 | Murl Webster is the Administrator of Medicalodges in Goddard, KS. He can be reached at Medicalodges by calling 316-794-8635. |
Senior Living
2010-03-01 08:47:00
How does hypnosis work?
Question: How does hypnotism actually work? What does it do that makes it work?
Answer: I don’t know. As a matter of fact, no one really knows how hypnotism works. With the advent of new technologies, we can see some of the effects it has on the brain, scientifically, but no one really knows how it creates those effects.We can theorize as to what is going on. That is probably the best explanation we can get right now, and will probably be proved out over the years as new technologies increase our scientific knowledge of what now are those most intriguing mysteries of how our brain works, and how our body works. In fact, there are many studies being done today, that will help us to more than theorize about what is going on. I fully believe that many of the "scientific facts" we now have about such things will be totally disproved as we learn to delve into those areas of knowledge that are now considered "fringe." It wasn’t too many years ago that scientists were able to prove the rotation of electrons around a nucleus, in a little thing they called "an atom, the smallest particle of matter that can exist" We all know what happened to that "fact" We now know there are much smaller particles than this and that while measuring their movement, the thoughts of the scientist affect their paths. In some cases, the thoughts of the observer can cause the particles to appear or disappear. Most any intelligent person now accepts that everything is vibration and frequencies of vibrations have affects. In many cases we’re not aware of how or what those frequencies affect, but we are pretty sure they do. Good Vibrations is no longer just a "groovy" song from the sixties. Anyone with mechanical experience knows that bad vibrations can tear apart a machine. Maybe they can also tear apart thoughts, bodies and minds. Or maybe good vibrations can mend them, or cause them to run more smoothly or improve health. One of those absolutes of knowledge that we all learned in school, and most of us have believed all our lives is that the brain controls the body and everything we do. Right? I’ve just completed a book written by an MD , called "The Heart Speaks." In that book, she talks about the power of the heart. She quantifies it as a transmitter of about 3 watts power (way more than your cell phone). In fact, years ago, Ham radio operators were known to talk thousands of miles using three watts of power. The author also says that research being done today indicates the heart may be the control center and give commands to the brain! It may be that they talk back and forth in a symbiotic decision-making relationship. It has long been known that the cells of the body communicate so it should come as no surprise that two major organs could communicate. One of the facts that she mentioned in the book really caught my eye, as a hypnotist. The author stated that because of the power transmitted by the heart, the heartbeat of one person, can be read in the body of another person if the distance is not too great. She was not talking about being inches away, but feet away. A person on one side of the room, can be the measuring station for the heartbeat of someone on the other side of the room!If, with the very little we know, the heart can affect the body of another so completely, couldn’t a similar effect be what causes hypnosis to work. Could it be that the power of the hypnotist’s transmitter is received by the person hypnotized and acted upon, in a manner of communication that we really know nothing about? Well, in reality, that is going on! We really don’t know how hypnotism works. About the only things we do know is that it accesses the power and information in the subconscious mind and causes chemical changes in the brain, and in the functioning of the brain. That change is what causes, we think, the wonderful effects of hypnotism, either on the body or its thought processes. In our "normal" way of viewing things, we have assumed that it was the meaning of the words spoken by the hypnotist that caused the changes to take place. We know that words are vibrations (there’s that word vibration again) in the air. What if it is the effects of those vibrations, or the frequencies of the vibrations that are interacting with the vibrations of the client, causing the changes to take place. We know that most hypnosis takes place most easily when the frequency of the brain waves is down in the lower realms of Alpha, Theta, or Delta. Interestingly, hypnotists often find a lowering of their brain wave frequencies in sympathy with those of the client while working with them. It is called brain wave entrainment, and is a whole field of study now. Most hypnotists learn to control their brain wave frequencies while working with clients so they can be most efficient and effective. In hypnotism, we basically lump all mind definitions into the "subconscious" category for ease of explanation. However, we know that beyond the conscious mind is the subconscious, unconscious, and super conscious, or the collective unconscious. How it all works together we don’t know. But we are getting some delightful glimpses which tease us with the possibilities of wonderful things and realms to come. How does hypnotism work? We really don’t know, but there are some delightful suggestions which are raising their most intriguing heads. Do you think it might actually all come from the heart?
