Is there a difference between hypnosis and trance, and if so what is it? You always hear a lot of people talking about hypnosis and trance and they all use it interchangeably as well. So is it the same thing? No, it's not.
Hypnosis and Trance
Trance to me is very different from hypnosis. You can also clearly see when someone is in trance. Symptoms of trance include:
- Eye Fixation
- Muscle relaxation
- Deep breathing
- Focus on one thing
- Pupils widening
A lot of hypnotherapists mistakenly assume that this is a state of hypnosis and it doesn't have to be at all. However, trance can be a way to bring someone into hypnosis.
For example, you can think about a progressive relaxation method. You will then completely relax the client by going down each muscle group and relaxing it. That relaxation creates multiple trance phenomena and the state of hypnosis is thought to be easier to achieve.
Of course, when you are relaxed it is easier to be open to suggestions, but it doesn't have to be. I can think of many places where I am wonderfully relaxed, but certainly not in hypnosis. For me, the sauna is a place where I can go into a wonderful trance and not reach the state of hypnosis.
What is hypnosis?
So if hypnosis is not trance, what is it? Opinions are divided on that, but what I think is still the best explanation is that of Richard Bandler and John Grinder. At a seminar in the 1980s, John Grinder said that hypnosis did not exist at all and Bandler said that everything is hypnosis. That seems contradictory but if you think about it, that's the closest thing to what it really is.
After all, if hypnosis doesn't exist, then we don't know exactly what it is. If everything is hypnosis, then we don't know exactly what it is either. Just as a fish does not know the water as something different, so we do not recognize the state of hypnosis, because we are in it all day, like a fish in water.
Yet since that time, there has been more research into the state of hypnosis and also how it is induced. Looking at the natural hypnotic phenomena, one may conclude that hypnosis is indeed continuous. The natural hypnotic phenomena are namely:
- Regression
- Progression
- Hallucination
- Sensory Distortion
- Time Distortion
- Amnesia
- Post-hypnotic suggestion
- Dissociation
These hypnotic phenomena are very common and you too have experienced them many times. You've probably forgotten something or thought you saw something but it was nothing. You've also felt bad for something that was going to happen or that you suddenly felt like you were very small again. Such things happen often and sometimes even daily.
In the hypnotherapy practitioner, for example, I teach trainees how to hear this from their clients so they can create a perfectly fitting script straight from memory. A hypnosis script that is customized.
And now imagine, you forgot something. Are you then in a trance? You know that feeling, the feeling that it's on the tip of your tongue but you just can't reach it. Often you are not relaxed then, nor do you have any other trance signals. Yet you do have amnesia, a natural hypnotic phenomenon. In hypnotherapy it is even the test for me to see if someone is in a state of somnambulism.
Another interesting idea is the idea of automatic hypnosis. You then activate the person's imagination to create hypnosis. The person has not necessarily been in a trance but spontaneously creates hypnosis through his imagination.
For example, when you imagine your hand becoming light as a balloon and you do it well enough, it suddenly becomes a reality and in that moment you have instant hypnosis. Isn't that interesting when you think about it?
I'd love to hear what you think so please leave your comment in the box below.
