Hypnosis is associated with Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), because one of the people who was studied in the creation of it was a medical doctor and hypnotist, Milton Erickson. And because the creators of NLP noticed that hypnosis is a very effective tool for personal change. Still many people have strange ideas about what hypnosis is, this may well be because their experience of it comes from watching a stage show. Here hypnosis can look like a loss of self-control or being controlled by someone else. But simply put hypnosis is a form of trance. And trance is a natural and normal part of being human. You can be in a trance whilst driving. You are driving along and then 15 minutes later you are like, “Where am I? How did I get here?”. All the time you were driving for those 15 minutes you probably didn’t think you were in a trance. It was only when you came out of it you thought anything odd occurred. You can also be in a trance watching TV, or in a meeting, or a training, and whilst falling asleep or waking in the morning, as you pass through the hypnagogic state. The trance state is a natural and normal part of being human. One of the things about a hypnotic trance is that it puts your mind into a receptive state to accept positive suggestions. This is why it so useful in personal development, and at the same time why it is used on the stage.
The techniques of hypnosis point the western mind in the direction of unused abilities or potential within the unconscious. To the eastern mind, with its long traditions of yoga and meditations these ideas are not new. Eastern philosophic writings were only translated into western languages in the 1820s, and the more widespread study and use of its practices only started in the 1960s. Today it is not uncommon for people to meditate, and mindfulness is even taught in schools. There are several purposes of meditation, one is this sense of focusing the mind in the present moment. When we feel negative emotions, we are living in the past, and when we feel anxiety, we are living in the future. Meditation is about training the mind to reside in the present. Now let’s not pretend that we can live our whole lives always in the present. But let’s increase the amount of time that we do spend being in the now. Mindfulness is then about taking this sense of living in the now off the meditation cushion and into our day to day lives. Become more aware of your life and what is happening around you in each moment. Become mindful rather than mind full.
So, what are the similarities and differences between western hypnosis and eastern meditation. At a superficial level they will feel very similar. A light hypnotic trance and a light meditative state are qualitatively indistinguishable. Indeed, if you listen to a guided meditation, you are effectively doing hypnosis. But beyond that the intention of the two practices is different, and at their deeper levels they feel different too. What both do share though is this sense of using more of the power of your own mind, so that you can grow into more of who you are.
I believe that humanity is slowly beginning to awaken from its own self-induced trance. For thousands of years, we have been asleep to who we really are and what we can really achieve. Now as we slowly awaken from this slumber. One of the paradoxes for us is that part of the awakening process is that we will realise that we are still asleep, and that we are the dreamer of the dream.
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” Carl Jung
