How To Get Started Hypnotizing Others
Here’s a good article by my friend Michael Swens – if you’ve never hypnotized someone and want to get started, this is a good way to go. If you follow these simple step-by-step instructions, you will become much more familiar and confident in your ability to guide other people into relaxed states of consciousness. And this will help you tremendously once you get going with more advanced hypnotic induction methods.
If you want to learn how to hypnotize someone, the place to start is progressive relaxation.
- Find a friend who trusts you, and it helps if this person has been hypnotized before.
- Make it clear to them that this will be a fully positive experience. Many people think hypnotism will make them do strange things at the snap of your fingers, even for years later. That’s just what happens in the movies. Real hypnotism isn’t like being asleep. It is a trance-like state known for making a person unusually focused, concentrating to the point of being unaware of their surroundings. Most people are much more open to suggestion than in normal life, but open to suggestion isn’t the same as being brainwashed.
Still, your friend will relax more easily if you explain to them that you have only their health and well being in mind. - Have you friend sit down in a comfortable chair and start talking to them in soothing voice. You don’t have to do that weird voice you hear people use in the movies. Just be nice. If you’ve ever listened to a relaxation tape, you know what a soothing voice can sound like.
- Have your friend close his eyes and take deep breaths like in yoga. Get him to breathe deeply and slowly and feel himself relaxing.
- Tell him to relax each part of his body, one at a time, starting at the bottom, moving up. This is going to take some time. Tell him to relax his feet, and then his ankles. Calves, knees, thighs, handles, forearms, and so on. This is the progressive part of relaxation. Tell them to let each part of their body go lax and limp. He should feel loose all over. Try to take this seriously, and make sure they do.
If your friend starts to giggle, it’s okay, but it needs to subside as you go on, and you can’t start laughing, too. - Keep telling him he looks relaxed, and tell him you think he’s doing a great job. If they haven’t relaxed enough, start over. It may take a few times.
- How will you know if he’s hypnotized? His eyelids might move like he’s dreaming. He may looked unusually relaxed, or he may actually have slowed his breath significantly.
His limbs may move, just a little, in a way that seems beyond his conscious control, as a sleeping person’s might. But he’s not asleep. - Now is the time to make suggestions. You should only suggest the simplest, mildest things until you know how to do this much better.
- Now you should count him back awake. Tell your friend that you’re going to count to five, and that with each number he’s going to feel more and more awake. Tell him that at five he’ll be fully awake, feeling totally relaxed and fully refreshed. And then count to five. He should emerge awake and happy.
- If it worked, discuss with your friend how it felt and what he experienced. He may have advice on how he could have gone under more easily. Good luck!
If you have any questions, just contact me and I’ll be glad to help you out.
