Hypnotherapy CDs -- are they safe?

[Third_Density_Resident]

I have been considering using hypnotherapy CDs for quite some time now, and was wondering whether anyone here has had experience with them or knowledge about their effectiveness, or, more importantly, whether they are safe. I'm a strong believer in the power of hypnotherapy, and so I have considered using it to aid mainly with relaxation, because I'm a fairly tense person. But that said, I won't listen to anything before I get some advice from those who may know a bit more about it.

 

[highmystica]

I dislike the idea of using hypnotherapy cd's or tapes that are pre-packaged for mass consuption ... I think that each person who is considering a form of hypnotherapy should seek another person and makes sure this person is not only qualified, but possessed of moral fiber and wisdom. CD's prepackaged for a mass audience even if perfectly made without any questionable suggestions hidden in them would only be of a limited value, because they would fail to address the individuality of a given person's psyche. Then if you consider the possibility of bizarre suggestions being intentionally thrown in ... well it just strikes me as dangerous. You mentioned that you were looking for something to aid in relaxation ... I think classical music, or maybe smooth jazz, celtic music ... you know something mellow either without lyrics or lyrics in a language you don't understand (to prevent you from thinking overly much on what is said in the song), dim the lights, or perhaps even candles. There are many ways to help one relax from a conscious point of view that often are more effective, a good one would be to stretch before going to sleep, or not watching t.v. for a few days -> oh and then there are the things that men often forget to do, thankfully I have female friends to remind me from time to time ... and that is the idea of pampering oneself ... take a bubble bath ... Then there are activities one can do that force them to silence the "noise" that fills most peoples heads, and is the biggest factor in making one tense - try say dance, or tai-chi, though these activities will only silence that niose while you are doing them in the beginning, after a period of time your mind will get used to not churnning endlessly all the time. Then you could try things that some would consider childish - like fingerpainting! What I'm getting at is there are many ways to go about getting to a state of minimizing stress, I could go on for days listing them, but I think that wouldn't be helpfull, afterall you'll have to do a bit of experimentation to find what is right for you and it'll prolly be made up of several different things. Another thing is don't worry about what other people think ... if you wanna say take a nap at a coffeeshop - go for it, who cares if you are considered eccentric, it's a lot more fun than snapping one day and going mad!

 

[j0da]

Third_Density_Resident - maybe some healthy dose of B vitamins would loosen the tension? I don't know if you tried it, but if not - check it out.
I don't consider it an ultimate solution, but it should help - I've tried it.

I myself take B-150 Mega B-Complex made by Puritan's Pride. One pill provides for example 10.000 % daily damand of B1 vitamin. Mind you that producers usually refer to WHO standards, which are terribly low. Vitamine intake which WHO proposes just keeps us alive, but forget the well being. I take one pill every two days and since I began, I don't feel tense or stressed anymore - just focused.

As far as hypnotherapy CDs go - I share highmystica's view. I wouldn't let my subconscious near any damn relaxation CD ever. If you have the means for it - take a break from civilization on a regular basis. It doesn't have to be very remote, but make sure you'll get the chance of being alone, far from the "mental smog" of large mass of people. While being there take some time to look around, pay attention to surrounding, really look at things, touch them, smell them - hopefully, you'll feel better. Experiment, do something completely different you are doing every day - eventually you'll find what works for you.

 

[Third_Density_Resident]

Thanks both for your valuable advice. I'm not at all surprised that you say to stay away from the CDs, especially the mass-produced ones. Once upon a time I would have gone straight in and bought one, but after spending a lot of time on this website, and reading Laura's books, I thought that perhaps some of the CDs could be dangerous and could indeed contain subliminal messages. Even though the particular CDs I had in mind were tested and were actually quite effective, and the maker of them is supposedly the best hypnotherapist in my area, I still had my doubts. And after reading the Greenbaum Speech, in particular, I am quite cautious of anything which plays with one's mind.

About your alternative suggestions -- well in the past I did listen to music quite a lot, especially instrumental music and songs with non-English lyrics, most of which were Celtic-inspired. I totally agree with the idea of not watching TV as much -- I don't watch a lot as it is, but sometimes I do get sucked in and end up wasting half an evening when I could have been doing something much more constructive. I do like the outdoors -- I like gardening, camping, walking, hiking etc., and I find that these things certainly help. But I suppose my stress and tension has increased a lot lately because I haven't done the above things as much as I used to, and they certainly helped in minimising nervous tension.

