Hypnosis, An Altered State of Mind? Or Not?
Posted By a starsoul on May 25, 2010
In his book Hypnotherapy, Dave Elman had a very astounding description of “Esdaile State”, the deepest or the fouth level of hypnotic state, also known as coma state as there is no response to physical suggestions. (The subject is incapable of taking a “physical” suggestion. When he is asked to raise his arm, the muscles may quiver. Then movement ceases. Many patients, after coming out of the coma, are certain in their own minds that they followed the suggestions of the operator, and did raise the arm as requested. In this state, they can hear and understand every word said to them.) Dave is well known for teaching doctors how to use hypnosis for pain relief of their patients, including using hypnosis in lieu of anesthesia.
One day, one of his doctor students reported that he had used the coma for a delivery. And he said, “It was the most beautiful delivery I have ever seen. The patient maintained a smile during all of her contractions, during the episiotomy, delivery and repair. The only time she came out of the coma was at the instant the baby was born. She was so anxious to see her baby that she brought herself out. When she was satisfied, she went right back into the coma for the rest of the procedure. I tell you it was beautiful.”
Is this a state of bliss or not?
And when the state is achieved, “There came a time during the coma when they wished everybody in the room would stop talking, particularly the operator.” So the subject’s judgement is still there.
It seemed to Elman that the Esdaile State “to be nature’s own anesthesia which has been made avilable to mankind since the beginning of time.” he further shone some new light to psychotic or prepsychotic patients by saying “they don’t need hypnosis to reatreat from reality. They find their own means of doing it.” This makes me long for being in this state and also makes me wonder: If this is the natural state of our beingness, which I’d like to believe is so, then most of us, if not all of us, in most of the time, if not all the time, are living in an altered state of mind, known as “living in reality”, and think that is natural.
This state of bliss, is it the same as those achieved by deep meditation?
Some people call hypnosis “an altered state of consciousness”, as if being in a stressful, anxious state is more natual. Hypnosis induces the mind and body into a calm state, triggering the body’s relaxation response which releases hormones and neurotransmitters that flood the body and mind with pure, cleansing relaxation. This, for me, is a natual state of our beingness.
Look at animals in naure, food or no food, rain or shine, there is no problem. Their natural being is relaxed. We humans take being stressed out as normal, and call relaxed state “hypnosis”. But in fact, when you find yourself looking for cell phone while talking on cell phone, when you watch TV for a whole night and can’t tell what you saw at the end of the night, when you stare at the same page reading and not progressing… you are hypnotized. To see a hypnotherapist, getting back to your nature state of being, for a lot of people, is to be “de-hypnotized”.
The notion of attaining “altered consciousness” may also seem like some mystic experience involving a deep philosophical or religious ritual. Subjectively, the feelings associated with this altered state of consciousness have been described as ecstatic, clairvoyant, beautiful, and totally relaxing. others have felt ease with the world, peace of mind, and a sense of well-being akin to that feeling experienced as a period of exercise but without the fatigue. despite the diversity of description, there appears to be a universal element of rising above the mundane senses, a feeling beyond that of common-day existence.
Who really want so much to be “common”?
Physical life is but a dream. We dream so hard and believe the play is true. In this altered state of mind, we take everything very seriously, until in hypnosis, we go back to the natural state of being, and start to remember…
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