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Self Hypnosis for Musicians by: Sam Brown
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| Sunday, November 9, 2008 |
Perhaps you are interested in using hypnosis to help you achieve the goals you set for yourself, or perhaps you are simply curious and interested in learning more. If you plan to try some of the many products that hypnosis is not there, but you find to be skeptical or nervous about what happens in hypnosis, then read on.
Firstly What is hypnosis?
Hypnosis is a state of mind that we have all experienced before. It is a natural state between sleep and wakefullness. Scientists will tell you that your Brainwave pattern will be in the band-Theta (as opposed to Beta, which is Wide Awake, and Delta, which is asleep), but if you are concerned, it is best described as being in a dream, or "trance" if you wish. There are many examples of trance all day - here are a few:
• When you have a day dream you are light in a trance - you remember individual feeling that you had in school when you look out the window in a really boring geography lesson.
• If your eyes are set on fire in a wood stove after a long day. You do not even feel like blinking.
• When you are "more glass" during a conversation with someone really boring and then having to appologise: "Sorry, I was km. What you said? "You are there-but-not-there".
In each of the above examples will be momentarilly focused on one thing - it might be the form of a cloud in the sky, flickering flames, or the mole on the chin of man - For a few moments of your mind all other filters, with the exception of this one thing whatsoever May. This filter is the key to understanding trance and we will learn a little later.
Imagine you are in film. The film is fantastic, its exciting, exhillerating, emotional, terrifying ... Why? This is a projection on a screen. The more the film focuses on you, plus the fact that it is a projection on a cinema screen is kept unconscious. Soon, you become so caught up in history that you are "passionate" by the film. While the emotional content of the film that goes straight to your subconscious without being controlled by your conscious mind. You think you laugh and you cry. Many things will be maintained at the level of the unconscious. The smell of popcorn will always be there, but this filter mechanism to decide not harm your conscious mind of such a trivial bit of sensory information.
And it does not stop there. For the duration of the film all the niggling problems of money, relationships or work will be kept at bay - and what a relief it is! Some people call it "escape" - I call trance. If this is a pretty good movie you filter the same pain or discomfort - that analgesia. I expect the really exciting bits of a movie you've had your hand gel midway between the bag and your mouth is "catelepsy." These are the two states scientifically accepted in deep hypnosis - and here we live in the cinema on Saturday night!
Trance is really an event every day - and that we can use to great benefit.
So you're in the cinema watching the film and you're totally absorbed. Your brain is still moitoring your environment, but it is not sending this information to your conscious mind. Your unconscious, however, is still aknowledging. If the smell of popcorn was to change the smell of burning, your subconscious is the sense of urgency and you break your trance. Your subconscious is your guardian angel - he keeps a constant watch, day and night, protect you from danger and keeping you protected. Many people can sleep by violent thunderstorm, because the unconscious knows that, although noisy, it is not a threat. Therefore, he chose not to send information to your conscious mind and you wake up!
This screening process in the brain that is key to understanding hypnosis. With the guidance of a skilled hypnotherapist, or voice on a CD, you can deepen this dream state.
So the next question is:
How useful is this state of trance?
When you're in a trance, you can communicate with your subconscious. And why would I want to do this, I hear you ask. Well, first of all can really define what the unconscious (or, as some people call "unconscious") is actually mind:
You've probably heard statements like: We use only 5 percent of our brain. Well, if so why is it the size it is? It is obvious that the rest of the brain is still used for something. It might be safer to say that our conscious mind uses only 5% of our brain. Perhaps our unconscious other uses of 95%.
Now, think about all the things you never think about: breathing, pulse, sweating, increasingly, healing, digestion, blinking, even waking up in the morning. The subconscious mind takes care of all this for you, and much more. There are millions of things right now that you may not be aware of until I mentioned: the sense of the back of the chair on your shoulders, fan noise from your computer, memory of your first bicycle ... As I told you your brain filters information diverted to your conscience. Your brain controls the sum total of everything you encounter and sends only important, relevant information for you, your conscious mind. The conscious mind can process about seven bits of information at once; the unconscious manages millions of bits of information per second. Here are some examples:
• Imagine you're in a crowded room where everyone is chatting away creating a hubbub of noise. If someone in the room begins to take on you and mentions your name, your filter selection on noise and alert you.
• You are broadsheet scanning through a newspaper and suddenly you just know that you saw the name "Britney" somewhere on the page. "I saw there somewhere ... I know I do ..." Then you'll have to spend ten minutes trying to find it. Your subconscious takes in the whole page usong your peripheral vision and filter the bits and send the information to your conscious mind. Your brain is currently even with a staggering amount of information. If you have been aware of all this, without a filter in place, it would be like trying to listen to a thousand radio stations at once! God thank you, we use only 5% of our brain!
Your subconscious also stores your emotions. And I'm sure you already know how it may be difficult to overcome mounting emotions. The subconscious always wins. Walk across a plank over 2 large buildings and your emotions will very quickly come to you, even if your conscious mind knows that you are perfectly able to walk in a straight line. Similarly, if you've been nervous for an audition or performance before, you probably unconsciously think you'll be back next time. That is what we can change using hypnosis. Would not it be fantastic to go to any performance sense of confidence and control? And as long as you prepare properly there is no reason why you should not. We just need more to write some self-limiting beliefs with empowering news. And that's when we do - when we're in a trance.
