Back when I was first getting into hypnosis, we talked about my experiments with hypnosis and all the terrifying possibilities that they implied. Even though I’d expect you’d have taken basically the same stance even without those conversations, I imagine it is still a significant contributing factor towards your take on hypnosis, and so I feel compelled to note that I no longer feel this way about it.
To be clear, I don’t think anything we talked about is “wrong”, and the fact that the uncertainty mostly resolved on the “less scary” side isn’t very reassuring. I still can’t think of any circumstance with any hypnotist that I would allow them to “hypnotize” me, in the central meaning of the word, and I do still think people are insufficiently afraid of being hypnotized. That stuff is all more or less the same.
The big difference is that now recognize more of how “responding hypnotically” is a really important part of both learning and relating to people, and that it’s possible to do it without risking falling into any of the obvious traps that enable the scary bad possibilities. “Engage critical faculties, keep in mind evidence, develop models, etc” yes. Do that and “Listen to the voice. Respond and receive. Be open to the update, etc”—to the extent that you can do that without losing track of the former (and work to increase this extent as much as you can).
I don’t even think it’s always crazy to trade off some control for quicker learning, so long as this decision itself is made very carefully with full input of critical faculties, you understand the potential traps, and the person guiding you really can be verified to be worthy of the required trust, etc.
However it’s not necessary either. I’ve gotten better at it myself without sacrificing my need for control, and I have a very “control freaky” friend who is also figuring out how to respond hypnotically without giving up any control, and has gotten some really cool results from it. It’s taken her four years to be able to accept half the suggestions a good hypnotic subject can do in five minutes, but on the upside since she is deciding for herself which things to accept hypnotically, not only does she not expose herself to unnecessary risk, she’s able to more efficiently spot what would be useful to her in a normal conversation without anyone having to lean on it as if it were an actual hypnotic suggestion.
I guess it’s kinda like exploring caves that have a lot of goodies. Just make sure you know your way out.
Back when I was first getting into hypnosis, we talked about my experiments with hypnosis and all the terrifying possibilities that they implied. Even though I’d expect you’d have taken basically the same stance even without those conversations, I imagine it is still a significant contributing factor towards your take on hypnosis, and so I feel compelled to note that I no longer feel this way about it.
To be clear, I don’t think anything we talked about is “wrong”, and the fact that the uncertainty mostly resolved on the “less scary” side isn’t very reassuring. I still can’t think of any circumstance with any hypnotist that I would allow them to “hypnotize” me, in the central meaning of the word, and I do still think people are insufficiently afraid of being hypnotized. That stuff is all more or less the same.
The big difference is that now recognize more of how “responding hypnotically” is a really important part of both learning and relating to people, and that it’s possible to do it without risking falling into any of the obvious traps that enable the scary bad possibilities. “Engage critical faculties, keep in mind evidence, develop models, etc” yes. Do that and “Listen to the voice. Respond and receive. Be open to the update, etc”—to the extent that you can do that without losing track of the former (and work to increase this extent as much as you can).
I don’t even think it’s always crazy to trade off some control for quicker learning, so long as this decision itself is made very carefully with full input of critical faculties, you understand the potential traps, and the person guiding you really can be verified to be worthy of the required trust, etc.
However it’s not necessary either. I’ve gotten better at it myself without sacrificing my need for control, and I have a very “control freaky” friend who is also figuring out how to respond hypnotically without giving up any control, and has gotten some really cool results from it. It’s taken her four years to be able to accept half the suggestions a good hypnotic subject can do in five minutes, but on the upside since she is deciding for herself which things to accept hypnotically, not only does she not expose herself to unnecessary risk, she’s able to more efficiently spot what would be useful to her in a normal conversation without anyone having to lean on it as if it were an actual hypnotic suggestion.
I guess it’s kinda like exploring caves that have a lot of goodies. Just make sure you know your way out.