What is hypnosis?

Clinically defined, hypnosis is the psychological process of overcoming the mind's critical thinking ability and replacing it with subconscious thought.  Simply put, it's putting someone into a relaxed frame of mind where they become more open to the power of suggestion.

Stage hypnosis is purely for the purposes of entertainment - the swinging pocketwatches and swirly-eyed trances that usually get people to do something they wouldn't normally.  Clinical hypnosis - "real" hypnosis - is not at all about making a person surrender their will.  It's not mind control.  Instead, real hypnosis is simply a method of getting people to be more receptive to suggestion.

Anyone who wants to understand hypnosis fully needs to realize the importance of the subconscious mind.  There are two basic frames of mind: subconscious and conscious.  The conscious mind is the here and now - the part of your mind that's aware of what's going on and making decisions about things that are taking place in your life at this very moment.  Subconscious is "the back of your mind", or an underlying layer of thought that you aren't aware of.  The subconscious mind is essentially what's responsible for basic bodily functions like breathing - something that's happening in your body but you aren't directly in control of most of the time.

And that is the trick of hypnosis: to tap into the subconscious.  By reaching a part of our minds that we aren't even aware of, a good hypnotist can make us receptive to certain things we might not normally even think about.  By learning how to use hypnosis in conversation, we can talk to people more easily and make them more receptive to us.  Conversational hypnosis can be an extremely powerful tool, provided it is used properly and ethically.