Hypnosis

Hypnosis is a trance state characterised by extreme suggestibility, relaxation and heightened imagination. It's not really like sleep, because the person is alert the whole time. It is most often compared to daydreaming, or the feeling of "losing yourself" in a book or movie. You are fully conscious, but you tune out most of the stimuli around you. You focus intently on the subject at hand, to the near exclusion of any other thought. Everyday examples are when driving home and reaching your destination without remembering the journey. Your conscious mind was daydreaming but your subconscious was alert.

Characteristics:

Hypnosis results in the gradual assumption by the subject of a state of consciousness wholly dissimilar to either wakefulness or sleep, during which attention is withdrawn from the outside world and is concentrated on mental, sensory, and physiological experiences. When a hypnotist induces a trance, a close relationship or rapport develops between operator and subject. The responses of subjects in the trance state, and the phenomena or behavior they manifest objectively, are the product of their motivational set; that is, behavior reflects what is being sought from the experience.

Most people can be easily hypnotised. The depth of trance, however, will vary from a light state close to waking, to a profound state of somnambulism. A profound trance is characterised by a forgetting of trance events and by an ability to respond automatically to posthypnotic suggestions that are not too anxiety provoking. The depth of trance achievable is a relatively fixed characteristic, dependent on the emotional condition of the subject and on the skill of the hypnotist. Only 20 percent of subjects are capable of entering somnambulistic states through the usual methods of induction. Medically, this percentage is not significant, since therapeutic effects occur even in a light trance.

Hypnosis can produce a deeper contact with one's emotional life, resulting in some lifting of repressions and exposure of buried fears and conflicts. This effect potentially lends itself to medical and educational use, but it also lends itself to misinterpretation. Thus, the revival through hypnosis of early, forgotten memories may be fused with fantasies. Research into hypnotically induced memories in recent years has in fact stressed their uncertain reliability. For this reason a number of state court systems in the U. S. have placed increasing constraints on the use of evidence hypnotically obtained from witnesses, although most states still allow it in it.

Medical Uses:

Hypnosis has been used to treat a variety of physiological and behavioral problems. It can alleviate back pain and pain resulting from bums and cancer. Some obstetricians have used it as the sole analgesia for normal childbirth. Hypnosis is sometimes also employed to treat physical problems with a possible psychological component, such as Raynaud's syndrome (a circulatory disease) and faecal 'incontinence' in children. Some behavior difficulties, such as cigarette smoking, overeating, and insomnia, are also amenable to resolution through hypnosis.