Deeply Hypnotized

Learn Hypnosis Video Series

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:31:00 +0000

iHypnou.com has just posted a link to access a 10-video series by hypnotist Jeffery Stephens on how to hypnotize anyone in just a few minutes. He's a little more militant about it, but he shares my views that hypnosis doesn't have to be a long, drawn-out process to be effective. Click here for access to the 10 hypnosis learning videos. In these videos, he shows demonstrations of waking hypnosis, and speaks on topics such as congruency, context, and intent.

Textbook Hypnosis

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 05:19:00 +0000

I'm consistently asked for recommendations on where to learn hypnosis and how best to approach the topic. If you're looking for a tome on clinical hypnosis, one of my favorite books is Trancework: An Introduction to the Practice of Clinical Hypnosis by Michael D. Yapko. It provides a good basis for beginners and is a good reference refresher along the way to mastery. And if you're scared by it's massive 620 pages of content, it even comes in a Kindle Edition.

If you're looking for something a little shorter, or maybe more classic, Hypnotherapy by Dave Elman is a good bet. Written in the 60's, it's the basis of many current practitioners' methods.

Hypnotic Shield

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:31:00 +0000

One of the things that I always recommend for anyone getting hypnotized by random videos and mp3s from non-trusted sources is to be aware of what suggestions the hypnotist is making.

If you're someone who finds themselves particularly suggestible, or who wants a little extra security, it can be useful to go through a session of protective suggestions. Typically, these suggestions give you more control over what suggestions you accept in future hypnosis trancework.

The idea is that if you take to suggestions well, getting in with good, empowering suggestions beforehand can help you deal with anything unscrupulous later. Additionally, if you have been given suggestions you don't want anymore, a protective hypnosis session can help to remove them more quickly, if they aren't fading fast enough.

I was recently presented with this protective hypnosis video, titled "The Hypnotic Shield" that helps you remove unwanted hypnotic suggestions and effects, and have more control over which ones you accept in the future. I highly recommend watching a video like this one if you're perusing YouTube or other sites for hypnosis sessions. Everything I heard and saw in the video seemed supportive, but like any other video, I suggest you watch it one piece at a time or check a transcript to be sure it's what you're looking for. I'd like to thank The Hypnotic Orchard for sharing it, so that I can share it with you.

Hiring a Stage Hypnotist

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 04:01:00 +0000

Now, I’m neither an event promoter, nor a professional stage hypnotist, but I do know a little about each, and I was recently approached about doing a stage show for an organization some of my friends and acquaintances are affiliated with.

The request was rather vauge, in that they were just wanting a hypnotist to hypnotize folks in attendance, and it was ‘entirely up to me’.

When you get right down to it, however, any time you hire entertainment, you typically have some idea of what you’re looking for, and it’s in both your best interests and the entertainment’s to ensure understanding of these desires. You want to be satisfied with how you’ve spent your money, and the entertainment, hypnotist or not, is probably interested in being invited back for another performance.

When you’re looking for a stage hypnotist, here are a few guidelines:

1. Know what you’re looking to get out of the show. Are you looking for comedy? New-Agey wonderment? Relaxation or motivation? Something more edgy? Most hypnotists will have a mix of these elements; some will lean heavily in one direction. If the hypnotist has examples of their work, like a demo reel of hypnosis videos, be sure to see if that showcased work is what you’re looking for. If the hypnotist fits, make sure to still let them know what you’re looking to get, because that will help them plan ahead or even decide on the spot what they might do.

2. Know how big the show will likely be. Be able to describe the size of the show to the hypnotist, in terms of both scope and length. If he or she is to headline and perform for two hours before a several hundered people eating dinner, it’s much different from performing in a relaxed setting with perhaps a dozen audience members for 45 minutes. This will allow him or her to work with you to know what sort of setup work must be done, and what sort of bits they might consider using.

3. Discuss the venue. Will the hypnotist need chairs? Lights and sound? Elevators or disco balls or a plug in for his spiral disc? The answer to the first two, at least, is probably yes. Most of the time, hypnotists are improvisational artists at heart, so a missing element won’t stop the show as long as they know what they’ll be dealing with.

With these three tips, you should be in a much better position when looking to hire an entertainment hypnotist for your next event.

