Yes, Everyone Can Be Hypnotized: Understanding What Hypnosis Really Is

The Myth That's Keeping You From Help

"I don't think I can be hypnotized."

I hear this almost weekly. Someone sits across from me, genuinely interested in hypnotherapy for anxiety, chronic pain, or breaking unwanted patterns, but convinced they're one of those people who "just can't be hypnotized."

Maybe a hypnotherapist told you this after a failed "suggestibility test." Maybe you tried a stage hypnosis show and nothing happened. Maybe you've just heard that only certain people are "hypnotizable," and you're worried you're not one of them.

Here's what I want you to understand: this entire premise is wrong. The question isn't whether you can be hypnotized. The question is when you're being hypnotized, and by whose content.

Let me explain what I mean.

The Mistake Most Hypnotherapists Make

Many hypnotherapists operate from a fundamental misunderstanding about what hypnosis actually is. They believe hypnosis is some special state that can only be accessed under certain circumstances, with certain techniques, by certain people who possess some innate "hypnotizability trait."

This simply isn't true.

This misconception has created unnecessary barriers between people who could benefit from hypnotherapy and the help they need. It's turned hypnosis into something mystical and rare when it's actually something utterly ordinary and universal.

Everyone can be hypnotized.

But we need to talk about how your brain actually works throughout the day, so you can get there. Not in complicated neuroscience terms, but in a way that makes the reality of hypnosis obvious.

Your Brain Throughout the Day: A Natural Symphony of States

Right now, as you read these words, your brain is producing electrical activity. This activity creates patterns we measure as brainwaves, and these waves operate at different frequencies depending on what you're doing and experiencing.

You naturally move through different brainwave states all day long without even thinking about it. Let me introduce you to the four major ones:

Beta (14-30 Hz): Your Active, Alert State

This is where you spend much of your waking day. Beta is your problem-solving, decision-making, conversing-with-others state. When you're focused on tasks, planning your schedule, or engaged in analytical thinking, you're in beta. It's not bad or good, it's just active and externally focused.

Alpha (8-13 Hz): Your Relaxed, Receptive State

Alpha is that lovely state of calm alertness. You drop into alpha when you're daydreaming, taking a leisurely walk, enjoying a shower, or sitting quietly with your morning coffee before the day's demands kick in. You're awake and aware but not actively working on anything. Your mind is more open, more receptive. This is where creativity often emerges, where insights bubble up seemingly from nowhere.

Theta (4-7 Hz): Your Deep Relaxation and Meditative State

Theta is deeper still. You experience it in deep meditation, in that twilight zone between waking and sleeping, and during REM sleep when you're dreaming. This is where deep memories are stored and accessed. It's also where profound insights and emotional processing happen. Artists, musicians, and writers often describe accessing theta states during their most creative moments.

Delta (0.5-3 Hz): Your Deepest Sleep State

Delta is your slowest brainwave pattern, associated with deep, dreamless sleep. This is where physical healing happens, where growth hormone releases, where your body does its deepest restorative work. You're not consciously aware during delta, but it's essential for your wellbeing.

Now here's what matters for our conversation about hypnosis: you move through these states naturally, automatically, throughout every single day and night. You don't need special training or innate ability. You already do it.

You're Already Doing It: Daily Hypnotic States

Think about your day yesterday. I'm willing to bet you experienced all of these moments:

You got absorbed in a good book or article, and suddenly realized twenty minutes had passed without you noticing. You were in alpha, possibly touching theta. The words on the page "suggested" a story to you, and you accepted those suggestions so fully that the outside world temporarily disappeared.

You watched a movie or TV show and felt genuine emotions about fictional characters. Your heart rate increased during a tense scene. You laughed at a comedy or cried during a sad moment. The screen "suggested" a reality to you, and your nervous system responded as if it were real. That's a light trance state.

You drove home on a familiar route and realized when you arrived that you barely remember the journey. Your conscious mind was elsewhere while your subconscious handled the driving beautifully. That's what we call "highway hypnosis," and it's a theta state.

You were working on a creative project and entered flow state, where time seemed to distort and everything just flowed effortlessly. That's alpha/theta, and it's one of the most pleasurable states humans can experience.

You've been daydreaming, staring out a window, your mind wandering through memories or imagined scenarios. Alpha.

Every single one of these experiences is a form of trance. Every single one involves your consciousness narrowing its focus, becoming absorbed in specific content, and your suggestibility increasing.

What "Suggestible" Really Means

Being "hypnotizable" is really about being "suggestible." But that word has terrible connotations. It sounds like being weak-minded or easily manipulated. That's not what it means at all.

