Has anyone done self-hypnosis?

Neuroscience, Psychology, and Health
#1

I remember seeing people mentioning self hypnosis in other discussions here but I didn’t quite get how to do it.
I also read it’s supposed to work well on creative people with vivid imagination, so I’m sure this is a great place to look for some of these people.

Can anyone point me to some good resource that can guide me through it? Or tell me how you did it? (and maybe how long it might take?)

And if anyone knows, what is the difference between it and some sort of meditation or with hypnosis done by someone else?

(I’m actually just looking to use it to alleviate blood-injury phobia and as a pain management tool for the future. But if it works and anyone here also has any idea on how to use it for some memory improvement, later I’ll definitely give it a try!)

#2

You can read about it in the book by Simon Winthrop.

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#3

wow interesting, never heard of this book, just ordered. Thank you!

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#4

There’s this book called Red Gold by Grigori Raiport, a sports psychologist for the Soviets back in the 70s-80s. In this book, he described a self-hypnosis method that he had the athletes do called “Auto Conditioning State” or ACS for short. The original method for ACS is bloated and has steps that aren’t needed. You can basically sum up the method in the following steps:

  1. Close your eyes
  2. Relax your body and allow yourself to breathe slowly
  3. Tell your mind that each time you visualize the number 3, your body will relax more and more.
  • Visualize the number 3 three times focusing on any feelings that visualizing the number causes
  1. Tell your mind that each time you visualize the number 2, your mind will relax more and more.
  • Visualize number 2 three times focusing on any feelings that visualizing the number causes.
  1. Tell your mind that each time you visualize the number 1, you want to go into open state of mind where you “learn and imagine best”.
  • Visualize number 1 three times focusing on any feelings that visualizing the number causes.

At this point, you should be in a state of self-hypnosis. Eventually, if you do this enough times, you will be able to skip steps in the process and eventually reach a point where you can enter the state just by thinking about it.

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#5

Thank you for this summary. It seems less complex than I thought. It sounds like it should end up feeling the same as some deep relaxation state (which I’m guessing corresponds to an open state of mind). I just tried the steps you wrote: for some reason I found the numbers a bit distracting (like I can’t actually relax until I’m done with them). And I realized I also need to work on how to visualize my goal. Anyway I’ll just keep practicing and will see what happens. Thank you!

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#6

Updated.

What’s the point of self hypnosis?
What do you do with it?

#7

Can you rephrase the question? I don’t understand what you’re asking.

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#8

It can be done for a variety of things. It can be used to change habits, help you relax, help put yourself to sleep, and change your overall behavior either slightly or more drastically. It can also be used to induce Lucid Dreaming more easily, but I haven’t practiced with this skill much. Self hypnosis can also help facilitate the use of sports or other mental skills by rehearsing certain skills in your mind. The sky’s the limit basically.

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