Why can't I be Hypnotized?

[supriyanoel]

maybe Laura can give me a lead to a hypnotist in NY. It wold be helpful to me and I appreciate the effort it atke to do all these things. Iwill compensate for the time and energy. I order as much as possible and in the futur e am hoping to give alot more.Thank you for all you and the others do noel

 

[theos]

First of all - how can you tell if you were hypnotized?
All I know is that I was very very relaxed, but my mind and sense of myself was fully there. Some images and plots came up, but even as this was going on I was wondering if I am inventing all this or these are true memories.

I had a similar experience a few years ago during a past life regression session. I felt extremely relaxed and had some odd, jerky arm movements but as the therapist was taking me back through my own life I couldn't really come up with anything significant to say. In the "past life" I wondered if I was just making up stuff. I kept thinking to myself, "Is this true?? Am I really hypnotized?" I did become tearful when relaying these alleged events but I don't know if this meant I was hypnotized or just a crybaby.

I was supposed to go back for spirit releasement but never did. The thought of it freaked me out and it was waaay expensive.

 

[Laura]

maybe Laura can give me a lead to a hypnotist in NY. It wold be helpful to me and I appreciate the effort it atke to do all these things. Iwill compensate for the time and energy. I order as much as possible and in the futur e am hoping to give alot more.Thank you for all you and the others do noel

After 30 years doing it, I gave it up. Not because it is a stressful activity, (it is, psychologically), but because I realized that it was like carrying the child instead of expecting him to learn to walk.

Your best bet to get cleared of attachments is to clean your house, mentally, physically, emotionally, and then they have nothing to resonate with which is what is required for them to hang around.

If you remove them without the cleansing first, you may get something worse...

 

[RedFox]

I do have a question though Laura, about hypnotherapy specifically. What if people can't hypnotize you? I don't think I'm susceptible to hypnosis, but I also know very little about the topic as well. Is everyone capable of going under, some just easier than others? Or do you get people who are not susceptible at all?

I always wonder about this when I see the topic of hypnotherapy come up on the forum, because of my apparent inability to go under - kind of a door that's closed to me then...

I've never had an opportunity to be hypnotised, but I have wondered about it. The closest I came was Darren Browns TV program 'how to hypnotise the nation'....in which my girlfriend and her son got 'stuck' to there chairs....she wasn't even properly watching! I could feel a 'pull' but decided not to go with it....I'd already decided from watching I didn't want to be 'stuck to a chair'.
Like anart I've also got a sort of hyper vigilance that's always been there....I hated that part of me that was always there and on at university when I was getting drunk and trying to loose myself (like everyone around me could easily do)....I don't know if its the same, but no matter how drunk I'd get I was still there, still 'me', and still aware. Perfect recall (everyone else forgetten what 'craziness' they'd done).....couldn't let go.
So at a hazard a guess that I can't be easily hypnotised....if at all.

 

[denekin]

My speculation, based on years of incidental observation (not scientific research) is that people who have done -or are doing- serious inner work stop being hypnotizable.
My theory is that that Inner Work gets us consciously into the Robotic part of us which is effected by hypnosis. Again, just speculation...
My sister and i once attended a large presentation by a famous hypnotist. The auditorium help about 600 people. At one point he claimed to have hypnotized the entire room.
My sister and I opened our eyes simultaneously, looked around the room at all the peaceful half asleep eyes closed people, stood up and quietly waved at the hypnotist and sat back down.
We had just come off of a six month long meditation course. Doesn't prove anything, but it's an amusing story. I used to be a hypnotists dream subject, until I started meditating...

 

[Ollie]

The issue of trust arises with me too.

Now, that's not to say that I can't hypnotize myself or get lost in wishful thinking by projecting my inner landscape onto someone else I care about. The "observer/higher self" part of me has just always been present and aware.

So, don't think of it as a door that is closed to YOU... just one that is closed to others. And that's a good thing, IMO.

… I tend to be hyper-vigilant - or perhaps being hyper-vigilant is part of being aware - not sure on that one.

Like anart I've also got a sort of hyper vigilance that's always been there....I hated that part of me that was always there and on at university when I was getting drunk and trying to loose myself (like everyone around me could easily do)....I don't know if its the same, but no matter how drunk I'd get I was still there, still 'me', and still aware. Perfect recall (everyone else forgetten what 'craziness' they'd done).....couldn't let go.

The BIG ISSUE for me is ‘unable to let go’, as is proving to be the case with the Breathing-Meditation programme.

