SMRTI PASTLIFE REGRESSION THERAPY: Clarification of Myths:

Clarification of Myths:

The field of hypnosis has been a victim of misconceptions for a long time. Time has changed, but the misconceptions continue

to exist even today. I have been analyzing the nature of misconceptions prevalent

in the society. I formulated that the central misconception relates to the perceived

nature of hypnotic trance as characterized by “Total Loss of Awareness”. Some

people mistakenly think that there is a ‘total loss of awareness’ in a state of hypnosis.

This is an error at the conceptual level because total loss of awareness occurs in a

state of unconsciousness due to generalized anesthesia, coma and head injury. This

is an organic condition produced by a chemical, injury to the brain or pathological

changes in the brain.

A person with total loss of awareness cannot sense, perceive,

attend or participate in any communication or interaction. In hypnosis a person can

hear and respond to the suggestions and interactions of the hypnotist. So if a person

remains aware of the hypnotist’s voice then he cannot be considered in a state of

“Total Loss of Awareness”. For psychotherapy and healing under hypnotic trance, a

person must remain aware of the hypnotist’s suggestions, else it would not be

possible to do any kind of therapy.

Instead of Total Loss of Awareness there is a Duality of Awareness in hypnotic

trance. This indicates that a part of the awareness remain and must remain active

in hypnotic trance. The language of the subjects seeking hypnosis and past life

regression can quickly reveal this major myth. For example, after experiencing a

hypnotic trance, if a person says, that he was aware of the surroundings and he did

not get lost into the experience readily reveals the existence of this myth. Since a

part of the awareness remains active in the present, it can be construed as a rule

that the person in hypnotic trance would remain aware of the surroundings to a

more or less degree determined by his suggestibility in the session. To a person who

complains of not getting lost into the experience of hypnosis, I do bring out this

myth to the surface with a simple question, did you want to have an experience of

total loss of awareness; and if the answer is yes; then I proceed for clarifications on

the lines of explanations given above.

A major apprehension relates to the possible loss of control over oneself and

becoming slave of the hypnotist during hypnotic trance. That one may reveal dark

secrets of one’s life under hypnotic influence; or engage in such a behavior which

otherwise one will not like to do. This is a myth because a part of awareness remains

active even in deeper levels of hypnotic trance; a person retains control over oneself.

Let us conceptualize the total awareness on a continuum of zero to 100. Zero means

total lack of awareness as in coma and 100 is total waking awareness. The altered

awareness in hypnosis would lie somewhere between zero and 100. To what extent

a person’s awareness is altered under hypnosis is determined by the subject’s

suggestibility at that particular moment.

A query can be raised by a subject that if he is aware of the surroundings

during trance then how he could ensure that he was under the influence of hypnotic

trance. This can be done through trance testing. Hypnotic trance results in

characteristic subjective and objective experiences. A hypnotist can perform trance

testing to determine if a subject has passed into hypnotic trance. If the subject passes

those tests, then it can reasonably be ensured that the subject is under the influence

of the trance.

The other major apprehension relates to the possibility of getting stuck in

hypnosis; which I call as failure to exit from hypnotic trance. A person cannot

remain hypnotized permanently. The hypnotic awareness keeps on oscillating

towards waking awareness. If a hypnotic trance is not formally terminated then the

hypnotized person would either return back to normal waking state after a few

moments or pass into natural sleep and return back to the waking state in a few

minutes to hours. There is no risk of getting stuck into the process.

Similarly, a person cannot infinitely remain in past life regression. Hypnosis

based past life regression is not a time machine which physically transports a person

into older time; it is a psychological experience and a person maintains duality of

awareness that is, awareness of former life experience as well as current life. It can

be easily explained through the analogy of dreaming. While dreaming, a person

remains absorbed in the dream experience and believes in all the reality of the

dream experience and once out of dream and in waking state, the same person

comes out with the feeling Oh! It was a dream, I was asleep. In dream, the person

remains largely shut off from the current life experiences and remains involved in

the experiences released by unconscious layer of one’s own mind. The regression

experiences too are released by the unconscious mind of a person. It is a smooth and

natural process. This also explains why some persons get clues to their former lives

in dreams.

Hypnotic trance is different from a state of sleep. In sleep state, a person cannot

communicate with other person. Any attempt to interact or communicate would

break the sleep and a person would return back to waking awareness. But in

hypnotic trance, a person remains in the trance and smoothly communicates with

the hypnotist. The hypnotic trance does not break even with prolonged

conversations.

Getting into hypnotic trance is not an indication of weak mind. The persons

with impaired cognitive functions such as dementia and persons with intellectual

disabilities could be considered as persons with weak mind because they have

difficulties in performing higher order intellectual functions such as reasoning,

judging and abstraction. Because of their limited cognitive ability, they are poor

subjects for hypnosis. Persons with average or above average intellectual functions

are good candidates for hypnosis instead of the persons with weak mind.

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are two different things. Hypnosis plus therapy is

hypnotherapy.

Putting a person into hypnotic trance and bringing back to waking

state would constitute pure hypnosis and it does not involve any kind of healing.

Delivering positive suggestions, performing past life regression or any other healing

procedure under hypnotic trance would constitute hypnotherapy. No system of

medicine or therapy is 100% successful in all kind of ailments. Similar is the case

with hypnotherapy, it cannot cure each and every kind of ailment. It can be a

magical therapy in some isolated instances but not in all.

The acquisition of the skill of hypnotherapy and past life regression does not

require any kind of mantra, tantra or sadhana. There are specific procedures to

perform these therapies. Any professional with adequate background can learn and

perform these therapies.

One of the major myths is the concept that the power of hypnotizing rests with

the competence of a hypnotist. On the contrary, the capacity to experience hypnosis

depends upon the suggestibility of the subject. This can be explained through

following example. A hypnotist delivers instructions for hypnotic induction to a

group of 100 persons. If we analyze the response of 100 persons, we would find

that some persons are deeply hypnotized, some are medium, others are in light state

of hypnosis and remaining failed to experience any effect of hypnotic trance. The

hypnotist is the same, if it was his power, then all 100 persons should have equal

and the same response. The observed individual differences are due to the

differences in suggestibility of the audience instead of the capacity of the hypnotist.

To further extend the example, instead of a hypnotist, we can play an MP3

containing instructions of hypnosis. The same group listens to this MP3, again there

would be similar pattern of response of the audience. This clearly indicates that the

capacity to experience hypnosis is determined by the subjects’ own suggestibility

and hypnotist is merely a guide in eliciting the hypnotic response.

In summary, the hypnotic trance state is different from the waking and sleep

state. That is why some hypnotists like to consider it as a state of altered awareness.

What is this altered state of awareness? An altered state of awareness in the context

of hypnosis means a state of awareness which is different from waking awareness