear of water. If the problem is not solved, the successful career of the champion can be given up.

Yuri conducts a session with Alena. Before immersing herself in hypnosis, the athlete reports that she seems to be falling through when she swims: everything around her becomes black, and the girl is afraid that this darkness will swallow her up.

Stahl invites Smirnova to go back in time; he convinces her that she is in the elevator. “You walk in, you see a panel with buttons, one of them lights up. Press it, the elevator will take you to where you first experienced your fear,” Yuri says insinuatingly.

Under hypnosis, Alena pronounces a phrase that becomes the key to her recovery and helps reveal a family secret.

Progression, on the contrary, allows the patient to see himself in the future and find out what he will be like, say, in ten years. The practice is effective for treating addictions. For example, a person can imagine what his lungs will look like in 2030 or how much money he will save on travel if he stops smoking today.

Timing: how to manage time wisely

During the day

In his new book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, author Daniel Pink provides a wealth of advice on time management from a biological, psychological, and even economic perspective.
Among them there are several very specific recommendations that can help with your studies. In particular, Pink advises taking into account circadian rhythms when planning your load. Circadian rhythms affect not only our sleep, but also our mood and concentration, which change cyclically throughout the day. On average, seven hours after waking up, concentration and mood reach their lowest point, after which they begin to increase again (which is why many life coaches advise not to put off important tasks and start them in the first hours after waking up). It is our circadian rhythms, in particular, that are associated with the fact that the likelihood of errors occurring at work (for example, in medical institutions) increases between 14:00 and 16:00.

Of course, students don't have to wake up early or at the same time every day, but understanding your chronotype and circadian rhythm can be used to benefit your studies. For example, plan the most complex tasks (such as preparing for exams or a seminar) for the first two to three hours after waking up - understanding that in the following hours concentration will inevitably decrease (we’ll talk about what to do with this “unproductive” time below) .

Before the deadline

Of course, the lack of time is most acute on the eve of exams.
By the way, “pushing until the last minute” is not just a habit of careless students; in fact, this behavior is typical for most of us. One of the examples that Pink cites in her book is a study by scientists from the University of California at Los Angeles, which showed that most groups of subjects during experiments do nothing (or practically nothing) for at least the first half of the time before the deadline, and only then start work. To avoid the “burning train” effect, scientists advise setting intermediate goals and using the “chain movement” technique: mark each day during which you spent time preparing for the exam (doing a laboratory test, writing a term paper) with some symbol. A chain of such symbols in the calendar will become an additional motivator to not give up what you started and reach the deadline without “gaps” and rush work. Of course, the calendar will not make you sit down to take notes and will not turn off social networks, but it will serve as an “irritant” and a reminder - sometimes this can come in very handy.

Methodology for implementing a therapeutic program

The technique includes several main stages.

First of all, this is the identification of an existing problem, the identification of that aspect of life that a person would like to change.

Once the presence of a problem has been determined, it is necessary to develop a scenario for conducting the practice, in particular, prepare in advance the phrases that a person will pronounce to enter a trance state. It is also important to be clear about your desired goal .

It is important to choose the right formula or image of suggestion. If a person is prone to imaginative thinking, he will imagine various images that will gradually change, from the existing problem to the state where it has already been resolved .

Some people have more developed color thinking, then each stage will be indicated by a certain color.

For example: a person suffers from skin diseases. In this case, he will need to imagine the initially affected skin, then mentally see how it is gradually renewed, cleansed at the cellular level, and, finally, an image of completely healthy skin.

If you have a frequent headache, you can mentally look inside the skull, which is initially painted black, but over time it becomes lighter, this will mean that the disease is receding.

TL;DR

• Plan intense mental activity for the first half of the day (regardless of when this “half” begins for you). During the first two to three hours after waking up, you will be extremely focused and motivated to solve complex problems.

• Keep in mind that approximately seven hours from the moment you wake up, your motivation and concentration will reach their lowest point - at this time it is better to break away from your studies and go for a walk or jog to “unload your brain” a little. Once you have regained your strength in this way, it will be easier to continue exercising.

• In general, don't neglect sports. Exercise alone won't improve your grades, but it can make your studies more effective - making it easier for you to cope with stress during exams and remember information in lectures. To do this, you don’t have to spend long hours in the gym or sign up for a kung fu class - even 150 minutes of aerobic exercise a week will be a good addition to your studies and will improve your overall well-being.

