Being in a state of ‘hypnosis’/’trance’ or ‘focused attention’ is something everybody experiences every day!
I have covered what hypnosis is, i.e., a state of highly focused attention. Now, I will show that being in a state of concentrated attention (i.e. hypnosis) is a typical everyday experience for all human beings.
To begin with, in almost all activities that you engage in, you have to be in a state of focused attention to accomplish that activity.
When you drive a car, you are in a state of focused attention (or you should be for safe driving).
When you are reading a book, you are in a state of focused attention. How involved you are in the book also indicates how –highly- focused your attention is. If the book is exciting or romantic and you are on the edge of your seat or feeling romantic, then you are in a state of highly focused attention towards the book, and your emotions are being guided by the words of the author who is acting as a ‘hypnotist.’
The same happens when you are involved in a movie (or TV show). You laugh, cry, or get nervous and excited depending on what is going on in the movie. If you are bored with the movie, then you won’t get involved with the story, but if your attention is highly focused on the story (i.e., you are involved with the movie), then you will experience it as if it were real.
In the language of hypnosis, the extent to which you are focused indicates your ‘depth of trance’. If you are not involved in the book or movie, then you don’t move emotionally with the story, which means that you have a light state of trance. If you are heavily involved or focused on the book or movie, you are in a deep state of trance.
Calling a trance state ‘light’ or ‘deep’ is simply hypnosis lingo for how highly focused your state of mind is at your current activity.
You can actually say that hypnosis is a state of mind that everyone goes in and out of throughout the day. A few more examples will make this clear.
When you are daydreaming and therefore oblivious to what’s going on around you or even if someone calls your name, then you are highly focused on your imagination. That’s a hypnotic trance.
When you are feeling love, such as when you are in love, then your mind is focused on romantic thoughts and you even feel love towards everyone you meet. You are in a hypnotic trance (highly focused attention).
In the angry and loving examples, your hypnotic trance is an emotional one based on a few thoughts that you are currently engaged in.
In these cases, your hypnotic trance is self-created – i.e., your thoughts guide you to feel what you do. In the examples of the book and movie, you are guided by the writer and actors to feel what you do.
That is the difference between hypnosis and self-hypnosis. In self-hypnosis, your focus is internal, and you choose what to focus on, and that creates your hypnotic trance. In hypnosis, your focus is guided by a person (like a book or movie), and that external guidance creates your hypnotic trance.
By these examples, I have shown that being in states of highly focused attention is a normal part of everyday experience for all human beings. I’m sure you can think of many more examples of states of highly focused attention involving sports, work, learning, or talking to friends, all of which are different states of focused attention. All of these states are different types of hypnotic trances.
In other words, hypnosis is a part of everyday life. The only reason people think it is something different than what they experience every day is the terminology (i.e., words used to describe the experiences). This terminology makes hypnosis seem like something mysterious. Hypnosis is not only not mysterious, it is something that we are all masters of and experience every day.
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