People don’t understand altered state of conscious under its formal name hypnosis. Altered states are a natural thing that goes on in the human brain. Think about a time when you was driving down the road and you missed your exit; or when someone in the car said “did you see that red car that passed by?” Everyone in the car saw it except you. You didn’t see the red car because you were simply in an altered state. What I’m going to do now is give you a basic understanding of what that means. I want you to enjoy this intro into altered states and self-improvement. Now, as you give me your full attention I’ll be your guide and explain what you need to know to have a powerful and wonderful experience.

Incredible Ideas

 People can have some incredible ideas about altered states. This is because there have been many foolish portrays of altered states in the movie theater and in books. When I ask someone if they have any questions about hypnosis they usually say no; perhaps they are apprehensive and afraid. They know I can completely control them and get them to do strange things against their will. Think about this! If I can control someone against their will wouldn’t I be on a yacht somewhere living the good life using somebody else’s money? Since I’m not; then perhaps you can understand that absolute control is absolutely up to you. Yes, it is true that once hypnotized and in an altered state you can accomplish some amazing things like total memory recall, accelerated and enhanced learning skills, improved sports performance, weight and habit control, life style and attitude changes, freedom from stress and anxiety, increased performance during sex…. The intensity of your experience is up to you and the degree of its effects that carry over into your everyday life is also your choice. The speed and degree of change that you experience can be a direct result of the relationship of the amount of control you feel comfortable with.

Suggestible

As you go into an altered state you will find yourself becoming more suggestive to responses; when we talk about going deeper into trance we are really talking about naturally becoming increasingly responsive to suggestions and increasingly suggestible. It’s really interesting that the depth of trance is completely independent from the depth of relaxation; which is that wonderful feeling of physical and mental relaxation that accompanies an altered state.
You’ll learn to become highly suggestible and open to change regardless of how relaxed you become.

Suggestibility = Learning

Suggestibility means that you are now learning to learn new ways. Studies have shown that the most successful people of our time are highly suggestible. They’ve learned to take new thoughts, new feelings, and new ideas into their mind and experience them for themselves, and only then they make the decision to keep those changes forever. It is like really getting in the mood or riding a roller coaster. Even though some part of you thought you might resist or hold back, you can throw the controls to the wind and totality enjoy something now.
Many people don’t understand altered states and their effects on learning because they don’t understand how the mind works, not the brain but the functions’ of the brain workings that call the human mind; understanding and accepting your mind is the critical first step of having a wonderful new life.

The Human mind

There are three minds; the conscious mind, the unconscious mind and the primitive mind. The primitive mind really only does a few things. It runs the autonomic nervous system keeping you breathing and your heart beating, and strengthen you immune system. Sometime in the future if you need to access the primitive mind at that level, it can be done through a program of meditation through hypnotherapy.

Conscious mind

1) Analytical Mind: The first part of the conscious mind is the analytical mind, that part of your mind involved in problem solving. The analytical mind is good for piecing things together given the information coming to you from outside, combined with the memories and attitude that you can remember from the past.

2) Rational Mind: The second part of the conscious mind is the rational mind. That part of the mind that must give a reason why you do what you do. The reasons are 99% wrong, but they sound good. You know the rationalizations: I’m unsuccessful because…….., women don’t like me because…….., I overeat because……., I smoke because………, I’m no good because……….., I can’t do that because………, I’m like this because………… All of them are rationalizations and they don’t need to have any basis or fact. We create rationalizations in order for us not to think about things.

3) Temporary Memory: The third part of the conscious mind is the temporary memory. This is the short term memory that is necessary for you to get through life. Like remembering a number as you pick up the phone, or keep in mind why you got up and walked to the next room.

4) Will Power:The fourth part of the conscious mind is the weak inflating will power. The will power is a sort of middle adrenal pumping you up in repeated effort and failure cycles. Anyone who has been on a diet or has joined a gym knows exactly what I mean. Will power is the junk candy of the mind, all calories and no substance because the will power is a creation of your conscious mind and it is not connected to or affected by your emotions or desires. The will power is what a therapist appeals too in conventional therapy, but will power can’t change anything, if it did no one will be therapy for months or years.
Altered states and hypnotherapy is the only therapy by design that bypasses the conscious mind and deal directly with the unconscious mind.

Unconscious Mind

The contents of the unconscious mind are what interest us now.
1) Permanent Memory: The first part of the unconscious mind is your permanent memory. The permanent memory contains all the sights, sounds, feelings and sensations of your entire life. This is stored and used forever; your conscious mind may not be able to access them, but your unconscious mind uses them all every day.

2) Habits: The 2nd part contains your habits. People think that they have a lot of different habits. Now you can understand that there are only three types of habits. Good habits, bad habits, utilitarian habits. In fact good and bad are individual judgements. What we call good means that we got the desired result that seems to benefit us and what we call bad means we got the desired result that somebody doesn’t approve of. Utilitarian habits are automatic responses to stimuli. Such as what happens when you hear your phone ring. These unconscious responses to a particular stimulus are extremely powerful; just try to ignore that ringing phone.

