Answers to a few frequently asked questions about hypnosis

What is hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a natural, spontaneous phenomenon that we use every day without even realizing it. Surprising, isn’t it? Not really. This hypnotic state occurs, for example, when we drive our car on a familiar route and our mind wanders elsewhere without it affecting our ability to handle the vehicle. It also happens when we watch a movie and the characters’ emotions carry us off into our own thoughts, transporting us into imaginary worlds unrelated to the present moment.

This hypnotic state occurs, in an adult, about 10 to 12 times a day. So there’s no point fighting it, since it’s within us and, who knows, it might even be useful to us. We call it a hypnotic state or an altered state of consciousness.

Has it been used for a long time?

Hypnosis remains a mystery to many people, who see it as magic or charlatanism. In fact, hypnosis is simply a technique that has been known since ancient times. The earliest description of a hypnosis session was found in Egypt, on a stele more than 3000 years old. Ramses II is said to have used hypnosis to motivate his soldiers before battle… So none of this is new.

We might even think that hypnosis appeared alongside language itself, in the form of rites, tales, fables, simple conversations… much like in therapy today.

Over the centuries, hypnosis would indeed come to be used in medical care and in psychology.

In the 18th century, a German doctor, Frantz Anton Mesmer (nothing to do with today’s stage hypnotist), developed a therapy based on “animal magnetism”, a fluid he believed every human being possessed. He then conducted group experiments that drew large crowds.

In the 19th century, James Braid, a Scottish surgeon, developed hypnosis to achieve anesthesia in surgery, with success.

A bit later, in France, the neurologist Jean Martin Charcot experimented with hypnosis in connection with his research on hysteria. One of his students, the famous Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalysis, continued along this path by working on repressed traumatic memories.

Today, hypnosis has become a therapeutic tool in its own right, thanks in part to the work of Milton Erickson, the famous American psychiatrist who pioneered a modern, permissive form of hypnosis that places the patient at the center of their own change.

And… does everyone manage it?

No special powers or particular fluid are needed to practice hypnosis. It’s a technique that can be learned and is within everyone’s reach. By speaking to someone in a certain way, you help them enter a hypnotic state. That’s when imagination takes over and absorbs the person’s full attention, until they let go and relax completely.

With the Méthode Dolfino you’ll learn to move faster and become an expert at guiding someone into hypnotic trance*.

• the word trance often sounds scary, when in fact it’s simply a passage between the waking state and the hypnotic state.

Sleep, is that what I want?

In Greek mythology, “Hypnos” is the god of sleep. So, in the end, are we asleep when we’re in hypnosis?

Well no, we are not asleep when we are in a state of hypnosis. It is a state of dissociation between a conscious part and an unconscious part of our mind, which allows our unconscious to be available to make the desired changes in a state of hypervigilance.

So even though stage hypnotists use the word “sleep” to put spectators into trance, hypnosis is not sleep. Now if that isn’t confusing…

Can we lose control?

So in the end, do we lose control in a state of hypnosis? In fact, we can remain aware of what is happening, even during the deepest hypnotic trance. We can remember everything, move if we feel like it. Hypnosis is a natural state that is artificially reproduced for a therapeutic purpose.

It’s important to remember that the hypnotic state is produced by the person who wishes to enter it. The hypnotist is only there to help achieve it. They don’t hypnotize anyone. They help the person requesting it to enter the state of hypnosis at the depth needed to make the desired changes.

Cluck cluck… Am I going to act like a chicken?

As far as we know, there is no international video-documented contest for the best chicken impression under hypnosis. In stage hypnosis shows, spectators who engage in all sorts of silly antics under hypnosis do so above all because they want to and know they’re going to have fun. It’s also worth knowing that highly suggestible people, those likely to fall into hypnosis instantly, make up about 15% of the population. So you’re probably not about to peck at grain, unless you enjoy eating popcorn at the movies…

Now that we’ve cleared this up and we’re on the same page, we invite you to discover Méthode Dolfino® hypnosis.

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