Sleep & Deeper

Why we use “sleep”

Sleep Close your eyes, the central common point of the inductions.

The first ever induction was:
“Close your eyes!”
It is a common and central point for many inductions in hypnosis.

Closed eyes are an exceptional state in the waking state. As early as the 1940s, neuroscientists discovered that the brain waves of people with their eyes closed often show very similar patterns to those during concentrated listening; In both cases, the amplitude of the so-called alpha waves, i.e. relatively slow brain waves with a frequency of around ten oscillations per second, increases; They characterize the relaxed waking state;
Many studies have also shown that this typical wave pattern occurs when our brain suppresses environmental stimuli that are irrelevant to or interfere with a given task; This is obviously also what concentrated listening is all about: Selective attention is paid to the essentials and everything distracting is blocked out. In this respect, it seems quite logical that we can listen better with our eyes closed.

Why continue to use “sleep”or “go deeper”?
At a time when some hypnotists are replacing “Sleep!” with “Go!” or “Go”, it is important to remember that the command “Sleep! Sleep” is deeply rooted in human conditioning.

Doing without them means doing without this existing open door.
There is an unconscious conditioning that surrounds these words.
Cinema, books and conversation often associate hypnosis with “sleep!” and “going deeper”.

You are not asleep in hypnosis. And you don’t go any deeper.

Sleep! is a direct suggestion, and has a component related to the subsequent state of relaxation.

Some hypnotists have recently started to replace the word “sleep” with “go” as a suggestion to lead the subject into the state of hypnosis;
There is certainly nothing to be said against it, but it should be borne in mind that the “sleep” instruction is still deeply rooted in human conditioning. Sleep is immediately associated with rest, closing your eyes, going into an altered state of consciousness.
So why do without something that most people are familiar with?
There is an unconscious conditioning that surrounds these words.

Movies, books and conversations about hypnosis are often associated with “sleep” and “going deeper”;

Of course, it is necessary to mention beforehand that it is not a real sleep, but a pleasant, altered state. Otherwise, the subject could come up with the idea that he wasn’t asleep during the test, so he probably wasn’t under hypnosis either;

Why “Deeper”?

Nobody goes deeper and deeper.
The deepening simply increases the
Reaction to suggestions. Going into the depths implements that you somehow let yourself sink, relax and become more relaxed;

“As low as you can go today”
is a formulation that brings the reaction to suggestions to the maximum level at a certain point in time.