Suggestions penetrate the subconscious more easily if you give them a living imagery. Imagination and imaginative thinking are closely related to the subconscious, and they can rightfully be called the language of the subconscious. Let yourself be completely immersed in your imaginary pictures and sensations. The further you move away from conscious, rational and logical thoughts, the sooner you will feel the beneficial effects of self-hypnosis.
The following metaphors and associations are just examples of directions in which you should develop your imagination. Starting with the suggestion to close your eyes and relax, you will move on to figurative vision, such as we suggest below. As material for suggestions, you can use your life experiences, memories, books you read, pictures from magazines, or TV footage with which a state of relaxation is associated. You can prepare imaginative suggestions in advance, before the session. For example:
“Recently, you were walking through the crowded city center and accidentally dropped into a quiet, cozy shop. So, self-hypnosis sessions can become for you a stay in the same calm, non-vain place.
“Imagine a child launching a toy plane with a rubber band; you may even think that this child is“yourself. As you look at a long unwinding rubber band, imagine that this is releasing tension from your body.
“You see a fallen autumn leaf floating down the river. Watching him with your eyes, slowly count back from thirty to one. Imagine how a river carries a leaf to its mouth or to a quiet backwater, and with it you find yourself in a quiet refuge where no one will disturb you.
“As you slowly count as you watch the floating leaf with your eyes, your muscles gradually release the tension that has accumulated during the day. Feel how your body is filled with peace, which will remain not only during hypnosis, but also in the future, as soon as you take a few deep, calm breaths in and out”.
Weave your personal experience into these pictures, include all your feelings in the work. Imagine picturesque landscapes, smells of the river, sea, air, the sounds of running water, the sound of the wind, the cries of birds. Feel the coolness of the river water, the warmth of the sun and the gentle breeze on your face.
We can offer a recording of a hypnotic suggestion, which we call stepwise relaxation. Think of a place you've been to: a summer cottage, a country house or a hut in the mountains. You are standing at the top of a spiral staircase that descends from the top of the fog-shrouded mountains to your imaginary place, the most cozy and reserved of all that you have ever come across. Use the following suggestions:
Promotional video:
“I take a deep breath and start down the steps. Out of the fog and clouds of a hectic day, I slowly descend to a calmer, more gratifying place. With each step closer to an unfamiliar place, to new sensations, I wonder with growing interest what awaits me at the end of the stairs.
“I do not need a train, plane or car for my trip. No hassle with tickets, expenses and luggage. It only takes imagination to lead me to a new and more recognizable feeling of complete relaxation."
Imagining all this to yourself, you can simultaneously count down the steps. Let there be, say, fifty. It doesn't matter if you just look under your feet and see every imaginary rung, or count them one at a time, in both cases you will feel gradual relaxation.
Don't try to analyze your suggestions, let them flow freely. If it seems to you that you have uttered some nonsense, do not pay attention and continue on. If you can't create an image in your mind, try something else. The main thing is “that the purposeful flow of words and images is not interrupted.
Hypnosis: Physical Response
To focus your attention even more, learn to induce physical changes in the body: feeling warm or cold in the extremities, loss of sensation in the arms, legs, or other parts of the body. When you achieve these results over time, assume that you have some degree of self-hypnosis.
When you feel that you are sufficiently "demagnetized", relaxed, focus on your hand, it does not matter, right or left. Imagine her with her eyes still closed. Feel how it gets colder or warmer, or more and more numb. Repeat the appropriate suggestions all the time, depending on what you want. Gradually, the desired sensation will appear in the hand. We give examples of suitable suggestions:
“My hand is comfortable to lie, I notice a new sensation in it. My fingertips begin to tingle, as if they had touched cold metal. Perhaps, on the contrary, I feel warmth, as if my hand was plunged into the sand heated by the sun on the beach or in the dunes.
“It doesn't matter how I feel. The hand can completely lose sensitivity. But she is getting heavy, as if a weight was put on the back of the hand and it bends the whole arm down.
“It is likely that, on the contrary, I feel an unusual lightness in my hand, as if a balloon was tied to each finger, and to the wrist and elbow too. The balls raise my hand.
“Now my hand has lost its sensitivity and is becoming lighter and lighter, it wants to rise into the air from its place. This is a pleasant lightness, it does not depend on you at all, as if the hand wants to rise of its own accord, like a balloon."
Whatever you feel "cold, warm, numb, light" try to spread this sensation from the fingers to the entire arm and transfer to the other hand. Do not rush yourself, some succeed at once, others need two or three classes. Soon, the ability to quickly develop this or that sensation will come to you, and the hand will seem so light that it will rise and hang in the air by itself. There is nothing mystical about this. You have entered a self-hypnotic trance and generated a certain physical sensation through subconscious suggestions. This is self-hypnosis. Remember this feeling.
