Difference between hypnosis and meditation?

[dragoner]

Recently I had a discussion with someone about the differences between hypnosis and meditation. While not really knowing much about meditation my point was that hypnosis is simply kind of a guided meditation and that the state you are in during hypnosis is very similar to the state of deep meditation. My counterpart, a former diehard meditation fan answered that with meditation you could reach much deeper dephts of your mind and observe and get to know "the real you". As I would understand that it means that in meditation you observe your subconscious mind. So while maybe being done for different purposes and with different methods both hypnosis and meditation is "simply" a form of reaching your subconscious mind and are basically the same. Or am I getting something wrong here?

[VeryGnawty]

Meditation is a way of clearing the mind to determine what you want. Hypnosis, on the other hand, is a way of programming the mind to achieve what you (hopefully) want.

Used in combination, they are very powerful tools.

[korp]

Thought I would add a thought here:
Meditation expands your mind, being, identity, beyond what you could
ever think that you want. Hypnosis is a tool to ZERO-IN on the subconscious mind and to subject it to control. Self hypnosis or "Power
of Positive Thinking", is a good stimuli for inspiration and intuititive potential.

[Shademaster2]

The way it was taught to me in hypnosis class is that meditation and hypnosis are two different ways to reach the same state of consciousness, and the key difference is that meditation is done through clearing the mind and taking what comes to you...while hypnosis is used to focus the mind on a specific outcome.

[Ys]

To me, meditation is all about being still (in your body and your mind).
Even observing will stir the waters and thus drag you out of your meditative state kicking and screaming if at least for a splitsecond ;)

Hypnosis is all about getting the changes you want or finding out and fixing the cause(s) for what hinders you from getting where you want to be.

IMO anyways,
Ys

P.S: Subjugating the subconscious mind? Good luck on that one *g*

[MN_FriendlyGuy]

Main difference is that the meditation is self-induced and with full self-awareness, whereas hypnosis is usually induced by another person (unless is self-hypnosis which is self-induced) and the person is in state of trance, amnesia or unconscious.

You make a good first impression, stephaniewgustafson.
From your profile, it looks like you became a WMM member just today. And then right away, you jumped into the forums here. That's exceptional.

There's a second exceptional thing... the wording of your posting is authoritative. So it leads me to believe you've maybe had some experience - with meditation? with hypnosis? both?

Welcome! Thanks for jumping right in.

[activecanada]

But meditation and hypnosis have different effects; they are not just a state that you reach, or one that you reach once. To assume they're the same shows conceptual understanding which is incomplete. I agree that it is clearing the subconscious in meditation and programming it in hypnosis.
Also one is getting better over time at doing both. Each also changes you, or you change yourself with them.
Once you experience the progression of both, you will see they are different.

[twitchell]

This is just my personal thoughts and experience on this matter, I'm no expert in the instruction of either meditation or hypnosis, my experience is all based on the receiving side of them.

I was taught yogo meditation when I was a child and later in life I was taught a different form of relaxtion meditaion. I have used it a lot, it is especailly useful when I have a lot on my mind it just allows me to clear my mind of all thoughts and deeply relax. Beyond the instructions to actually achieve the relaxtion there is no more, relaxing is the goal. I can now achieve a relaxed state by just using a simple breathing exercise.

Hypnosis whether as a fetish or medical use to me goes beyond the meditated relax state. Meditation is like mental white wash it blocks the thoughts, if being used for medical reasons it is used like a pain killer it stops the effects of a problem, the pain but hypnosis is used to get to the cause of the pain and fix it.

Take for instance a broken legs, it hurts and the pain killers (the meditation) takes away the pain but does not fix the facture. For that the bone needs to be reset, so different technics and tools need to be used and this is like hypnosis. A different method and set of tool.

I believe that you can't be hypnosied without first mastering some form of relaxtion meditation, just as you can't fix a broken leg without first giving pain killers. OK. maybe you can but it is a lot harder and a hell of a lot more painful.

I might be talking a complete load of rubbish but I believe I can be hynosised more sucessfully because I have first learnt to be able to relax quiclky, clear my mind of the daily junk that clutters it up and leave my mind open to surgestion more readily and faster than if I was relying on hypnosis along. A common word used in both meditation and hypnosis is "relax" The instructor tells you and you tell yourself to relax. The word relax to me whether said or writtern by others or spoken by myself in my mind has gone far beyond just a word, for me it has a real meaning that can alter my thinking and preception.