Hypnosis Downloads

What is Hypnosis?

Before you download hypnosis MP3's or scripts, you may want to know something more about hypnosis, such as what it is, and what it is not,  what hypnosis is useful for, and its limitations. For that, we have written this article.

Hypnosis and hypnotism derive from the words neuro-hypnosis, coined in the early 1800's, and meaning "nervous-sleep". However, hypnosis is not really sleep, but a state of wakeful awareness, characterized by heightened suggestibility, diminished inhibition and critical faculties.

In a hypnotic state, otherwise known as trance, we are able to tune out more external stimuli than in fully aware states, and focus inwardly. A skilled hypnotist may be able to use direct or indirect methods to induce trance in their subjects, and those states of trance may be lighter or deeper, but those states are always entered with the consent of the subjects.

Though altered states are shown to have been a part of meditative and medical practices dating back dozens of centuries, in the last 150 years, hypnosis or trance inductions have been misunderstood, abused, misused, and even banned in many segments of modern medicine and education, Still, altered states have been shown to be useful for pain reduction, weight loss, and heightened learning abilities. Hypnosis also has a kind of glove-in-hand relationship with NLP.

We've been doing trance since we were kids.

Trance is a naturally occurring state that we all do several times daily. During waking hours, there are times when we find ourselves relaxed and daydreaming, with our critical faculties and inhibitions diminished, as we go into a state of heightened learning, or suggestibility.

Indeed, until about the age of 6, young children are in a slightly hypnotic state nearly all the time. Their brain is dominated by alpha waves, which are characteristically present during states of rapid learning. The brains of young children are very "plastic", designed to absorb information, social norms, values and language very quickly, but those same young brains lack the critical reasoning abilities that come with age and experience, and only when they are able to move out of alpha into sustained beta wave patterns. Recall tha children's brains are also quite imaginative, and the ability to distinguish reality from fiction is quite blurred.

And then we grow up...

As adults, we spend less overall time in hypnotic trances than we did as 6-year-old children, but we still spend a few minutes each hour daydreaming, integrating new learnings, reviewing future plans, reliving confrontations, or stunned by beauty, or encounters with celebrity. These are all trance states. Whenever we are required to make a foul shot, or a putt, or to spell a difficult word, we enter trance, by tuning out external stimuli.

Trance is normal and healthy, and it is the only state in which we really learn anything. It is the "downtime" that our brains require to make sense of the new sensory inputs we are constantly bombarded with.

As with children, during trance, we adults learn rapidly, update our beliefs, and modify our place in and outlook on the social world. Old habits can be diminished, and beliefs and new habits established, strengthened and habituated as the critical mind is temporarily and willfully suspended.

Remember that the job of the critical mind is to evaluate the future, against the memories of the past, in the present, using a linear mental calculus. When the "uptime" mode of linear thinking dominates, we are in executive mode, and no learning can occur in those moments.

Social trance

Yet, we adults overdo it sometimes - spending many hours each day aimlessly watching TV, playing video games and surfing the internet, and navigating through public venues with iPods in our ears, at the expense of real human interaction. This phenomenon of the last two decades has seduced many of the affluent world into a kind of "social autism", a real problem for our productivity and relationships.

And so we see that sinking into aimless and prolonged trance-causing activities can contribute to social retardation, as we begin to lose our grip on life.

However, naturally occuring, or well-directed and intentional hypnosis or trance can be vital for our progress. Directionalized self-hypnosis or self-trance, such as when guided by Hypnosis Downloads MP3's is a great way to get a real boost.

What Hypnosis is Not

Hypnosis is not sleep.

Sleep is dominated by Theta waves during light sleep, and Delta waves during deep sleep. Hypnosis invokes mostly Alpha waves in light trance, and Theta waves during deeper trance, so though alert and responsive to the voice of the hypnotherapist, hypnosis can feel much like a daydream. In this state our inner thoughts and feelings dominate our waking attention, rather than the world "out there".

When in trance, we can easily bring ourselves to full awareness of the outer world whenever there is a pressing need, like a suggestion to do so, or an ordinary interruption like a doorbell, honking horn, or another signal. Without such a signal, it is also possible to bring oneself out of trance as needed.

Hypnosis does not render one powerless.

Together, the client and hypnotist or hypnotherapist enter into a spoken or implied agreement, working as partners in a state of trance, to explore areas of mentation where creativity, imagination or a search for new meaning are the goals. A subject cannot be kept in trance against his or her will.

It is unfortunately true that hypnotic techniques play a part in the brainwashing of subjects who give their minds over to disreputable or dangerous religious, gang or political leaders - but hypnotic techniques and speech are only portion of their manipulative repertoire. The most manipulative and cult leaders also utilize isolation, fear, rewards and punishments to limit choices of their subjects.

Hypnosis and NLP

NLP was born out of careful observations of theraputic changes that could happen as a result of good rapport and use of hypnotic language between top hypnotherapists and their clients, whether those therapists knew it at the time (Erickson) or not (Perls and Satir). The good therapists were directing their clients to enter a state of trance, in order to diminish current problems or behaviors, and imagine new futures, making them real and compelling enough to pursue.

The hand-in-glove relationship between NLP and hypnosis is an important one, because whatever can be neurologically learned through NLP techniques, can generally be learned more quickly, meaningfully and permanently when in an altered neurological state. In fact, good NLP is always delivered in some kind of altered neurological state, which is experientially distinct from the old habitual state where the old problem was manifest. It has been powerfully demonstrated that when the client can alter their neurological state, entering trance, real and lasting changes can be installed.

A skilled hypnotist does not cause trance in another person, but rather leads a person into a state of trance, which they had always been able to do by themselves anyway, under the right conditions.

Know what you want

Trance can be a powerful force for healing, learning and integration, or it can be used unproductively as an escape from reality. Likewise, hypnosis can be a powerful ally in forming new beliefs and stategies, or it can be abused as part of a larger campaign to limit our freedoms. And so we see here a potent lesson: understand trance and know your outcome before you employ trance as a resource for achieving it. Then rely only on reputable hypnotists when pursuing your goals, such as the hypnosis downloads and hypnosis scripts on the following pages: