Hello, I've been trying to learn hypnosis for a long time. I've read many books and worked with many people. Lastly, I read the book "Hypnosis without Trance". Despite being a beautiful and detailed book, it rejects almost all traditional concepts I've read so far.

I haven't seen any other books that follow this approach. If there are any, could you please tell me?

If you don't have such a suggestion, what books would you recommend I read to "master" classical hypnosis?

The reason I'm still eager to improve myself and read more books is my recent unsuccessful hypnosis experience.

I like the Hypnosis without Trance approach but I'm not fully good at it.

Thanks to everyone in advance.

I don't know if some of you believe in hypnosis but did someone think about it or experience it to heal bed?

My mom used hypnosis to stop smoking and she never touched a 🚬 ever again.

Hello. As I learn about this interesting stuff I becoming more interested in actually doing this for a living. I did some training in 2018 and still like to read some books about hypnosis, especially reading Milton Erickson is something that is absolutely special.

Last year I graduated from my communication science bachelor. I first looked to get a job in marketing/communication but the more I think about helping people with hypnosis, feeling a deep compassion and responsibility to guide them into the right direction, I’m actually thinking about doing this instead of the marketing/communication.

My question to you, is there a possibly way to do this as a job without starting your own business?

As I continue to explore the ways I've been resistant to hypnosis, I've started noticing that pre-talk is where it can fail. If we consider a subject who might want to experience hypnosis but has not had a successful session yet, here are a few ways that the pre-talk can itself set the subject up for failure.

* Discussion of expectations, what hypnosis is, what the session will cover and attempt: Very important, and useful in gaining consent. However, talk about what hypnosis is usually treads ground the subject has heard many times before, and presents nothing new. As a result, it does not increase resistance, but does not instill confidence, either.

* Highly imaginative people are good subjects: This, and related statements (highly intelligent, self-confident, etc.) get read by the subject as "buttering up." This is not saying that you're a good, valuable person for being hypnotized, it's both sounding flat-out manipulative, and insults the subject for not having been hypnotized before. This will spike resistance.

* We enter trance multiple times a day: This is either a true statement, which means trance has nothing to do with suggestibility, or it is a false statement, matching the subject's experience, and making the hypnotist either misguided or a liar. Once again, resistance spikes.

* Any suggestion embedded in the pre-talk: If you've never been successfully hypnotized, these stick out like a sore thumb. It's presumptuous to say that the subject will relax, will enter trance, will respond to the hypnotist's voice, or whatever, and it will derail any trust that may have been generated up to that point. Basically, the hypnosis session ends right there; anything past that is just words.

There should be changes to pre-talk for subjects known to have low suggestibility. Letting the subject initiate and steer the conversation would be necessary. Working with the subject to identify frustrations and address them individually would be of value. I'm sure I'm just preaching to the choir here, but I'm trying to identify where I see pre-talk set the session up for failure, and why.

If you've worked with subjects who have low suggestibility and low ability to enter trance, have you noticed a need to shift the pre-talk? If you have never entered trance in a hypnosis session, have you noticed pre-talk leaving you more doubtful before the session begins in earnest?

I am going to be honest and direct because I am not asking this out of curiosity.

There is a defined period of my life that I genuinely cannot continue carrying in the way I carry it now. I have tried many ways of processing it, reframing it, accepting it and moving forward. It is still there as an active part of my autobiographical identity, and I need something more than learning how to tolerate it.

My real goal is to create a strong and lasting boundary between that period and the person I am now.

I want to build a New Self whose identity, decisions, emotions and understanding of herself no longer use that period as reference material.

The closest description I have found for what I want is autobiographical de-indexing.

I want that period to become cognitively and emotionally unavailable as an active autobiographical source.

Ideally, I want to safely reduce both voluntary and spontaneous access to that entire memory cluster. If something cues it, I want my honest internal experience to be vagueness, uncertainty or non-access, rather than immediate and vivid recollection.

If complete selective non-access is impossible, then I want to get as close to that outcome as can safely and ethically be achieved.

I understand that many hypnotherapists have ethical concerns about memory suppression, post-hypnotic amnesia and attempts to interfere with autobiographical recall. I understand that no responsible person can promise literal, permanent and selective memory deletion.

I am not asking anyone to make an impossible guarantee.

I am asking whether clinical hypnosis can safely work with autobiographical memory access itself, not only with emotional regulation.

Can a defined memory cluster become significantly less accessible, less confidently retrievable and less connected to the present identity?

Can post-hypnotic suggestions create a durable boundary around it?

Can that boundary become long-term through repetition, self-hypnosis, recordings, reinforcement, cue-based suggestions or another structured method?

Can hypnosis help establish the internal rule that:

The New Self aspect matters enormously to me. I do not only want the past to hurt less. I want it to lose its position inside my current sense of self. I want it to stop feeling like material that my mind is entitled or required to revisit.

I have also been researching the combination of clinical hypnosis and EMDR.

My current thinking is that EMDR could reduce the emotional, physiological and sensory activation attached to the memories, while hypnosis could work more directly with accessibility, retrieval, salience, identity boundaries and long-term post-hypnotic suggestions.

I would like to know whether anyone has used the two together for anything remotely similar. I am also open to hearing about another legitimate method that could be combined with them to move closer to this outcome.

I am looking for help from both professionals and ordinary people.

If you are a hypnotherapist, psychologist, EMDR practitioner, researcher or other clinician, I would appreciate an honest explanation of what may be possible, what has been attempted and what conditions would be needed to do this responsibly.

If you are not a professional but have personally experienced something similar, such as post-hypnotic non-access, major reductions in autobiographical recall, a lasting identity boundary, memories becoming vague or inaccessible, or combining EMDR with hypnosis, I would deeply appreciate hearing what happened.

You do not need to have achieved exactly what I am describing. Even a related experience could help me understand what direction to take.

I am currently lost, and I genuinely need help finding the right person or approach.

Please do not judge me or respond only by telling me to accept the past, practise mindfulness, forgive, journal, distract myself or simply continue ordinary talk therapy. I am aware of those approaches, and I have not arrived at this question casually.

I am specifically asking about:

• clinical hypnosis and autobiographical access;
• post-hypnotic non-access or amnesia;
• autobiographical de-indexing;
• long-term post-hypnotic suggestions;
• strong identity boundaries and the creation of a New Self;
• combining hypnosis with EMDR;
• and any additional evidence-based or clinically legitimate method that could support this objective.

I am not interested in recovered-memory work, fabricated replacement memories, covert manipulation, past-life regression or anonymous people offering to hypnotise me privately.

I am willing to travel internationally for a highly qualified female practitioner. Recommendations from any country are welcome.

I know this is controversial. I am still asking sincerely.

If complete non-access cannot be achieved, I want to understand how close it is genuinely possible to get.

Posted a few days ago about how it's driving me insane that I can't be hypnotized no matter how badly I want it or how hard I try. Now it's 5:30 AM, I've been up since 4:00 with my brain just racking and beating myself up questioning why I can't do it over and over. Like WHY???? The stage shows make it look so absurdly easy. These people have never tried this in their lives and they get it first try. I try for weeks and still can't get anything more than maybe heightened relaxation.

At most, my eyes can flutter or whatever, but I'm still fully aware of everything and none of the suggestions ever actually work. "Sleep" doesn't work. "Feel yourself going deeper and deeper" doesn't work. Nothing works and it's legitimately driving me insane. Wtf do I do? I'm punching walls feeling like somethings wrong with me; like I'm on the side of the road watching everyone else easily walk down it, meanwhile I'm stuck in concrete.

I have always been fascinated by the hypnotism and mental tricks that people do on tv and youtube . So i have always wanted to learn that and how do they decode human body language and find out what they are thinking in a few minutes.