An Interesting, Annoying Tactic

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:49:00 +0000

I try to stay on top of developments in the online hypnosis community as best I can, and I've noticed something interesting over the past couple of weeks.

Someone's gone out and registered a bunch of domain names that are of the form *state name*hypnotist.com and is then using automated posting to fill them with content, mostly pulled from Yahoo Answers or article databases. They even pull the responses and post them as comments.

What are they looking to gain from these sites? I would assume they hope to be able to pull traffic from local searches, with the goal of either selling the urls or pushing referrals, since the targeted domain name would help, but they might just try to do affiliate sales or link building.

It bothers me to see people putting more junk and duplicate content (Especially when they don't own it!) on the internet, especially in areas that I care about.

Indiana Hypnotist Committee Closed

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 07:01:00 +0000

For a while there, Indiana was an interesting location for hypnotists - it was one of the few states to regulate hypnosis and the only one to require licensing from a state board to practice hypnosis. For the most part, the rules only applied to pure hypnotherapists who didn't hold any other certification, but it was still an important consideration.

According to the comittee's website, however, effective July 1st the committee, and thus all it's associated laws, ceased to exist. Thus as I understand it anyone, with any level of training or certification, can now practice hypnotherapy in Indiana.

Now, considering some of the issues caused by the committee, I would almost say this is a good thing. Certification was difficult in some cases, and many of the applicants were actually practitioners from other states simply looking to become 'state-certified' for marketing purposes. There is no true non-profit overarching accreditation organization for hypnosis, that I'm aware of, to base standards on either.

Lawsuit - Hypnosis for Sexual Harassment

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:34:00 +0000

Here's yet another accusation of someone using hypnosis for nefarious purposes.

Supposedly, her boss had her lie down on his 'magic couch' where he hypnotized her, gavve her pleasure suggestions, touched her inappropriately, and possibly posed her for pictures in various states of undress.

Now, there tend to be two camps about hypnosis. One says that hypnosis is a magical tool giving the hypnotist untold powers. The other claims that nobody can hypnotize you and force you to do something you wouldn't normally want to. My position, and the position of iHypnou.com is that the second option is sort of right, but "wouldn't normally want to" has a lot of wiggle room, depending on the situation.

Is her claim ridiculous? Probably. Possible? Probably. Worth $5 million? I'd say no, but then again, I've never been hypnotized and molested.

Amazing Response to Hypnosis How-To

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:12:00 +0000

iHypnoU does more than just offer great hypnosis .mp3s and hypnosis videos - we're also hard at work preparing educational materials so you can learn how to hypnotize people.

In that vein, we posted a how-to on Instructables.com on one of Michael's favorites: the super easy magnetic hands induction.

In just 5 days, we've had almost 1300 views. It's been selected as a featured instructable, and has attained 'popular' status thanks to how many people have read it. If you're looking to learn hypnosis, it's a good place to start.

Easy Hypnosis Induction

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 05:02:00 +0000

I've posted a simple how-to guide on one of my favorite hypnosis inductions over at Instructables.com. If you've never heard of the site, it's a great place for posting step-by step instructions for all sorts of projects and skills. This is the sort of thing that I envisioned for iHypnoU.com from the start. It's not just about making hypnosis .mp3s where we hypnotize you. It's also about killing a lot of the disinformation about what hypnosis is and what it can do. iHypnoU also works as Internet Hypnosis University, for what it's worth...that's a little pretentious, but I love being able to share the joys of hypnosis with people.

Finally bit the YouTube bullet...

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 03:09:00 +0000

After hearing some good feedback, I posted a really fast induction on YouTube.

No suggestions, no post-hypnotics...just down and back up, with a bit of relaxation in the middle. Considering I have a video about hypnosis safety on YouTube I have a bit of a reputation to uphold.

Each Subject is Different

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 05:34:00 +0000

I just posted a new video to YouTube...here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo7Pq0UuEjY

In the video, I show my work with one subject on a simple demonstration: forgetting the number 7. It turns out to not be so simple though, when her analytical nature and math background cause her conscious mind to balk at the suggestion.