• Remember that even slight dehydration reduces cognitive performance, so try to pay attention to how you feel—don't ignore your thirst. Especially if you play sports during the day.

• Despite the fact that it is better to plan the most intense mental stress in the first hours after waking up, memorizing information can be postponed until the evening. If this is problematic - for example, you need to memorize a lot of notes for an exam - use the time before bed to review what you have memorized. This will make it much easier for you to remember the information the next day.

• If you put off studying until the last minute, remember that you are not alone. To “trick your brain,” try setting yourself intermediate mini-deadlines (for example, “find articles on the topic of your coursework,” “write a literature review,” “think through the structure of your research”). Starting now, mark each day before the deadline that you have made progress towards completing the task. A chain of “crosses” or “dots” will be an additional incentive to do at least something during the day that will help move towards the goal.

In the next part of our review, we will talk about how muscle memory affects grades, and why “knowledge of knowledge” is an area that will help you seriously improve your academic performance.

Learning in our sleep

Another tip from the obvious - that healthy and long sleep has a positive effect on our mental abilities - is known to everyone.
American researchers went further - and during the experiments they identified another important feature related to how the brain works during sleep. They showed that subjects remembered pairs of unrelated words better if they learned them before bed rather than in the morning. In this regard, scientists conclude that sleep stabilizes our memories and allows them to be consolidated - another argument against a sleepless night before an exam.

Causes of neurasthenia

The development of the disease is usually preceded by a traumatic factor.
Mental trauma is a sensory reflection of some event in the child’s mind, which has a depressing effect on him, worries him and lasts for quite a long time. The most common reason for the development of neuroses in childhood and school age is, oddly enough, overly “caring” parents. Their desire to give their child what they did not have, overprotection and constant control overload the child not only physically, but also psychologically.

From birth, children have individual temperament, capabilities and limitations. Not all parents understand this. Wishing only the best for the child, they burden him with additional activities, often without even considering his interests. A student’s day can be scheduled minute by minute: after school – sports training, music or art school, swimming pool, English, tutor, homework, etc.

Afraid of upsetting his parents and realizing that they are trying for his good, the baby tries to do everything: study diligently, attend clubs. However, somewhere inside, fatigue and protest accumulate. This is a classic development of neurasthenia. At some point, the child breaks down, becomes irritable and aggressive, or, conversely, whiny and inhibited.

If there are several children in the family, then problems may begin due to jealousy towards the youngest family member. In teenagers this is more pronounced; it seems to them that their parents no longer love them, they don’t need them, since a “new” baby has appeared.

The situation is especially aggravated when the elder is often told that he is already an adult and has a special responsibility, and he himself missed the moment when he grew up. He is still small at heart and still needs parental love and support. Trying to meet the expectations of adults, the child experiences nervous overstrain, leading to frustration.

Triggers for the development of neurasthenia are also:

• negative family environment - scandals, fights, divorce of parents;
• social and everyday problems;
• mistakes in education;
• parental use of alcohol or drugs;
• emotional psychological trauma;
• severe fear;
• hereditary diseases;
• lack of sleep;
• reduced immunity;
• frequent respiratory tract infections;
• acquired physical injuries;
• digestive system disorders.

Most often there is not one, but several reasons. Due to this, diagnosis and treatment are delayed.

Rules for drawing up self-hypnosis formulas

Phrases and attitudes that a person will use during the procedure must meet certain rules :

1. Appeal to yourself . All phrases and thoughts must begin with the word I, this means that a person in a state of hypnosis accepts this attitude, not considering it something alien and uncharacteristic for him.
2. Time limit. The formula must be in the form of a sentence in the present tense.
   The use of phrases in the future or past tense, as well as the use of indefinite time frames, is unacceptable. A person imagines that the desired result has already arrived.
3. Statement . All phrases are affirmative and do not contain interrogative intonations. Moreover, these statements should be pronounced in an even and calm, but fairly firm voice. Only in this case can they be accepted by consciousness.
4. Eligibility . Each installation must correspond to a person’s internal principles and not contradict his values ​​and beliefs. That is, it is unacceptable to radically change human consciousness, as this may negatively affect his psyche.
5. Graduality . All changes, especially if we are talking about a serious problem, must occur gradually. For example, it is impossible to completely abandon bad habits and develop a completely new way of life in one session of self-hypnosis. The number of sessions depends on the problem itself and its severity.