·                                 "You are completely relaxed... you feel warm and comfortable … you feel you really need to close your eyes and sleep... your eyelids are getting heavy... heavier... and heavier... slowly, you close them... now they are closed... you are getting sleepier.... and sleepier.... you are going to SLEEP...... deeper and deeper asleep... SLEEP!"

Many of us are familiar with this scene: A bizarre-looking man holds a clock pendant and continuously, determinedly swings it in front of a vulnerable, lost-looking young woman. He utters the phrase repeatedly, in slower and lower intonation: “You’re getting sleepy… You’re getting sleepy…” The girl stares blankly into the clock. The world turns and swirls around her, spiraling and spiraling. Then eventually, she starts to act like (a) a zombie, (b) a vamp, (c) a chicken, or (d) all of the above simultaneously.

Thanks to popular culture, hypnosis has achieved a mystical and sometimes evil reputation. While the scenario illustrated above may have a little ring of truth to it (Hypnosis using verbal suggestion is powerful; and people under hypnosis can be made to believe and therefore act as a different identity), there is certainly a lot more than meets the eye about hypnosis.

Doubtless one of the most intriguing – yet also one of the most bewildering – topics to come across man, hypnosis transcends boundaries as it continues to be studied, analyzed, and interpreted in diverse fields of wisdom. From medicine, psychology, new age, self-help, religion, history, media and popular culture, hypnosis is accorded with different meanings, interpretations, and uses: the conclusions never final, the reports ever-evolving.

This may be rooted from one thesis: that studying hypnosis would inevitably mean studying the human mind, and definitely the human mind is an ever-changing overlapping universe of significance, interpretation, and purpose.

In this site, I will touch on the different aspects of understanding hypnosis, and how it can be used in your daily life.

History of hypnosis starts from ancient times. In ancient times, hypnosis mainly was used for healing purposes, especially in religious ceremonies. The earliest evidence of its existence was shamans.

Shaman paid special attention to the concentration before healing someone. He avoided the use of any chemicals or alcoholic substances in the first 24 hours of the process. Because he needed a strong concentration, so he avoided anything distracting.

Hypnosis has been a part of ancient cultures in places such as Egypt. The earliest written records can be found in Ebers Papyrus - an Egyptian medical text. Ebers Papyrus preserves the most voluminous record of ancient Egyptian medicine.

The Ancient Egyptians had their Temples of Sleep and the Greeks their Shrines of Healing. Sleep temples were hospitals of sorts, healing a variety of ailments. Treatment involved chanting, dancing, placing the patient into a hypnotic state and analyzing their dreams in order to determine treatment.

The elements of hypnosis are also seen in Persian Magi, Celtic Druids, Chinese teachers of religion, Hindu Fakirs and African Witch Doctors.

This is an ancient history of hypnosis and how people used it. Learning ancient hypnosis history helps to understand the modern hypnosis better and improve hypnosis techniques in this way.