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to-face with myself. I had blue eyes and blond hair, quite the contrast from my dark hair and eyes in this lifetime. I wore a pink dress and bonnet. I was told to go to my funeral on the prairie to find out how I died. In a small shack with wood floors I could see my frail body in a rough open casket. I suddenly knew I had died of some kind of horrible disease in my early twenties. Henderson asked me what this disease was, but I couldn't identify it. About 40 people showed up to my funeral. And then as suddenly as all of this began, I woke up.
When most people think about being hypnotized, they think of a sideshow or a comedy act. Contrary to popular belief, the phrases "You are getting very sleepy" and "When you wake up you're going to quack like a duck every time I clap" are never uttered in a hypnotist's office. Hypnosis is the soothing process of directing subconscious thought toward patterns of healthy living, says Cynthia Morgan, hypnotherapist at DoubleMoon Hypnotherapy, 2104 E. West 25th St.
Hypnosis is a common technique for those who are trying to lose weight, quit smoking, heal past experiences, cure phobias, eliminate anxiety, gain motivation or stop insomnia. A hypnotherapist is a hypnotist who specializes in examining these issues and aids in the healing process. Because the mind controls the body, Morgan says the only way to change parts of our lives is to change our mindset. By entering the mind through hypnosis, a hypnotherapist can reprogram a client's negative thoughts to help alter his or her lifestyle.
In a state of hypnosis, your subconscious — the source of your feelings and emotions --- dominates your conscious. Everyone experiences hypnosis daily. Anytime you stare at one location for more than 10 seconds, otherwise known as daydreaming, you are in the first stage of hypnosis. The hypnagogic level, the period right before sleep, where your brain is still active and your muscles tend to spasm, is known as the deepest level of hypnosis. Linda Gentry, owner and founder of the Missouri Institute of Hypnotherapy in Warrensburg, Mo., explains hypnosis as trying to reprogram a computer. Gentry says our subconcious rejects words such as "will," "try," "maybe" and "diet," so a hypnotherapist's job is to try to erase those words from a client's vocabulary. For instance, if you've been telling yourself that you will try and go on a diet, Gentry will tell you to simply decrease your food intake. Hypnosis only works on those who are 100-percent committed to changing their behavior. So if a wife forces her husband to go to a hypnotist to stop smoking and he's not ready to quit, he can shut out all of the hypnotic suggestions and the process will not work.
Every hypnotist has different methods for achieving the state of hypnosis. Harley Sears, hypnotherapist and owner of the Jinsei Center in Kansas City, Mo., says because every client is different, hypnotherapists should not limit themselves to only one method, but should instead combine techniques based on the client's needs. Before being put under hypnosis, the hypnotherapist will interview the client in order to determine which technique is best for them. The hypnotherapist will write down key phrases that the client uses frequently in conversation. They can plant these phrases in the subconscious later, making the process more personable to the client. This time is also a chance for the hypnotherapist to examine if the client's situation is extreme enough to be in need of medical attention. Morgan says if a client comes to a hypnotherapist looking for a past rape experience to be erased from their memory, the hypnotherapist should refer the client to a specialist.
One type of hypnosis is a self-help technique that can be taught to clients to perform at home. During my initial interview with Henderson, I told her that I was afraid of heights. While I pressed various acupuncture points, I was told to repeat "Even though I'm afraid of heights, I totally love and accept myself," three times while envisioning a time when I was afraid of heights. At the beginning of the exercise I could see myself climbing up the St. Louis Gateway Arch when I was in second grade. Each little jerk of the car made me tremble at the thought that at any moment I could plunge to my death. By the last pressure point, the memory was barely recognizable. Henderson says this exercise can be practiced to release cravings, doubt, guilt, pain, stress or fear. She does warn that this exercise only gets rid of one particular instance of that feeling of fear, so while my fear of the Arch has been cured, my fear of flying has not.
Another technique is regression therapy, which is the type of hypnosis that I experienced when I went back to past memories. Henderson says in hypnotherapy, all of the memories a person possesses are involved. A hypnototherapist can tell a client to travel back to the time when the weight gain, smoking, phobias or insomnia first occurred. The hypnototherapist can then plant suggestions that will improve the problem in the subconscious. The hypnototherapist first takes the client on mind trips, such as to a garden or the beach, in order to get to the deepest form of relaxation. Some people can hear everything in this setting, including the waves and birds chirping, while other people, such as myself, just see the images. After the client is relaxed, the hypnototherapist gets to the root of the problem by taking them back to past memories.
Another form of regression therapy is past-life regression therapy, which is what I went through when I was taken back to the prairie. Morgan says past-life regression is useful when the root of the client's problem lies within his or her beliefs that may have been carried with them from another lifetime. Henderson says she once had a client that had a pain in his stomach a doctor couldn't diagnose. When Henderson hypnotized him to go back to the first day of the pain, the client went back to a past life in which he drank poison. When brought back to the present, he was healed. Henderson says it is possible that the subconscious makes up the story, but the truth about past-life regression remains a mystery to hypnotherapists.
Another technique involves simply substituting a bad habit with something healthier. Dave Aycock, vice president of investments at UBS Financial Services in Overland Park, had been a smoker for 20 years. When his mother developed lung cancer in October, she begged him to quit. Aycock had seen a special on the television show 20/20 about how hypnosis was used for weight loss and figured the same could be done for smoking. Aycock went to Sears for hypnotherapy and cut his smoking in half after the first session. He says he had such a desire to quit for his mother that planting the suggestions to his subconscious was easy. Sears replaced Aycock's craving for cigarettes with a cravings for water so he wouldn't constantly eat to subdue the cravings. While Aycock says he still had to resist some cravings, he quit smoking completely after two sessions. He says that hypnotheraphy was so effective that he wants to go back for eating and sleeping issues.
Being hypnotized feels like a massage, you are deeply relaxed. Henderson compares the experience to being at a movie. "My husband and I went to a movie the