[img]560|left|Nicholas D. Pollak|remove link|no_popup[/img]As I grow older, time seems to go by much more quickly. I used to smile when I saw our senior citizens in stores purchasing Christmas gifts for their grandchildren or adult children in July. Now I understand why. Time flies. Worse, as I continue to age, the time goes by even more quickly.

A year before my father passed away, I was visiting with him in England. He had started to pack a suitcase. I asked where he was going. He said he and his (second) wife (not my mother) were going to Egypt for a vacation in two week. He wanted to make sure he had everything ready. I thought he was crazy, but I soon realized how swiftly time is passing for me Since my father was 35 years my senior, he probably wondered if he had time to do anything between getting out of bed, showering and eating and getting ready for bed again in the evening.

I treat this lightheartedly but I understand how important time is to us all. We must handle it effectively to get the most out of it.

Time Feels Like Avalanche

Occasionally, clients ask me to help them regain control over their lives. They are overwhelmed with all they need to do, and they believe they don’t have enough time.

Such clients often are somnambulists. Outside of hypnotherapy circles, a somnambulist is a sleepwalker. Inside hypnotherapy circles, a somnambulist is a deep level hypnotic candidate who quickly accepts suggestions. These types only need one or two sessions to resolve their issues.

An example: Recently I went with my wife to Lancaster to visit with an elderly friend of hers experiencing age-related health problems. She was asleep when we arrived. We spoke with her care provider, who also is a friend of my wife. This kind lady said she really wanted to quit smoking. Could I help. I said I would need to test how deep a hypnotic candidate she was.

As it turned out, she hypnotized deeply in five seconds. I suggested to her while in hypnosis that the smell of cigarettes was disgusting and that the harder she tried to smoke, the more difficult it became. I said her desire to smoke was eliminated and she would suffer no withdrawals. She would be happy every time she thought she wanted to smoke but did not give in. As a somnambulist, she accepted the suggestions.

Mercurial Turnaround

When the hypnosis was complete five minutes later, she remembered standing when the hypnosis started and when she came out she was sitting down. She was amazed, even more so when she went to her car and could not stand the cigarette smell there. She was further stunned that after four days she had not smoked a cigarette and did not have an urge to smoke.

That is a somnambulist.

I had a similar experience with another client who had taken up smoking 10 years before. Smoking a pack a day, he wanted to stop. After one session, he not only had quit, he has not smoked since.

Somnambulists find it difficult to deal with time. They will tackle whatever is placed before them, regardless of where they have to be or what they are supposed to be doing. Their attention moves from one thing to another with no notion of completing what they had started – or even realizing the interruption.

Hypnosis is created by literally by overloading the conscious mind, giving it so much information that the conscious mind cannot keep up with it. The person tunes out because he is overwhelmed. It is not that the somnambulist is a bad person because he does not fulfill tasks, constantly switching from one task to another, it is just that they are overloaded.

How many somnambulists are there in the world? One in five. Interestingly, a book written in 1896 about hypnotism in general reported that English and Americans were the hardest to hypnotize. Blacks, Hispanics and Eastern Europeans were the easiest. I have found this to be true.

It is easy for a hypnotherapist to help a somnambulist become more focused, to gain more control over his life. Once a hypnotherapist has helped, the somnambulist’s suggestibility changes just enough to reduce or eliminate his somnambulism.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me by telephone, 310.204.3321, or by email at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net. See my website at www.hypnotherapy4you.net