I went to a holiday party this weekend. One of the people I saw was a person that I hadn't seen in a long time, and he told me that he was learning how to hypnotize people. But he just started to learn, so he hadn't had a chance to hypnotize anyone yet. When I heard that, I volunteered, because I make a total ass out of myself all of the time, even when I'm not under hypnosis. So, why would I care if someone made me cluck like a chicken or something?
Plus, having never had someone try to hypnotize me before, I was curious about the whole process, and whether I could even be hypnotized. And, of course, I wondered whether the entire hypnosis thing was complete bullshit. Before going under, I gave him permission to make me cluck like a chicken, or anything else like that, because although I didn't want to do anything embarassing, I wouldn't really mind it afterward.
The whole experience was very strange. I was definitely hypnotized, but it felt as though I could have snapped out of it at any time if I wanted to (although I didn't try, so I could have been wrong). The part that was the most strange was hearing a suggestion such as, "Your arm will move up", and then feeling as though someone else was moving my arm upward.
Reactions (such as my arm moving) didn't seem to work all of the time. And the amount of reaction that occurred varied a lot. For instance, a suggestion was given that was supposed to cause my finger to jerk upward. But sometimes, my finger only barely twitched. Sometimes, it didn't move at all. And sometimes, it did jerk upward.
I feel like I remember everything that happened. But I don't think that I really felt the passage of time correctly. I thought that I was only under for 10 minutes or so, but the other people at the party said that I must have been under for at least an hour.
When he got to the point where he tried to get my to cluck like a chicken, I felt myself start to laugh. And he never actually could get me to do it. That's the part that really makes me feel like I could have gotten out of the whole thing at any time, if I had wanted to. I have always heard that a hypnotizer can't get you to do anything you don't want to do. And now I feel like I really know what that means, because the suggestions seemed easy to fight.
At any rate, I feel like I have a much better understanding of what hypnosis is, and how it works, although I wouldn't be surprised if the experience would have been totally different by a more experienced hypnotizer.
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