
Science of Hypnosis – Deeper Dive FAQ
How will I Know Whether I am Hypnotized Deep Enough or Long Enough? What is Deep Hypnosis? What is Meant with "Go Deeper"?
As hypnosis is a process, it wouldn’t make sense to talk about deeper hypnosis. What does make sense, however, is that different kinds of work require a different level, or extent, of the altered state of mind.
As you can imagine:
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Hypnosis for pain management would require something more than hypnosis for self-confidence would, for example.
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And hypnosis for painless tooth extraction (without anesthetics - yes, that’s a thing!) would require something else.
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And painless natural childbirth requires something different from hypnosis for surgery.
This just touches on the power of hypnosis, and it only touches on the area of hypnosis for pain management.
Hypnosis can be used for a myriad of aspects of our lives and I can give you a very long list of each of these aspects and for each of those I can give a similar list of the levels of depth that would be required to achieve the aim.
So how would you know you were “deep enough”? Well, you will know as soon as the results occur. And as soon as the results materialize, it proves that the hypnosis was effective, and the extent of the altered state of mind, was sufficient - i.e. you were “deep enough”. When the results don’t follow, the chances are that the extent of the altered state of mind required, wasn’t achieved. This is when you will know to spend a little more time with deepening techniques in you next session.
You would realize that it is not possible to know while you are in the middle of your self-hypnosis session.
This is, however, another case where you shouldn’t overthink this. Hypnosis is a natural ability of our minds and a light trance would be very powerful already, and perfect for most of the goals we want to use self-hypnosis for.
What about “long enough”? Well, as soon as you experience a "convincer" like eye-lock for example (there are others that we will discuss too), or as soon as you experience imagined sensations and feelings, it means you are hypnotized and you could immediately start working on the suggestions necessary to reach your goals. For some people, this is a very quick process that doesn’t require more than only a few minutes to achieve. So the length of the session is not necessarily a predictor of the success of the session.
How long your session should be then, from that point that you know you are hypnotized, depends on the number and kinds of suggestions that you plan to work through. It could be as little as a minute or two o as long as you need.
If you want a predictor of success with self-hypnosis, I would say consistency is key: In terms of how many times a week you practice, and consistency in terms of completing the session without interruption or loss of focus during the session. Depth and length is not necessarily relevant.
Next FAQ: What if I Cannot Visualize Well in Self-Hypnosis?