Part of the Casswiki article series Psychology
Hypnos was the Greek god of sleep, and that is essentially what happens when one is being hypnotized. The conscious mind is put to sleep leaving the subconscious open to suggestion and receptive to commands. Hypnosis is well-known as being associated with psychological treatments or staged parlor tricks. However, the technique actually has a much greater presence in our daily lives, than we may be aware of.
The rise and fall of the evangelist preacher’s tone is designed to trigger a trance-like state in the conscious mind, leaving the subconscious open to inserting the message of the preaching.
Printed advertisements also make use of hypnosis. The messages are frequently filled with subliminal images that may bypass the conscious mind, but which the subconscious will easily pick up and retain.
Perhaps the most pervasive mode of modern hypnosis is found in television. Many TV programs are precisely that, “programs” designed to rewire the beliefs and convictions of the viewer’s subconscious mind by inserting new associations that are grouped together according to the producer’s desired behavioral modification. Used as a commercial tool, Coca-Cola for instance may be associated with sensuality and desire, instead health concerns. As a political tool, the War on Terror is associated, in sound and images, with freedom and noble valor, instead of genocide and trauma. With these techniques in mind, it gives a new, more sinister, meaning to the often repeated phrase on TV - ‘We now return to our scheduled programming” (… of your subconscious via hypnotic suggestion).