Self-hypnosis or meditation … are they so different?
I’m not an expert in meditation (in the sense that I haven’t spent 20 years as a Buddhist Monk in a monastery or anything). I did learned a bit of meditation when I trained in Martial Arts in my earlier years and I’ve worked on my own with ‘following my breath’ sorts of routines over the years. I’ve also ‘experimented’ with Shamanistic ‘journeys’; not the sort that the local wellness center offers but the more authentic kind led by a real live Shaman out in the wilderness!
Some might consider me to be an expert in hypnosis … and I’ve noticed some similarities between meditation and hypnosis; the hypnotic ’states’ I’ve experimented with appear to be very similar to certain meditative states.
I’ve been asked on a number of occasions to assist people in getting into meditative states. I have picked up enough tricks that may help ’short-circuit’ years of sitting contemplating your navel and therefore you might want to try and weave all or some of the following tips into your regular practice to see what happens.
I’m assuming that the goal (at this point) is to ’shut off your internal dialogue’. When you first learn to hypnotise you notice that sometimes this effect occurs and other times it doesn’t. The insights below are all about achieving ‘inner silence’ faster than you may have thought possible (something that every beginning meditator struggles with). If you want to try all five secrets it is best to try them in the sequence below.
- Before you start a session – close your eyes briefly and ‘look-up’ in your head as far as your eyes will go (don’t overdo this for goodness sake) for a few seconds and then bring them forward. Do this a couple more times and then open your eyes for the next step. (Turning your eyes up in your head like this releases certain neurotransmitters that alter your brainwaves and your internal state.)
- Visual flooding is a way of shutting down your internal voice. This is about focusing on nothing and everything at the same time. Imagine there is a surface in front of you (with your eyes open) and that you drop a pebble into it. Let your focus follow the ‘ripple’ as it moves slowly to the periphery of your vision while keeping the whole surface in your awareness. You’re eyes should be ‘de-focussed’ but not crossed …
- This next insight is based on research a few years back where scientists discovered that ‘internal dialogue’ is linked directly to the neural pathways that travel to your tongue. When they ‘paralyzed’ the tongue an amazing thing occurred – the ’subjects’ internal dialogue slowed right down. You don’t need to go about paralyzing your tongue … and you can simulate this by gently ‘pulling’ your tongue back to the back of your mouth. This seems to ‘close down’ the language center in your brain and your internal dialogue decreases.
- Let your consciousness slowly drift down from your ‘head’ to your gut. Imagine that your consciousness has sunk into your navel. This will also tend to shut off your internal dialogue. Martial Arts teach that your stomach is your energy center, as do a lot of Eastern traditions. It is also your center of gravity and keeping your awareness there really does ‘ground’ you and keeps you balanced.
- If you are not already in a profoundly altered state after doing the above then carry on with your normal meditation practice. Some of you may feel like you’ve disassociated slightly … like they’ve floated out the back of there head or something. Play with the sensation by imagining you have a small ball of energy, the size of a large orange, on the top-back of your head – and feel what it is like to have your awareness there.
DO NOT underestimate the power of this sequence of tips. Go gently with practicing these techniques. Leave your expectations at the door. Be aware, curious … and if you feel you’ve gone too far then snap your eyes open and shake yourself a bit. If I was a betting person I’d bet that as you practice this a few minutes every day you’ll soon be able to achieve a profound reduction of your internal dialogue.
You’ve just saved yourself perhaps years of meditation practice!
Good journeys.
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