What Is Hypnosis?

What is Hypnosis?

Definition:

Hypnos was the Greek god of sleep and his name gives us the words 'hypnosis' (a particular mental state) 'hypnotism' and 'hypnotherapy' (related processes). It also gives us the familiar pharmacological term 'hypnotic' for a drug used to induce sleep.

Hypnosis is "a special psychological state with certain physiological attributes, resembling sleep only superficially and marked by a functioning of the individual at a level of awareness other than the ordinary conscious state." One theory suggests that hypnosis is a mental state (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2004), while another theory links hypnosis to imaginative role-enactment.

Hypnosis is in fact, a communication between the conscious and subconscious mind. It is a natural state of mind experienced as a trance. How hypnosis manifests itself can be very different from one individual to another.

History:

Hypnotic states of consciousness are said to be the many ways we attempt to understand ourselves and the world around us.

Hypnosis was/is used as a purpose of healing and is part of almost every culture. The first recordings were some 5000 years ago in ancient Egypt - Saqqara. Here laid an important healing centre where ailing persons were led to the temple of sleep, a journey in search of a healing from the gods. This involved the ingestion of herbs, reciting hours of chants/prayers. The individual was then led to this special chamber to sleep and await a dream; that would hopefully lead to a cure.

This practice continued to be used and spread to Greece, where special sleep temples were built in dedication to the god of healing 'Asclepius'. These persons seeking a cure, where led to these chambers to undergo a proper ritual and dream. However, these chambers were filled with snakes - a symbol of the god.

There were also Egyptian paintings drawn on Papyrus in which it is believed that people were performing Hypnosis. To the contrary, there are lots of helpful hypnosis formulas and techniques in Egyptian medical text. However, in those days it was known as 'Shamanism' and although both involve entering a relaxed state of mind or consciousness and the methods were very different. In Shamanism the practitioner enters a trance-like state during the ritual, whereas in hypnosis the practitioner guides the patient into a trance like state, using a relaxation technique.

In the early decades of the 19th century Franz Anton Mesmer, born in 1734, was known as the "Grandfather of Hypnosis". Mesmer was an Austrian doctor who used magnets and the notion of transferring 'cosmic fluid' in order to cure illness. Mesmer believed that he could cure people of sickness and disease without medicine or surgery.

The earliest definition of hypnosis was given by Braid, who termed the word "hypnotism" as an abbreviation for "neuro-hypnotism", or nervous sleep, which he opposed to normal sleep, and defined as: "a peculiar condition of the nervous system, induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and visual eye, on one object, not of an exciting nature." Braid J (1843).

The Society for Psychological Hypnosis published the following formal definition:

'Hypnosis typically involves an introduction to the procedure during which the subject is told that suggestions for imaginative experiences will be presented. The hypnotic induction is an extended initial suggestion for using one's imagination, and may contain further elaborations of the introduction. A hypnotic procedure is used to encourage and evaluate responses to suggestions. When using hypnosis, one person (the subject) is guided by another (the hypnotist) to respond to suggestions for changes in subjective experience, alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought or behaviour. 'Leslie, Mitch (6 September 2000).

Describe the psychological aspects of Hypnosis:

After reading many articles on this aspect, and from a personal perspective as a Christian I am swayed to the belief that during 'prayer' I too am in a trance-like state. Focusing on one image - God. I attempt to block out the sounds/noises around me in hopeful meditation, as a sign of respect, but also in the hope that my prayers of requests or gratitude are being filtered through this 'prayer-link' trance-like state. I think it would be the same in an act of physical intimacy.

However, the Bible also states that we are warned by God not to practice sorcery, divination, or enchantment. We are not to follow after mediums, wizards, enchanters, charmers, and those who have a familiar spirit (Deut. 18:9-14).

Hypnosis, as it is practiced today, may be related to what is identified in the Old Testament as "enchantment" (Lev. 19:26).

By contrast, A. D. Bambridge, a qualified male nurse with a BSc, was concerned that when psychological defences were lowered during hypnosis, there was a considerable risk of demons entering the psyche. He believed the roots of hypnosis were occult and ruled it out absolutely for Christians, concluding:

'Whilst hypnosis and its use in hypnotherapy seem merely to be the input by the hypnotist of ideas into the subconscious of a subject in a heightened state of suggestibility, I would contend that this art of psychic manipulation is in fact of demonic origin. Though these roots of hypnosis are now obscured by an undergrowth of scientific jargon, it remains a dangerous activity to anyone involved.' Braid, (1852

Describe the physical aspects of Hypnosis:

Studies have been conducted in which scientists compare the physical signs of hypnotic subjects with those who have not been hypnotized and they have found no significant physical change between those in trance state of hypnosis and those that were not in a hypnotic state.

Heart rate and respiration rate were found to be slower, but that is consistent with being in a more relaxed state. What does seem to change regarding physical factors regards the brain activity that is witnessed by electroencephalographs or EEG's. These measure the electrical activity of the brain. Research shows that the brain produces different brain waves depending on the mental state of the patient.

Deep sleep waves look different than the waves of the person who is awake. Waves of the highly alert person differ from the person who is relaxed. EEG's from those under hypnosis show a boost in the lower frequency waves