the thing is that even if you give your unconscious mind a command (by self hypno), if this command contradicts other strong beliefs in your mind, the effect won't last. i seriously doubt you can take, say, an extremely unconfident person and hypnotize him to be confident by embedding a few mantras in his head by hypnosis. this is because his lack of confidence is made up of hundreds of beliefs, that will 'eat up' the commands. the best way to change a belief is to prove (by means of reality/ life experience) that it's wrong, or that there can be alternatives. in trading, again, i believe paper trading is the answer for this (or, once again, it can also prove that you should save yourself a lot of money and never start trading live).
I learned self hypnosis a long time ago. Did it in an attempt to stop smoking. I got good at it once I got the hang of it. Was living in Aspen at the time. This was before they had high speed lifts. So it took 4 or 5 lifts to get from the bottom to the top of the mountain. (we rarely skied from top to bottom..just a section of the mountain...usually just one lift). Some of the individual lifts being as long as a 20 minute ride. Plenty of time for self hypnosis. The beauty of the self hypnosis was it accomplished two things. Ten or fifteen minutes of going into that state gave the equivalent (in terms of rest) of about 2 hours sleep. Without the grogginess of waking from a nap. The other benefit, was "seeing" the coming run, experiencing it in my head before it happened. A common technique used in athletics. This just seemed to make it more "efficient". But as far as being in a state of hypnosis while actually skiing? I DON'T THINK SO! And you would not want to be "asleep" while trading either. Self hypnosis can indeed be useful to a trader (between trades...in the periods you are flat) to help you relax and help you focus when you come out of it....but certainly you want to be as aware as possible when you are trading. The state of hypnosis, (Alpha state) is as close as being asleep as you can be, without losing consciousness. Not a way to trade. Peace, rs7
Self-hypnosis can be an excellent tool to effect personal change. Unfortunately, it has become crowded by scam artists selling the "no sweat, no hassle, change your life without really trying" dream that so many, apparently, search for. Anybody looking to self-hypnosis with a 'quick fix' mentality is sure to be disappointed. After having carried around certain, often deeply 'embedded', beliefs about the world, about oneself, about the nature of certain tasks/activities, for a number of years (20, 30, 50 for example), to just expect all that to change without lifting a finger in attempting to determine just what those beliefs are (most of them are held subconsciously), why they may be fallacious, how holding them hinders your progress etc, ie, a thorough self-investigation, is ridiculous. No wonder so many give up after cursory attempts -- "I tried it.. didn't do anything for me... it's bullshit".
I could not agree more with you, but this can be said about most if not all psychological pop techniques. I was in fact hoping that self-hypnosis, being relatively transparent in its application, could be one of the better techniques. I have recently read some stuff about the Sedona method and the claims their distributors make are so hard to believe that I am really sceptical about it.
I did not even know this was something that was "marketed". I learned from a psychologist. It was NOT difficult. It is not a mystical self help bullshit thing like EST or whatever. Self hypnosis is a very real and very easy thing to learn. Paying for a method is a waste of money. Anyone who knows how to do it can show anyone else. The fact that I learned it from a qualified psychologist was just coincidental. She was recommended to me to talk to about stopping smoking. I had no idea that hypnosis was going to be involved. Yes, she hypnotized me. No, it did not work like magic to get me to stop smoking. But what I did get out of it was learning self hypnosis. Paying for this would be a shame. At least paying some mass marketing outfit. There are so many trained professional psychologists. Spend the money on a visit or two with a pro. One on one. Hell, I could write a book, or make a tape, or video. But the reality is nothing would be like sitting in a room with someone who knows the techniques. And it really is easy to grasp. But I can't imagine trying to learn from a mail order package. So yeah, I could sell my technique. But I would be very surprised if it worked for anyone I was not with face to face. Anyone selling a package is IMO a scam artist. Go see a pro. If you are going to spend money, why not make sure it isn't wasted? Of course what you say is absolutely true. Because self hypnosis doesn't change anyone in the manner described (advertised?). What it does do is give you a technique to relax, and a way to reinforce whatever behavior you choose to think about. It isn't magic. It offers NO answers about anything in itself. It is just a way to enter the "alpha" state quickly and easily. Biofeedback is another equally effective approach to the same thing. This is NOT a discipline, not a "cult" kind of thing. Nothing more and nothing less than a relaxation technique. No answers to problems. No revelations. Nothing. Nada. Just a way to relax. For those not familiar with exactly what the "alpha" state is, well every one of us experiences it at least twice a day. It is the state between wakefulness and sleep. Self hypnosis just gives you a way to extend that period. Peace, rs7
