Part II: The Power of Self Hypnosis. (draft 1)

Self hypnosis, technically termed autosuggestion, is the ability for an individual to place himself or herself in a highly suggestive state where he or she can communicate directly with the subconscious mind without necessarily having the filter, often a highly subjective filter, of the conscious mind added to that communication.

As we have stated previously, when hypnotized by a third party, the individual appears to be asleep, perhaps dreaming. As we have also said, this is merely a surface appearance. The individual, while appearing to be asleep, is actually quite awake, and communicating with the hypnotherapist through that part of the mind which does not filter or edit what it receives. We call this state of awareness somnambulism, a term derived from the Latin soma which means sleep and ambule which means walk. This state of hypnosis can, indeed, appear to the observer as sleepwalking. but, that is only and the illusion. the subject is actually quite awake, and quite busily and actively processing sights, sounds, tastes and smells. Indeed, all of them waking bodily functions are fully available during this state.

Although the state may look similar to sleepwalking, it is far from it. It is actually a very intense, unfiltered communication with the mind. The subject is in fact, quite awake. In reality, the subject is so awake, so receptive, so suggestive, and recording so much information, that it would be virtually impossible to go through life in this state of awareness. Processes which are conducted by the mind, unconsciously, are so intense as to jeopardize our ability to function on a daily basis. In fact, many people feel that the need for sleep is not so much a physical need of the body, but a need for the mind to shut off conscious operation in order to store, sort and file the massive amounts of data that were recorded almost photographically.

We have previously demonstrated how it is possible for a person to induce a state of somnambulism in a subject during a session of hypnosis. However, it is also possible to self-induced this heightened state of suggestibility in ourselves. Under the control of our conscious mind, we can actually move the subconscious to the forefront, instantiating posthypnotic suggestions as well as other therapeutic and personally beneficial objectives.

We will, in this section , describes the process, environment and expected results of autosuggestion.