I got hypnotized... sort of

Another wonderful tale from my Love, Meaning, and Paradox class!

We had a famous hypnotist, Dr. Dave Hill, come to class to demonstrate how it works. They gave a brief explanation about how hypno-therapy is used to alter your subconscious mind. They explained it like this: Visualize your conscious mind as you in a row boat going whichever direction. Your subconscious mind is a submarine, under the surface, that is attached to your conscious mind, the row boat. Your subconscious is much more powerful and it doesn't matter if you're rowing in one direction if the submarine is pulling you the other way. Hypnotherapy is as if you sent someone down to the submarine to change the trajectory of it so that rowing the boat on the surface is easier. Hypnotherapy is used to help people stop smoking, rid a fear of flying, etc... the key is that you want the thing, you want to stop smoking and so forth.

The hypnotist asked for volunteers and I raised my hand. TO BE CLEAR I was very open to getting hypnotized and giving it the space to prove itself. Eventually he got to me and asked if I was open to being hypnotized, I said "sure." Then he asked if I was cold because I had my arms crossed. I was honest and told him it was to regulate my anxiety (I usually would never volunteer for this but i've been actively working on my anxiety and figured this would be a fun way to exercise it, and see if hypnosis could help). For some reason he pointed out my crossed arms so hard and had my prof stand up to see how I was sitting... for what reason I do not know...  He kept wanting an exact answer for why I was anxious and I told him because of my generalized anxiety it's just the state that I'm in all the time. He asked what was the first time I remember feeling anxious, "Ever since I can remember." He had me close my eyes, picture myself in a room in a comfy chair and looking at a TV on a wall. I was to imagine all the things that have ever made me anxious appearing on the screen (literally an impossible task), as he said "Swish!" those things were to be erased, like an etch-a-sketch. BTW the entire time he's holding my very sweaty hand. Then he said to imagine the idealized version of myself and my life appearing on the screen, it was tricky, but I had a semblance of what that could look like. He had me open my eyes and asked if I felt better, I did very slightly, but mainly because I had my eyes closed and wasn't making eye contact with the entire lecture hall. He asked me again how I felt... again slightly better, but still anxious. He said if I keep doing that then I'll feel better and better, then asked if I would continue to do so. I said," Probably not."

When he moved onto the girl sitting next to me and he asked how she felt, she said," It just feels like I'm following your directions." Which made me snicker a bit. His response to her was that, "You're following directions to be hypnotized." Very interesting response.

After he was done with individual hypnosis, he decided to hypnotize all the volunteers together. It was the typical thing where we closed our eyes, we're getting "oh so sleepy", eyelids getting heavier and our bodies getting "ten times more relaxed." He started going one by one and literally pushing our heads down, telling us to relax.  I went and watched the recording of the lecture when I got home and I was the only one not to have my head dangling. You could tell that some people just could not keep it together (trying not to laugh as their peers' heads were falling onto their shoulders) and went along with it. 

I can get behind hypno-therapy. It seems similar to meditation, manifestation, and to a certain degree, the placebo affect. However, in a setting where the hypnosis is being presented as a show, I don't think it can work properly. In a one-on-one setting I can see how hypno-therapy would be very helpful, but the way this guy was trying to demonstrate hypnosis in a performative, show-like way... I don't think can be real hypnosis.

Hypnosis is not a thing where you black out, don't remember anything and people can get you to do whatever they want. It's a very intentional meditative exercise that you ritualize until you've changed the subconscious connections in your mind. Similar to manifestation or the law of attraction where if you make choices and are consciously aware of things that will lead you to your goal, you'll have more opportunity to achieve it. Or when you tell yourself positive affirmations in the mirror everyday to boost your confidence and rewire the way you think about yourself. You need to believe in it before it has shown any tangible results.

This guy has been doing hypnosis shows for years and years, in places like Vegas and for people like Elon Musk and Frank Sinatra. I feel slightly embarrassed for him because he is trying to legitimize this concept to us, but again the WAY it became this performance was really hard to sit through and I don't think convinced anyone.

Anyway, that was fun and.... weird.

Here's a pic of everyone at the end where he was doing the group hypnosis, I'm in the green shirt.