How to judge hypnotic trance depth and is it important?

There are as many methods of judging hypnotic trance depth, as there are practitioners of hypnosis.

At one time only three levels of trance depth were considered to be important -- light, medium, and deep.

This is inadequate because a greater degree of differentiation is necessary to accomplish all the current applications for hypnosis, such as dental work, surgery, child birth and age regression.

We divide trance depth into two general divisions.

Yhe first three stages are Mnesic, or memory retaining.

The second three stages are Amnesic, or the forgetting stages. This is what we call temporary selective amnesia. Upon awakening and with proper suggestions, you do not remember what transpired under hypnosis.

Catalepsy

In the first three stages, you will see muscular inability in varying degrees.

Anmesia

In the third stage, you will see some inability to articulate a number, for example. In the fourth stage, you will totally forget a number and not be able to articulate it.

Anesthesia

In the fourth stage of trance depth, you will feel analgsia -- no pain but some pressure. During the fifth stage you will have anesthesis, feeling neither pain nor pressure.

Hallucinations

During the fifth and sixth levels of hypnotic trance, there will first be positive haluciations of seeing and hearng what actually is not there. In the sixth level, you will not see or hear what actually is there.

You really only need to know about depth stages for working with dental patients, surgery, childbirth or age regression.

For most hypnosis and for doing your own self hypnosis, the light stages are all that you need to accomplish behavior changes to achieve your goals with hypnosis.

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