Will my 11-year-old son still benefit from hypnosis if he sleeps through it?

Mark says...

Hi Robin and thank you for writing in.

This is a good question. Although the word 'hypnosis' comes from the name of the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos, and the clichéd image of hypnosis is that of someone commanding some other person to 'sleep', hypnosis only has some resemblance to some parts of sleep.

Sleep is made up of different stages. Happy and healthy adults will spend about 75% of their sleep time in slow wave, recuperative, 'healing' sleep and the rest in the rapid eye movement (REM) stage or 'dream sleep', which has similarities to the hypnotic trance state. For example, during both REM sleep and hypnosis, the imagination is activated and the dreaming/hypnotized person will often experience visualizations and other sensory 'reality simulation'.

Your son might be entering trance and from there going into sleep. The early part of sleep tends to have what's known as 'dream fragments' without proper dreams. Most people have their first proper REM dream experience (usually an experience that never makes it to consciousness) around 90 minutes after falling asleep. So, in short (which I realize I haven't been : ) ), hypnotic suggestion may have some effectiveness during REM sleep, but not during deep sleep. It might be that your son is getting some benefit, as he'll be in the early light stages of sleep whilst listening.

The best way to know is to tell by results. If your son is benefitting from the download (above and beyond just deeply relaxing to it), then continue having him listen to it at nighttime. If you feel he could be benefitting more, then have him listen earlier in the day. The conscious mind doesn't need to completely go away during hypnosis in order for it to work well.

I hope this answers your question.

All my best,

Mark

Published by Mark Tyrrell - July 12th, 2014 in

• Hypnosis