How Your Mind Works Hypnosis is super concentration of the mind. You are not distracted by everyday thoughts. The greater the focus of the mind, the “deeper” the hypnosis. However, even a “light” or “medium’ trance with positive instructions from the hypnotist can produce enormous changes in your life. If the hypnotic directions or commands are not agreeable to the client, they can be rejected by what I call the subconscious censor. The mind and body constantly influence each other. Imagine your favorite food. Vividly remember what it looks like, smells like, tastes like, feels like in your mouth and sounds like when you enjoy it. If you take time to do this, you will notice the flow of saliva in your mouth. Merely suggesting that a hypnotized person is eating different foods will cause different specific gastric secretions to properly digest each of those different foods. Most nervous problems people have are caused by self-hypnosis. They have hypnotized themselves and they need to be dehypnotized. People will tell themselves over and over, “I can’t quit smoking”; “My family is all overweight, so I will be too”; “My parent died of this or that, so I fear that will happen to me too!” If you are going to keep repeating thoughts to yourself (hypnotic repetition), you had best make sure that they are positive thoughts, especially what you say to yourself before falling asleep. The subconscious mind never sleeps, and will mull over, echo, and turn over your thoughts all night, especially the ones that you think about before sleep. Physicians often tell people to relax, but not how to relax. After being hypnotized, many people say “I have never felt so relaxed in my entire life.” Stress and tension influences the nervous system and can contribute to either causing or making worse almost almost condition that is seen by a physician. Many skin conditions are a mirror of our emotions. Mere words and thoughts have a magical power and can cause changes in organs and glands in our body. Our thoughts create chemicals, chemicals affect our feelings and feelings affect our behavior. For example, happy tears and sad tears have different chemicals. Thoughts can cause blushing with the rush of blood to the face. Thoughts can cause the heart to pound or to relax. Thoughts can cause someone to sweat. We have seen candidates perspire during the Presidential debates when they are under stress. Words create anger and feelings of love. Thoughts can heal or not. Professional hypnotists carefully select the words they use to focus a person’s attention and to stimulate their imagination for health, success and happiness. A worst fear is thinking that something is wrong with you or your mind. This creates needless fear and anxiety. A new way of thinking must be instilled into the mind. Most any problem responds well to hypnosis. Hypnosis usually helps most any problem a little or completely. It is very unlikely that hypnosis cannot be of some help. Sometimes hypnosis requires more than one session. Recorded hypnosis sessions allow the client to repeat and reinforce the hypnosis at any time that is convenient. Worry, anxiety and fear cause tension and symptoms. Once we have the symptoms, our worry and fear may increase. This increase in worry and fear causes more serious symptoms, so it becomes a vicious circle. For example, if you worry about not sleeping, your sleep habit will become worse. Many have stopped using sleep pills after being hypnotized or learning self-hypnosis. Most sexual disorders from impotence to frigidity respond favorably to hypnosis. “That which I hath feared hath come upon me.” Worry can cause indigestion, headaches, high blood pressure and countless other conditions. Instructing the subconscious mind to look at challenges in a new way (reframing) can often be one simple solution. Often people have no disease at all, just anxiety, nervous tension and tightness in the body caused by fear. Sometimes words and ideas can do what medicine does not. Finding the cause and removing it can be better than suppression of the symptoms with drugs. Hypnosis can break that vicious circle with total relaxation, confidence building and other specific instructions presented to the subconscious mind when attention is concentrated. The hypnotist does not “control” anyone. Hypnosis is “en rapport”, two minds working together, an instructor and a student. Hypnosis alone is a tremendous natural relaxant, but it is the specific hypnotic instructions that create the powerful specific changes desired. Hypnotized people hear everything that the hypnotist says, otherwise they would be in an ordinary sleep. A hypnotized person is not unconscious. They are superaware and totally focused upon the hypnotist’s voice. If a hypnotist says “raise your hand”, the client raises only the hand from the wrist, not the entire arm. A hypnotic sleep is totally different from an ordinary sleep. If a boy runs fast, that is the opposite of the boy being tied fast to a chair. Words can have many different meanings. In addition, how the hypnotist says the word, in terms of pauses, volume level, repetition, and inflection can change the emotion that the word creates in the subconscious. Emotion always intensifies the hypnosis. Many will say to me, “Your voice is so empowering, makes me feel so confident, makes me feel more relaxed than ever before, makes me feel so good”, etc. The subconscious cannot tell the difference between a real experience and an imaginary experience. People will wake up with a dream fearfully shouting or kicking under the covers. Their sleep partner will say: “Just relax, you are dreaming, everything is ok.” The person with the dream will say: “But it seemed so real.” That’s why people follow the instructions of the hypnotist. The healing words given by the hypnotist become concentrated in the mind of the client, and he follows them. He now believes he is a non smoker, wants to eat and exercise like a slim person, lets nails grow long, sleeps better, and stops drinking alcohol. This is simply because that is the clear picture of themselves that has been locked into their subconscious mind with hypnotic suggestion, imagery and repetition. I call it brain rinsing out the negative and replacing with the positive. A nervous speaker or actor can be told under hypnosis in many different ways that he is confident, relaxed, poised, looking forward to his appearance; the audience is smiling, excited, applauding; he is speaking enthusiastically, full of energy, thoroughly enjoying his audience, etc. His mind is concentrated and his daydreams under hypnosis seem real to the subconscious mind. You become what you believe. Napoleon said “Imagination rules the world.” Be sure to read all my blogs <http://vanceromane.com/blog/> and search my website <http://www.vanceromane.com/> to help you to understand and use hypnosis successfully for your best life. M. Vance Romane For more information on Romane and his hypnosis recordings, please visit: http://www.vanceromane.com/ M.V.P. Ltd. (Romane Seminars) Box 75177, RPO White Rock Surrey, BC V4A 0B1 Phone: 604 538 1111 or 1 800 665 4656 Fax: 604 538 8477 vanceromane.com romane.ca