What is Hypnosis?

One way to understand hypnosis is using the example of driving a car. When we learn to drive the process is unfamiliar to us and we are conscious of every action we make. We apply our full attention to the task at hand.

As we become more familiar with driving (through repetition) we are able to perform the same tasks without them occupying our every thought – we may even experience "switching-off", having reached our destination without remembering the journey. Our once unfamiliar task is now safely managed "unconsciously" without the attention-giving part of our mind needing to supervise.

If we need to drive abroad, on the opposite side of the road, the task is once again unfamiliar to us and we experience that attention-giving "conscious" part of our minds once again taking control.

Hypnosis is a way of bypassing the conscious part of the brain so that suggestions are processed without having particular attention (our critical faculty) applied to them. The premise is that suggestions processed in this way are more likely to be accepted.