Wake up!

Someone told me at a presentation I was doing Tuesday evening at SPC, that hypnosis was shown on a recent episode of The Office. Someone was hypnotized, in his own home and the hypnotist had a heart attack and was taken away. This left the person in trance. And on TV, they showed that he sat there for several days, in trance and didn’t respond to his alarm clock or anything around him. TV can be such a great educational tool, but they are usually way off base when they show hypnotism. For example, this episode of The Office shows that the myth about people getting stuck in hypnosis and not being able to awaken as a possibility. I have been taught that this is impossible and have been told that hypnosis will transition to natural sleep if the person is not awakened. As a hypnotist I have found this to be true. I have seen some clients fall asleep and many have told me they listen to recorded sessions and then fall asleep at night. Sleep is not the same as hypnosis. Sleeping people do not hear or respond to instructions. Some clients do start to fall asleep, but usually come back to the trance state, and may go in and out for awhile, but if they open their eyes I when I suggest that they return to the normal waking state and they do, I know they were not sleeping. But sleep is not dangerous and people will wake up if they need to use the bathroom, or feel hungry, or there is a loud noise. If you awaken every morning to the ring of an alarm clock, you have already programmed yourself to respond to this cue and it would be unlikely that you would ignore it even if in trance.