by Jeshi » March 14th, 2012, 11:31 pm
Despite what the inductions always say (which you should believe 100% when you're listening to the file, it's a kind of doublethink) hypnosis is less comparable to sleeping and more to the state of mind that a used car salesman has put you in when he convinces you that this deal on this car is the best deal on the best car and you should buy right now!
The idea is that you're not longer thinking critically about the hypnotist's suggestions. The power of suggestion is pretty powerful, and hypnosis is just psychological techniques used to enhance it.
If someone tells you that it's kind of cold in a room when it's 50F, then the power of suggestion might make you feel cold. After all, it doesn't feel warm, so you have no reason to disagree, so you have no reason not to believe them when they say it's cold, so then you accept the suggestion of it being cold and then you feel cold.
Hypnosis inductions just get you to the point that you're acting that way to everything being said. You're supposed to be conscious, you're just not thinking critically about the suggestions.
"You're going to quack like a duck when I snap my fingers" is an odd suggestion. Normally, you hear that and you go "What? Why? Why would I do that?"
After a good hypnosis induction, listening to it and believing them and following along, even if you feel the same, you won't notice the most important difference. When they suggest something, rather than "Why would I?" the reaction is "I don't see why not."
So sometimes hypnosis can just feel like you're playing along. You're doing things but you don't feel compelled to do them. But the important part isn't whether or not you feel compelled or different, what's important is that you have followed the suggestions anyway.
"Oh, I just quacked like a duck for the show" might be the rationalization, but would they have done it if you just asked them for no reason to do it? Hypnosis was still the reason they followed the suggestion, even if it didn't seem like it to them.