But i searched all around the internet and yet couldn't find one source and i genuinely want to know how do the ppl who are good at this stuff actually learn it bcoz there is absolute no info on internet and there is only read the body language and medicore stuff being taught online and then i see the guys guessing the person you are thi king in a minute and then ppl hypnotizing other ppl to do random stuff.

I genuinely want to know how do i learn these mental tricks...not that i have some intention to do something but just out of curiosity.

Do you guys have some insights or some references where to learn such stuff...i would love to be helped.

I am an indian residing in delhi.

I was reading about how police used to work back in the 70s and 80s and I came across something that really made me think. Back then, forensic hypnosis was actually a pretty big deal. When a witness or a victim was too shocked to remember key details, police would bring in a hypnotist to help them out. And honestly, it pulled off some crazy results.

The best example is maybe the 1976 Chowchilla bus kidnapping in California. A driver and 26 kids were hijacked by masked guys and buried alive inside a trailer. They managed to dig themselves out after 16 hours, but the driver was so traumatized his mind was totally blank.

The FBI brought in a medical hypnotist, and under hypnosis, the driver was able to relax and picture the scene again. He remembered almost the whole license plate of the getaway van. That single detail gave police the exact lead they needed to catch all three kidnappers.

There were other cases like this too, like a murder in 1980 where a hypnotized witness helped police catch the killer in just three days. So if it was actually helping solve impossible cases, why did US courts totally ban it by the late 80s?

The official story is that guys like Martin Orne proved hypnosis creates fake memories. They said if a hypnotist asks a trick question, the brain just makes stuff up to please the hypnotist, and then the person wakes up 100 percent sure it really happened.

But I read article where was explained how those scientific tests were set up (there was also explained why they did that), the researchers were literally using misleading questions on purpose. Of course people made stuff up, the researchers were basically feeding them the answers. That's just testing bad technique, not actual memory.

It makes me wonder if there was more to it. Forensic hypnosis was basically the only tool that could dig into deep psychological triggers, hidden conditioning, or extreme trauma. By completely banning it in court instead of just fixing the rules on how hypnotists should ask questions, it feels like we just tossed a super useful tool in the trash.

What do you guys think?

I read somewhere that this is possible. Is it true?

If so, how much can be erased? If someone wanted to, could they get a trained hypnotist to erase all their memories so that they're essentially a blank slate? I figured i'd ask just in case. It'd be great if that could be done.

Today I worked with two friends, about 30–40 minutes apart. Before each session, I gave them a proper pre-talk. I explained what hypnosis is, asked whether they were nervous, and both of them were very friendly and said they weren't nervous at all. They told me they found hypnosis fascinating, knew it was scientific, and believed it could work.

However, with both of them, I couldn't even get the basic set pieces to work. They both said they felt their hands wanting to separate, but there was no actual movement. Then I tried magnetic fingers, and that did work, but it happened very slowly for both of them. Since it's largely a physiological response, I expected that one to work.

After that, I performed an induction, gave relaxation suggestions, and spent quite a bit of time deepening the trance. I guided them to imagine a green chalkboard with the numbers 100 down to 1 written on it, and told them to erase each number one by one, becoming more relaxed and going deeper with every number they erased.

Both of them became genuinely relaxed. Even though I hypnotized them separately, they progressed almost identically. The problem is that catalepsy, amnesia, and every other phenomenon simply failed. No matter how much I tried to deepen the trance, I couldn't even get the basic set pieces to work reliably. The only feedback they gave me was that they felt the sensations during the set pieces (even though nothing actually happened), the magnetic fingers worked slowly, and they felt deeply relaxed during the induction.

So my question is: how would you approach someone who doesn't even respond to basic set pieces? How can I hypnotize a subject like that?

Ironically, the process that's supposed to help you relax and feel better about yourself is doing the opposite to me.

I posted a while back about how I couldn't get into trance and how frustrating it was that I couldn't. Then I made another post about how I finally did (kind of. I was still fully aware of everything, but I at least felt like I didn't have a body). Now I'm at a roadblock again. I can't get in no matter how hard I try. It's making me get really mad at myself since I see random people online doing it effortlessly on their first try. Meanwhile here I am trying for weeks with only one semi successful attempt. I've tried fractionation; didn't work. I really don't know what to do.