Know Your Hypnotist

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:53:00 +0000

I've been seeing entirely too many of these stories lately:

Hypnotist jailed after sexually assaulting woman he placed in a trance

Hypnotherapy is about helping people, not taking advantage of them. I do believe that people, even under hypnosis, have ultimate control of their actions, but I also believe that you can get people to do a lot of things when they are in a suggestible state, especially when compounded with the fact that someone looking into hypnotherapy is probably in a vulnerable state to begin with.

This sort of thing not only hurts the victim, it hurts other hypnosis practitioners as well, when the public associates one hypnotist's disgusting behavior with the profession as a whole.

Know Your Audience

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 06:43:00 +0000

I'm not a stage hypnotist, (yet?) but I read an article today about one that demonstrates an important point regardless of what type of hypnosis you're doing.

'Offensive' hypnotist shocks students - USM Free Press

What started as an entertaining stage show soon got a bit raunchy in the views of some of the student audience. A college is a diverse place, and I'm sure a lot of the people watching thoroughly enjoyed it. I've definitely been to an adult-themed hypnosis show, but I and everyone else there was expecting it - the marketing material proudly proclaimed it to be X-rated, though it might have squeaked by with a PG-13 if it were a movie.

When you perform a show in front of a mixed audience, it's fairly important to perform to the lowest common denominator of tolerance to offensiveness. The story doesn't state if the marketing materials had proclaimed it to be on the wild side, but I imagine if they had, those who would be bothered by it wouldn't have shown up in the first place.

But the difficulties in playing to your audience extend beyond even that. The hypnotist, who is unnamed in the article, is described in the articles thusly: "a very bulky man with a long pony tail, arrived on stage wearing all black clothes and a pair of strikingly white sneakers." Not the best of appearances for garnering trust and acceptance, but probably thought to look edgy and attention-getting by him. This issue extends even into a private practice, where wearing serious clothing will get people to take you seriously.

Did all the subjects volunteering know what they were getting in to? Probably not, but if they were truly bothered by it, they wouldn't have stayed on stage very long. But, given that my friend once described a similar show as "mental rape of the feeble-minded" it's clear that the audience doesn't always know or care if that's the case.

One screwup like this can seriously hurt or kill a career as a performer, and can certainly result in one less venue to play. If you can take the lessons and apply them to your own hypnosis sessions, you might avoid a similar fate for your endeavours.

Someone had some faith in his abilities

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:15:00 +0000

An interesting news story has been floating around the last two days about a man who apparently hypnotized himself in the mirror for about five hours.

I'd say it was bunk, but I have a friend who did the same thing to herself on several occasions, only not while looking into the mirror. She's one of my favorite people to hypnotize, because it's just so easy and she's really responsive.

To top it off, he also does sword swallowing, and apparently he's about as good at it as he is at not hypnotizing himself too. Maybe he should find some less risky hobbies.

Hypnosis Show in Columbia, MO Next Week

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:45:00 +0000

Tony Lucero will be performing at the Deja Vu Comedy Club again next week, January 14-16. I saw his show last year and thought it was entertaining, despite some shortcomings. Tickets range from $7 to $10 depending on which show you see. You can also read my thoughts and impressions after watching his Saturday night erotic show.

Seeing it in Person

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:59:00 +0000

I recently got the opportunity to finally watch someone listening to my mp3 induction files in person.

As a hypnotist, body language is one of the most important indicators as to how you are doing, and that’s not something you normally get to see when the person listening to your file is 100 miles away, webcam or no.

It was a great relief that not only did my subject enjoy the experience, and give me high marks for the quality of the file; her body language showed that she was achieving a moderate trance depth, despite the strangeness of the situation and having just completed a six mile run.

When you’re there in person, you can see the rhythm of the subject’s breathing, the tension of his or her muscles, and the motion of his or her eyes beneath the eyelids. On top of this, you can notice facial flushing, especially redness in the eyes, resulting from relaxed blood vessels. These are some of the most important clues as to how well someone is responding to hypnosis.

All of my files use the same induction, and so this review gave me the confidence to release my two for-sale downloads, knowing that they use similar techniques and are of even higher audio quality.

I often have a difficult time writing a script in more than an outline form before starting a session, as it’s hard to work on the pacing and wording without some feedback in the form of someone listening. With some additional help from this subject, I hope to be releasing some new recordings within the next few months.

Finally, Files for Sale

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:38:00 +0000

I bit the bullet and finally posted the two files I've been working on.

