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Yes, it's true that most professionals who practice hypnosis would have you close your eyes. And it's also true that no one ever does anything against his/her will or anything that would be immoral. Now, that's not to say that some people don't do immoral things as I'm sure you've seen others do immoral acts and they never went to a hypnotist. And yes, some will do outrageous things all on their own without the aid of a hypnotist.

So why close the eyes? The most famous hypnotist of all times, Milton Erickson, rarely had his patients close their eyes. He was the master at wakened hypnosis--giving suggestions without having one close their eyes.

You're probably wondering about trance. When you buy because of the masterful suggestions used by advertising and marketing geniuses, or when the ghetto students are motivated by the educator, or when you purchase as a result of the salesman's presentation, where's the trance?

That's the irony. Trance has no feeling. It happens the moment the analytical questioning conscious mind is bypassed to the subconscious mind resulting in a change of behavior.

Suggestions as used by Mesmer and his tub with iron rods centuries ago wouldn't work today as man has become more sophisticated and analytical. Today's man would ask, "What's this stupid tub and iron rods about anyway?" Yet, depending on the hypnotist's charisma, tubs and iron rods could be made to work. But why go to that extreme? The hypnotist would need a huge room just to house the tub when simply an improved suggestive technique will accomplish the very same thing.

The "art of suggestion" is simply to cause a change in behavior in the subject. Example: suppose there were a hundred people casually walking out the front door of a building over the course of several hours and you wanted to have as many of them as possible look upward to the sky as they exited the building. What would you do? What kind of suggestion would you use? Would you stop each person and tell them that they should look up into the sky because...?

Today's sophisticated man would question your motives and ignore you thinking you might be distracting them to take their wallet. The answer is to position yourself so that as they leave the building they will see you glancing upward. Their curiosity will cause them to accept the visual suggestion and look upward. That's hypnosis! That's trance!

Years ago I commuted to NYC from NJ via a commuter bus. smoking was not allowed in NJ, but was allowed in NY. Soon after we'd enter the Lincoln Tunnel, one of the smokers would realize that smoking was ok and light up. Within seconds, another would light up, and another, and another--visual suggestion. Sometimes, we'd get all the way through the tunnel before the first smoker would light up. I always hoped that they'd all forget until we reached the Port Authority bus station and were off the bus.

So why do hypnotists generally have their subjects close their eyes? In reality, suggestions given with eyes wide open can be far more effective--that is if they are the right suggestions.

Quite frankly, most subjects expect that hypnosis is done with eyes closed. For many years I conducted group and individual sessions for stop smoking and weight management. Both were a single session. The first portion was done with the participants in the wakened state. By the time we got around to the eye closure portion, my job was done. The eye closure was simply a relaxation that was expected by those taking the program.

most hypnotists couple relaxation with suggestion because with the experience of deep relaxation unexpected feelings of lightness, denseness, numbness, euphoria, and sometimes feelings of separateness of mind from body are experienced. Being unfamiliar with these feelings of deep relaxation, the subject simply assumes that he/she is in trance (since they feel differently than ever before) and therefore that the suggestions will work. In other words, the critical thinking mind has been bypassed because of a conclusion--actually a false conclusion, but it works for both the subject and the hypnotist.

Will power? The only will power required is to take the first step to making change and that usually is to seek help in the form of cd's or a professional.

One particular advantage of programs on cd's is that nearly a hundred hours goes into the writing, editing, production, reediting and final production resulting in the most effective scripts possible as opposed to depending on a creative spur of the moment suggestion in a live session. Once one has used a cd, then if live sessions are desired, far more progress can be made as the cds have already laid the foundation of suggestion--it's usually a matter of fine-tuning.

The important thing to know is that trance itself has no feeling and that hypnotists in general use deep relaxation to deliver suggestion because it's expected of them.

Richard Kuhns B.S.Ch.E., NGH certified is a prominent stress management hypnosis consultant for personal change. He makes it easy to use hypnosis to eliminate unhealthy habits such as overeating He is the author behind the best selling stress management cds and discovered the new technique using Wakened Hypnosis to Overcome Anxiety Panic Attack