Suggestibility is simply your capacity to accept and respond to ideas, images, and narratives. It's what allows you to enjoy stories, learn new concepts, be moved by art, and ultimately, to change your mind about anything.

When you read a great book, the author is making suggestions to you. "Imagine this character." "Picture this scene." "Feel what this person feels." The degree to which you accept those suggestions is the degree to which you "buy into" the story and get really absorbed in it.

If you've ever finished a novel and felt like you needed a moment to return to regular reality, that's because you were deeply suggestible to that author's content. You were in a trance state, accepting suggestions about a world that doesn't exist.

The same is true with the stories you tell yourself. The beliefs you hold about yourself, other people, different circumstances. These stories guide the way you perceive everything and how you feel about it.

"I'm not good at public speaking" is a suggestion you're giving yourself. If you accept it deeply enough, your nervous system will create the anxiety response that confirms it. "People can't be trusted" is a suggestion that, if believed, will color every interaction you have. "I'm not the kind of person who can be hypnotized" is itself a hypnotic suggestion that creates the reality it describes.

So Here's the Real Question

The question isn't "Can you be hypnotized?"

The question is: "When are you being hypnotized, and whose content are you accepting?"

Because you're already being hypnotized all the time. By social media algorithms that suggest what you should pay attention to. By advertising that suggests what you need to be happy. By news media that suggests what you should fear. By past experiences that suggest what's possible for you.

Most powerfully, you're being hypnotized by your own internal narrative. The running commentary in your mind about who you are, what you're capable of, what's safe, what's dangerous, what you deserve.

That internal narrative was largely installed during childhood, when you were in predominately theta states (children spend much more time in theta than adults, which is why they're such powerful learners and why early experiences shape us so profoundly). Those early suggestions became the lens through which you see everything.

The real power of working with a skilled hypnotherapist isn't about them hypnotizing you. It's about recognizing that you're already in various trance states all day long, and learning to direct those states intentionally. It's about choosing which suggestions you accept and which you reject. It's about updating the old suggestions that no longer serve you.

Why "Suggestibility Testing" Is Terrible

Many hypnotherapists start their work with "suggestibility tests." They'll have you close your eyes and suggest that your hands are being pulled together by magnets, or that one arm is getting lighter and floating up, or that your eyelids are so heavy you can't open them.

If you respond to these suggestions, they declare you "highly hypnotizable." If you don't, they might suggest you're "resistant" or "not a good candidate for hypnosis."

This approach is, frankly, terrible. Let me tell you why.

Imagine you're someone struggling with anxiety. By definition, you're hypervigilant. Your nervous system is on high alert, constantly scanning for threats. Now you walk into a new environment, with a stranger you've never met before, and they ask you to close your eyes and follow their commands.

"Sleep." "Your arm is floating." "You can't open your eyes."

Your nervous system is going to say, "Absolutely not. This is not safe. I'm not giving up control in an unfamiliar situation with an unknown person." And that's a perfectly healthy, adaptive response.

The failure isn't yours. The failure is in the approach.

These tests measure your willingness to surrender control to a stranger in an artificial scenario, not your capacity for trance states. You're perfectly capable of entering alpha and theta states. You do it all the time in contexts where you feel safe. The test is just measuring the wrong thing in the wrong context.

This has perpetuated the myth that only "some people" can be hypnotized, when what it really shows is that most people need to feel safe before they'll allow themselves to relax and become receptive to suggestions from someone else.

All Hypnosis Is Self-Hypnosis

Here's the truth that every person seeking hypnotherapy needs to understand: all hypnosis is ultimately self-hypnosis.

You are the one in control of your mind, your experience, and your change work. Always.

A hypnotherapist can't make you do anything you don't want to do. They can't implant suggestions you fundamentally reject. They can't force you into a trance state against your will.

What a skilled hypnotherapist does is something quite different. They create conditions where you feel safe enough to relax. They guide you into states you already naturally access, but with intention and direction. They offer suggestions that align with your own goals and values. They teach you to recognize and work with your own natural trance states.

Most importantly, they empower you to understand your nervous system, your brain, your mind, and yourself in a way that allows you to harness that power, put it to work, and determine who you're going to be and what kind of life you're going to lead.

The work happens because you choose it. Because you accept suggestions that resonate with who you want to become. Because you learn to direct your own consciousness with skill and intention.

