Common hypnosis techniques - A Bugs Bunny analogy

We have all seen the Bugs Bunny cartoons where he swings the watch in front of his adversary and hypnotises them to do silly and funny things. What I am going to do today is relate Bugs’ hypnosis techniques and how it relates to the common day.

Swinging watch = hypnosis induction
So Elma Fud wants to shoot Bugs Bunny but then Bugs uses a watch and swings it in front of Elma’s eyes until he is almost sleeping. This can be directly related to a hypnotic induction which is the first step to hypnotising someone. The induction is a way of putting your subject into a relaxed state that makes it easier to put suggestions into their mind. Common techniques used in this day and age is to have the subject lie down and for you to mention relaxing scenarios that they can picture themselves in.


Bugs tells Elma to do something stupid = suggestion
This is the part where Elma will shoot himself in the foot or something like that without being able to stop himself. This is the suggestion part where the hypnotist puts a suggestion into the subjects mind. The cartoons speed this process up but what happens here is the subject is on the verge of sleep, but not quite, and their reaction process is extremely slow. This is the time that you can tell them to do something and there will be little resistance to that command.

Elma is waking up and Bug’s needs to swing the watch again = contact
This is when it has been a little time and Elma starts to realise what he is doing and begins to ‘wake up’. Bugs then needs to induce him again which correlates to contact. You need to be in control as the hypnotist and if the subject starts to control their thinking pattern without your suggestion you will lose them. Make sure that if you are hypnotising someone to constantly be in control and do not let your attention waver. Many hypnotists keep eye contact as much as possible because it keeps them focused on what they are doing.


Other hypnosis techniques
I hope the Bugs Bunny analogy was helpful in describing these common techniques. There are many other ways to persuade someone to do what you want including yourself (self hypnosis). Once you get better you can even skip the hypnosis induction and implement suggestion successfully! This is a little more advanced but trust me anyone can learn.