The secret of hypnotic séances

 For a hypnotic séance we will need a quiet room and a place where we can make ourselves comfortable. This could be a recliner in a private practice, but also a comfortable home chair with backrests or simply our bed. The important thing is to feel comfortable and safe there. Once we have laid down, we can begin to listen to the voice guiding us into trance. This could be a specialist at the practice, someone familiar at our home or our voice, recorded and played from a cassette or in mp3 form, whatever you like. This part of the séance is called induction and is meant to help us enter trance. The spoken (or rather listened to) text - the so-called relaxation suggestion - can be more or less categorical (e.g. NOW YOU HAVE TO relax or NOW YOU ARE relaxing). The next command, or deepening suggestion, allows us to drift off even more. For example: "Your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier, so heavy that you can't open them... Now I'm going to count to three and with each number your eyelids will get heavier and heavier and you really can't open your eyes" etc.

Once the trance is reached, one moves into the next phase of hypnosis. In professional writings, this is post-induction suggestion. It has another, nicer and unfamiliar name: it is visualisation. This technique consists of imagining, or imagining in one's head, a certain important and perhaps stressful situation that awaits us. We imagine it several times, each time performing well in our minds what we intend to do in reality. This kind of 'dry' rehearsal of the situation will help to get used to it. The upcoming event will not cause as much anxiety as before, and it is possible that we will approach it with stoic calm.

Visualisation is a very useful tool to increase our self-confidence and this will make others see us as competent. If we know what we are talking about and we know we are good at it, why should they perceive us differently? Sometimes the obstacles are our inner inhibitions, fears, complexes. We can attempt to get rid of them, these inner demons, by countering them with images of the complete opposite in visualisation. There are two very short and wise sayings about the human being as a whole:

You are what you eat.
You are what you think of yourself.

Paraphrasing this second sentence, we could say: your thoughts (beliefs) shape you. Therefore, if we cultivate in our thoughts the qualities we would like to have, it will probably not be too long before we behave similarly in normal life. Someone may say: "err, humbug and all that". By closing oneself off to incoming ideas, one is denying oneself the chance to have new experiences.

Returning to the hypnosis session, the commands given in the trance state should be positive, short, simple and treated as a present matter:
I am relaxed (instead of: I don't want to be tense)
I am losing weight (instead of: I do not want to gain weight)
I am effective (instead of: I don't want to fail)

It turns out that our subconscious does not accept the word 'no'. Therefore, when forming commands, do not use the words 'I don't want to', 'I can't', 'maybe', 'I will try'. The effects can be counterproductive.

The great advantage of visualisation is that it can be adapted to almost any matter occupying our mind. The technique can support our efforts to combat smoking, overweight stress and high blood pressure, pain of various origins, complexes. It can also be useful to some extent for chronic sleep problems, or in combating panic anxiety, otherwise known as phobias.

Visualisation can be an invaluable aid when it comes to rebuilding confidence in oneself. As it turns out, visualisation and hypnosis are starting to make a career in the medical sector. They can help you survive a drill procedure in the dentist's chair, and in maternity wards, they are slowly being recognised as a natural alternative to standard anaesthetics. It may seem, but what has one got to do with the other? Imagining places and mentally 'moving' there, to reduce the sensation of quite intense pain? It turns out quite a lot. Focusing our attention on an object, a point or an internal image helps to distract our brain from the pain we are feeling. Having already become skilled at visualisation before visiting the dentist, you may be tempted to trick your body, and try to sensory switch off the area to be treated.

Hypnosis is used on a similar basis for natural childbirth. - The (counter) young mother, when led into a hypnotic trance state, is transported with her thoughts to the chosen place. There she also "stays" mentally. In this way, she 'forces' her brain to follow the thought. The trance and the focus on something else to some extent lessens the pain of labour.

The method of visualisation is useful in the professional sphere, it allows us to recover instantly during our lunch break, it unleashes our creativity. This last argument is particularly convincing for artists of all disciplines. After all, every work of art lives first inside the one who invented it, right?

The hypnotic séance ends with a rousing formula, called the induction of the ending. It sounds roughly like this:

"You are happy, relaxed and content.You are enjoying your wellbeing. Now I'm going to start counting down from 1 to 10 and you will slowly start to come back to full consciousness. Come back feeling relaxed as if after a long rest. Start coming back now. One, two you go up three four five six seven eight and ten, open your eyes and walk all the way back feeling great. Very good."

Very similarly, self-hypnosis works, which, as the name suggests, can be used on its own to improve one's wellbeing or discover more talents within oneself. For the mind in a trance state, there are no limits. It is possible to find creative solutions to problems in this altered state of consciousness. It is important to set yourself a specific goal for which you are going into a trance. Try out the trance methods yourself and choose the one that suits you best. After all, everyone has different sensitivities. If there are issues of a more serious nature that we cannot deal with on our own, it is best to seek out an experienced therapist.