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I'd have to disagree: it is induced by others, but it is a state that you can acheive by yourself. The hypnotist is just falicitating the process with whatever mechanism they use. I can put myself in a hypnotic trance just about at will, but that took me five years to master. A hypnotist can put a willing individual in a hypnotic trance in 5-10 minutes without that person ever having been tranced before.

On your second point, that depends on your willpower. Hypnotic instructions are programmed onto your subconsious, so it takes work to actively change or deny the programming.

There is likely a lot of a placebo effect in hypnosis, though. I'm not aware of any studies done to test the effects of just being hypnotized versus receiving hypnotic programming.

This is actually patently false. What it sounds like you are doing to yourself is not at all hypnosis, it's just a trance. It may resemble hynosis but hypnosis it is not, much like eastern religious figureheads put themselves into these dream-like states.

After having said that it is important also to note that psycholocigal studies tell us that only about 1/3 of the populace is even able to have hypnosis induced on them. The factors are too broad to even look at and discern any co-herent theory and why which people are and which people aren't, but what is a fact about the world is that MOST PEOPLE....simply are not able to be hypnotized.

That is why it's a viable option in psychotherapy but has a very low success rate. Firstly because post hypnotic sudgestion is scientifically a myth, you cannot sudgest something to someone who is under hypnosis that totally goes against what they would normally do anyway (most specifically meaning you cannot make them walk into trafic when you clap your hands, or stab themselves if you say the word "Bad" ect.) It is a phsycological fact that people's values and systems of beliefs and behavior supercede hynotic results.

So what we have about hypnosis are a few key things to remember from my personal experience from the world of psychological science.

1. Hypnosis is real - fact

2. post hypnotic sudgestion is real but only in a STRICTLY limited sense, and is limited to things that are temporary (as in you cannot instill habits in people or break people OUT of habbits, the affects tend to wear off after short periods of time) and not physically or emotionally harmful..(in other words a person who is deathly affraid of heights cannot be hypnotized and then broken of their fear of heights, there is a 0% success rate of hypnosis working in these instances)

3. Only about 1/3 of the populace is prone to hypnosis

4. You cannot hypnotize yourself via some meditation. A hypnotic trance is not at all the same thing as being hypnotized by another.

5. While under hypnosis people experience much lower sensation indexes then when awake, and are very VERY open to the power of suggestion thus memories, sense experience and even minor emotions can be instilled in them. (eg....they are innocent of J walking but can be thuroughly conviced while under hynoisis that they actually are guilty of it including specific memories of the color of clothing they wore, where they J walked and at what time of day, but their memory is nothing but a fabrication of the Hypnotist. A person can put vinager in their mouth after being told it's hunny and will taste and smell hunny. They can also place their hand in ice cold water and be convinced that it's boiling hot by sudgestion.....but it is not limited to sugestion, they can just simply report feeling heat rather then cold, or minute amounts of cold when in fact it's painfully freezing. They can also be convinced they were saddened by the death of someone they barely knew, or in love with someone they never really met AT SOME POINT IN THE PAST...but they cannot be convinced they are CURRENTLY saddened by it or that they are currently in love with that person.)

6. Hypnosis is not really all that special in practice. I've seen it done in experiments and lab work and I've also seen it done in extravogent stage displays and every time there was nothing about it that was anything but funny or rather interesting, nothing super human or strange or that would even suggest mind control or that post hypnotic sugestion was that compelling.

I don't mean to be a naysayer, but I have been extensively studying hypnosis, and I think you are all going about it the wrong way.

Hypnosis has never been able to be observed by any machine such as an EGG machine, or a SPECT scan.

During hypnosis, studies show that people are not asleep.

This is because hypnosis is just a physical pheunomina that can't be explained.

Trying to define hypnosis is trying to define what thought.

However, there are some characteristics which HAVE been able to be observed.

Here is what I have found.

1.A study(whith a large number of people) was conducted where people where put into deep hypnosis(by practiced and liscenced hypnotists), and given the suggestion to take a bath in ice water. After five minutes, each subject was asked to raise their finger if they were in pain. 8 out if 9 people raised their finger. This proves that hypnosis can be used to bypass something that normally prohibits an action, like pain, but doesn't nececarily block it out AUTOMATICALLY.

2.People often thing hypnosis is either a sham, or something that can controll somones mind entirely. The truth is, hypnosis takes out the majority of judgement that your concous mind does when given a command. Intead, your subconcous mind makes all decisions based on your morals.
A. group of people where told, while under hypnosis, to throw a vial of acid(It was really water)somones face. 8 out of ten people did not do this.
B.If I told you you were to shoot your father tomorow, while you were under hypnosis. Three likely outcomes You wouldnt do it>You would find some way around it, like shooting a picture of him>You would do it in likelyhood.
C.When somone decides(I have observed many different accounts of this type of experiment) that they will come out of hypnosis when given a command that they hadn't agreed with ahead of time, almost all of the people came out of hypnosis.
D.The only confusing part of hypnosis, is when a command has been given, and accepted, and that person decides that they no longer believe that that command is morally correct to do. Ex. If I command somone to steal something whenever I say the word red, and the command goes through, then it should work. If, however, that person then concously decides that that is wrong after the command and trigger has been set, there is no way of predicting weather the command will work or not.


During and after the command.
A.People do the command, and remember doing it.
B.People do the command, and remember doing it, but don't realize it was a command unless it is pointed out to them.
C.People do not remember doing the command.
D.People remember doing the command, but will not be able to understand the idea that it was a hypnotic sugguestion.
E.lastly, somone might come up with a reason for following out the command as they do it. Ex. If I told somone to get a glass of water and drink it at five aclock, and asked them about it, they may say it was because they were thirsty(a hypnotically induced thirst, not a physical one).

This much is absolutely certian about hypnosis, and I will not aruge with it if somone wants to object to these statements.(Two months of studying usually makes me stuborn)