It is said that once you have been hypnotized it is easier to go into trance subsequently. I trained in hypnosis and subsequently used Ericksonian conversational hypnosis when I led business training sessions in an earlier career, as well as in Breakthrough coaching sessions, so I’m aware that hypnosis is nothing other that “Suggestion – Affirmation – Confirmation” as was quoted in a recent book that I read (Hypnotizing Maria by Richard Bach – an interesting book, although a little ‘New Agey’). Prior to using the Breathing-Meditation programme I used Time Line Therapy (regression and hypnosis based) to clear limiting decisions (buffers) and associated negative emotions.

I can easily go into a light trance with hypnotherapists, answer, probing, questions requiring answers from the unconscious mind without the need for a deeper trance – I astonished my recent hypnotherapist with this ability. Yet when going under deeper trance I was always aware of what was happening, what was being said to me – and aware of me at another level translating what was being said and allowing to happen what I felt was safe (‘The "observer/higher self" part of me has just always been present and aware.’). Curiously I didn’t complete the associated recall of the traumatic presenting problem that I went to get sorted as I became aware that the hypnotherapist, despite words to the contrary, was not ready to do this. I was under the impression ((‘The "observer/higher self" part of me has just always been present and aware.’) that the hypnotherapist’s past history would have got in the way, from what was said.

So, for me two things are happening, ‘a sort of hyper vigilance that's always been there’, and an unwillingness to let go (trust and control) of dissociated traumatic memories from an early childhood experience (and possible past life experiences). So, at one level I’m easily hypnotizable, able to go into light trances, yet un-hyp-no-tizable at a deeper level through the presence of the hyper vigilance.

 

[Argonaut]

I can possibly be added to the "non-hypnotizable" list, too. My only experience with hypnosis was around age 13. A New-ager friend of my step-mom's (who claimed to be an alien walk-in) tried doing a past-life regression on me. It didn't work at all. I did feel very relaxed, but no "memories" or images came and I stayed fully alert. She also tried a regression with my dad and he came up with detailed "memories" of being a viking. But he told me years later that he had just been making it up, and in reality he didn't experience anything either. So maybe she was just a poor hypnotist? I also tried self-hypnosis in the past, and that worked to an extent. But I was never able to go very deep.

 

[Avi]

These are interesting perspectives. :)

The first encounter I had with formal hypnosis was about the age of 18 when the senior class had our graduation party. A hypnotist was part of the entertainment.

He did some "tests" to select maybe 15-20 out of the audience to come on stage and I was one of them. A girl next to me who was not selected, and I was one of the last, was visibly disappointed that she had not been and for a moment I thought of giving her my place . . . but, ended up going on stage. I say this because to me there is something to be said about the desire to be hypnotized, in this story at any rate, for to a group of teenagers it is "cool" and I could sense her disappointment on account of feeling rejected.

During the process one could sense the "herd mentality" if you like, a degree of willingness to be "hypnotized" for the experience. I say this because even though a part of me appeared to be under, another part of me was wide-awake and hyper alert. After the evening was done a few of my friends wanted to watch the tape, not sure of what happened, but I thought there was no point in it as I remembered everything that took place, and still do. I also did not want to watch the tape because of some of the things I said and the way we behaved like buffoons just because he asked us to. I've never seen that tape.

The only other time I've undergone hypnosis was a couple of years ago after finding this forum and reading the Wave series. I was in a bad way when finding this forum and felt, and still do, a deep intensive need to learn about healing in order to heal myself. The hypnotist found in the area I was living at during this time had all kinds of "top-notch" credentials, which does not impress me, but there were a number of odd synchronicities which lead me to scheduling a session.

Again, I was "under" and responsive to his queries and commands yet there was a level of me completely aware of what took place. I still remember those sessions.

But it is because I remembered that I stopped seeing him. There was one instance where he said to me that I would forget something, and at the time I thought, oh, how interesting, be sure to remember this upon waking. But . . . I could not.

His instructions after were not to think about the session for at least a few days or I would have a headache!? Well I didn't heed those suggestions and wrote down what transpired, when I recalled that something was said, but as it was instructed, could not remember what?

I asked him about this at the next session, a couple months later, and his reply was that he never said such, that he would want me to remember. I should have left right then but continued with the session. I did not schedule another one.

So I dont know if that means I am hypnotizable or not. I suppose it means I am, but at the same time I can recall pretty much everything from any of the sessions . . . except that one item?

Trust is a big issue for me, not necessarily because of this, but in relation to it.

FWIW

 

[flashgordonv]

I do have a question though Laura, about hypnotherapy specifically. What if people can't hypnotize you? I don't think I'm susceptible to hypnosis, but I also know very little about the topic as well. Is everyone capable of going under, some just easier than others? Or do you get people who are not susceptible at all?

