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seekingsamadhi
Chile
2 Posts |
 Posted - Jun 14 2010 : 07:40:14 AM
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| About 9 months ago I started with the AYP basic routine, and even although to this day I have not had any wild experiences, am keen on the practices. But there is a question that has been going on around my mind and I can´t let go of it, and that is the question regarding to the foundations of Deep Meditation and Meditation in general, so the question is, could it be possible that Deep Meditation as well as other forms of Meditation are some sort of Self-Hypnosis that gives the illusion that Non-duality is happening while in reality the brain has been “reformatted” to think that in that way? What kind of evidence do we have that that is not happening (“reformatting”)? Could enlightenment be some sort of hypnosis produced by ourselves and not something else? Is day-dreaming behind the Siddhis? Do we imagine that they happen ? |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Jun 14 2010 : 08:59:12 AM
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Hi Seekingsamadhi. 
Welcome to the AYP forums.
Sorry I cannot give you an answer to this as I don't know how hypnosis works. However this topic has been discussed a few times before.
Here is one such topic: Hypnotic suggestion.
There are many more.
Do a search here :
http://www.aypsite.org/forum/search.asp
for the word "hypnosis" and select "Match exact phrase".
Hope these help.
Wish you all the best. |
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Akasha
421 Posts |
Posted - Jun 14 2010 : 3:02:56 PM
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Hi seeking samadhi,
Welcome to the forum & Nice to have you here.
I like the way you have challenged received dogma,what is commonly taken as 'gopsel truth' or g. wisdom, with your first question here.I like that. Though i am not familar with hypnosis or understand it's dynmaics,experientiallly or theoretically.
Samadhi through hypnosis- one for the couch.
"We have a rather unusual patient here who believes he is a fully illuminated sage."
"Don't worry, we've got a whole ward just for those people" |
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brother neil
USA
752 Posts |
Posted - Jun 14 2010 : 3:12:57 PM
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I once went to a hypnotist to be able to surf big waves, a week later I ended up surfing the biggest waves of my life.
is meditation self hypnosis, lets say it is. and whats the aim of it? To eliminate or lesson suffering, and increase happiness, love, etc...
as far as non duality, I only know of existence, I do not now of non existence. I do believe that some things are Non Dual, have no opposites. What is the opposit of wet? Was I programed into that by taking a spiritual journey or is it basic logic? |
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karl
United Kingdom
1812 Posts |
Posted - Jun 20 2010 : 05:19:30 AM
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I am very familiar with hypnotism as I sometimes use it with clients.
Because you don't understand hypnotism you are considering it some kind of strange voodoo, a mind altering, unnatural act. Instead it is just a natural aid to help someone relax and accept an idea more easily. You cannot make yourself, or anybody else do something they don't want to do.
The question "is meditation hypnosis?" is irrelevant. You do self hypnosis all the time, you cannot tell when you are doing it. Take driving a car with the radio on. Often we experience getting to the destination without remembering the journey -who was driving the car ??
There is no recollection of the roads, traffic, noise, anything at all and you were in deep trance during that time (you might wonder if that time ever existed at all and you might well be correct). During that time you were listening to the radio, every word absorbed into your unconscious mind.......were you programmed ?? Did you become the subject of a pop song, a radio play or the whale from the discussion programme ? No, during that time you remember nothing, became nothing that you were not already.
Hypnotism is just another type of sleep. Meditation might be related, or the same, it doesn't matter, it's natural and healthy to sleep.
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standingstone
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - Jul 08 2010 : 11:00:45 PM
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I agree with what Karl said. I am also a hypnosis professional. I work in the deep levels of hypnotic trance (the threshold of somnambulism or deeper according to the Harry Arons depth scale).
a simple way to think of it is:
meditation requires trance (more or less, it is at least involved with such a process).
hypnosis requires trance but also heightened suggestibility.
you can be in a trance, or in meditation, without any heightened levels of suggestibility; people have a baseline of normal suggestibility that varies person to person regardless of state (just as any trait varies from person to person).
what is required with hypnosis is a state (or circumstance) such that the suggestions of the hypnotist (or self-hypnotist) have a direct effect on the subject's perception of reality.
so yes it is possible that people slide into a heightened state of suggestibility (hypnosis) in meditation sometimes. Actually everyone goes in and out of such a state several times a day via the ultradian rhythm phases, roughly every 90 to 120 minutes due to a process of gene expression*, this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with meditation, however.
