One of my favorite ways to describe what's happening in hypnosis is within the context of brainwave states.
Now, we can't always get hooked up to an EEG or fancy neuro-feedback devices to actually measure the brain's activity and determine exactly which range of frequencies the brain activity is predominant in real time.
(That's me at 40 Years of Zen doing that!)
BUT - we can learn to recognize the felt sense and experiential nature of different brainwave states.
The ability to intentionally shift our own state - and to recognize when we're experiencing a predominantly alpha brainwaves - is a powerful tool for our own well-being.
"Different information hangs out at different brainwaves."
Picture this...
Beta brainwaves, the fast and specialized frequencies, are akin to navigating through a bustling Costco store.
It's all hustle and bustle, making it hard to focus or think clearly on certain issues amidst the chaos.
And if we're doing a lot of specialized thinking all day, it can make us tired because it uses a lot of energy!
Enter the alpha brainwave state - the state where the all the noise dissipates, and clarity emerges.
It's like being the sole person in an emptied-out Costco - where we can actually notice the insights from our subconscious mind and "hear" what the deeper parts of us are saying.
As a hypnotist, your aim is to guide individuals out of the fast and specialized beta brainwave state - to help our clients' minds SLOW DOWN to an alpha brainwave state to access the different information.
Theta waves take this further - a state beyond words, where mental imagery dominates.
And then there's delta—the slowest frequency, associated with deep sleep and the source of intuitive understanding, where knowledge seems to come from a place beyond conscious awareness.
In our daily lives, we're often caught in the whirlwind of beta waves.
Hypnosis offers a pathway to shift from the overdrive of beta to the calm oasis of alpha.
By inducing an alpha brainwave state, professional hypnotists enable individuals to rediscover clarity, think more lucidly, and access parts of their consciousness often obscured by the chaos of daily life.
Children naturally reside in the alpha flow state, where imagination and receptivity thrive.
However, for adults, the intentional transition from beta to alpha becomes a pivotal aspect of hypnotic practice.
This shift alleviates mental fatigue, reduces the energy consumption associated with constant thinking, and opens doors to self-discovery and relaxation.
Imagine having the ability to summon an alpha brainwave state at will!
This is a skill that not only promotes daytime relaxation and clarity, but also serves as a key to slipping effortlessly into restful sleep at night.
It's a skill that can be cultivated by practicing the Alpha Sequence.
For those compassionate souls seeking to help others with the power of hypnosis, understanding the felt sense of brainwave states can be a foundation upon which transformational journeys are crafted.
It's a journey toward not just helping others, but also nurturing self-awareness and inner peace.
QUESTIONS ABOUT PROFESSIONAL HYPNOSIS CERTIFICATION TRAINING?
💬 Message Tim, our Director of Admissions! 💬
Check out the video above from our last Hypnosis Boot Camp!
And you can follow along with the transcript below!
(transcript follows)
I think we can do a lot of work as hypnotists merely with relaxation and helping people get the felt sense in their body, which is what we're going for right now, okay?
We're gonna reduce beta to enter into hypnosis. This is how I love describing hypnosis.
Beta brainwaves are fast and specialized. Okay, it's like all these people at Costco.
Like, how can you think with all these people at Costco? Okay? They're everywhere.
Now imagine that you're the only person there. Like it's not fast and specialized anymore. It's like everybody disappears and it's just you. That's alpha.
If you disappear and you only see pictures of everything, that's theta. Okay?
And if nothing at all and you're just chill, that would be delta. Okay, now delta, our delta brainwaves are really slow. When we are incarnated, when we just become a human, we're at really, really, really slow delta brainwaves, half of a hertz, like 0. 5 to 4. And we can bring ourselves back into that state.
We do it every night as we sleep, okay? But this is where people say and specialists say if you do brain training, which I did at 40 years of Zen This is where sixth sense sense information hangs out. Okay?
So the Delta brainwaves is what people would consider our intuition is what we would consider How did I know that? How did I know something without really knowing it. Okay,
So when we're existing in beta and we're at Costco with all the people, we really can't think clearly, okay? It's really hard to be awesome.
So what we're gonna do in hypnosis is we're gonna reduce beta, bring us into an alpha that feels good, that allows us to think more clearly and become aware of things that aren't our own part of ourselves, right?
So we usually are hanging out here in beta. Find my cursor. We're hanging out in beta. We need beta. Beta is our critical factor.
Okay, when we are young, when we are children, we don't have a lot of beta brainwaves. We are existing a lot in alpha, which is the flow state.
And this is why when you're doing hypnosis with kids, we often will do hypnosis a little differently. Okay, a lot of our kids are already in an alpha brainwave state, they're already in that imaginative state.
But for us as adults, one of the things that we're going to do is get rid of those really fast and specialized beta brainwaves.
Now when we're using our beta brainwaves all day long, we can feel tired. So if you're thinking all day long, like over the last week, like pulling some of this material together for today, I felt tired and hungry. Why is that?
Because the beta brainwaves are going to use a lot of energy, okay? So when we are thinking a lot, fast and specialized beta brainwaves, our body is going to be using like 20 watts of power.
So we tend to be hungrier and need to have more, take more breaks if we're thinking a lot. What we want to do is move into alpha.
And I want you guys to be able to enter into an alpha brainwave state on demand. That will help you enter into and fall asleep, back asleep at night more than anything else.
If you can enter into an alpha brainwave state on demand, you're going to be able to allow yourself to drift back to sleep.
And so that's why I want you practicing it during the day.