I come from a family that has a history of anxiety disorders, and I guess the reason I wondered about the hypnotherapy CDs is because I didn't persevere with other methods long enough to see any real results, and so wanted a "quick fix", which usually have catches. But that said, I believe that hypnotherapy can be a valuable option for some disorders, however the only problem is that good hypnotherapists are hard to find, and are expensive!

Perhaps I'll persevere more with alternatives, and I'll certainly look into the B vitamins. Thanks again.

 

[wilecoyote]

Dude, you could try out the Monroe institute and their Relaxation CD's patented with Hemi-Sync Technology. Preferably the Human-Plus Series. It can help one in terms of achieving the desired relaxation state independent of the cd. You will be the one in control of your desired state. Trust me, the hemi-sync brain wave entrainment technology works.

 

[Gillian]

I'd stay away from the Hypnosis cds as well. Monroe stuff I've tried before and he is pretty good, but over all I believe that it is far better to learn how to put yourself into these states yourself. I know that groups like centerpointe and higher balance say to just use the technology but I've tried pretty much all the stuff out there at one point or another and trust when I say that it's like going and getting silicon muscle implants vs doing real exercise. The practice of developing our own mental strength and clarity means that we will be able to cut through any types of mind manipulations in the real world too. Technology can help to entrain the brain, but it doesn't strengthen the mind anywhere like many of the usual forms of meditation available. From some one who has been led down the garden path many times please don't buy into the marketing of "rare secrets" and "new, cutting edge, revolutions" advertised on the net. Ironically it is the simplest techniques(like concentration on the breath) that people ignore that work the best.

 

[anart]

From some one who has been led down the garden path many times please don't buy into the marketing of "rare secrets" and "new, cutting edge, revolutions" advertised on the net.

Absolutely - as a matter of fact, I wish I had a bumper sticker that said that.

=)

 

[OPINMYND81]

I know that groups like centerpointe and higher balance say to just use the technology but I've tried pretty much all the stuff out there at one point or another and trust when I say that it's like going and getting silicon muscle implants vs doing real exercise.

I've actually been using the Centerpointe Holosync program for about a year and a half now. It seems to have helped me a lot but then again you never really know can you?

I'd be interested in hearing about your experience with Centerpointe and other similar products. I'm like you in that I've been down the garden more than a few times and all I can say it is really depressing to see the scams and garbage out there. It's hard enough to detect honesty and morality in person but next to impossible to detect through a webpage.

 

[wilecoyote]

I used Centerpointe's material for awhile also, but my 'spidey senses' were tingling. What i mean is that i had strong resistance to it, via my solar plexus region.
Analyze and be objective about what the Holosync process entails.
According to the instructions, sit in a comfortable chair, preferably the room must be dimmed or darkened, put on the headphones, and let the brain hemisphere synchronization loose.
I found the passivity disturbing. Also the length of time......correct me if i'm wrong, but 1hour of doing nothing but listening to tones and rain.
I do admit that it is relaxing, but do we really need hemisphere synchronization?

I found the whole concept of meditation in a CD idea cool at first, but then it left me with more of an emptiness than when i began.
There was no esoteric depth to what was being taught.
Bill Harris made a few hundred bucks out of my gullibility.

Another thing to consider, with low carrier frequencies, and the advanced state of our human technologies, what proof do we have that there are no subliminal messages imbedded in the audio material?
In retrospect, the Holosync material did provide a major escape from reality. In my past, at my previous level of development and understanding, escaping reality was seductive (i was 18yrs). So i ordered the centerpointe material, which is, in all actuality a technological drug, promising 'inner peace' and bliss. I was at a point where i would stay in my room for hours listening to the Holosync material just so that i could experience the first 'high' i got from it. To put it simply, i was a holosync addict. After some time, i began questioning the material, and decided to give it a rest. I was then 'suddenly' contacted by the higherbalance institute. The sychronity scared me. I originally thought that the 2 companies work together, which upon questioning they denied. ( In retrospect, i think they are part of the New age COINTEL PRO, in that Holosync is at one end of the spectrum, providing one high, in the form of brain hemisphere synchronization, while higher balance is at the other end, provided an escape, an alternative, for more 'spiritual' seekers who outgrew the holsync material).

