Hypnosis often conjures up images of men with white beards swinging pocket watches or people strutting around a stage convinced that they are chickens. Some people are even convinced that it is evil and can be used by unscrupulous hypnotists as a weapon to brainwash you into performing unspeakable acts, due mostly to Hollywood glamorization and misinterpretation of the science.

However you personally view hypnosis at this time I hope that after you read this article you will know a little more about the truth of this subject and the many benefits hypnosis can offer you.

What is hypnosis exactly?

Well this is a question that is still debated to this day many thousands of years after primitive forms of hypnosis were first used. How it works no-one really knows. However, its effects are well documented and it is so effective, as a treatment for many ailments, that it is available as a conventional therapy with Clinical Hypnosis being fully endorsed by the medical establishment.

The trance state that arises from a hypnotic session is often referred to as a sleep-like state. In fact the word derives from the Greek God of sleep 'Hypnos'. The hypnotic state is actually nothing like sleep at all. Unfortunately though this traditional connection between trance and sleep still exists in the global mind and therefore misrepresents the experience a person has under hypnosis.

While in a trance state you are not unconscious, as you are in sleep, but are in fact more focused and aware. The trance state is characterised by the alpha brainwave state. During trance a person is highly susceptible to suggestions made by the hypnotist.

Although many people believe this leaves a subject open to brain washing hypnosis is actually an interactive therapy; for it to be effective you must be willing to participate in the hypnotic session.

Without your consent no hypnosis can take place. You must be willing to enter trance or else it just will not happen! However, everyone is capable of being hypnotised and in fact enters the hypnotic state every day.

When you daydream, become enthralled by a good book or while watching television your brain produces alpha brainwaves, your body relaxes and you enter a light hypnotic state.

5% of the population are said to be highly hypnotisable. These are the people who cluck like chickens and think they are Eminem if told so by a hypnotic entertainer.

15% of the population are hard to hypnotize because they will not fully consent to the process. They harbour such strong unconscious resistance to being hypnotised that they refuse to allow themselves to enter trance.

The rest of us fall somewhere in the middle.

It is possible to use the state of trance to create some truly miraculous changes in your life. Although the most popular use of hypnosis is for pain relief its power can also be harnessed to better your life.

You can increase your motivation, heighten your creativity and even program a goal into your subconscious mind through this amazing mind tool.