I saw a stage hypnotist last night-he put on an impressive show-called someone on stage and told him (after hypnotizing him) that he would taste the most delicious fruit in the world. This was a sliced lemon, and the guy ate it with obvious relish!
However, to my cynical mind, there was something too slick about this performance. Now I read that most psychiatrists view (hypnosis) as just a varient of the sleep state.
So, fellow readers, what’s your take on this? Is hypnosis real-can you suspend your normal judgement while in this state? And what about this past-life regression stuff-has this ever been verified?
I’ve been under hypnosis and it’s like being in a dream; you know what is happening, but can’t control it. it really dosen’t occur to you that you are under untill he makes you do something. then you really know that you are under. but the best part from being under hyptnosis is that in hyptnosis, being under for 30 minutes is like sleeping for 8 hours. I was awake for the next 48 hours after that.
I had a weird hypnotic type experience…In a psych class- picture this- the teacher put my feet (pretty much just my heels) on one chair and my head on another. He also put a chair under my back for support. First off, let it be known that I have a very, very bad back with little support- I am not physically strong enough to hold myself between two chairs, even for a second. "Anyway, he did this “hypnosis” type talking to me…about a beach, and I’m on the beach…I can feel the sun…(I felt like I fell asleep, but I could still hear him). He just kept going on and on- it was very pleasant to listen to. Then I heard someone say “WOW” in a loud whisper and I “woke up”. Luckily my teach caught me, because evidentially he had pulled the chair out from under my back and I was balanced there for about 3 minutes. If that person hadn’t said anything, I don’t know how long I would have stayed that way. Totally bizarre and totally true. It was wild.
An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; A pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.
Was hypnotized once – in a group setting – to quit smoking. We had 5 daily sessions on our lunch hour at work.
Worked great. Quit immediately, no withdrawal symptoms except I’d dream about smoking and wake up feeling guilty.
Quit for over 10 years – started up again, thinking I could handle “recreational” smoking (like when you’re drinking a beer at a bar – it looked so cool!)
The first time my daughter (about 25 at the time) caught me smoking again, she said, “You know, that doesn’t really make you look more grown up!”
I solicited a hypnotist in order to quit smoking, in 1983. I don’t have to experience any wishing/wanting to smoke, nor do I resent being among smokers while they are smoking (no repulsion effect). I do occasionally have nightmares in which I have restarted smoking again. This is not pleasant. Being addicted to nicotine was not pleasant.
The hypnotist helped me to focus thoughts I already had about smoking and consumer products and addiction. I did not any time feel that I was being coerced or tricked into thinking or feeling anything that it was not my choice to think or feel. Your mileage my vary, but an ethical hypnotist will go to great lengths to avoid leaving you with the feeling that you have been “programmed” or “controlled”, because otherwise your efforts to reestablish control of yourself would work against the suggestions that you paid the hypnotist to implant for you.
My hypnotist fooled around some: he departed from what I’d asked him to concentrate on and suggested that my hand would float and rise like a balloon. I remember grinning and deciding not to cooperate and this didn’t happen. I could choose: he helped me concentrate and focus, and engrave my own decisions, with my cooperation, on my mind as final, but he couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do, and I had and continue to have a very willful tendency to determine my own behavior. Again, your mileage may vary.
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