(explanation submitted by Rev. Cheryl Johnson, M.Msc., C.Ht.) "One of the most common questions is: Can Someone Take Control of My Mind While I'm in Hypnosis? This is a very understandable question. Most people get their impressions of what hypnosis is and how it works from the entertainment industry. Sensationalism sells so hypnotism is misrepresented to sell tickets. In addition to that, no one I have ever met in the entertainment industry had any knowledge of hypnotism except what they had seen or heard through the entertainment industry! This results in a bad case of the blind leading the sightless.

To better understand this question, let's look at the stage hypnotist. What really happens when people volunteer to be hypnotic subjects on stage? They know before they go up that the hypnotist is going to "make" them do silly things, but they have made the conscious decision to play that game. Therefore, they are giving the hypnotist permission to give them the suggestions and giving themselves permission to act on those suggestions. What a great excuse to let loose and have some fun! "It wasn't my fault. I would never do that, but I was hypnotized." The subconscious level of awareness is the seat of emotions and imagination. When you are in hypnosis, the subconscious is in charge so you experience an emotionalized desire to satisfy the suggested behavior - you want to, so you do.

"No one can take control of your mind just by hypnotizing you, but you are much more open to suggestions when you're hypnotized than in your conscious waking state. For example: If you were in your conscious waking state and I suggested to you that my finger was red hot and would burn you if I touched you, your reply would be something to the effect that I was delusional and should seek help - or at the very least, should step away from you. However, if you were in a deep enough hypnotic trance, your response could be that you remember having been burned once and when my finger touched you, you would actually feel that sensation again. I once watched a video where this suggestion was given and the subject actually developed a blister where the finger touched! (I am happy to report that the suggestion to remove the blister was equally successful).

"We are influenced by each other's suggestions all the time, though we're frequently not aware of it. For example, someone saying, "'Isn't this a beautiful day?'" is a suggestion if we react to it. So is someone saying, "'Isn't this a horrible day?'"

"One of the reasons hypnosis is confused with mind control is because you are open to suggestions when in the hypnotic trance, so the hypnotic trance state can be used very effectively with any mind control techniques such as isolation, deprivation, and physical abuse. However, just being hypnotized does not give the hypnotist control over your mind."

When most people hear the word "hypnosis", they automatically think of the entertainment kind - stage hypnosis. Whereas the "beneficial" kind (also called hypnosis for therapeutic purposes) helps people improve themselves, their lives and even their world. Most people have something they are doing that they would like to stop doing or something that they are not doing that they would like to start. How many times have you failed in your attempt to lose weight or stop smoking (the biggest requests)? Ever wonder why you keep failing? Hypnosis can assist with this age old dilemma. Hypnosis can be very beneficial in the areas of: healing from loss and separation, enhancing sports performance, ending insomnia, controlling or eliminating pain, speeding up recovery after surgery or a minor accident, and boosting self-esteem. The benefits are endless.

Your conscious mind has to accept the change(s) and instruct your subconscious to make the change(s). If the subconscious mind doesn't agree with the conscious mind, then the change(s) will not occur and once again, failure will present itself.

When you think of the conscious and subconscious (or unconscious) minds, picture an iceberg. The 10% that you see above the water, represents the conscious and the 90% hiding under the water, is the subconscious. The conscious mind is your "me". It deals with the here and now. It is the thinking, analytical part of the mind. It decides what is right or wrong. It is also the part that limits us and tells us what is possible. It receives and analyzes information. For you left/right brain people, since the conscious mind deals with the logical, here/now, it is the left brain and the left brained person may find it hard to relax because they are trying to analyze the how's and whys of hypnosis. The subconscious is our memory bank. It controls all our involuntary functions of the body, manages and controls our habits, emotions, imagination and directs our energy. It doesn't think. Because the subconscious houses our emotions that govern the strength of our desires, it decides the course to take. It always achieves what it sets out to accomplish and always prevails over the conscious mind. Its primary purpose is our survival and success. Since it has no logic, or discrimination, and doesn't think, it is the creative or right brain.

Hypnosis works through repetition, like how we learn to read and write or tying our shoes - by doing it over and over again. That is how we deliberately establish beneficial habit patterns and change the ones we don't like. You didn't learn to read or write or tie your shoes over night - it took patience and persistence and you need to have the same level of commitment with changes through hypnotic suggestion programming. What could be easier than kicking back and listening to a CD once or twice a day? If you can't do that, then you need to seriously reevaluate your level of commitment to yourself! If you would like to experience a hypnosis session, for relaxation, or to address a specific issue or if you would like more information, please don't hesitate to contact me. I come to you and will be more than happy to assist in whatever way I can. Thanks for taking the time to visit, and I hope you come away with a better understanding of hypnosis! Thank you for visiting and if you notice graphics that are yours and I haven't put a link to your homepage, please let me know and I will be glad to do so. When I'm searching for graphics, I save them on a zip disk and never know if I'm going to use them or not until I see what they look like on my pages. Thanks to the following for providing graphics for people to use while building their own homepages!

Kathy Heng, C.H.
Heng's Hypnosis
akheng@iowatelecom.net