Ok, let’s talk about hypnosis.
But first, a little disclaimer: Some people think that hypnosis is a cool
thing. Other people say that hypnosis is a state of human consciousness and some even
consider it as a pseudo-science. Here, we will try to be as fair and neutral as we can,
if you agree with us, great, if you don’t, great, we also like people who think differently.
Subjectivity is one of those things that make this world a great place.
Now, let’s get to the point, we can call hypnosis the attitudes generated through a
process called… Hypnotism! That process can be done yourself or by someone else.
But, what happens to your brain during hypnosis? Ok, here’s where we’ll have like a little
war. Well, we don’t like war, let’s call it a boxing combat.
On one side, Mr. Altered State. This guy defines hypnosis as an altered state of mind… like
a trance, and there are levels of it, not like Mario Bros, levels like the ones in a
skyscraper. And the hypnotized person goes through those levels.
And in the other side, Mr. Nonstate, he says that hypnosis is produced by “cheap” psychological
methods, like absorption and expectation. I mean, for me it’s easier to hypnotize
you when I previously told you that I’m going to do it, that predisposes you and makes
the process possible. Do you know what a placebo is?
NO, no that Placebo.
Placebo a harmless pill, medicine, or procedure prescribed
more for the psychological benefit to the patient than for any physiological effect.
Ok, this definition relates the hypnosis to a placebo, very much.
But… who wins? The truth is that the judges of the combat, in this case, the American
Psychological Association doesn’t know, they are neutral, and they have set some definitions,
arguable, misunderstood, or unknown, but definitions in the end.
During the hypnosis, the person is inducted to get sharply focused on memory, activity
or thought, blocking any other distraction. They are likely to obey suggestions, so be
careful not to end up jumping from a cliff, or giving away all your money.
So, at this point, we can divide this into two kinds of hypnosis.
First, the HYPNOTHERAPY, which is used for therapeutic purposes. And second, the STAGE
HYPNOSIS, done by mentalists with the goal of entertaining an audience.
The STAGE HYPNOSIS is probably the most well known... I mean, any good Magic Show, has
an act of Hypnosis.
Buuut… where did this all begin?
Let’s travel to the XVIII century, and meet a friend called Franz Mesmer. He developed
a theory commonly known as “Animal Magnetism”.
He theorized that living creatures had flowing fluids, like a kind of electricity; and that
by adjusting these fluids, I’d be possible to cure them.
Some people claimed that it worked, but after many years, other people tested again, and
they realized it didn’t work at all.
As your relationship with your ex, it didn’t work at all, never worked.
So now let’s visit the guy who discredited Mesmer, James Braid. Braid introduced the
term “HYPNOTISM” as we know it nowadays. He described it as something similar to meditation,
and defined a keyword for it: FOCUS, focus on a psychological state.
This guy asked his patients to focus on a specific object, like a dangling pocket watch…
and by focus on this object, they ended up in a sort of trance.
I bet that you have seen this before, right?
And now, let’s go to Freud!
Freud used hypnotherapy to recover repressed memories from his patients, pressing on their
forehead… pretty weird, right?
Well, he left it when he found the love of his life, the psychoanalysis, and then he
experimented combining both methods, in a new technique called “hypnoanalysis.”
In the following years, hypnosis has been studied and evolved in the way that it’s
applied; and even more, it has created new disciplines and research fields, such as Neuro-Linguistic
Programming. Its goal is to develop or improve the behaviors of a patient using the existent
connection between neurological processes, the language and the patterns learned by the
experience of the patient. The NLP, -as is called by its close friends- is used to cure
phobias, depressions, tic disorders… and so on.
Another discipline developed thanks to hypnosis is EMDR, or the “Eye movement desensitization
and reprocessing” (Locutor toma aire). We can call this discipline a friend of ours,
so we’ll call it just EMDR, haha. I guess this person needs therapy to create cool names!
Well, the EMDR is a complex method to cure PTSD… but PTSD likes to be called by its
full name, so let’s call it “Mr. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.”
Well, agree or not, we can’t deny that hypnosis has contributed to growing the knowledge of
medicine in general, some things about probably it sound weird nowadays, but guys, don’t
judge it too hard, everyone has a dark past!
Everything has the right to recover from bad decisions, our friend hypnosis isn’t the
exception!
So leave us comment with the worst decision you’ve ever made in your life, so we can
judge you as we’ve judged hypnosis today… I’m kidding! Haha.
Just have you ever been under hypnosis? Would you like to?
leave a comment telling about the funniest thing or myth you’ve heard about hypnosis,
there are pretty amusing things here.
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