Simple ideas can be deceptively powerful. Take trading as an example. Smart money consistantly buys at support, sells at resistance. It's incredibly obvious where to buy and where to sell if you look at a chart. But how easy is it to do that? The difference is all inside of you, not outside. Societal conditioning makes us believe things have to be much harder, slower, more complex and painful than is necessary. If you choose to try out the Sedona method tapes, you'll probably at first have a thought along the lines... what the hell am I doing, this is ridiculous, this is something a toddler would/might do. It's so simple that the part of you that analyzes, rationalizes, and intelectualizes concludes that because it's so simple it can't possibly work. Problem is, try to convince all the people that have made major and speedy breakthroughs with it, that it doesn't work. Along the same line of thought, the notion that you can't get immediate confidence, just doesn't wash. I've personally witnessed long ingrained unuseful fears elliminated in minutes, and it stuck. Change, whether it be gaining confidence, losing a long held fear, or achieving some particular skill, doesn't need to take a long time. It has been convincingly demonstrated that the way the brain works is to learn rapidly. It's actually harder to condition in any skill slowly. The only caveat is to learn the right strategy set. The reason it can take some longer than others boils down to modeling the wrong strategy and holding yourself in the wrong mental state. I do not purport to be an expert. I only know what I've seen. And I have seen what many of us would consider miracles. But what is a miracle other than a sufficiently advanced technology. I submit to all of you that are seriously committed to trading mastery (for that matter life mastery) that ignoring these "mental" tools is missing out on the next level of human evolution. The proper application of hypnosis, Sedona, NLP, neurosemantics, etc etc can put light years ahead of the competition.
Gawd, how much of you guys have really read some psychology books???? Here's a few points: 1. One thing to consider is Hume's philosophy about how one experience leads to another. One alternative experience becomes a bias towards how you react and expand on a relatively related but different experience like a billiard (pool) ball. These serious of experience of neural network inside the brain causes us to decide on what we do. As all of you know, there is never a market that is exactly the same but relatively the same. We identify these patterns and trade under them. Just like that, as a discretionary trader, we take the data set of experience sub-conciously and rationalize it consciously as a trade. 2. Hypnosis is just a study of how humans react under certain brain waves. Also, it is the art of persuasive talking. Well, actually it, uses visual help to put the person into trance so that the mind accepts a verbal persuasion directly. The brain waves in trance are usually under slow Alpha to Beta which is very close to sleeping. That is the reason why people who are hypnotized are very sleepy or dreamy when they do it. They use the concepts of Auto-suggestion into self-hypnosis by telling the client to read or persuade themselves before and after their sleep. 3. De-hypnotising??? Wrong idea about what hypnosis is. The concept of hypnosis comes and utilizes the basis of how are brain and thoughts work under. The science and study is everywhere and it should be understood, embraced and acted upon based on your objectivity. Well, when I get into this. I'm sure there are some who talk about Zen. Zen is a very hard subject to cover.... But the way a lot people use it is very shallow. Like saying, one sometimes know when a trade would go well when or before put the trade in. That is just saying I have a strong intuition. True Zen doesn't know but does. There is no basic sensuality to it but just doing. It is a state of being not a state of realization. Realization just comes from 1. the intuitional recognition of experiencial conclusion. This is not Zen. Also, the complete de-hypnotising will lead the person to be a veggie or a brain-dead. Bias is an emotional and traumatic opinion, not experience. There is no sensual objectivity. Self-hyponosis under regular brain wave condition does not work so well. There's too much but one reason is the emotional and analytical thoughts that overcomes the hypnosis. Breathing does help achieve the brain to go into Alpha wave (Alpha Waves occurs under relaxed condition also). I hope I cleared a few facts and thoughts...
Bundlemaker, Am I to understand that you have really tried the Sedona method yourself or you have met someone who has? Thanks for your comments. I find that I agree with you completely in principle.