I always wonder about this when I see the topic of hypnotherapy come up on the forum, because of my apparent inability to go under - kind of a door that's closed to me then...

Add me to the non-hypnotizable list. Many have tried but none have succeeded, as the saying goes. ;D

I used to think that it was because there was something "underneath" that my subconscious just did NOT want to get out so it just refused to let me go under.

Add me to that list too. ;)

Same here. It used to really bother me.

 

[rise]

Like anart I've also got a sort of hyper vigilance that's always been there....I hated that part of me that was always there and on at university when I was getting drunk and trying to loose myself (like everyone around me could easily do)....I don't know if its the same, but no matter how drunk I'd get I was still there, still 'me', and still aware. Perfect recall (everyone else forgetten what 'craziness' they'd done).....couldn't let go.
So at a hazard a guess that I can't be easily hypnotised....if at all.

I would say I had a similar experience through college and I am certainly identifying with this because of that. I never really was able to 'let go', and I still can't, but I don't think I hated myself for it. Instead I rather enjoyed still being 'there' and seeing how ridiculous people would get, perhaps even including myself at times. AFAIK I have never once forgotten what I have or others have done, even at the point of puking my guts out. I almost always would tell the group what happened if they inquired, or just told them.

 

[chachazoom]

A few years ago, someone I have known for 25 years and I went to a hypnotist show. I believe this person to be an organic portal. Anyways It was right in the middle of a confusing, strange time when pieces of a bigger picture were coming together.
This person had always appeared to everyone (myself included for years) almost opposite to what I was beginning to understand. She appeared very much in control, empathetic, smart "spiritual" almost perfect but there was a deep and barely understandable, unexplainable to myself, contradiction.
So we went to the show and somehow, which was totally bizarre and definitely out of character, she volunteered to go on the stage. I think I watched with my mouth hanging open. It was one of the strangest things I've ever experienced. This person was easily hypnotized and engaged in silliness that stunned me the same as if I was watching someone like Queen Elizabeth.
Stunned as I was, I felt deeply that this was very significant somehow.
I just sat alert watching, and it felt like what it was I was going through was being played out, like I was suppose to understand something.
So after she hopped back to her seat like a kangaroo (I kid you not) she had the strangest look on her face. I sensed confusion in her, a strange disquiet (this is a person that never shows vulnerability) and after the show, I finally managed to ask what happened but I knew that unlike every else around that was laughing and sharing, something had been exposed and it was not to be touched. Like she experienced for the first time not being fully in control and I experienced a sort of rare glimpse.
So I wonder if organic portals are easily hypnotized.

 

[chachazoom]

oops dp

 

[Sirius]

I am obviously not hypnotizable, too. So I add myself to the long list you created. I had the same experiences which were described by no-man's-land and Nienna Eluch.

It is only speculation, but is it possible that this has something to do with one's own work with the subconscious mind, or as you said, the Inner Work? What I mean with this, if one works regularly with auto-suggestion, tries self-hypnosis, and/or self-observation and all those practices belonging to Inner Work, that this person so to say switches over from external suggestions to internal ones and thus becomes more and more self-controlled. I am just imagining a sort of switch or balance which one can utilise, but its value is set to the external world by default or by nature. Of course, only to a certain extent like many other things...

[quote author=istina]Sometimes I use a word "we" instead I, like:" and now, we will..." do something. And I asked myself why I do that, maybe if there is some attachment. I wonder the same when I saw that Azoth used word "We" instead I.[/quote]I also use the 'we' form sometimes. I think, it results rather from the duality between that Higher Self / observer and subject / emotional body, or it is simply the fragmented self, but I am not certain. We have usually many "I's", so 'we' is applicable, actually. Every part of or in us can say and claim to be "I", be it attachments, strong "I's" or any other programmes. 'we' thus becomes in some cases more accurate that 'I'. The apparent question is only, how appropriate the use of 'we' is, since it is not the state necessarily striven for.

 

[skycsil]

I have no idea because I simply don't trust anyone (except perhaps Laura, altough I should meet her in person to be 100% sure, and that's quite unlikely) to that extent, so perhaps I'll never know.

 

[Sirius]

There is an interesting question which came to my mind awhile ago.

What does actually happen if an OP is under hypnosis, and say, a life regression is performed? What do they experience?
I mean, they are so different in soul composition, charging system and anything else "under the surface" or "hood". Do OPs experience hypnosis the same way as souled beings?

Maybe this issue has been already addressed somewhere else.