The human mind has many states, but there are 3 main states: Unconsciousness - Sleep - During the sleep state our conscious mind is switched off, though our subconscious mind still operates and regulates our breathing etc, but our senses of touch, taste, sound, smell and sight are all switched off. Our dreams etc are experienced in the subconscious  mind. Consciousness - Wake - The normal waking state, the opposite of sleep where everything is switched on. The third state is Hypnosis - 'The Halfway House' - The midway point between sleep and wake, unconsciousness and consciousness.

Our conscious mind helps with our daily decision-making processes working according to the reality principle. It is intelligent, realistic, logical and proactive, especially in new situations where we have to apply rational thought processes to work out what to do and how to do it. However, it can only deal with between five and nine things at any one time and is easily overloaded.

The subconscious mind works on 'auto pilot' i.e. reacting according to the pleasure principle in that it seeks to avoid pain and obtain pleasure and survival, regardless of external considerations. It is concerned with our emotions, imagination, and memories as well as our autonomic nervous system which controls our internal organs automatically. These four main functions are very closely interlinked - in other words the mind affects the body and the body affects the mind. It is powerful and very clever at dealing with many complex instructions at any one time, and is our driving force - we always do what our subconscious believes, even if it goes against reason and logic.

There are many different states of hypnosis, and some of them we enter quite naturally on our own, the most common of which almost everyone dips into - Waking Hypnosis - when you lose time, perhaps whilst driving you get into your car and arrive at your destination without being conscious of the journey - you were on 'automatic pilot' - or when you sit reading a good book and become so engrossed that you lose track of time, and find that what you thought was 20 minutes reading was and hour

All Hypnosis is Self-Hypnosis

A Hypnotherapist simply teaches you to hypnotise yourself, and since you are the one following the suggestions and creating this state in your mind, you are hypnotising yourself, and you cannot be hypnotised against your will - you have to want it to happen for it to succeed.