Hypnosis at school.

So for the past few days they have been running advertisements for a senior rally at my high school. This particular rally takes the senior class and puts them under hypnosis.

I couldn't find the ad but in it you see high school students wearing colored wigs and smearing on clown makeup with blank faces and some are dancing etc.

Now I'll admit that I am no hypnosis expert but from everything that I've read it is very dangerous to hypnotize somebody because you can create memories in their head (ie the miami police cases a few years back). Now I'm just wondering if this sounds wrong to anybody else.

Hypnosis isn't dangerous. It's just a focused state of brainwaves. WHen you're under hypnosis, you can only do things out of your own will- If you don't want to recall a certain memory, you won't. If you don't want to stand up in front of a crowd (under hypnosis) and take off your shirt, you wouldn't.

I have never understood the hype behind hypnosis. I have been hypnotized before and I was always aware of everything going on and I never would have done anything against my will. Or rather I would not have done anything that I wouldn't normally do while not hypnotized. It felt more like an exceedingly relaxed state where I was able to concentrate and think more clearly.

On the other hand my concern would be what the point of this exercise was. With no real information about the thing they were doing, it seems pointless. What was their reason for doing it?

Hypnosis just puts your brain into a state where you are more suggestible, and less likely to objectively process information. It is pretty much just like watching TV without paying too close attention to what you are watching. Although, even newspapers can be pretty effective.

Sorry for the short response....real life is calling but I wanted to respond...

Anything that can make you forget, without need of your consent once someone has been given the reigns of your consciousness....Is not a good thing. I will endeavour to respond in more detail within the next day or two....

What you are referring to is called stage hypnosis and is hardly "wrong" or scary/bad.. the type of hypnosis you want to watch out for is subliminal, television, radio, magazines.. etc direction and focus is what you have to pay attention to, the direction they point and the focus they take while pointing out the direction...

it would take a very skilled hypnotist to make people do immoral things, or to do things that a person wouldn't normally do.
If you are at all interested in learning more about hypnosis, check out

+Milton H. Erickson
Tad James
Chris Howard
*Richard Bandler
*John Grinder
Virginia Satire
Robert Dilts
Rick Boyes
Thomas Best
Jonathan Royle
Kenrick Cleveland
Mark Cunningham

*Co-creators of NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
+ The "God-Father" of Hypnosis.

_______

The real hypnosis in school is yacking at children while they're all spaced out, giving them information that usually turns out to be false and/or questionable.
Involving them in meaningless tasks that couldn't interest a monkey while giving them commands like they can't read, they aren't artistic... they aren't athletic etc.. which many teachers do in frustration.

I think school could have been done a lot differently and would have interested me much more and taught me MUCH more than it did.
I am not knocking schools altogether because the idea is great... it's just not what it SHOULD be.

[edit on 3/6/2008 by PuRe EnErGy]

Well I guess my real concern is the message it sends to the kids. This could send the message that "yeah it's okay to get hypnotized, it's alright to give up control to somebody else". To me it just seems kinda fishy in lew of all the propaganda being set up for the police state etc. And of course it could always be that I'm just paranoid

It will actually be hypnosis that will stop this garbage from taking place if anything. Once the population is educated to the realities of hypnosis and hypnotherapy it will be easier to identify when it's being used in a negative manner.

id be more worried about the Pavlov-style hypnosis being covertly used against kids via bells at timed intervals, as opposed to the blatant hypnosis used for pep rallies.

Just wanted to give a little update and say that from what I've heard (I'm a Junior so I couldn't go to the rally) the hypnotist made guys kiss each other. I heard this from a very reliable person too so I don't doubt that it's true. Now call me crazy, and no I am in no way homophobic, but I think that's taking it a little too far.

I agree, stage hypnosis makes honest hypnotherapists look bad.
That is indeed going too far, I could see many much more tasteful things that he/she could have done in replace of the male on male kissing fest.
stage hypnosis tends to be rather 'adult' in nature for some reason, I feel that maybe those who are involved in it are perhaps acting out some fantasies or fetishes..

so is hypnosis good or bad?

that's like asking if a hammer and nails are bad for you.

It's merely a tool.

watch derren brown sometime. you'll see that there are ways of implanting suggestions without going through the whole "watch the pendulum/you're getting sleepy" schpeel.

example:
www.youtube.com...

what he did at the beginning to make him suggestible was break a routine behavior (handshake) to trigger a state that made the mind search for instructions or cues on how to proceed.

There is WAAAAAAYYYY more than just using a break-state and embedded commands taking place in that example, as someone who actually knows NLP and hypnosis; the whole 'watch the pendulum/you're getting sleepy' schpeel is a stereotype which is most useless.
Derren Brown has been studying and utilizing NLP and similar techniques since the 1980's, early 90's .. and he has chosen to make a television show where he uses he own creativity and displays the power and tricks of the mind.

[edit on 3/11/2008 by PuRe EnErGy]