3) Emotions: One of the most powerful and mysteries part of your mind is your emotions. Being human means that you have lots of emotions; ones that you don’t want like anger, fear, jealously, as well as those that we do want like, love, happiness, and ecstasy. When we deal with emotions the unconscious mind acts like a shutter, the emotions shoots up from the unconsciousness mind to the conscious mind we use them then they go away.

4) Protective Mind: Finally there is the protective mind this guard against dangers real or imagined using ways that we might not want or understand so as we get pumped up in the face of a perceived threat someone else may gain weight as a defensive against becoming sexual attractive avoiding sexual pressure. The nature of threats and response is different in each of us because we define them based on the unique contents of our permanent memory.

Perception

Changing the perception of the unconscious mind will affect you powerfully. Changing your definition to threats and responses will immediately change how you behave. It is a fascinating thing how your unconscious operates like a computer. It can only operate on the program that was put into it.
When you were born you just had two instincts, the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises, everything else was blank, just waiting for input. You’ve been programming your unconscious mind every day of your life through your life’s experiences. Your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, your behavior are all the total sum of the programming that you have been doing up till now. If an idea a thought or concept goes into the unconscious mind it must happen. It cannot, not happen. This is not as easy as you might imagine. The unconscious mind is lazy and does not like to do the work required to accept suggestions. Plus all those negative thoughts really reinforce a negative self-image. Remember the unconscious mind’s job is to protect you and so if it closes you in a shell, it feels it is protecting you.

Critical Factor

The formal definition of altered states of thinking/hypnosis is the bypassing of the critical factor of the conscious mind coupled with the establishment of acceptable thinking, thoughts, ideas or concepts that you choose to have work in your life.
The critical factor compares the input of suggestions, images and emotions; and other types of information. When the new information does not match the stored information then new information is rejected. The critical factor is most powerful when it rejects information; it is reinforcing previous negative image or emotion. Altered states of thinking or hypnosis are the only thing which allows any suggestions to by-pass the critical factor.
When you were born you were a learning machine with a powerful mind and you were in a dangerous, situation because the critical factor does not form until the age of four to seven. Before the critical factor is formed anything you’re told to become became a powerful part of your belief system. Unfortunately new parents and their friends are pretty ignorant when it comes to this. What is said during this period is so very important. Imagine what is said around a child without a critical factor. “you were an accident,” “we didn’t want another child,” “we were hoping to have a girl,” “you’ll never amount to anything,” “you have to look after your parents the rest of your life and your brothers and sisters,” “money is the root of all evil, “ “ all women are bad.”

The Workings

Most people think that when a suggestion is given while you are in an altered state; the suggestion will go directly to your unconscious mind and take powerful effect, and then there will be change. What really happens is this when the critical factor is bypassed you become much more alert, much more in control, all of your five sense become much more acute you’ll hear anything clearly and powerfully and you will have control. However, there is one thing that you have no control over whatsoever. When you hear a suggestion you must have absolute no choice to make but one of four decisions about the suggestion. Whatever mental attitude you have when you hear that suggestion determines if it goes into the unconscious mind and change begin immediately, or its rejected and out the door. Depending on the personal mental attitude you have when you hear the statement or suggestion, you determine “I like that statement, “ I like the suggestion, “I know that one is going to work .“ You know that it is going to work as it gets into the unconscious. The mental attitude allows the statement, the suggestion to go into the unconscious mind and you begin the process of beneficial change immediately. Unfortunately you have three more potential mental attitudes. Any one of them will cause the statement or suggestion to be rejected.

1) Ethics: The next mental attitude you could have is “forget about the suggestion,” it is against your morals, your religion, or something you feel strongly about. It is just a tiny bit uncomfortable for you like a pair of new shoes you are willing to buy. You know you shouldn’t buy it because when you wear them for one day you will be crippled. It is just a little uncomfortable you will reject the suggestion and get no benefit from it.

2) Neutral:The next mental attitude is that you hear the suggestion and you are neutral about it, you have no feeling for it at all. You aren’t engage in the process so the statement or suggestion is out the door. So there is no change.

3) No Commitment: The last mental attitude that cause people who really want the change to flat out fail more than anything else. They get themselves into the proper altered state, they are really excited, they are eager to learn and to change and are ready to experience an amazing transformation. They hear the suggestion, they hear the statement and they say “oh I like that, I hope it works.” I hope it works? Right! Hope is the twin sister of the word “try” You can hope for things but it is not going to happen. Trying is lying, when you say you’ll “try” to do something it is automatically going to lead to failure. You leave the door open, there is no commitment.

Decide

I don’t care if you choose to do something or not to do something but you must choose one or the other. If you want to put energy into learning and change then you have to say “I’m going to do it.” If you’re really looking forward into learning things and have a wonderful life through happiness and the person of your dreams and excitement then tell the truth “I’m going to do it. “I like that suggestion. It is going to work.” Now understand the mental attitude when you hear the suggestion in order for the suggestion to become a powerful part of your body, or your mind of your transformation. Now you know a major secret how to prepare yourself to easily accept suggestions for change. You have the information necessary for success, now you understand what altered states /hypnosis is and what it isn’t.