For example , I found hypnosis could provide anaesthesia in the body to help people numb pain , smell roses when there were none , lower blood pressure , overcome fears and lifelong phobias , change depressive habits , give up crippling addictions , and even increase physical strength .
Before using hypnosis I ’ d had no idea I had the potential to help people in this way , nor that they had the potential to produce these effects in themselves .
Since the early ’ 90s I ’ ve trained thousands of practitioners face to face and online in the uses of hypnosis . Many of those who train with us have done previous training in hypnosis , and one worry I often hear is :
“ What if I fail to get my client to experience pain control ?” ( Or arm levitation , or any number of hypnotic phenomena .)
Over the decades , hypnotising so many people – some during public demonstrations – I have found that certain approaches maximise hypnotic effectiveness .
Here are three approaches which , when combined , greatly increase your chances of eliciting hypnotic phenomena from your hypnotic subjects .
1 . Tip one : Remember that hypnotic phenomena happen anyway
When you elicit hypnotic phenomena , whether it be arm catalepsy ( in which an arm becomes immobile ), anaesthesia or analgesia for pain control , auditory or visual hallucination , or even hypnotic arm levitation , you are merely reproducing – in a directed and perhaps amplified way – what people do anyway .
For example :
Someone who is really absorbed in a class may put their hand up to ask or answer a question without consciously being aware they ’ ve even raised their arm .
We can imagine we hear or see something that is not there , or not see something that is there ( such as when we look directly at our missing car keys but still fail to register them !).
We all experience amnesia , as when a knock at the door or other interruption makes us completely forget what we were about to say or do .
And of course , when we dream at night we all experience full body catalepsy ( because nature doesn ’ t want us acting out our dreams for real !). We hallucinate visually , auditorily , and kinaesthetically . We all go in and out of trance many times a day , whenever we are so totally absorbed by an activity that we focus out everything else around us .