Hypnosis in the Playground

[Hogwarts9876]

I've been fascinated by hypnosis since a young age, but have only recently decided to try it out. I'm particularly interested in post-hypnotic suggestion, but not particularly of the hypnotherapy kind: I'm just intrigued as to what doing something like raising your hand to your ear whenever anyone says 'carrot' would feel like, so like stage hypnotists do. Is it possible to give yourself this sort of trigger through self-hypnosis, and if it is can someone point me to a site/book from which I can learnt this? Or would someone else need to learn hypnotism and give me the trigger, and again can someone link a site? Thanks!

[Hbgplayer]

Well, according to my Abnormal Psych teacher (who was a clinical psychologist for 30+ years) it isn't possible to put your self in hypnosis, but a skilled hypnitist can put *almost* anyone under. She also is very critical of using it outside of a therapy setting, because she said that it is very easy to bring out repressed memories or other very harmful things from one's unconsiousness.
Before her class, I was highly skeptical of it's validity, but she has convince me that it has it's uses.

[McBish]

Most of what you see stage hypnotists doing isn't really hypnotisim. When the people on the stage cluck like a chicken they are most likely very aware of this. People realize that they can do whatever they want on stage and then claim they have no memory so their inhibitions really drop so they are willing to do all sorts of crazy stuff.

I don't really know much about using hypnotisim as a thearpy beyond that it is used sometimes. From what I know of it is often a mental exercise that relaxes you. I did a senior project in High School about hypnosis that was a pretty shallow look at what it was used for. There are a lot of books about how to hypnotize someone. I still remember a couple of phrases or images that were used to put someone in a hypnotic state. I still use them as relaxation techniques from time to time, though it is more meditation then actual hypnosis.

If you are looking for triggers that will stick with you over time, I'm not sure how plausible that is. Though one time I decided after a particularly gross conversation that I would end it thinking about apple pie and how good it is. Now when people try to gross me out my mind still circles back to delicious apple pie and I feel happy. It just took time and remembering that conversation.

While I won't disagree with a clinical psychologist, some people are harder to hypnotize then others. And it is extremely hard, I would say impossible, to hypnotize someone that doesn't want to be hypnotized.