The British Medical Association and the American Medical Association has called 
it "a temporary condition of altered attention in the subject that may be induced by another 
person," (Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia) but there is still much about hypnosis that 
is not understood. Because it resembles normal sleep, it was studied and was found that the 
brain waves of hypnotized people are more similar to the patterns of deep relaxation than 
anything else. Rather than a psychic or mystical idea, hypnosis is now looked upon as a 
form of highly focused concentration in which outside influences are ignored. 
	The most known feature of the hypnotic trance is that hypnotized person becomes 
easily influenced by the suggestions others-usually the hypnotist. They retain their abilities
to act and are able to walk, talk, speak, and respond to questions; but their perceptions can 
be altered or distorted by external suggestions. At the command of the hypnotist, subjects 
may lose all feeling in a place on the body, and any kind of pain will not cause them any 
pain. The heartbeat can be slowed or quickened, and a rise in temperature and perspiration 
can be created. They can be commanded to experience visual or auditory hallucinations or  
live the past as if it were the present. Also, recently a scientist discovered that the way the 
subject's mind experiences time can be altered so that hours or even weeks can pass in 
second, from the subjects point of view.  Subjects may forget part or all of the hypnotic 
experience or recall things that they had forgotten.  The hypnotist may also make 
"posthypnotic suggestions" that are instructions to the subject to respond to a something 
after awakening. For example, the hypnotist might suggest that, after the subject wakes up 
he will have an urge to remove his left shoe, and the more the subject resists, the greater 
the urge to remove it will be, and once it is removed the urge leaves.  These suggestions 
are sometimes used by specialists to repress or suggest away symptoms in a patient such as 
anxiety, itching, or headaches. 
	Hypnosis is produced essentially by creating a deep relaxation and focused 
concentration in the subject. They then become mostly unresponsive to ordinary forms of 
stimulation, and although they are sometimes told to sleep, they are also told to listen and 
be ready to respond to commands made by the hypnotist.  The word sleep is used in 
hypnosis not to induce actual sleep, but in practice it is understood that sleep is simply the 
hypnotic trance.  The prefix hypno- is named after the Greek god Hypno which means 
"sleep."  In this state they will accept commands, even if the suggestions are illogical. In 
general, however, subjects cannot be made to do something that conflicts with their moral 
sense. This is because there are beliefs that are impossible to change, because that person 
feels so strongly about it, subjects would not be likely to commit murder or robbery even if 
the instructer told them to do so.  There are hypothetically two layers of "morals" that, of 
course cannot be seen.  On the first layer is the morals that were installed throughout the 
life of the patient.  The second layer is generally called the "fixed" morals.  The classical 
methods used to produce hypnosis are usually simple and frequently employ direct 
commands or monotonous suggestions repeated continuously. Subjects are requested to 
concentrate on the hypnotist's voice, or they may be asked to concentrate on some object or 
to concentrate on some repetitive sound. The hypnotist tells the subject over and over again 
to feel relaxed, or to let his or her eyelids grow heavy and close, to breathe deeply and 
comfortably, and to go into a deep sleep. The degree of hypnosis is tested by challenging 
subjects to perform some simple task while suggesting that they cannot do it. For instance, 
the hypnotist may say, "You will be unable to open your eyes no matter how hard you try, 
and the more you try, the more tightly they will be closed." The process of induction may 
take a few hours or a few seconds, depending on how often the subject undergoes it, and 
also depends on how willing the subject is. Usually, if suggestions are made during 
hypnosis that it will be easy to induce hypnosis again, the subject will usually enter a 
trance almost instantly upon an agreed signal from the hypnotist.   In conjunction with these 
induction methods, drugs such as sodium pentothal, alcohol, and certain barbiturates may 
be used to make the procedure easier, but these are hardly ever necessary and can 
sometimes even be dangerous. Aside from normal methods, there are a number of 
specialized techniques used by some psychiatrists to hypnotize their patients. There are a 
number of other techniques as well-a blow to the side of the neck (a method used by some 
stage magicians), among others-that are not approved by the medical profession and that 
can be highly dangerous.
	Subjects are wakened at the command of the hypnotist, who usually orders them 
to return to their normal state and suggests that they will feel alert and well afterward. 
Some subjects may still feel disoriented and drowsy for a period following a trance.   In 
order to produce hypnosis, the hypnotist should have an authority over the subject. Many 
experts believe that the more the subject believes in the power of the hypnotist, the more 
readily he or she will give way to hypnotic suggestion. Many factors seem to contribute to 
hypnotic susceptibility, however, but it is still unclear what these factors are. There is 
evidence to indicate that a good subject tends not to be anxious, but to be interested in new 
experiences, imaginative, and intelligent; some research also suggests that hypnotic 
susceptibility is in part genetically determined. Only 5 or 10 percent of the population can 
be hypnotized deeply enough to experience the very deepest of the hypnotic trance.  This 
very deep trance is when the border between sleep and extreme hypnosis starts to grow 
thin.  Some of the patients that can go this deep have actually dreamed, while still being 
fully aware of everything around them.  Estimates of susceptibility vary greatly because of 
the continued disagreement concerning the exact nature of hypnosis. Some authorities claim 
that anyone is potentially hypnotizable and that failure to induce a hypnotic trance is due to 
either poor technique on the part of the hypnotist or resistance on the part of the subject. 
There are also researchers who assert that hypnotism, as it is generally understood, 
does not exist at all, and thus the question of susceptibility is irrelevant. They believe that 
hypnosis is not a result of some alteration in the subject's capacities or mental state but is a 
consequence of "role playing" based upon the subject's preconceptions of how hypnotized 
persons behave, their expectations, and their willingness to volunteer and eagerness to 
experience something unusual. 
	When hypnosis first gained the attention of scientists, it was called animal 
magnetism or mesmerism, after Franz Mesmer of Vienna. In the late 18th century, Mesmer 
claimed to use it to heal certain ailments. He thought some sort of magnetism was 
transferred from him to his patients, and that it changed their body fluids. For many 
years mesmerism was denounced by medical practitioners and generally associated with 
stage performances and superstition.   In the 19th century, before the discovery of 
anesthetics, physicians started to use mesmerism in surgery. They found that a deeply 
hypnotized patient would lie perfectly still and appear unaffected by pain, even during 
operations as serious as an amputation. Around 1840 a doctor named James Braid created
the term hypnosis, which means a "nervous sleep." The new name was more acceptable 
than mesmerism, with its reputation of fraud, and it soon replaced the older term. In the 
mid- to late 19th century several physicians, including Jean-Martin Charcot and Sigmund 
Freud, became interested in the use of hypnosis in the practice of medicine.   Today 
hypnosis is widely and successfully used by medical occupations such as surgeons, 
dentists, and psychotherapists. Physicians may use it to remove anxiety or as an anesthetic. 
Psychotherapists use it to relax the patient, to reduce resistance to therapy, to help their
memory, and even to treat some conditions. Hypnosis is also used in specialized therapies 
such as those that help a person to stop smoking, eat less, or fight specific fears, such as 
fear of heights. It is unclear, however, if such procedures have any positive long-term 
effects. Hypnosis has also been used during police interviews to help the witnesses with 
their memory.  Regardless of the application, hypnosis should be left to those who are 
properly trained. When used by untrained persons it may have undesirable and even 
dangerous effects.