Working With Your Nervous System, Not Against It

At Toronto Hypnotherapy, we don't start with suggestibility tests or parlor tricks. We start by helping you understand what's actually happening in your brain and nervous system throughout the day.

We teach you about brainwave states and help you recognize when you're already in alpha or theta. We explore what contexts help you feel safe enough to relax and become receptive. We work with your natural rhythms and patterns rather than imposing some standardized "hypnosis protocol."

For someone with anxiety, we might start just by teaching breathing techniques that naturally slow your brainwaves from beta into alpha. We'll build safety and trust so your nervous system knows it's okay to relax. We'll use your own experiences of calm (maybe from listening to music, or being in nature, or petting your cat) as doorways into trance states.

For someone who's skeptical, we'll demystify the entire process. We'll show you exactly what we're doing and why. We'll invite you to notice when you're already in light trance states during the session. We'll give you agency and choice at every step.

For someone who feels they "can't be hypnotized," we'll help you recognize all the ways you already access these states. We'll validate that you're not broken or deficient. We'll work with your strengths rather than trying to force you into someone else's idea of what hypnosis "should" look like.

The goal is never to make you go into some special mystical state. The goal is to help you recognize and skillfully work with states you already experience, so you can use them for healing, growth, and change.

What Working Together Actually Looks Like

When we work together, here's what you can expect:

First, we build safety. We talk about your goals, your concerns, your past experiences. We answer all your questions. We make sure you understand exactly what we're doing and why. Your nervous system needs to know this is a safe, collaborative process before it will allow you to relax into receptive states.

Then, we work with your natural patterns. Maybe you already know you relax deeply when listening to certain music. Great, we'll use that. Maybe you get absorbed easily in visualization. Perfect, that's our doorway. Maybe you're more kinesthetic and need to feel things in your body. Wonderful, we'll work somatically. There's no one "right way" to access trance states.

We help you recognize when you're in helpful states. Throughout our session, I'll point out when you've shifted into alpha or theta. "Notice how your breathing just deepened." "See how your shoulders dropped." "Feel how your mind quieted for a moment there." This builds your awareness of your own states so you can access them independently.

We work in ways that align with YOUR goals, values, and drives. The content we work with come from you. They're about who you want to be, how you want to feel, what patterns you want to change. You're never following commands. You're exploring possibilities that resonate with your own deepest values.

We teach you self-hypnosis. The ultimate goal is always for you to be able to do this yourself. We teach you how to guide yourself into helpful states, how to work with your own subconscious, how to become the author of your own internal narrative rather than just accepting whatever stories are playing.

The Real Transformation

The real transformation in hypnotherapy isn't about being "put under" or surrendering control. It's about claiming control you didn't know you had.

It's recognizing that you're moving through different states of consciousness all day long, and those states create different possibilities for change.

It's understanding that you're already responding to suggestions constantly, and you can become more discerning about which suggestions you accept.

It's discovering that the stories running in your subconscious can be updated, rewritten, transformed.

It's learning to work with your nervous system instead of fighting it, to use your natural rhythms and states as allies in your growth.

It's becoming, in the truest sense, the author of your own experience.

So Yes, You Can Be Hypnotized

If you can get absorbed in a good book, you can be hypnotized.

If you've ever driven somewhere and barely remember the journey, you can be hypnotized.

If you've watched a movie and felt real emotions about fictional characters, you can be hypnotized.

If you've daydreamed, gotten lost in thought, or experienced that pleasant drifty feeling before falling asleep, you can be hypnotized.

Because all of those experiences are forms of trance. All of them involve narrowed focus, heightened suggestibility, and accessing states beyond ordinary waking consciousness.

The question was never whether you could access these states. You already do.

The question is whether you're willing to work with someone who understands how to guide you skillfully into these states for therapeutic purposes. Who respects your autonomy and nervous system. Who teaches rather than commands. Who empowers rather than mystifies.

That's what hypnotherapy should be. Not some special gift available only to certain people, but a practical set of tools that anyone can learn to use.

Ready to Experience It Yourself?

If you're in Toronto, or anywhere else for that matter, and you're curious about hypnotherapy but worried you might not be "hypnotizable," I invite you to a free 15-minute consultation call.

During this call, we'll talk about what you're hoping to work on, I'll answer any questions you have about the process, and we'll explore whether this approach feels right for you. No pressure, no weird tests, just a straightforward conversation about how your brain works and how we might work together.

Because the truth is, you're already accessing the states we'll work with. You're already suggestible to various content throughout your day. The only question is whether you're ready to learn to work with those states intentionally, for your own growth and healing.

Book your free consultation call here.