Before you spend a few more hundreds on the advanced Holosync material, OPINMYND81, just have a read of this bit of information Laura passed on to me:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1710&p=1 (scroll down the page for laura's posts)
and here also
http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=1710&p=2

please read carefully. I know Centerpointe claims to have one 'meditating like a zen monk' in no time, but consider that it may be a spiritual trap disguised as a spiritual accelerator. One can't fathom the consequences of taking spiritual shortcuts until it's too late and there's no turning back.

Cheers

 

[Gillian]

OPINMYND81 - this is just from my own experience and opinion so take it as you will. There are a few things about centerpointe that I believe are a hindrance and I'll explain why:

firstly the cd's work to slow the brain frequency down to theta or delta which in itself is not bad, but what is missing here? The person does not have the opportunity to learn how to focus and strengthen their mind themselves. Centerpointe technology used the principle of "giving a man a fish" not teaching them "how to fish." The thing is with an honest teacher who knows what they are doing - the states that Centerpointe technology provides are easy to create naturally - but if you showed someone how to do themselves easily and cheaply then where is the money? the same thing is being used by the Transcendental Meditation group who have been known to charge $1000 to give you a "personalized" mantra. The mantras as given out by the year you were born - but you're told not to tell anyone - that it's secret and only for you. What does a mantra do? It concentrates and stills the chatter of the mind which allow us to go deeper and feel calmer. It's the same with Centerpointe material.

The scam about "deeper than a zen monk" is that depth is only part of it. Depth is just concentration - what you do with it is a totally different ball game, and further more centerpointe only takes you to a certain point with concentration. It relies on stillness and calmness to get you there. When you develop your own concentration you can get yourself there even if there was a loud speaker in your ear. Look at those monks on the "rage against the machine" cd cover. They doused themselves in petrol and set themselves on fire in protest against the war in Vietnam. From what I've been told and experienced myself they weren't using meditation to escape from the pain - they were having a direct experience of the pain but without reaction. They were in the moment so much that they had transcended the usual reaction of suffering. This type of meditation requires an active "intellgience" that is not present in Centerpointe or any meditation technologies that I have found - and yet it is something that we naturally have and can cultivate if we choose and are encouraged in the right direction.

The good thing about centerpointe is that many people who would not have meditated before start to meditate - and in truth that's where most of the results come from. It's like those ab buster that also require people to go on a good diet and do cardio - the cardio and diet do most of the work but the ab buster makes the money.

Look I've got a personal beef with what I believe is taking spiritual materialism too far. I don't have a problem with people making money - just make sure the goods are what they say - most of these programs spend more money and energy on the marketing then on practicing and refining what they say they can deliver. In my line of work I come across at least 15 ex-Higher Balance people and more than 100 ex-Centerpointe people. And the most common complaint? That in the long term there was not sustainable benefit they needed to either "upgrade" the product which is a common sales tactic from the support staff, or begin self practice without tech.

IMO if you use tech, use it like you'd use training wheels - it's helps you to start going - then explore doing it without. My teacher taught me meditation for free and he has shown me greater results than any of these over hyped websites promise in their marketing. I've asked him to put up a simple website with resources so if you want I'll send you the link when it's up.

Alright, I can rant a bit about this stuff so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Buddy]

I know this is an old thread, but I'd like to offer my limited experience in case it could benefit someone.
About 8 months ago I started looking into the possibility of using hynotherapy CDs to help me with my self-development.
I was already familiar with hemi-sync technology because the subject fascinated me and I just wanted to know how it worked.
I couldn't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on anything of this nature, so my search eventually led to a site where I acquired a few cheap hypnotherapy cds to try.
The two I used the most were called "Trance Deepner" and "Improve Concentration".
I noticed that after a few sessions, I felt like they were pretty effective. The Concentration CD teaches you how to install a physical action so that while awake, anytime you need to increase your concentration/focus, you performed the action (like clenching a fist or something) and then, on cue, your mind would slip into a state of intense focus or concentration.
Well, after I felt like I had done enough sessions, I decided to use my trigger as an experiment just to see what would happen. I was safe in my house, preparing to read a book, so I clenched my fist, said the magic words: "Slow Time", and found myself in what seemed like a mindless state. My body was very relaxed, I felt like I was suspended in an eternal moment, no time passing, no thoughts, just open eyes, blank mind and no desire to do anything at all.
That kind of scared me. I guess that was the point of the hypnotism sessions though, and I would, therefore, have to say they worked...it's just that I'm not sure that this is appropriate for me. There's something about the idea of feeling mindless that makes it seem I would be vunerable to control by unwanted influences.
There's also the possibility that I'm blowing this out of proportion a bit and could benefit from the entrainment in more rigidly controlled settings, or from a different perspective. Maybe a quiet mind IS a valid goal.
I also haven't established to my satisfaction, whether or not it is ultimately beneficial to constantly train myself to align my will with the voice of an unknown person as you have to do to allow the sessions to work.
Could these training sessions make it easier to slip into an obedient frame of mind during the course of an ordinary day?
If the answer is yes, then will I immediately be aware of when it's happening so that I could counter it easily?
As you can probably see, I have some questions that I need to answer before I decide to continue with hypnotherapy on CD, but for now, I'm gonna leave them alone. I do enjoy the sensations of a deeply relaxed body, but I also enjoy an active, learning mind.

