And while it is often described as a sleep-like trance state

It is expressed as a state characterized by focused attention

Extreme suggestibility and heightened imagination

It is most often compared to daydreaming

When you are fully conscious, but you tune out most of the distracting stimuli around you

One theory suggests that hypnosis is a way to access a person's subconscious mind directly

But what does this mean?

Well normally, you are only aware of the thought process in your conscious mind

Meaning you are consciously thinking over the problems that are right in front of you

Thinking about where you left your keys, or what color to wear

This is how your conscious mind solves problems

By accessing the information you need through your subconscious mind

What's interesting is that your subconscious gets the information

Without your awareness of its thought processing

Which is how you get new ideas out of the blue

But that's not all

Your subconscious also takes care of stuff you do automatically

from how you breathe, to the way you look in the mirror when you drive a car

So in short, your subconscious mind is the

"Thinking", behind the scenes

And during hypnosis, the subconscious mind is exposed directly to a hypnotist

Which is why you feel freer and may be more expressive

Because the conscious mind is not filtering the information you take in

The hypnotist suggestions seem like they're coming directly from your subconscious

Rather than from another person

And this theory has gained wide acceptance in the psychiatric community

Mostly because it explains all the major characteristics of the hypnotic state

But others view the phenomenon simply as a placebo effect

Due to social pressure, and the influence of the hypnotists

Which is often strong enough to convince people that they should act in a certain way

And while our understanding of hypnosis has advanced a great deal in the past century

The phenomenon is still...

A mystery.

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And with that said

Thanks for watching!