What does it feel like to be hypnotised?

Published Monday July 25, 2022 by [email protected]

The entertainment industry has a lot to answer for in terms of public perceptions of hypnotic states. Cartoons featuring evil villains controlling their victims who, with stupefied swirling eyeballs, follow their every command, lead people to believe they will be in a strange, helpless, drugged-like state. Stage hypnotists who have their volunteers dance like chickens, or preform other embarrassing acts to entertain the audience, also promote the idea that a person under hypnosis can easily be controlled. In reality those who end up ‘starring’ in hypno-shows are carefully selected by the presenter, using subtle methods to identify extroverts who are happy to play the part.

So, with so much distortion of true hypnotic states in the public awareness, honestly, it is no wonder that some people are a little wary of being hypnotised. Which is why I decided to focus this piece on what it is really like to be in a hypnotic trance state.

The truth is we are constantly moving through varying levels of hypnosis throughout the day. A deep hypnotic trance will just feel like being in a highly focused state, however, because our eyes are closed, we shift our awareness from an external focus to an internal one. A crucial component to achieving a deep level of hypnosis is relaxation, so the experience should feel very peaceful and expansive.

In a hypnotic state a person will not feel ‘out of it’, or drugged, they feel very much like their everyday selves, only depending on their goal and guidance from the practitioner, they will have access to specific layers of themselves and their reality that are usually obscured from their awareness.

In BQH sessions people tend to move beyond their human limitations and experience a heightened perspective, a more soul-level awareness. But this will look differently for different people. For example, some people may directly experience their higher-self and operate from that level of heightened awareness throughout the entire session. While others may only step into that super-expanded awareness at key points in their session. And still others will remain in their daily level of awareness, but will encounter ‘others’ in their journeys who will impart the wisdom they seek.

One aspect that I find interesting is that when people are in the expanded state of awareness they often feel as though what they perceive at that level is obvious and will remain so when they return to an everyday perspective. I recall back when I started and was still doing practice sessions, a friend I was working with had prepared a long list of questions. However, once in the expanded state she felt the questions seemed either completely irrelevant, or self-evident. She felt it was pointless to answer them. In another early session the client told me afterwards that there were a lot of details that she didn’t bother verbalising because at the time they had seemed so obvious, but now that she was back in everyday awareness, she wished she had shared more because they actually weren’t obvious at all. One of the reasons why I believe people think the information will be as clear when not in a deep hypnotic trance is because they feel so normal—they feel like their everyday selves.

This is why today I explain this phenomenon to clients beforehand and encourage them to share as much as they can so that when they listen to the recording from a point of daily awareness, they are more likely to be able to grasp the wisdom that was presented in the session.

Hopefully, with more good quality information circulating online, and more people feeling increasingly drawn to explore their inner-worlds, the distortions and misconceptions around the beautiful, deep flowing hypnotic trance states will fall away. We hold so much power within, and a crucial key to accessing this power is being able to access different mind-states. Hypnosis is such a gentle, simple, and effective way for anyone to do this.

Christina Lavers, Dip Clinical Hypnotic Sciences, is a BQH practitioner, located in Upper Orara, NSW, Australia. She is devoted to assisting people to find and connect with their own creative magical current that flows deep within. “As more of us learn to live our life in alignment with our hearts, the more love will be flowing around the planet. Our world urgently needs more love!”