Important Facts About Hypnosis

• You cannot be made to do anything against your morals, religion or self- preservation with a directly proposed hypnotic suggestion. If such a suggestion were given, you would refuse to comply or would wake up.
  
• The ego cannot be detached so secrets will not come out while in hypnosis.
  
• Anyone can be hypnotized once they overcome any apprehension they may have about hypnosis. It is an easy experience.
• Most people do not recognize the state of hypnosis because they find that they are aware of everything that goes on around them. Because of misunderstanding, they expected to feel unusual or be unconscious.
• You will be instructed to remember everything you experience in hypnosis. This allows you to transfer the experience to the conscious mind.
  
  

Levels of Consciousness

You are most likely familiar with the mind's four levels of consciousness: the Conscious Mind, Subconscious Mind, Unconscious Mind and Superconscious Mind.

In simple terms, in our awake state, (in our conscious mind), our brain takes in information through our five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. This is how we experience life. These experiences are processed and stored in other levels of our mind in the form of images and associated emotions. When we make a conscious decision, we access the information stored in our other levels of consciousness. Everything we ever experience is stored.

Here is a simple example:
You prepare bath water for your son. He puts his foot in the tub and the water feels too hot and he pulls his foot out, cries and is afraid. He has had an experience using sight and touch. His brain processed this information as the image of the bathtub associated with fear and discomfort and he stored this. Now your son does not want to get in the tub, but you know he needs a bath, so you change the information he stored. You add cold water and you know the temperature is right because you experienced it. But your son will not get in. So, what do you do? You take his foot, put it in the water and allow him to experience and store the new information in his brain. This time it is not stored as discomfort and fear. It is stored as comfort and safety.

In this example, your were aware of what happened and you were able to assist your son in the re-programming of his own mind. As adults, we may not always be aware of how or why we have stored information, but we do have the capability to change it, naturally and safely for our own well-being. You can access the storage location at will and make a change through what we call hypnotic suggestion. It is that simple.

Brain Waves

Researchers and medical practitioners categorize the brain wave activity into four levels of cycles per second.

Beta - Full consciousness, awake
Alpha - Falling asleep at night &
     waking up in the morning.
     - Hypnosis
     - Meditation
Theta - Early stages of sleep.
     - Deep meditation
     - Deep hypnosis
Delta - Full sleep to deepest sleep.

Hypnosis cannot put you anywhere other than these existing areas of cycles per second of brain activity, which you already experience. For most people, hypnosis is a mid-alpha range and although you are in hypnosis, you remain fully conscious of everything that is going on around you. Hypnosis is a matter of setting aside the conscious mind and narrowing your attention down to one thing. This is an altered state or state of hypersuggestibility. This state allows for suggestions which are extremely effective in helping to create positive changes. Hypnosis is a perfectly safe and effective technique involving relaxation. Hypnotherapy has helped thousands and thousands of people with seemingly endless areas of life.