Serendipity from misery

Last night I figured something out about my own hypnotisability. It's early days, but I think I've hit on something fundamental, and what's more it's so blindingly obvious that I can't believe that it didn't occur to me sooner.

To make this discovery I needed to be extremely miserable. I have to say one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given about being single, which I wish I'd know years ago, is that it's important to give oneself permission to be miserable from time to time. Don't get me wrong life is great at the moment for me but inevitably for any singleton there will be a day each month when they come home late to an empty home after a long day at work and the lack of companionship does tend to bite somewhat. In these situations it is best to face the negative feelings directly to get over them rather than to try to deny them or feel guilt for having them and end up wallowing in it for days.

For some reason on this particular occasion I decided that a hypnosis mp3 or two would be a good idea for something to listen to whilst I mulled over my state of mind. I find that when hypnosis is working best my thoughts fly off on a tangent and then fade, rather like a spark from a Catherine wheel. My idea was I'd listen to the mp3 whilst distracting myself with my own contemplation.

I went out like a light.

Not only that, over the course of the fastest hour in history the feelings turned from misery to intense joy.

Here then is my discovery about my own hypnotic response, and indeed why in the past it has varied so much. It seems that for a good trance I need to be emotionally charged.

The most ridiculous thing is that I have known about the significance of emotions in hypnosis for a long time. Indeed one of my pet peeves is the people who come to hypnosis from a background of computer programming (why are there so many of them?) and think that it is basically the same kind of dry, emotionless, command-action based process. "if this, then you will do that", and so on. A true hypnotist doesn't care about eliminating syntax errors, they are more interested in making sure their subject feels good. Crucially, following a suggestion should always be downhill for the subject; easier and more pleasant to follow than to snap out of it.

The concept that an emotional state is powerful catalyst, if not an absolute requirement for hypnosis should have been obvious to me.

This another one of those things that good hypnotic subjects know already, and thus a lot of hypnotists don't know because it's not something they've ever needed to instruct. Indeed the mp3s I have been listening to do nothing to induce an emotional state other that instructing the subject to relax.

So here's the lesson boys and girls: if you want a good trance, go for an emotional response.