Question:
What are you supposed to be experiencing and feeling in Hypnosis?
Answer:
To begin with I’ll answer the opposite question as I think that’s important to cover. What is hypnosis NOT like?
What you see on TV and in movies is not a good depiction of hypnosis the vast majority of the time. Showing the hypnotee as a mindless automaton with zero free will or self-control is far from how things work in reality.
What you will feel is surprisingly like how you feel normally. There will be a difference, but it is much more likely to be subtle, not overt.
A way I like to explain this to my clients is: if you closed your eyes while sitting where you are, and someone walked in, they might assume you were asleep. But you’d be completely alert and conscious. If my phone rang, you would hear it, you’d hear me answer it, and you’d be curious about who I’m talking to. When in hypnosis, much of that will be the same. You may look asleep, if the phone rang, you’d hear it. When I answer the phone you’d hear me talk. The main difference is you’d be unlikely to be interested in who I’m talking to, not because you have no free will, but more because you just wouldn’t care, you’d be far more interested in what you were doing in hypnosis before the phone rang. Focusing on your breathing, performing internal changework, shifting your mindset, reprocessing past events, reinforcing positive behaviours, or whatever.
Heightened Focus is a very common part of hypnosis. Deep relaxation and an altered awareness of time can feature too. But they are not guaranteed to. They are more emergent properties rather than a core part of the experience. Physical sensations are also not uncommon.
It’s impossible to give an exact answer of what it’s like, as different people experience it in different ways. Think of it as being in love, we all know what the term means. However, when it happens to us, we experience it a little differently to everybody else.
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