The first helps you get to sleep, and the second helps you wake up on time. A nice pairing, I think.

After lots and lots of tweaking, I decided it was better to have a product that wasn't perfect than to not have a product at all.

Trial and Error

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:32:00 +0000

Hypnosis doesn’t always work out the way you plan. Sometimes someone just isn’t going under, even when you’re use standard methods that you’ve used dozens or hundreds of times before.

Some people blame this on the potential subject who ‘just isn’t hypnotizable.’ That’s a weak excuse.

When you hear the oft-quoted fact that “x% of the population can’t be hypnotized” what it’s really saying is, if you use the exact same induction methods with however many people, a certain number just won’t go under. Well Duh.

Hypnosis is something that often has to be tailored to the individual to be successful. I say often because in most cases, there is a standard response you’ll see from most people for a given suggestion; it’s just a matter of how big the response is and how long it takes. The people that claim that each session must be individually tailored sometimes seem sanctimonious, but if you want the best results in the shortest time, they’re right.

That leads to the biggest challenge I have with iHypnoU.com: trying to come up with a set of suggestions that works well enough with everyone to achieve the session’s goals. How do I do it? I use the fact that there are standard responses to the suggestions I’m giving, and structure my entire recording around encouraging them, using their appearance to build expectations.

Hypnosis for Swine Flu?

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 18:31:00 +0000

I don't know whether to be angry or just sad about the marketing of it - Victoria Gallagher, the hypnotist at hyptalk.com, has released a hypnosis recording to boost the immune system with hypnosis to help the listener not get swine flu.

Google has a lovely tool which I use called Google Alerts. It provides me with an email listing recently indexed sites and blogs relating to terms I specify. Linked in that email last week was a press release that made me quite angry.

You can read it yourself here, but I'll tell you the wording that made me contemplate the laws regarding these types of claims. I'll preface this by saying that the file probably just makes you relax and not worry so much about sickness, which could help your immune system; but some of these claims are just ridiculous.

The first line: "Spend 30 minutes a day in Hypnosis, and you will greatly improve your chances of staying healthy this year (and every year)." Iffy, but okay. It's a bit of marketing exaggeration for most, but true in the cases of some people who always think they're sick.

Later: "For those who might be scared of the risks involved with the Swine Flu Vaccine, Hypnosis provides a risk-free alternative." Wow. Claiming that hypnosis is risk free compared to the vaccine...what the risk of really getting swine flu? And what about the risk of then passing it on to someone you love? I mean, swine flu isn't that bad, but I wouldn't want to give my family a bad present for Christmas; why would I want to risk giving them an illness?

"So, you could find yourself staying healthy from all colds and viruses." The word could is a good qualifier, but 'all colds and viruses' includes meningitis, HPV, HIV, and all sorts of other things that aren't so much affected by stress levels. And being sick is about more than just experiencing symptoms.

The release starts to redeem itself in the second half, encouraging people to wash their hands, rest, and drink fluids, as well as hinting at the fact that what the file is doing is getting you to not think about getting sick, but by that point it's made some pretty fantastical claims.

She is/They are giving a way a file for free right now, but most of her files apparently sell for $39, which makes it no surprise that she's pushing this, even buying a special domain name, beastswineflunow.com. I assume the hope is that when someone listens and doesn't get swine flu, they'll line right up to buy the $99 packages for good luck so they can win the lotto.

Testing is key

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:11:00 +0000

I've been in limbo for the past month or so, and it's been really painful.

Why?

I've gone through several product revisions. I was on the verge of releasing my first script - a sleep aid that would also help you wake up at a specific time without using an alarm clock. But I ran into a problem.

The file worked too well. Those who listened to it were falling asleep before I even got to the part about their mental alarm clock.

So rather than sell something that only "sort of" worked, I figgured I'd tweak it. After another round, I decided that there was a better way - I'd split up the file into two seperate recordings, one for a mental alarm clock, and another for getting to sleep.

But now I've run into another problem - my beta testers are being a little flakey.

I don't want to put something up for sale until I'm completely satisfied, because that's what I want my customers to be. So I'm going to new lengths to get feedback on the file, and hopefully I'll be able to release both very soon.

If only it were so easy...

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 07:01:00 +0000

I like to keep tabs on traffic to my sites using Google's Analytics service.