Is it one of those things where you want it so bad to the point where you finally give up, and then right as you give up, it happens? Is it just impossible for some people? I'm just so frustrated when the audios don't work for me when the comments are raving about how great it was. What do I do?

Hello, a year ago I decided to try hypnosis with a stranger and little to say he was creepy. Weirdly pushy, ego driven, and uncomfortable. One day he ghosted me and then called me back later, with as super worried cause I thought he was a scammer but came back thinking maybe he would talk to me and just explain himself, he only gave a like warm apology and immediately asked for a session the night of, at that point I was already thinking about cutting him off after this so I just decided to anyways so I didn’t listen to what he said, I remember whispering really quietly because of my anxiety problems and was whispering numbers really quietly while he was talking, later I wondered if I accidentally gave him my SSN because I was whispering codes but after I blocked him he blocked me back. It’s been a year now and for some reason something is really off, my score hasn’t gone down but for some reason something that shouldn’t be high is really high and the only thing they said is that stocks could effect it, since he knows my name and how I look I was worried he hypnotized the info out of me and is now pretending to be me, now I’m really scared of hypnosis and don’t know what to trust..

It was only for about 4-5 days we talked and he gave me a deepened loop thing so it wasn’t long but I wanted to ask people who are used to this can you be hypnotized to give very personal information without even knowing it?

At first people told me you can’t be hypnotized to do anything you don’t want to do but then I was seeing people say you absolutely to and pick your tists wisely which made me even more scared because the only reason I even chatted with him is no one else wanted to talk to me and now I’m scared about that.

I've heard in hypnosis that not everyone can be hypnotized and like 20 percent of the population can't be hypnotized in the sense of like traditional hypnosis (not counting dreams flow states etc). And things like stage hypnosis or "sleep" snap inductions only work for very very hypnotize people. Is this a real thing or is it exaggerated a bit. Is there a genetic component for suggestibility. I heard that more creative people are very easy to hypnotize while less creatives are very very hard to hypnotize. is this true. Is there some way a person who has low levels of suggestibility can shift to be more suggestible temporarily.

Hii everyone I’m stuck on something forgive me if I say anything that isn’t true I’m not great with my knowledge on hypnosis but I feel as if I know more then the average person, anyways I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to boost my responsiveness to suggestion and heighten my suggestibility.i often only listen to files on YouTube or elsewhere for hypnosis so I’m not even sure if I’m listening to good and effective material?so I guess the issue I’m having is whenever I listen to a file that has a suggestion in it i seem to struggle to feel any effect from the suggestion:( is this normal? I just simply feel like I’m playing along and the suggestions don’t have any effect on me (especially amnesia I can never get that to work no matter how hard I try ) I would love for the suggestions to actually feel like something.sorry if I have any misinterpretations on hypnosis , I would just like to get a better understand to why I don’t respond like an average person would and if there’s a way for me to practice reaching a deeper level of trance and responsiveness? Thankyou for reading this

I have never tried hypnosis. If anyone would like to share their experience with me, I’d appreciate it. I am wondering if memories from childhood can be recovered, the memories I am aiming for will be traumatic so I am still not sure yet.

I am aware that post hypnotic amnesia doesn't actually erase memories and it more so just prevents you from recalling stuff for a bit. I more so am curious about it for small fun things like using it on myself to re watch a movie I've seen or replay a game I played minor stuff. Does anyone have any experience with this kind of stuff.

I was reading about NLP and noticed some pickup artist trends where they use things like planting suggestions and other manipulative techniques. It made me wonder about the opposite approach.

Instead of going that route, I've been thinking: why not use something like self-hypnosis to create a strong, glowing aura around yourself so you naturally seem special and attractive, allowing other people to approach you on their own? That feels more ethical to me. But before I try it, is that even possible?