Do not try, however, to immediately investigate and analyze the essence of your feelings. Do something else right away. Only later, after a few hours, you can think about the experienced state.
You should refrain from analysis because your experience should be fixed in the subconscious, and if an inquisitive and calculating consciousness intervenes, then the process of self-hypnosis may be disrupted.
Hypnosis: Mind Reaction
For people who are too busy with their thoughts, the most difficult thing is “to distract from them. If you are overwhelmed by thoughts and prevent you from entering a trance, try to focus completely on them. Notice how they come, stay in the mind for a while and then go away, how they flow over each other, how you can stop at a particular thought.
Your task is to first focus on the thought process itself, and then shift that focus to a different sensation, namely “a special way of breathing. Breathe in through your nose and follow the exhalation with a sound that resembles a stretched "Ou". Pull this "ouuuuu" almost to the end of the exhalation and end it with the sound "mmm", you get something like "ouuuuuuuuuummm". Even in ancient times, this sound was used in meditation and was considered the answer to the question related to the Zen teachings: "How does one hand clap sound?" Most sounds come from the contact of two objects, and "ouum" is the sound of air passing by the vocal cord, metaphorically understood as one hand. Think about it at your leisure.
By focusing on the sound emanating from your chest, you will notice that you can control its movement, from the chest to the trachea, then to the larynx, and even to the nasal and frontal sinuses. If you willingly make 12 15 of these sonorous breaths, it will be wonderful. You will be able to relax and most likely go into a trance.
Now that all your attention is focused on the breath, visualize each of your thoughts individually, either throwing them away one by one, or putting them aside for a while. You will soon notice how you are preoccupied with sorting your thoughts. This means that you first experienced a trance state during a self-hypnosis session.
Keep practicing regularly and you will learn to enter this state easily.
Hypnosis: Emotional Response
Sometimes a person is so overwhelmed by some kind of emotional feeling (sadness, longing, anger, fear, etc.) that it does not allow him to focus on something external; a person is not able to think figuratively. You have already read about how you can enter a trance by starting from your own feelings of tension and anxiety. Since these feelings are at the root of anger, fear, and other strong emotions, you can use the same trance technique.
First of all, find a secluded spot and make yourself as comfortable as possible. Close your eyes and take several deep, slow breaths in and out. Focus on your emotional state. Ask yourself the question, what is it all the same caused. Try to imagine your life as a movie starring you. Perhaps what has been happening to you lately will seem to you similar to the events of a movie or television series you know. It is as if you are entering this film, and your hero (or heroine) begins to experience the same as you yourself. As a director, you can file a close-up of one or the other frame and try to understand the state of mind and possible actions of your hero (yourself).
Keep a close eye on the events on the screen that reflect your own condition. It will get you so carried away that you will not even notice that you will find yourself in a state of trance. You have become so detached from yourself as the main character that you have become just a spectator. It is this state of detached observation that indicates that you have entered a trance.
Develop your plot, add new scenes for the main character (for you), which would give him the opportunity to express his feelings. Let him express all your requirements and cherished desires, clarify everything hidden and ease the soul.
You may need to resort to this acting / directing experience more than once before you move on to your immediate goal and use the concepts and techniques suggested in Section I to reinforce self-induced trance.
How much time to spend on self-hypnosis?
For most, one”three sessions a day will be most effective. The first sessions are likely to be longer than the subsequent ones. In the beginning, you will need 15 to 30 minutes to induce a trance. Individual differences in time only indicate your uniqueness, so there is no need to make any comparisons. Even each session, despite the apparent similarities with others, is a completely unique experience.
Perhaps you will use our recommendations from the previous chapters and prefer very short mini-sessions. In the practice of self-hypnosis, the duration of the sessions is not so important as their daily, regular repetition. We wish you success in acquiring the necessary skills.
How can you tell if you are on the right track?
The transition from a normal state of consciousness to a hypnotic state can be very smooth, so at first you may not notice it.
There are three signs by which to judge whether you are in a state of hypnosis.
1. You noticed that the relaxation suggestions worked. You are disconnected from external influences and completely relaxed.
2. You noticed that after the appropriate suggestions, you felt cold, numbness, warming, lightness or heaviness in some part of the body.
3. Before you close your eyes, look at the clock and remember the time. Before you open your eyes, guess how long the session lasted. Open your eyes and check your watch “how much time has passed really. More or less? Time distortion indicates a hypnotic state.
Brian Alman, Peter Lambrou
