We all have a perception that hypnosis is some kind of magic trick that can only be done on the stage or on television however it is an everyday phenomenon that puts us into our everyday trances wether they be good or bad. By gaining an understanding of how hypnosis is an everyday experience we can start to demystify hypnotherapy and see just how normal hypnotherapy can be and how it can be used to tackle the fears, phobias and anxieties we pick up in everyday life. Here are five everyday examples of everyday hypnosis.
📱When you are scrolling through your phone and become unaware of the outside world, for example you don’t notice the kids wrecking the house or you loose track of the fact you are sitting on a train and burst out laughing to something you come across on social media. The upwards scrolling motion, the engaging pictures and words, the snappy music and sounds all serve to draw our attention into our phone.
One side effect of a hypnotic state is that our suggestibility is heightened, perhaps explaining why the postie is permanently delivering stuff I’ve ordered online to my door!
📺 When you settle down to watch a box set and decide just to watch one more episode…. 18 times, and it 03.30am and you’ve got work in the morning. Again the sights, sounds and storyline are all designed to draw us into this world and and make us not want to leave. Watching well made television is a great example of hypnosis where our imagination can be engaged to allow us to have emotional and physical responses, the visual and auditory parts of our brain can be triggered to feel, scared, happy, sad, hopeful, excited etc all while we are sitting perfectly comfortably on the sofa. When people ask me to explain hypnosis this is the example I use, you are perfectly able to leave the sofa at anytime, you just don’t want to.
🚗 When you are driving for a long time on one road, this is known as highway hypnosis. More often experience on motorways or long roads with no interruptions to the journey, this can be experienced by drivers or passengers and is a great example of why hypnosis is not sleep. Someone can carry out the complicated task of driving whilst part of their mind goes off on a tangent day dreaming about whatever it wants. One of the side effects of being hypnotised is loosing perception of time, the constant hum from the road and repetitive white lines and passing cars all serve to draw part of our attention inside whilst another part of our mind continues to keep the car safely on course. The next thing you know your 10 miles from home- how the hell did that happen!
🤔💠When you are sitting in a classroom and you found yourself staring out the window and the teachers voice fades of into the background and again you loose track of time and the next thing the bell goes to knock you out of your trance, for the more studious among us a better example may be doing exams, where your focus becomes so narrowed a two hour exam feels like 20 minutes. Personally the first example resonates more with me🤣 interestingly a common technique to induce hypnosis is to confuse the analytical part of the mind until it gives up and lets you fall into a trance like state, inadvertently it seems a lot of my teachers were master hypnotists!
🛒 When you find yourself aimlessly wondering up and down the supermarket isles. Supermarkets are designed using some of the principles of hypnosis (as is all marketing) by stimulating your senses to narrow your focus into a specific train of thought and then giving you suggestions to behave in a certain way. The smell of freshly baked bread, to make you hungry, the nondescript relaxing background music, the repetitive nature of passing products on each isle punctuated by suggestions of what the supermarkets want you to buy at the isle ends. Every inch of a supermarket is designed to put you into a suggestive state and then hit you with the offers at the end of each isle. It’s amazing how you can lower your food bill by shopping when you are not hungry or shopping online with a list made out with this environment, all ways of making yourself less suggestible.
These are just a few of the examples of how we can be put into a hypnotic state. What they have in common is the engagement of our senses in order to narrow our focus inward towards a single subject, this can decrease our awareness of what is happening out with our new narrowed focus. The metaphor of a focused lens is one I like to use with clients, some people need to zoom out a bit as they are intensely focused on small details and cannot see the bigger picture whilst others are so zoomed out they find it difficult to find purpose in everyday life. Ideally we should all work on having a variable focus and it is my belief that the focus lens is best kept well oiled by practicing Self Hypnosis, Meditation, mindfulness or engaging in a variety of activities that regularly give us different perspectives. When we adjust our focus we see things differently, the realisation that life was not as it once appeared can lead you to being open to changing unwanted behaviours or emotions.
These examples provide a very basic framework for the hypnotheraputic process but I use them every day in the therapy room as making hypnotherapy relatable and accessible is one of my passions. If you are interested in finding out more on hypnosis, hypnotherapy or anything mind/body related, just get in contact and I am always happy to have a have a chat.
The purpose of this blog is to show you that hypnosis is something you encounter everyday and with the right practice and support you can learn to harness the power of hypnosis to not only stop yourself from behaving in a way that is harmful but also to create new behaviour patterns that are relevant to your present situation and future goals.
for more information or to book a free 15 min consultation visit www.scottlawrencehypnotherapy.com
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