Hypnosis and Suspension of Disbelief

Photo by Rick Hustead

I remember when I first learned about “Suspension of Disbelief” during my second-period Honors English class in high school. At some very deep level I think I always understood that not all stories or action in movies made sense; this concept answered a lot of questions about why people, including me, are willing to buy into something that does not make sense. But we believe it—or at least go along with it—nonetheless.

 Suspension of Disbelief entails intentionally (or unintentionally) ignoring glaring conflicts or holes in logic in a movie or book to continue enjoying the story without interruption. It doesn’t seem to matter that a key concept in the plot could literally stop the story in its tracks if we think too much about why it doesn’t make any sense. If we are invested in the characters and/or the story, we may choose to ignore those pesky details that threaten to derail our enjoyment of the plot. Indeed, at this point it is easy to just turn off (ignore) the Critical Area of the subconscious mind that keeps pointing out those problems and settle back into the action on the page or screen. Does this sound familiar? Hint: It is possible and common to drift into a trance-like state (hypnosis) when we are caught up in a good book, movie/television program, sports event, etc.

For example, when I watched the Season Four finale of Sherlock, the plot was so convoluted and intricate that I wondered how the episode made it out of the editing booth. So much of it made no sense (to me, anyway), even when the mystery was solved and the clues explained. Probably my being such a fan of the new incarnation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic sleuth and his cohort played a big part in ignoring the questions running through my mind throughout the story. It was also fascinating to watch Sherlock Holmes get taken in and thrown off guard by what was going on around him. (I think he was hypnotized, to be honest.)

I had less patience for the lapses in logic that I noticed in the movies Poltergeist (1981) and Gravity (2013). To be honest, I was completely on-board with just about every suspenseful and creepy part of the film. The protagonists sliding across the linoleum kitchen floor, chairs stacking themselves into a pyramid on the kitchen table, being sucked into a television screen, even that attack by a murderous oak tree… None of those scenes fazed me. The film was basically ruined for me, though, when the Freeling family did not evacuate their home the second they got their little girl back. Who would stay in that house after having to retrieve your young child from a malevolent spirit—a spirit that had taken her to another dimension, at that? For the record, I didn’t buy the idea that a modern housing tract could or would be knowingly built over a cemetery without someone involved with the project blowing a very loud whistle about that. My interest in Gravity drifted right away when Sandra Bullock’s character was caught in a debris storm in which pieces of a destroyed space station whizzed by her at 30,000 miles an hour without sustaining any injuries. Logically, wouldn’t exposure to this type of catastrophe be fatal? I would have thought so, anyway.

The reason why some stories “work” for some people and not others has a lot to do with the viewer’s or reader’s willingness to suspend disbelief when necessary to move the plot along. The second something no longer makes sense or challenges an existing belief system, however, the magic is lost and the dreamlike state is broken. So long as the Critical Area of the subconscious mind is actively processing, questioning and discarding those message units, you are unlikely to fall for that theatrical magic. The instant it perceives this information as a threat to your existing Subconscious Mental Script or belief system(s), as the late actor, Bill Paxton, famously said, it’s “Game Over” and back to disbelieving reality you will go.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2017

Because…That’s What You Like

(This blog was previously posted on February 3, 2014)
 

 

                In an episode of the series Sherlock, titled His Last Vow, that ever-perceptive and insightful sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, pointed out the obvious to his good friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson. Watson had experienced certain stressful, potentially traumatic and even life-threatening events during his life because he had invited those situations to occur. Even his choices of friends (Sherlock) and life partner were being dictated by these subconscious messages, preferences, choices that Watson kept making, over and over again because, basically, that is what the good doctor liked.

                Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., explained this behavior in his Theory of Mind: Each person’s subconscious learns and adopts behaviors and ways of thinking from a very young age. By the time you are about 5 years old the blueprint of your future beliefs and behaviors is established, based on what you have learned during these early years of your life. For example, if you like (or even hate) to eat a particular kind of food, it is likely that you were given this or a similar item as a youngster. You associate the experience of eating this item with memories about how it tasted, if you like the taste, who served it to you/who was with you, etc. Other behaviors and interests (preferences) are learned in a similar way: Some people prefer to stay at home on a Friday night and curl up with a good book or watch something on television, instead of going to a party with their friends. Others enjoy skydiving and participate in various high-adrenaline sports; they think nothing of skiing down a “widow-maker” slope. Some people enjoy the hustle and thrum of having a busy social life while living in the center of a bustling city. Others prefer a quiet family life in the suburbs.

These are extreme examples of personalities at either end of a spectrum, but the drive or motivation behind these preferences comes from the same place: the subconscious mind. This is the place where you store and reinforce your beliefs and behaviors by doing what you do—without thinking about it—every time you say, think or do that behavior. Even if you do not consciously like or enjoy the belief or behavior that you reinforce, by now it has become comfortable, familiar (pleasure) to you—even if it is not “pleasurable.” According to Kappas, everyone carries the association and enjoyment (or not) of our “known” behaviors and beliefs throughout your life or, until you are motivated to change this belief or behavior.

