The Real Secret of Hypnosis

When humans discover that I’m a hypnotist, I usually get asked one of two questions.

• Is hypnosis real?

• Does hypnosis exist?

My typical answer is… “All communication is hypnosis and there’s no such thing as hypnosis.”

Confused? Good, because that’s what I’m going for with that answer.

• Wikipedia explains hypnosis as “a human condition involving focused attention, reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.”

• Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines hypnosis as “a trancelike state that resembles sleep but is induced by a person whose suggestions are readily accepted by the subject.”

Hypnosis is not a noun; it’s a verb. If you want to get real technical, hypnosis is a nominalization. A nominalization is created when you turn a verb, adverb, or adjective into a noun. In other words, it’s a movie turned into a still picture.

For example, I have humans who reach out to me and tell me they have “depression” (a noun). What they have done is take the process of thinking certain images, sounds, and feelings and squeezed them into a single word.

When I hear this, I know one thing right away… they feel stuck and unable to change their situation. I know this because they’ve frozen a multifaceted thought process into a thing.

My first order of business is to turn it back into a process by asking something like, “How do you know you’re depressed?” This elicits an answer such as, “Well, I feel sad all the time and have no energy.” This turns “depression” back to what it should be, a process.

If you want a shortcut to help you determine if a noun is a nominalization or not, ask yourself, “Can I put _____ into a wagon?” If you can’t, then you are dealing with a nominalization. For example, “Can I put depression into a wagon?”

Now back to our regularly scheduled program… Is hypnosis real, and does hypnosis exist?

Hypnosis is the process that your mind goes through when changing emotional states.

It’s my belief that all communication is hypnosis because every time that you communicate with another human, you change their emotional state and they change yours.

For example, you say something funny and they laugh. That’s a change of emotional state. Maybe they tell you about a death in their family and you become sad. This is a change of emotional state as well. So you’re regularly hypnotizing other humans and they are hypnotizing you.

Your communication is not limited to human-to-human experiences. View the newer Apple commercials. They pull at your heartstrings and definitely initiate a change in emotional state. And it’s just not Apple, all effective advertising is designed to change your emotional state… AKA to hypnotize you. During the process, you become more suggestible so brands can influence you.

There is a reason for this, and I wrote about it in my article titled “Down the Hypnosis Rabbit Hole”. I recommend that you check it out to better understand hypnosis and how to use it.

Remember a time when you had a conversation with another human who changed your mind about something. In other words, a time when you believed one thing going into the conversation, learned that you were incorrect, and left the conversation believing something new.

That process that you experienced was no more or less hypnosis than when I consult with a client to help them eat healthier, be happier, improve their golf game, or stop smoking. The only differences are the goal of the interaction and the specialized knowledge I have to purposefully move people to change and take action with my communication.

So if all communication is hypnosis, then does hypnosis really exists?

I believe there is a very good argument that hypnosis doesn’t exist… you’re simply communicating.

In my case, I have a very specific set of communication skills that allow me to methodically influence and persuade other humans; skills that I have dedicated well over 10,000 hours mastering to become an expert in my field.

Hypnosis is not a magical power; it’s a learned skill. I have taught thousands of humans to use hypnosis and help others using what they’ve learned. What I am ultimately teaching, however, is how to communicate more effectively and efficiently.

If hypnosis is simply communication and skilled hypnotists are just using precise communication to help people make changes, is hypnosis even a thing?