 

[Ruth]

I have been considering using hypnotherapy CDs for quite some time now, and was wondering whether anyone here has had experience with them or knowledge about their effectiveness, or, more importantly, whether they are safe. I'm a strong believer in the power of hypnotherapy, and so I have considered using it to aid mainly with relaxation, because I'm a fairly tense person. But that said, I won't listen to anything before I get some advice from those who may know a bit more about it.

My first response would be NOoo!!!!

I base this response (and this is a 'maybe', because I am not sure of what really objectively occured at that time) on my experience with one of those 'Chakra Balancing' subliminal tapes that I tried in '98. I may have just been 'susceptible'... to something.... I don't know and to this day, I'm not sure.

I believe that when a person attempts this, they are trying to 'back door' the conscious mind and believe me, that is the only 'control' a person might have on themselves... even if it is only partial and faulty to a degree. (why wouldn't it be?) Let me tell you, if you do not 'understand' what you are 'messing with', you are in for a whole deal of trouble. That is where I found myself in 1998. It was like giving "them" permission to 'hack' into my brain. Of course, I didn't have a clue what I was messing with at the time, 'cause I only found Laura's web site in 2000 and... at last, I knew things were never quite as they seem.

Perhaps it was personal. Only recently, I realised that I have spent the majority of my life living in a completely 'disassociated' state which may have quite a bearing. The upshot is that it caused what is known as a psychotic break. Not the best thing for a person's self confidence, let me tell you... All I could do was to 'get away' from the situation which may have had a bearing on it at the time and it was complicated.

My advice would be to stick with conscious 'growth' (call it "work" if you like) to any 'advantages' over the subconsious. The 'lure' of the subconscious can be seen as a short cut and can lead to a whole world of trouble (in my opinion).

I'm still trying to 'deal' with the 'fall out' of my experiences. 2007 was one of the scariest years I've had. The only 'logical' explanation I can come up with is that with any great trial or stress that a person goes though, comes a compensating..... something..... what ever that is. And let's face it, who knows what it is.

 

[Laura]

I enjoyed using Dick Sutphen's "Valley of the Sun" line of hypnotherapy tapes and videos way back when. He kind of went off on the New Age nonsense a bit at some point, but I still think his products are decent and not harmful. He has a wide selection for about any purpose. Don't expect miracles, but they can help in subtle ways. He's got a great voice and excellent technique.

Just ignore his airy-fairy wife, Tara. I think that marrying her is what took him off track.

_http://www.prohypnosis.com/

 

[bedower]

Talk about 'blast from the past'!

I was reading this thread for interest, and generally agreeing with the posters who were 'against', when Laura's mention of Dick Sutphen jogged my memory that I have two of his C.Ds; 'The Gateless Gate' and 'Temple of Light', bought years ago. I recollect that they were a great yawn for me, at that time, and since then, they have been gathering dust in my bookcase. As Laura has recommended them, as it were, perhaps I'll dig them out and have another listen.

 

[Laura]

My favorites were his audio lecture "The Battle For Your Mind" (I think I snagged a transcript and it is somewhere in the forum here) and a handy little tape called "Beta to Theta" which is just a recording of the tick tocks of something like a metronome that starts at the beta brain wave frequency and gradually slows down to the theta brain-wave frequency. I found it to be bodacious for assisting meditation. Since there are no words, you pretty much are in charge of what you are doing.