HYPNOSIS: STATES
Hypnosis is not a magical act, but a special state of awareness, and everyone has the ability to go into this state. We are familiar with the other states of awareness, the conscious state and the unconscious state; how the hypnotic state ties in with these is described below.
Unconscious state. In this state the person is not aware of anything and cannot be aroused easily. We enter the unconscious state during general anaesthesia and perhaps as a result of head injury. The person who has been unconscious cannot remember anything that happened to him or his immediate surroundings during the period of unconsciousness.
Conscious state. This includes the fully awake state, the sleeping state, and the hypnotic state. When we are fully awake our awareness of our surroundings is at a maximum. When we are asleep, our awareness is minimal and sometimes non-existent. In the hypnotic state, our awareness of what goes on around us is limited and is in between the fully awake and sleeping states. Psychologists call this a state of dissociation, as we are dissociated away from our normal awareness of our surroundings. This limited awareness is usually directed towards the contents of the suggestion given by the hypnotist.
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