If the filter mechanism of the brain focuses on one thing (maybe your breath or a feeling or a thought, all other sensory information which is monitored by your brain is not be sent to your conscience - including suggestions to you to hypnosis. Your brain, surprisingly little kit it is always "means" words - he can not see the point of alerting your mind aware of them. He hears the suggestions, said "Hmmm, as I as his", and welcomes it in your new beliefs and habits.
Now you will be forgiven for thinking that you could go hypnotizing people around you give them money, or get them to tell their boss that he is an Orang-Utang, but fortunately the unconscious has another function: it is your very own guardian angel. It will in no way accept suggestions that can be harmful or against your code of ethics. It is a shame that Hollywood has misunderstood hypnosis and describes it so sorely precision. You CANNOT be brainwashed, you CANNOT still bogged down in a trance and you can not quack like a duck, unless it's something you really want to do.
What happens in a session of hypnosis:
• 1) The induction. This speaks to you in a deeply relaxed state. When the body relaxes, it is too mind. You experience a calm quiet - your spirit balanced between being awake and asleep, but always 100% aware. You may know that your nose itching, but you CANNOT be bothered to move your hand to scratch it. Just 2 or 3 minutes in this state of trance can be as refreshing as a two-hour nap!
• 2) Next suggestions go in. "I feel confident," "I has a powerful presence on stage" and so on. When you use hypnosis comercial CDs and cassettes, there are often several suggestions from both sides of the stereo image. The conscious mind will be able to follow one or two sentenses at a time, leaving the third to slip through the unconscious' under the radar "so to speak. With some CD" subliminal "suggestions are recorded slightly in the background - you can not listen to" consciously "but many believe that the unconscious will pick them up and act on them. Personally, I think that there should have evidence that these subliminal suggestions are there. You do not need to catch all the syllables in a sentence to understand its meaning and if a CD burried a low voice in the mix, I think the unconscious is quite ACCUTE to the home page on these suggestions and act on them.
• 3) Finally, the Wake-up. Since you're not asleep 'Wake-Up "is the wrong term. I prefer "outro" (the opposite of 'intro') myself. Here, there are often suggestions to the effect that you find even easier to go into a trance, next time, or you'll be able to go further. Then there will be some sort of order to return to normal waking state. This is often a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If you find you really derive deep during the session of hypnosis can not hear the last couple of numbers. It is a good indication of a deep trance. If you were very tired when you started the session, you could actually drift off to sleep. The suggestions will not be as effective, try choosing a less comfortable chair and time of your session when you have more energy. In fact, if you suffer from insomnia just leave the other off the playlist!
As suggestions, you can also use guided visualizations during the trance. It phenominally effective. Sports men and women have used this technique for years, but we can all do it. The aesthetic surgeon and psychologist Maxwell Maltz was the first to understand that the brain can not tell the difference between a real and action clearly imagined. Think about it a moment. Your intellectual, rational conscious mind knows the difference, but your subconscious mind is not. When you are not aware, you are asleep ... and when you're asleep you imagine things vividly, you? Yes you do, are asked to dream! And whose dreams feel one hundred percent true at the time? I call real-virtual-reality! It's true: the brain can not tell the difference between a real and action clearly imagined.
So if we imagine a clear sense of alert, enthusiastic and confident that we have a few dozen times, and then when we perform for real - the brain thinks, "OK, here we are again, I knew this before" And you "You find you feel alert, confident and enthusiastic - as you imagine. The only rules you have to view as real as you possibly can and as often as possible.
Unfortunately, we have all been subjected to negative view! In a recording session 20 seconds before the end of the take, the musician can ask because he "saw himself" screwing. They are increasingly tense as the rollers take the time to think "I bet you I miss that little twiddly in the coda. Sure enough, they do. Negative view is as effective as positive visualization. Using hypnosis, we can turn this around.
But where do we learn to be ourselves? The man has only two innate fears: sudden noises and fear of falling. All other fears are learned, which implies that someone has taught us or that we have learned ourselves. Maybe your teacher at school was a bad comunicator and you do not achieve much - you could be of the opinion that you were not very talented. Often, when we were children that our teachers told us what to learn and not how to learn. With good strategy learning that we could have done much more, we mentally rather rubber stamped "Mathmatics", for example, as difficult. Stage-fright has learned to be. As young people if we do not ready for the door of a public, we are like a rabit in the headlights - petrified. Once the negative emotion of this kind may be sufficient to trigger the same reaction every time you perform. The situation triggers memory, and it does not seem to question how deeply the memory could be burried in your subconscious, you may not remember the experience consciously at all, the reaction is the same - racing pulse, stomach knotted, sweatty hands - all classic fight or flight response, all inappropriate, and prevent us playing our best. Imagine the stage presence of Mick Jagger or the confidence of Buddy Rich, the command of Heifitz or Yasha the direction of John Coltrane. Well why not? You just need to make some steps towards re-programming your subconscious. It usually replace the need to practice, but often it is not our physical abilities we are down, it is our mental state. We can all play like gods in our room, but on stage in front of a couple of thousands of people, it is not so easy!
Hypnosis changes in the irrational, we have beliefs about ourselves and all of a sudden we break the bockages who have been there for years. The key is in the imagination and the ability to enter that perfect mental health for learning - ie trance, either light or deep trance.
For more information on self hypnosis for musicians CD, and a multitude of links to other major sites hypnosis and products, visit http://www.sambrown.co.uk.
About the author
Sam Brown is a freelance musician, teacher and writer living in southwestern England. His CD "self-hypnosis for musicians http://www.sambrown.co.uk is available on its website.
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posted by neptunus @ 5:44 PM
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