It allows me to see what people are looking at, how many people are looking, and how they got to my site. This makes it easier for me to produce content people are looking for, improve the layout and usability of my sites, and how I can better promote them.

Every so often though, it produces some interesting surprises.

One of the most awesome features is that you can see what search terms brought you a viewer from Google. I was looking through that today when I ran across something surprising and strange.

One of my visits was from someone whose search term was "how to make someone your obedient slave with hypnosis."

Apparently, my site for hypnosis mp3 files, iHypnou.com features in position 13 for this term, thanks to some of my talk about hypnosis safety on YouTube where I discussed how rediculous many of the hypnosis videos are, claiming to be for simple relaxation but containing suggestions for obedience and submission.

Obviously, the person didn't find much information about enslaving people, but I'd like to hope they learned how rediculous the idea is before they shell out money for some worthless product.

If only it were so easy for me to rank highly for keyword traffic that I actually want...

Hypnosis Suggestion of Surgery

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:40:00 +0000

Another interesting story about what hypnotic suggestions can do, and what lengths some hypnotist go to in order to craft a successful suggestion:

Woman hypnotized to think she has gastric bypass surgery, and loses weight.

From the article:

"The therapy involved a number of sessions in which she was familiarized with the procedure of a gastric band surgery, including a real surgical gastric band and stomach model."

"She then underwent several sessions of hypnosis, in which every stage of the surgery was narrated to her ... a recording of surgical tools played in the background. The hypnotherapists also pumped smells into the room to simulate those found in ... a hospital."

Supposedly she has lost 55 pounds, though it doesn't say over what period. I imagine there would be an easier way to achieve weight loss through hypnotic suggestions, but if it works for her, more power to both her and her hypnotists.

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:47:00 +0000

Interesting Story on the AP wire from South Korea:

Hypnotist fined for stealing a kiss on a date

From the article:

"...the hypnotist chanted: "Black hole! You will plunge deeper into a trance. You will feel thrilled all over your body and if my hand touches your body, you will feel intense pleasure."

Of course, the girl was fully aware, even though she had her eyes closed, and rebuffed him, later going to court over it.

The hypnotist's lack of ethics and poor skills cost him the won equivalent of $2,453.

Knowing your Subject

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:44:00 +0000

Just the other day, I got a chance for a 4 hour trial session with one of my friends. I like to experiment with new methods when there’s no other objectives to the trance, so that I don’t feel hampered or pressured, and neither does the subject.

This particular friend has had some rather interesting experiences with self hypnosis in the past, so she might not be the best person on which to judge the effectiveness of new hypnotic techniques, but she’s definitely capable of giving good feedback.

I’ve hypnotized her once before, but it had been awhile, so I talked to her again about her self-hypnosis experiences and what she already knew worked for her. If I had been in a hurry to put her into a trance, it would have been easy enough to lead her while she was practically reliving her trance states, but I figured it best to pay more attention to what she was saying.

When she described the self hypnosis she uses for sleep, she told me that she liked to imagine herself on a beach, alone, and how she could almost see herself sinking into the sand. What she used, though she didn’t know it then, was a progressive relaxation induction, and she would normally be asleep before she finished.

With this information, I ran an informal experiment, inducing her in several ways. One was to have her recall a recent hypnosis session and use the natural tendency to shift into a past state to remember it’s sensations to help shift her fully into that state in the present. This induction was rather kinesthetic with a lot of proofs of trance. Another method I used was to have her use a visual focus, and to eventually picture it in her mind’s eye as I used pacing and leading to bring her under.

Now, the second one worked much better, even though I used similar techniques in both, and she was skeptical of how effective the second method would be. The important part was that I matched the reference frame she is accustomed to when undergoing hypnosis.

All it took was a little listening beforehand. If your subject doesn’t have much hypnosis experience, maybe ask them to describe a dream they’ve had, or their favorite place.

If you can work flexibly with your subject, you’ll turn out to be a much more effective and respected hypnotist.

Hypnosis Safety II

noreply@blogger.com (iHypnoU) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 05:05:00 +0000

I know I already posted about safety when viewing hypnosis videos on YouTube, but I think it's serious enough that I'm going to embed this here. The audio isn't the best, (I'll probably re-record it soon) but the info is important.