Many years ago when I had my first official training in hypnosis, the instructor began the training by asking us "Do you want to know what hypnosis feels like?" Everyone nodded.

The instructor then said, "Close your eyes". And after few moments he said "Now, open them." That's what hypnosis feels like.

Perhaps you can recall a time when you just found yourself gazing at something, without really being aware of what it is you were looking at, and after a short while realizing that your attention was turned inward and you were absorbed in some thoughts going through your mind, oblivious to the external environment. That's hypnosis.

A hypnotist may sometimes use an external object - these days there are not many who would dangle a watch in front of your eyes, but some may ask you to fix your attention upon a hand, finger, or ring or to pick a spot on the wall, slightly above your eye level.

One purpose of this is that sooner or later your eyes will get tired and you will want to close them naturally. Another purpose is that when there is nothing interesting happening in the external world, your attention naturally shifts inward and you find yourself in hypnosis.

When people practice self-hypnosis, they may also pick a spot on the wall, or use a candle flame or a crystal ball as a focusing device.

During hypnosis session, a hypnotist may ask you several times to open your eyes and then to close them again. Each time you open your eyes and close them, you begin to drift deeper and deeper into a wonderfully relaxed state of hypnosis.

In hypnosis, this is called "fractionation" and the purpose of this is to help you reach greater depth of hypnosis, so during one session you can go as deep as if you have practiced getting into trance through several sessions of hypnosis, as the effect and level of relaxation and depth of trance becomes compounded.

Moving your eyes in different eye positions, you access parts of your brain and neurology that process information in different ways. In Neuro-Linguistic Programming, these are called eye-accessing cues.

To begin with, closing your eyes and turning them upward, will also change your brainwave pattern and you will find yourself getting into what some call "alpha state" and may drift further into "theta state".

These are the ideal states for practicing self-hypnosis, and for that matter for praying.

On a side note, when people put their hands together in front of their chest, as in "prayer position" , this particular hand position has the effect of synchronizing left and right hemisphere of the brain, and if you pay attention to what is happening within you, you may discover that you feel more calm and centered.

Directing your attention to the top of your head, you open your neurology to the information from your superconscious mind.

In your normal daily life, even when your eyes are open, if you turn your eyes upward, you are accessing part of your brain that processes visual information.

Most people turn their eyes up and to the left when they access remembered visual information; and most people turn their eyes up and to the right when they are creating (constructing) new visual information.

To find out whether your eyes work like the majority of people, simply think of some visual information related to some past event.

To find out how other people access remembered visual information, you can ask them to describe some place from their childhood, for example a place where they grew up and look at the position of their eyes.

For those who are convinced that they cannot visualize things, just pay attention where their eyes go.

If they are looking upward while talking to you, you can rest assured that they are accessing the visual part of their brain and therefore, they are successfully visualizing, even though they may not be aware of it.

The opposite eye position of the one which people use to access visually remembered information is the one where they access visually constructed information (again, most people turn their eyes up to the right).

Some people used to think that if you ask people a question about a past event and they are turning their eyes where they access visually constructed information, that they are deliberately lying. But this is not necessarily so.

Sometimes a person may be comparing past event to some other possibilities, or looking for some information he doesn't clearly recall.

Much better way to discover whether someone is lying or telling the truth is to look for incongruencies - discrepancies between words and behavior and unnaturally long pauses.

If you ask someone a question to which the answer is simple, as in "who is on the phone?" and the person is taking quite some time to come up with an answer, well, he is probably "making up" an answer.

When your eyes are at a level position, you are accessing auditory information - words, music or anything else you can hear.

When you turn your eyes to the left, you are accessing remembered auditory information, when you turn your eyes to the right, you are constructing auditory information.

With most people, when their eyes are turned downward to the right, they are accessing kinesthetic information - how something feels, and when their eyes are turned downward to the left, they are having internal monolog (talking to themselves inwardly, perhaps contemplating pros and cons of a particular issue).

Having the above information will help you in several ways. If you are having a challenge recalling some information, sometimes it helps turning your eyes slowly around.

This is like digging into different parts of your brain to bring out the information from wherever it may be stored. If you are feeling emotionally down, turning your eyes upward will help you to lift yourself up.

If you are around someone else who feels depressed, even raising your hand and pointing with your hand upward without saying a word, can help the person to lift the person out of depression.

If you need to remember visual information (e.g. how to spell words or mathematical formulas or where is something located) again, if you're not doing this already automatically, just remember to turn your eyes upward.

If you desire to remember what someone said or the words of some song, you can turn your eyes straight to the left. It will help you to recall the information. If you desire to get in touch with your feelings and to intensify them, you can turn your eyes down to the right.

If you want to help someone else to get in touch with his feelings, again you can point with your hand downward to the right - from the perspective of the person you desire to guide into the feeling state.

If you are trying to communicate with someone who is not saying much, just by observing that person's eye position, you will know whether the person is accessing feelings, or visual information or contemplating auditory information and you can formulate your question accordingly e.g.

"What are you feeling?" or "What are you seeing?" or "What are you listening to?" This, in turn will help you to establish rapport with the person and start communication process.

Thanks for sharing this Eerie~