It is important to understand the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind in order to understand how hypnosis works.
We constantly analyze, rationalize, and discriminate our thoughts and perceptions with our conscious mind; it constitutes a part of our short-term memory and intellect.
We generally become accustomed to ignoring, ingesting or repressing our subconscious thoughts and feelings just to get through our day.
It is for this reason that stress is often called a silent killer.
Our minds are really just islands floating on a vast subconscious ocean; an ocean whose depths are often unseen to us.
Subconscious minds control self-preservational mechanisms, habit centers, emotions, intuition, long-term memory, and body functions.
The subconscious works with imagery and metaphor rather than logic and logic alone. It doesn’t respond to reasons and facts the same way the intellect works. For example, most smokers intellectually ‘get’ the dangers of the habit to their health; but for them it is just a “concept”.
Additionally, subconsciousness is lazy and prefers the easiest routes.
When life feels chaotic, when we experience sudden loss or trauma, we see first hand how the subconscious mind overrides our body’s functions and intellect. At times like these we find it hard to eat, sleep, talk, or even think clearly.
When we grapple with a persistent habit such as nail biting or fear of public speaking and fail at resolving it, that is our subconscious taking control.
Sometime, when we believe we have resolved our sufferings, the subconscious send us a wake-up call: a psychosomatic symptom or illness years later in response to a traumatic event, just to remind us we cannot go on ignoring our feelings indefinitely.
A person cannot improve his or her life by just telling themselves that they “should” change, “just get over it”, or “get rational”.
You can communicate with your subconscious mind in trance if you mentally relive, recreate, or visualize memories as if in lucid dreaming.
It takes a strong desire to heal or change before you can access buried memories, unmask false beliefs, repair your self-esteem and restore your physical, mental or emotional health. It can sometimes produce miraculous results.