Waking Up
Picture this. You're sitting in the audience at a hypnosis show.
A hypnotized subject on stage has been told by the hypnotist
that he hates the show, that he's not hypnotized, and that
there's an invisible wall in front of him, preventing him from
leaving the stage. On cue, the subject jumps up, yells at the
hypnotist, and begins to storm off. But he hits the wall and
recoils back, furious about this impediment. The hypnotist tells
him that he's free to go, but he can't. The hypnotist asks him
if he's hypnotized, and he says, "Of course not!" "Then go,"
says the hypnotist. Still, he can't. "What's stopping you?" asks
the hypnotist. "There's a wall," cries the volunteer. "There's
no wall," says the hypnotist. His words fall on deaf ears. The
illusion is simply more powerful than reality. Yet, the subject
insists that he's fully awake.
Another subject is given an onion and told that it's the most
delicious fruit he's ever tasted. He munches it happily,
commenting on its delectable sweetness.
How do these stories relate to our reality? What if we're all
hypnotized, stuck behind invisible walls that exist only in our
minds? Suppose our preferences were actually colored by hypnotic
programming and that what we felt we deserved was similarly the
result of hypnosis. How would we know it? Could it be that our
conviction that we're fully awake is a misunderstanding of the
facts? If so, how can we see through the illusion to embrace the
limitless potential that awaits us? How can we discover and
achieve what we really want, separate from the set of desires
hypnotically imposed upon us, and predictably become fully
engaged in life? How can we wake up?
What does it mean to be hypnotized?
The simple explanation that we hypnotists use says that the mind
is divided into both a conscious and a subconscious part. The
conscious mind is that part of our thinking that we're aware of,
and the subconscious mind is that part of our thinking that is
below our awareness. The theory suggests that it's the latter,
the subconscious, which is more important in determining our
behavior; that is, we end up making important decisions about
what to do and how to interact with the world around us largely
for reasons we never get to understand or to consider on a
conscious level. The pathway through which those thoughts came
to live in our subconscious mind is the result of hypnosis.
If you don't think highly of yourself, or if you're afraid of
clowns, or if you're a chain smoker, someone can tell you to
think more highly of yourself, or that clowns aren't scary, or
that smoking is bad for you. Chances are, people have tried to
tell you how to think or behave before, and it hasn't worked.
Why not? Because they were communicating with your conscious
mind. To make an impact, a message has to reach deeper into the
subconscious mind, and this requires techniques for bypassing
the conscious mind. Think of your conscious mind as a sentinel,
standing guard over your subconscious mind. It only allows
thoughts to enter which are consistent with what you already
believe. In order to slip in a new belief, you have to lull the
guard to sleep. That's what I do.
That's also what's been done to you by your parents, teachers,
mentors, and society in general. When your guard was off duty,
when you were too young or impressionable to fight it, messages
were delivered to your subconscious mind, bypassing your
critical faculty, the part of your conscious mind that deflects
unwanted information. So, without your awareness or permission,
you were hypnotized, and your subconscious mind is now full of
stuff you didn't put there and may not want. What are the
messages we've been hypnotized to believe? Everything from who
we are in relation to our world, to what we want, to what we
deserve, to what we're capable of accomplishing. Sometimes,
these things come into conflict with one another and suffering
ensues. For example, you might have come to feel that you want
great wealth, but also that you don't deserve it or that you're
incapable of achieving it. Such a combination would result in
significant psychological pain, and as long as your hypnotic
programming remained intact, you'd be powerless over that pain.
Why don't we feel hypnotized?
Does a fish see the water in which it swims? Of course not. The
medium in which we live and have lived since we developed
conscious perception is invisible to us. We think hypnosis
should look a certain way, so we disregard all the evidence that
indicates that we're hypnotized. But being hypnotized doesn't
feel like anything. It's just a condition of being conditioned.
That's it.
One of my favorite stories is about the child who slips into his
grandfather's bedroom and paints Limburger cheese, an extremely
smelly cheese, onto his grandfather's mustache while he sleeps.
On awakening, the grandfather sniffs, considers a moment, and
says, "This room smells like Limburger cheese!" He leaves the
room and goes through the house, declaring that each room smells
like Limburger cheese. Finally, he steps out onto the porch,
sniffs, and cries, "Oh, my God, the whole world smells like
Limburger cheese!" I remember reading somewhere that we see the
world, not as it is, but as we are. Like the grandfather in my
story, what's actually coming from us appears to be coming from
everything around us. Our trance is so strong and compelling
that we have no hope of seeing through it to the truth. This may
seem like bad news, but knowing that we're in a trance can
liberate us. If we're entrapped by our unconscious adherence to
an illusion, it is our conscious recognition of that fact that
will ultimately set us free. Gurdjieff, the esteemed
philosopher, said, "The first step to escaping from prison is
realizing you're in prison."
What is life like after hypnosis?
A life without hypnosis is a life of freedom. Buddhist notions
of liberation and enlightenment derive from the concept that
we're living in illusion, and that, freed of that illusion, we
experience joy, contentment, enthusiasm, love, compassion, and a
whole host of other qualities that we've mistakenly sought
elsewhere. It is possible to achieve liberation from our
illusion, to wake up from our trance, to become unhypnotized.
With this possibility looming in front of us, the wise person
has no choice but to dedicate him or herself to the pursuit of
an awakened state. I counsel my clients to learn such tools as
meditation and mindfulness in order to take advantage of the
benefits they offer. Much is available now to help us go beyond
the excuses we've used for not starting that journey, such as
books, tapes, and classes.
None of the reasons you've probably used for failing to take
these steps is viable, and no matter how big an obstacle you
think separates you from practicing these skills, it's simply
not worth sacrificing your own vitality. By learning the tools
of transformation, we can begin to wake up, start over, and
create the life we're meant to live.