this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2026
21 points (100.0% liked)
Asklemmy
53579 readers
743 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Relaxed body is going to generally activate your parasympathetic nervous system and relax your brain as well - here is a study showing that progressive muscle relaxation has a statistically significant effect: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8272667/
And I can guarantee you that you go into a theta state during sleep. Young children up to age of 7 spend a lot of time in a theta state, and as adults, we go there during REM sleep. It's considered to be a highly suggestible state, that's why it's used in hypnosis (more on theta: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theta_wave)
Hypnosis is nothing mystical like some people claim. It's literally just putting you into a deeply relaxed state so your brain is more willing to go with whatever is happening, but you still retain full control and can choose not to accept a suggestion.
When it comes to deeper hypnotic states and people claiming they couldn't control themselves and did what the hypnotist told them to - I cannot speak to that because I am not trained to do that, and I am not sure exactly how that works because I've never experienced it or witnessed it.
I do believe that some people are highly suggestible while others are not - and IMO it has to be with how easily they can go into that theta state. I've had clients who just couldn't get into it no matter what we tried - and it wasn't because of aphantasia, they just have a hard time relaxing in general and are concernced about what is going to happen under hypnosis. It's not for them, and that's fine.
I don't believe that there is a single therapy approach out there that will work for everyone - although purists will definitely claim their approach is the best.