The subways of mind

Hypnosis can actually use your personal database to resolve problems.

Rahul had a rather strange problem—he could go up in an elevator but could not come down to one. He glossed over the problem for years. In the company of others he would declare himself a health fanatic, pretending he chose to run down the stairs to get exercise. In reality he was just scared stiff. All went well till he got a job in an office situated on the 20th floor. Now it was not possible to run down the stairs, so he sought help from a hypnotherapist. Rahul was quite clueless about what caused his problem.

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However, under hypnosis it emerged that one day when he was about six he was playing with friends, when, as is common with boys, play began to get rough. As Rahul lay on the ground, someone jokingly suggested that they should bury him. Some of the boys began to "dig a grave"' while an older boy put his hand over Rahul's face to hold him down. Rahul was terrified—his brain made the association that going down into a small hole meant death.

Hypnotherapy uses hypnosis to bring about a lasting change in a person's behavior, thought and life pattern. Hypnosis has long been associated with the strange and mysterious, but the truth is that each one of us has experiences states similar to hypnosis thousands of times.

There is nothing unusual in being lost in your thoughts is there? Daydreaming is the first of the levels in a trance state. Hypnosis is a totally natural phenomenon and perhaps the best description is that of a state of "altered consciousness" a sort of guided daydreaming.

Every culture has used hypnosis in one form or another for centuries. The earliest evidence of its existence was found among the so-called witch doctors or medicine men. In the eighteenth century, an Austrian doctor, Franz Anton Mesmer, recognized this ancient healing phenomenon and used it with great success. The word hypnosis was coined in 1843 by an English surgeon, James Braid, after Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep.

Esdaile, a surgeon posted in India during the British Raj, first officially introduced anesthesia through the use of hypnosis. He perfected the technique while in India. The technique can be successfully used even with young children afraid of receiving an injection!