Unlocking the Truth About Hypnosis and the Subconscious Mind
- Brainz Magazine
- Feb 2
- 6 min read
Written by Ole Hill, Success Hypnotist
Ole Hill is Australia’s best hypnotist. He helps others harness the full power of their subconscious in order to make way more money, have better relationships, and overcome things that have been holding them back their whole life.
Will it make me do something crazy? Can my subconscious secrets be exposed? Whenever I tell someone I am a hypnotist, there is a mix of curiosity and shock in their eyes. Many are intrigued by hypnosis, but few truly understand what it is. I am here to clear up the confusion and dispel the notion that it is some kind of black magic. Instead, let’s dive deep into the science behind this life-changing tool.
1. Subconscious vs. Conscious mind
The "magic" of hypnosis is actually just an understanding of how the subconscious and conscious mind differ.
The conscious mind consists of everything we are aware of in a given moment. It includes our thoughts in the present and everything we are actively controlling. The subconscious mind, on the other hand, includes everything we are not consciously thinking about but that our mind is still aware of. While these processes typically run automatically, we can bring attention to them at any moment. Consider the feeling of your tongue in your mouth, the number of times you blink per minute, the act of manually controlling each breath, or the sensation of your body against the chair you are sitting on.
At any given time, our conscious mind can process between 150 and 250 bits of information. This is what we can actively hold in our awareness. Meanwhile, the subconscious mind processes between 150 and 250 million bits of information per second. As much as we like to believe our conscious thoughts dictate the direction of our lives, in reality, our subconscious thoughts, reactions, emotions, and automatic processes have a far greater influence, often without us even realizing it.
This is where hypnosis comes in. Not everything in our subconscious is helpful for achieving our conscious goals. Subconscious patterns are formed throughout our entire lives, but they develop primarily between the ages of zero and eight when the brain operates predominantly in the theta brainwave state.
This is why children can learn languages so easily. At this stage, all the information they take in goes straight to the subconscious mind. As adults, however, our brains operate mostly in the beta brainwave state, where our conscious, critical mind is much more active. This means it takes much longer for new information to be absorbed into the subconscious, making learning a new language a more effortful process. When speaking a language fluently, words flow effortlessly from the subconscious. But when you are learning a new language, every word is consciously processed, making speech feel slow and unnatural.
This perfectly illustrates how success in building our dream life is determined by our brain state. When we rely solely on our conscious mind, every step feels clunky and forced. However, when our subconscious is aligned with our goals, we can move forward effortlessly and naturally.
Think of your goals like a sentence. If your subconscious is familiar with the language of your aspirations, your actions flow effortlessly, leading to faster and more natural success. But when something goes against our subconscious, like learning a new language, every step requires conscious effort. While you might still be able to form the sentence, it will take significantly more time and energy, and it may never feel as natural as it does for a native speaker.
If your subconscious is not aligned with your goals, every step toward them will feel like forcing out a foreign sentence. No matter how hard you try or how much willpower you exert, it will always feel forced and difficult. Even worse, sometimes your subconscious actively works against your conscious aims.
The conscious, rational, and logical mind is infinitely weaker than the subconscious mind. This means we cannot rely on conscious effort alone to achieve our goals. Hypnosis helps bridge that gap by working directly with the subconscious, allowing us to remove limiting beliefs and reprogram our minds for success.
2. What can hypnosis do about that?
This is where the "secret" of hypnosis lies. There is so much magic in truly understanding the mechanisms of the brain because this allows us to activate and target our automatic success machine, the subconscious mind. Due to the extreme limitations of the conscious mind, we can easily deactivate it. This is what happens when we enter a trance.
Through any combination of the five main hypnotic mechanisms, we fully occupy and confuse the conscious, rational mind until it steps aside. This causes the usual Conscious Critical Faculty, which acts as a filter between the conscious and subconscious mind, to temporarily deactivate. These mechanisms include:
Shock Induction
Progressive Relaxation
Eye Fascination
Conversational Hypnosis
Pattern Interrupt
This allows us to communicate and work directly with the subconscious mind. You may have tried to lose weight many times and failed. Perhaps you have tried to become more confident, and then one day, something just clicked. Or maybe you have struggled to form a new habit for years without success. The failure or sudden success of new behaviors is all due to the subconscious mind.
No new habit or behavior will stick unless it is cemented in the subconscious mind. Trauma, extreme desire, or extreme consistency can all imprint a belief or behavior into the subconscious. However, these methods are often slow, painful, and rarely easy. That is the beauty of working with the subconscious directly through hypnosis. It is instant, permanent, and painless. The subconscious mind is so powerful that no amount of conscious willpower can overcome it. That is why past attempts to change your life may have failed. Whatever conscious effort you were making was not aligned with your subconscious mind.
In hypnosis, we silence the conscious mind. We remove the Conscious Critical Faculty, the barrier to your subconscious mind, and guide you into the theta brainwave state, where programming happens. This aligns your ultra-powerful subconscious mind with the changes you have been trying to make all along.
No more fighting your inner programming. Just alignment with your goals, leading to more confidence, ease, and speed in achieving them.
3. Finally, what does hypnosis feel like?
The best description is that hypnosis feels like the deepest meditation you have ever experienced. There are multiple levels and depths to hypnosis, and the deeper you go, the more profound the changes you will experience. Although we use the word "sleep" to induce hypnosis, you are never actually going to sleep. When you are in hypnosis, you are still fully aware of what is happening around you. If you were asleep, you would not be able to hear my voice or follow the instructions I am giving your mind.
It is similar to a sleepwalking state, and interestingly, you will often see signs of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. As many of my health-focused readers will know, this is the deep sleep phase we track using WHOOP straps and Oura rings to measure how rejuvenating our sleep is. It is the deepest possible relaxation for both the body and mind, and deeply hypnotized subjects often reach this level. The distinct eye fluttering, known as rapid eye movement, that occurs at this depth of hypnosis cannot be consciously replicated. Witnessing this always eliminates any doubts from onlookers.
However, while we can access, work with, and change everything happening in your subconscious mind, this does not mean I can read your thoughts. There is no telepathy involved. While my skill level in hypnosis may make it seem like I can read minds or use mind control, there is nothing supernatural at play. This is simply the natural, automatic functioning of your brain being used to its fullest potential.
Clients are often initially concerned that I might access secret or repressed memories. This could not be further from the truth. Not only will I never access or reveal something without your permission, but we can actually resolve and heal trauma without you having to relive it. Many of my clients have been through painful and ineffective psychotherapy sessions where they were asked to relive their trauma. Not only did that fail to heal their problems, but it also added emotional weight, reinforcing these subconscious patterns.
With hypnosis, we go directly to forming a new, positive belief and erase the old one without any painful, ineffective, or outdated trauma of reliving the past.
For further questions or to learn more about how to change your life instantly and build your dream life, DM or follow me on Instagram.
Read more from Ole Hill
Ole Hill, Success Hypnotist
Ole Hill is Australia’s best hypnotist for wealth, health, and relationships. A near-death experience in his family taught him the true value of time and left him desperate to find the mental shortcuts that allow the world’s most successful minds to make the most of every second of life. He helps others harness the full power of their subconscious in order to make way more money, have better relationships, and overcome things that have been holding them back their whole life.
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