A person on Quora asked this most helpful question. Here is how I answered it: 

I love this question because I had an anesthesiologist (an MD whose career is that of putting people to sleep for surgical procedures) came to me at the age of 61 after having all of the physiological conditions ruled out including sleep studies of him. At that point he realized that this had to be something in his subconscious mind so employed me to help him get rid of the problem.

The source of the problem after doing regression to cause – meaning I regressed him back in time to all the times his sleep was interrupted, was that of having his sleep interrupted so many evenings during his 3 residencies of which anesthesia was the last. His subconscious mind kept him waking up because it had been trained to do so every time he was called into work during his sleep time.

I cleared all the events that his subconscious mind brought up in one 2 1/2 hour session. He came up for a follow-up the next week stating that he had slept through the night 6 of the seven nights and requested a reinforcement recording in case he needed it.

I had another client whose wife called me because he was waking her up every night to sleep eat (he was totally unaware that this is what he was doing as he was asleep during the evening eating escapades. I regressed him back to find out why he was sleep eating to find out that sadly 25 years previously he had lost a niece and a nephew in a freak accident and he was filling the ‘hole in his soul’ with food at night. We cleared that out and then I had him have a conversation with the kids while in trance, and though they did not respond to him during the process, he never sleep ate again as proven with the wife letting me know that this was the case. Again, it was one 2 1/2 hour session to heal his problem of ‘survivor’s guilt.’ I have no idea why it came up so late after the fact, however, it did and needed to be cleaned up.

So, the bottom line is that there are many reasons that the subconscious mind wakes people up in the middle of the night and our job as hypnotists is to help the client enter their subconscious mind (really the amygdala and hippocampus of the brain as we have learned with brain scans) to help them access that material and help them to heal using the various techniques that we have to allow the healing to occur.

Many thanks for a fascinating question to answer for those who may be dealing with a similar problem and still have no idea in how to find relief.

3 reasons why a client will not allow themselves to be hypnotized.

1. Fear of being hypnotized – which can be taken care of 98% of the time by experiencing it without any suggestions, just a chance to feel what it feels like to be more relaxed than you’ve ever been in your life before.
2. Lack of trust in the hypnotist – which means that one needs excellent rapport with the person that they are employing to hypnotize them.
3. t is very important for the client to truly want the outcome that they are coming in to be hypnotized to clear. For example: If I have a person who says they want to stop smoking, but it isn’t they that want it, but perhaps their parent or spouse, it isn’t going to work. It also won’t work if a doctor tells them that they have to stop smoking as evidenced by many prospects who called for smoking cessation who were on oxygen due to emphysema who never followed through. So, the desire for the outcome is most important. Because, though I am an excellent hypnotist, I will fail if I have a client who just isn’t interested in stopping the habit or is feeling more safe holding onto the problem than finding out what life is like without it. So, my job is to only hire clients who are ready to make the change “now” and are willing to do whatever it takes to do so. Anything less will not work.

Not long ago I had women 52 years old call me because she knew that the trauma that she experienced from her youth was getting in the way of her current quality of life. Her fear of being hypnotized is what she said kept her from going forward. However, what her fear most likely was, was not knowing who she would be without all these issues she had been dealing with all of her life. It can be very scary giving up what you know and are used to for something that is unknown. In this case, I did what I could to educate her, but realized that she wasn’t ready to move forward, so I let her go knowing that she wouldn’t be a good hypnosis candidate. One never wants to force a service on someone who isn’t ready, ever!

This is an excellent question that a person on Quora asked so you have the benefit of learning from that answer.

 am a certified trainer of hypnosis: Right before you go to sleep you are in a hypnotic state. So, if you play an affirmation as you fall off to sleep it will become a suggestion to your subconscious mind. Now here’s the real deal: the affirmation has to be something that you can realistically accomplish or it will not work. The subconscious mind will not take unrealistic suggestions.

You can also play your affirmation loop right upon awakening as you are in a hypnotic state at that time as well.

Do make sure that whatever you are programming your mind fior is safe and appropriate for you meaning that it is positive for you and the world at large. 

This was a question asked by a person on Quora and one that I believe all too many people are dealing with given today’s circumstances. The reality of the situation is that we want to have healthy happy people in our lives. This is the answer that I wrote: 

This is very simple: It is appropriate boundaries. Even as someone who works with people with mental health issues, I can only help them to the degree that they will apply themselves to help themselves. Anything else becomes a co-dependent relationship and they are unhealthy.

Cut the cord and move on with your life. Hopefully, the person will go on to get some professional help if that is what is required. But, it isn’t your job to help someone who is unwilling to do a thing to help themselves. You have your own life to live, so go on and live it.

 Ericksonian hypnotism is a form of hypnotism that uses metaphor and open loops to help bypass the conscious mind so people more effortlessly make the changes they employ a hypnotist to make.

So anytime one can tell a story (which is all a metaphor is) that allows one to create change in the direction they would like that is a success.

Anytime one can use open loops meaning telling a story about 80% of the way through and then holding off on the ending till the end of a program – seminar, workshop, training, to hold the audience’s unconscious mind to the end, you have succeeded.

The last area is that of understanding the subconscious shifts that occur when a person is in the hypnotic trance state – because if one understands what Erickson observed here, one has a much better idea of whether or not they or their subject (client or volunteer in the stagecraft venue) is ina hypnotic trance. I actually share the Ericksonian signs and symptoms of the hypnotic state with my clients before guiding them into trance so that they know that they are indeed in that place known as ‘trance’ – because another one of Erickson’s better teachings is to ‘utilize everything’ so why not let our folks know what we are looking for to see they are in ‘state’ so that they indeed know that they are in state themselves. All of them are going to have fluttering eyes upon thinking, all of them are going to have circular breathing and slowed pulse, and all of them are going to feel very relaxed – so those are all wins for them to help them realize they are exactly where we want them to be – if they feel like they are floating, or heavy or have tingling extremities all for the best.

So, there you have my manner of using Erickson’s basic teachings which have zero to do with his language patterns or other more complex knowledge – just the simple stuff goes very far indeed in the manner in which we can more effectively help our folks get the results that they came to use to receive.