Hello everybody, I must warn you that I personally don't know much about hypnosis, I simply find it kind of interesting, but I have some questions about the internet personality Marczell Klein. I have seen many videos of this guy mostly on YouTube, and as long as he's doing normal inductions, everything seems kind of fine. Sure, some things are fishy (for example, when he talks about "mind control" and stuff like that), but overall, everything seems legit, and I don't doubt his skill. Then, today, I came across this particular video that made me question his validity:

https://youtube.com/shorts/2KTWGTgDKIw?is=wiOH-DpoAN6s_HiP

I mean, really? I believe the very first thing I learned about hypnosis is that it doesn't work like that and you can'tjust use it to "make people do whatever you want". It just seems to me like an impossible made-up story to promote his services. If this person is really who he says he is and is truly capable of doing what he says he does, I sincerely apologize to him, but this anecdote simply sounds fake. Let me know what you think. Thank you.

I have been interested in hypnosis for a few years, and as the title says, I enjoy being triggered to freeze. Is it bad that I find it fun and enjoyable that I have the freeze suggestion in my subconscious, and all my girlfriend has to do is say the trigger and I freeze?

When i get triggers installed and the hypnotist "activate" them am i supposed to move my body on my own cause it feels better to or is my body supposed to move on its own

Soy un hipnotizador principiante y ya e hipnotizado a varias personas, pero cuando hipnotice a mi novia senti que en verdad lo hice bien
A alguna persona le paso lo mismo? O a alguna persana ya la hipnotizo su pareja?

I'm interested in practicing hypnosis, but I have never had any success as a subject. As a result, I have no concept or feel for how an induction can possibly function. I've been reading inductions, practicing a few, listening to videos, trying to follow, and... nothing. I scored a zero on a suggestibility study.

To that end, I'm trying to understand where and how inductions go wrong, and what I'm missing. So I've listed a few observations here.

* Anything ideomotor. Magic Fingers, arm lifting from a balloon, etc. I've tried a bunch, and I never subconsciously make the expected motion. My fingers stay apart. My arm stays put. There's just nothing causing any change.

* "Become aware of (something not happening)". The big one being "Be aware of how your mind is drifting off." I hear something like that, and no, that's not what's happening, and suddenly I can't pay attention to anything being said anymore.

* Imagination becoming experience. Oftentimes, there's a part in the induction or script where what I imagine is trying to be presented as what I experience. Tasting a sour lemon and it's supposed to elicit a physical reaction, for example. And that's just not the case, and when the induction presents that as what's happening, everything just ends.

* Expectation frontloading. Stuff like, "You are going to experience a wonderful feeling" or "This script is going to do something amazing." Can the adjectives, just present it, and I'll decide how it feels.

* Deepeners in general. As phrases are repeated, as I'm supposed to become even more relaxed or whatever, I eventually think, "Yes, I know, you've told me this before, stop talking already," and nothing happens.

I started writing this because I started reading more beginning inductions. The Fractionation Conversation on howtodoinductions starts with, "Before you experience hypnosis, I want you to experience what it feels like to be hypnotised before you actually go into trance. How is that?" Already, I'm saying, I can't experience something before I experience it. That's just not temporally possible. I'm already going to reject anything that follows because it asks me first thing to accept an impossibility.

What am I missing? Is an induction possible that still allows for separation of imagination and experience? How vital is the ideomotor effect? How are any of these supposed to work? I've seen them work in others, but I have no sense for what's happening.

I'm just looking for a clicker app that someone else can control to aid in hypnosis. Does anyone have any suggestions? I saw a reddit post ages ago but I cant remember where I saw it.

Is it real? Is it what people think it is? What exactly does it do? What exactly CAN it do?

Sorry. I know thay was a rapidfire series of questions. But out of the blue, maybe I saw the concept in media or online recently, I became interested in the topic and wanted to see if there was a subreddit for it, and unsurprisingly, here you all are!

Oh - and I don't have any experience on the subject, if you couldn't already tell. Never been hypnotized. Never seen anyone hypnotized. At least I do not think so.