I help my hypnotherapy clients to change their various unwanted behaviors; hypnotherapy works because and when the person wants to make this change. Your subconscious mind may know what you really want, but in your conscious mind you have the will-power, decision-making, reasoning and logic to literally change your mind.

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2015

 

Because...That's What You Like

(This blog was originally posted on February 3, 2014)

 

 

                In the February 2, 2014 episode of Sherlock, that ever-perceptive and insightful sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, pointed out the obvious to his good friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson. Watson had experienced certain stressful, potentially traumatic and even life-threatening events during his life because he had invited those situations to occur. Even his choices of friends (Sherlock) and life partner were being dictated by these subconscious messages, preferences, choices that Watson kept making, over and over again because, basically, that is what the good doctor liked.

                Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., explained this behavior in his Theory of Mind: Each person’s subconscious learns and adopts behaviors and ways of thinking from a very young age. By the time you are about 5 years old the blueprint of your future beliefs and behaviors is established, based on what you have learned during these early years of your life. For example, if you like (or even hate) to eat a particular kind of food, it is likely that you were given this or a similar item as a youngster. You associate the experience of eating this item with memories about how it tasted, if you like the taste, who served it to you/who was with you, etc. Other behaviors and interests (preferences) are learned in a similar way: Some people prefer to stay at home on a Friday night and curl up with a good book or watch something on television, instead of going to a party with their friends. Others enjoy skydiving and participate in various high-adrenaline sports; they think nothing of skiing down a “widow-maker” slope. Some people enjoy the hustle and thrum of having a busy social life while living in the center of a bustling city. Others prefer a quiet family life in the suburbs.

These are extreme examples of personalities at either end of a spectrum, but the drive or motivation behind these preferences comes from the same place: the subconscious mind. This is the place where you store and reinforce your beliefs and behaviors by doing what you do—without thinking about it—every time you say, think or do that behavior. Even if you do not consciously like or enjoy the belief or behavior that you reinforce, by now it has become comfortable, familiar (pleasure) to you—even if it is not “pleasurable.” According to Dr. Kappas, everyone carries the association and enjoyment (or not) of our “known” behaviors and beliefs throughout your life or, until you are motivated to change this belief or behavior.

I help my hypnotherapy clients to change their various unwanted behaviors; hypnotherapy works because and when the person wants to make this change. Your subconscious mind may know what you really want, but in your conscious mind you have the will-power, decision-making, reasoning and logic to literally change your mind.

 

 

 

 

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2014

 

Because…That’s What You Like

                In last night’s episode of Sherlock, that ever-perceptive and insightful sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, pointed out the obvious to his good friend and colleague, Dr. John Watson: Watson had experienced certain stressful, potentially traumatic and even life-threatening events during his life because he had invited those situations to occur. Even his choices of friends (Sherlock) and life partner were being dictated by these subconscious messages, preferences, choices that Watson kept making over and over again because, basically, that is what the good doctor liked.

                Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., explained this behavior in his Theory of Mind: Each person’s subconscious learns and adopts behaviors and ways of thinking from a very young age. By the time you are about 5 years old the blueprint of your future beliefs and behaviors is established, based on what you have learned during these early years of your life. For example, if you like (or even hate) to eat a particular kind of food, it is likely that you were given this or a similar item as a youngster. You associate the experience of eating this item with memories about how it tasted, if you like the taste, who served it to you/who was with you, etc. Other behaviors and interests (preferences) are learned in a similar way: Some people prefer to stay at home on a Friday night and curl up with a good book or watch something on television, instead of going to a party with their friends. Others enjoy skydiving and participate in various high-adrenaline sports; they think nothing of skiing down a “widow-maker” slope. Some people enjoy the hustle and thrum of having a busy social life while living in the center of a bustling city. Others prefer a quiet family life in the suburbs.

These are extreme examples of personalities at either end of a spectrum, but the drive or motivation behind these preferences comes from the same place: the subconscious mind. This is the place where you store and reinforce your beliefs and behaviors by doing what you do—without thinking about it—every time you say, think or do that behavior. Even if you do not consciously like or enjoy the belief or behavior that you reinforce, by now it has become comfortable, familiar (pleasure) to you—even if it is not “pleasurable.” According to Kappas, everyone carries the association and enjoyment (or not) of our “known” behaviors and beliefs throughout your life or, until you are motivated to change this belief or behavior.

I help my hypnotherapy clients to change their various unwanted behaviors; hypnotherapy works because and when the person wants to make this change. Your subconscious mind may know what you really want, but in your conscious mind you have the will-power, decision-making, reasoning and logic to literally change your mind.

Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute in 2005. For more information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.

© 2014