i hate to admit it but i'm often the victim of self-hypnosis. sometimes this is very useful, as when i have to deal with an authoritarian figure, a cop, or a teacher. i don't realize it in the moment. i am imitating his gestures, falling into the rhythm of his speech. this means i don't get a ticket or i do get a good grade. alas, when i walk away, i feel trapped in the body of that person. like an actor, i've adopted a new identity, which can be very annoying and hard to shake off.
or searching for my true 'self', i've spent years infatuated with a young woman. this started in the fourth grade and only ended a few years ago. at fifty i'd still make a fool of myself worshiping and chasing an angel i created. one was an actress. in fact maybe they all were, knowing how to laugh and motion in such a way, i latched onto the fantasy. each time, once i got close enough, the dream would be staunched by the reality, ie. the personality and solid body in the world.
this was great for writing poetry. i do believe the general rule in passion - everything grows in significance, stones, streets, trees. that's the reason love called a drug, and like drug wears off. this, no question, is a form of self-hypnosis: meditating on the face of the beloved until the vision takes over consciousness. various forms of possession, positive and negative the same.
for example, politics. i'm always amazed by crowd psychology. how circumstances and the skill of an orator can create a movement of nazis. all of this must be an outcome of tribalism. we like the power of identifying with the mob, and i like being protected by anonymity, looking and acting like everyone else, a result of a rigid and dangerous to my safety organizational state. to be kicked out of the group meant dying in the desert.
trance and hypnosis easy to demonstrate. i fall into a trance on a long automobile drive. i go on automatic pilot, not aware of my surroundings. i may be listening to a book on tape, or whirling around and around in my thoughts, standing up to giants or seducing an amazon. luckily, if need be, i can shift into reality on the turn of a wheel. actual physical fear always wakes me.
i'm convinced most of us live in this hypnotized state, not waking up till one foot steps into the grave and we hear the monotonous sermon of the preacher, saying how great we were, and everybody loved us. and unable to remember what actually happened, we like to believe it true. i don't mind even being called an oddball, as i once was lying naked in a grave, dug in a field for a theatrical exercise.