I also practice an integrated yoga system and have devised a way to test myself. heres a simple way you can test if you are really in a hypnotic state during meditation:
glove anesthesia is a phenomenon that occurs at the threshold of somnambulism or deeper (stage 4), hallucinations occur at stage 5, 6, and sometimes 4 if the eyes are closed. If you are in stage 5 or deeper, you are most likely going to be able to produce all the phenomenon of the lower numbered stages.
if you want to test whether you are in a state where you would have high probability of producing some hypnotic phenomenon, simply suggest to yourself, in words, something like "all the feeling is leaving my hand from the wrist to the knuckles, that it is going completely numb, completely numb etc.. nothing I can do to myself in that region will have any noticeable effect whatsoever.."
then give yourself a good hard pinch on the back of the hand that you know should hurt normally.
if you feel pain, you are not at a level of hypnosis required for anesthesia, and therefore not deep enough to exhibit positive or negative hallucinations via suggestion.
if you just feel some pressure, but no pain you might be in a significant level of hypnosis.
the third possibility is less likely, but if you are pinching yourself and feel absolutely nothing, not even a pressure than there's a good chance you are in a state capable of producing exceedingly complex hypnotic behavior.
*For detailed info on ultradian rhythms and much more read "The Psychobiology of Gene Expression: Neuroscience and Neurogenesis in Hypnosis and the Healing arts" by Dr. E.L. Rossi. |
Edited by - standingstone on Jul 08 2010 11:39:52 PM |
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brother neil
USA
752 Posts |
Posted - Jul 09 2010 : 01:02:56 AM
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"Actually everyone goes in and out of such a state several times a day via the ultradian rhythm phases, roughly every 90 to 120 minutes due to a process of gene expression*,"
Do you think this is in anyway related to the breath switching nostrils? |
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standingstone
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - Jul 09 2010 : 08:07:35 AM
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Hi brother neil, yes I definitely do! thats described as the contralateral shift that takes place between cerebral hemispheric dominance and nasal breathing every 90-120 minutes. People can shift their dominant hemisphere on purpose by lying on the side of the hemisphere they wish to switch to, or as you you would probably suspect, by using the nadi sodhana breathing that has utilized this for thousands of years. According to Rossi, "researchers are now accumulating experimental data supporting the view that this may be the psychobiological process that has been used for centuries as a yogic method of breath-brain autonomic nervous system control".
anther quote, "The associations found between hypnosis and laterality of hemispheric dominance (Levine, Kurtz & Lauder, 1984; Rossi, 1992, 1986, 1990) suggest that naturalistic hypnotic states may be activated by allowing patients to explore and creatively reply and reframe their personal experience of this brain-breath-autonomic nervous system link" (Rossi, 1986, Rossi and Cheek, 1988) *if anyone wants the bibliography references to track down these studies I could post them later*
It's is also has been used as a therapeutic technique with sometimes very dramatic results, not nadi sodhana specifically but rather having people lie down at key times on one side of the other in order to shift the dominant hemisphere.
This leads me to speculate that many ancient yogic processes may be innately designed to "take charge" of naturally occuring processes. I find when I do a large set of japa around the chakras, pranayama, bandhas, mudras, back to back, my following meditation seems to have become "insulated" from other factors, such as being hungry, tired, or the hour of the day, that would be present had I just done basic meditation or sitting as a standalone practice. They still play a part but my experience is that many techniques seem to minimize such stray influences, putting the meditator in the helm of the processes, hence the term pranayama I guess (life force control). |
Edited by - standingstone on Jul 09 2010 10:18:00 AM |
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DM & Hypnosis
