Hypnosis is sleeplike condition that stimulates patient artificially to reply the questions which are very susceptible to suggestions from the hypnotist. It is an altered state of consciousness and sensitizes receptiveness to suggestion; it may persuade a normal person by different methods and has been used in psychiatric and medical treatment. Normally the process of hypnosis is done by hypnotist who performed different tasks like eye fixation, concentration on one’s own breathing, muscle relaxation, arm levitation, and also practiced rituals found in philosophical, mystical and religious systems.
By hypnosis, patient’s attention is inhibited from the external world and is concentrated on sensory, mental and physiological experiences. Hypnosis can create a deeper contact with one’s psychological and emotional life, excavating repressions of forgotten memories, buried fears and conflicts.
1. Hypnosis can cause some people to be relaxed, less attentive and very highly engaged in fantasies, but it can’t work equally and effectively for everyone.
2. Patient may perceive, think, feel or act according to the hypnotist’s suggestions, but everyone can not be spellbound, and some patients are more hypnotizable than others.
3. Hypnosis can produce anesthesia which is itself a psychological as well as medical problem, but in some situations it can force patient to act against his will.
4. Hypnosis can cause hallucination and a process of changing in observation and sensory perception, but it can not take patient beyond his mental or physical capacities.
5. Hypnosis can reduce self-consciousness, but it can not consistently boost the accuracy of memories.
6. Hypnosis may generate some changes in behavior, but it can not allow patient to experience past events.
7. Hypnosis can cause patient to divide his consciousness into two parts. One part responds to the outside world, and the other part observes but doesn’t participate, but it can make people not react to pain because it separates the part of consciousness that registers pain from the part of consciousness that corresponds with e external world.