Hypnotic Phenomena

What individuals may experience in a Hypnotherapy session.

Listed below are seven phenomena that people commonly experience during hypnosis, please note though that it is not imperative that these phenomena be reported by your client for a session to be successful. Some clients may report experiencing several of these and others none.

Altered sense of time
Many people report that time passes very quickly when in trance. A client may be in trance for a 40-minute session and report that it only felt as though the session lasted for 10 minutes, the opposite may also be true for some clients.

Analgesia and anaesthesia
Analgesia refers to reduced sensitivity to pain whereas Anaesthesia refers to a complete lack of sensation altogether. Both of these can be induced by hypnosis.

Dissociation
When hypnotised, there seems to be an ability to detach oneself from the environment. Clients often describe this as feeling separated from their bodies, the same can happen with noise, a client can be aware but unconcerned about it, allowing it to simply blend into the background.

Imagination
Hypnosis seems to heighten an individual’s ability to imagine, with clients being able to imagine more vividly under hypnosis than in a waking state. This seems to work in a similar way to dreams as hypnosis allows individuals the freedom accept and perceive things in a trance state that may seem strange in normal circumstances. It is of great interest then to note that we use the same part of the brain to vividly imagine something as the part we do for actually doing it. It could be speculated then that imagining whilst in a hypnotic state enables new neuronal pathways to develop and lead to a change in behaviour.

Memory
There can be both amnesia (loss of memory) and hyper amnesia (increased recall) during trance; both can be either spontaneous or induced using appropriate suggestions.

Suggestibility
Definition: Noun (psychology) a state, especially under hypnosis, in which a person will accept the suggestions of another person and act accordingly. There are two aspects to suggestibility, the suggestion given, and the suggestion received. A suggestion is a process of implanting an idea into the mind of another by words or an act so as to influence, heal or remove a physical or emotional condition. Our minds are more open and susceptible to suggestion when hypnotised, therefore there is more likelihood that there will be an uncritical acceptance of the suggestion. This leads to new beneficial beliefs being created.

Time regression and progression
Whilst in trance there seems to be the heightened ability to be able to recall both distant past and recent past events quite vividly, there is also the capacity to tap into our futures and access and transform current life events.