How the Hypnoidal State Explains Mood and Flow States
Common Elements of Negative and Positive Mood States and Hypnoidal States
Did you ever notice that when you get angry, anger is all you can focus on, all you can think about? Did you notice how all the other positive aspects of your life seem to be erased or disappear in those moments? When we are depressed, everything seems grey, dull, and dismal, the only thoughts that seem to pass through our mind are negative ones. You might even say that our thoughts seem to be on a permanent automatic negative loop. No matter what positive things are happening around us or how much positive feedback we get, we still feel stuck in the negative. Similarly, those who experience OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) become triggered to obsess on a thought, behavior, action urge or impulse. It is all they can think about and nothing else seems to matter or exist. In many cases, it may feel impossible to fight the urge or impulse for people who struggle with this disorder. If you struggle with binge eating, you may recognize the feeling of being in a trance while eating. You may not remember what you were thinking, how long you were eating and may experience an overall numbing of senses during the binge if it has become a habitual state for you. These are hypnotic or trance states.
In a flow state or state of “peak performance” we are acting almost on auto pilot, as if our body knows exactly what to do, everything is flowing together perfectly and our thoughts, if there are any, are in complete alignment with what we are doing at that time. The rest of the world fades away. We don’t hear the other team’s fans taunting us. We don’t flinch at the obstacles we encounter or second guess ourselves. We don’t worry about what we have to do later. We have entered a hypnotic state in these moments.
Understanding hypnosis can help to explain how these states work and as you may have noticed, these states can either be beneficial, such as the flow state, or a hindrance, like the state of OCD, or less than ideal such as depression.
One key element of the simple definition of hypnosis is “entering a narrow range of focus where certain senses may be heightened”. When we are in hypnosis, we focus on certain things while others fade away or seem to disappear temporarily from our awareness. You may have heard someone describe a rageful event as the following “I saw red, I don’t remember anything else after that…I punched someone and I didn’t even feel the pain until later”.
We also tend to default to our auto pilot setting in this state of being. These elements can be useful when we are in our “flow state or peak performance” or detrimental if we are in what is considered more of a negative mood state, for example an anger state or state of depression.
Hypnotherapy vs. Everyday Hypnosis
During a hypnotherapy session, the hypnotherapist will encourage you to enter a hypnotic state for therapeutic purposes. The purpose has usually already been discussed and the session carefully crafted by the therapist. However, when we go into hypnotic states on our own it is usually a transition that we are unaware of, something that has not been planned, crafted, or decided upon. We may pass through several light states of hypnosis daily depending on a variety of factors and associations that have been made or habits that have been built.
Being in our flow state or “peak performance”, as athletes call it, is an amazing feeling. Our muscles are working together on auto pilot, we don’t even have to think about it. We feel like we are “in the zone”, unstoppable, connected to all of our resources mentally and physically without any outside interference. The results are equally amazing.
On the other hand, you can imagine how this narrow range of focus and auto-pilot or default mode may not be very useful for the negative mood states or when dealing with the difficulties of OCD. In these states of hypnosis we are connected to our subconscious mind, but we have limited access to our logic, wisdom, willpower and impulse control, which are elements of the conscious mind. The critical filter mechanism in our mind is temporarily removed which would be great if you wanted to be open to beneficial or supportive new information or perspective but bad if you are in a negative state where your already focused on angry thoughts, depressed thoughts or obsessive thoughts. In the hypnotic state thought becomes reinforced. In the hypnotic state thought becomes self-suggestion and more easily dropped into our subconscious mind, especially when the critical filter barrier has been temporarily removed.
Pulling Yourself out of a Hypnotic state
So how do you get yourself out of the hypnotic state when it is not helpful? Here are some techniques:
1) Once you notice you are in a trance state, you could “count yourself out” similar to how we come out of hypnosis in a hypnotherapy session. You could say out loud “1-2-3-4-5 Eyes Open Wide Awake!”
2) Once you notice you are in a trance state you could utilize the ”5-4-3-2-1 Grounding Technique”. State 5 things you can see in the space around you, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell and 1 thing you can taste”. The more specific and detailed you are about the description of each, the better.
3) Once you notice you are in a trance state, you could begin to control your breath. Any type of breathing exercise is fine for example, count out 10 breaths saying “in” on the inhale and “out” on the exhale or take 3 deep diaphragmatic breaths breathing in through the nose for a count of 3 and out through the mouth for a count of 6. Our bodies will always breath on their own but to control our breath we must become present which helps to pull us out of a trance state.
4) Once you notice you are in a trance state, you could pull yourself out of it by shifting your body and therefore waking up all your senses. You could stretch, stand, dance, make big circles with your arms, walk, stomp, or do some jumping jacks for example.
As with many elements of life, there are are pros and cons to be explored in relation to the hypnoidal state and its role in various mood states. The more you know and understand it, the better you can benefit from it or pull yourself out of it when it is not helpful to you!