In order to understand the psychological and physical aspects of hypnosis the relationship between the conscious and subconscious minds and their roles in the process will be explained. The conscious and subconscious minds could be compared to an iceberg. What you see above the water, which is the conscious, is only a small chunk of what actually exists. The portion you cannot see which is the subconscious (underneath the water), is the larger of the two. So, whenever we meet someone, we only see the "tip of the iceberg", however, what lies below the water” is another part of the individual.
Hypnosis becomes the vehicle that allows you to bypass or submerge below the conscious mind and explore the subconscious existence (8). It is suggested that hypnosis helps you gain more control over undesired emotions or behaviours or to help you cope better with a wide range of medical conditions.
Hypnosis becomes the vehicle that allows you to bypass or submerge below the conscious mind and explore the subconscious existence (8). It is suggested that hypnosis helps you gain more control over undesired emotions or behaviours or to help you cope better with a wide range of medical conditions.
Once the subconscious mind accepts an idea, it begins to execute it. Evidence suggests that the subconscious mind contains all your memories, emotions, imaginations, intelligence and controls the autonomic nervous system, which regulates breathing, blood circulation, heartbeat etc. A good example of this is riding a bike or driving a car. When we are learning to ride or drive, we hit many obstacles. Loosing balance, crunching gears and lack of confidence. However, as we practice and become familiar with the skills, they automatically become habit and are stored away in the subconscious mind to use at any time in the future. When we become an expert driver or rider, we don’t have to think about how to do it, we just do it automatically. Hence, anything that has ever happened to you and everything you have imagined is stored away in the subconscious mind which acts just like a computer. All the information is stored away and is available to be pulled back at any time.
The conscious mind helps us with daily decision-making and thinks out new situations where we have to decide what to do and how to do it. It can hold only a limited number of thoughts and ideas at any one time, which is why we often memorise numbers in small chunks. This is because the conscious mind can hold only between five and nine units of information at any one time. (19)
It is believed that the conscious mind has an automatic resistance to situations. It reasons and rejects and filters certain situations and acts as our defence mechanism and a safety device, as if it were a “Watchman at the gate”. (The Power of your subconscious mind, page 20)
There are four main types of brain wave. The fastest of the four being beta waves and the slowest being delta waves:
- Beta Waves (15 to 40 cycles per second): These are characteristic of an engaged and focused mind, for instance, a person engaged in a conversation
- Alpha Waves (9 to 14 cycles per second): Present at lighter hypnosis and guided meditation.
- Theta Waves (4 to 8 cycles per second): Present during dreaming and some meditative states
- Delta Waves (1 to 4 cycles per second): These are produced in our subconscious mind and when we are in our slowest deepest state of rest and there are no other waves active
In order to access the subconscious mind, the conscious mind needs to be bypassed through an induction process- known as PMR Progressive Muscle Relaxation - in order to establish the right brain-wave pattern so suggestions can be acted upon. Evidence shows that the role of relaxation (which is caused by induction) is very important, which combined with the element of suggestion, will result in the relaxation of body and mind, narrowed focus of attention, reduced awareness of external environment and everyday concerns, greater internal awareness of sensation and finally the trance state.
So, let's consider the film Inception, a cinematic blockbuster from writer/director Christopher Nolan about the power of dream states. Essentially, the movie is a psychological thriller about the intricacies of the psyche, especially the brain waves of the subconscious mind.
The only language our subconscious understands is: iamgination. So the way our subconscious manifest to us, is via our dreams which are represented via symbols. All products of the unconscious that come to awareness do so as symbolic messages. Archetypes are the birthing agents for symbols. The most common symbols occur as dreams. Dreams are the avenue of egress for the unconscious to gain awareness and, as such, are the axis on which therapy revolves.
The movie's star, Leonardo DiCaprio, said he prepared for the role by reading Sigmund Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams". Jungian dream interpretation differs from Freudian dream analysis. Freudian dream analysis is based on repression; that is, dreams are viewed as the emergence of repressed material from the unconscious. Jungians take the phenomenological view that the drama of the dream represents the unconscious message to the dreamer expressed in symbolic terms (Jung, 1964b).
Right, in treatment, how can we use dreams as a tool to interpret our subconscious mind? I will leave this one for the next post...
References
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Found online at http://www.manifestyourheartsdesire.com/hypnosis
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Found online at http://transparencytemplate.wordpress.com/
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