It's a method of manipulating people's behavior at will through suggestion. Human beings have a "consciousness" called "reason" and an "unconscious" called "instinct", and their actions and abilities are normally controlled by their "consciousness". Typically, the unconscious is hidden by the conscious mind, but hypnotism is the practice of inducing a state of hypnosis by certain means, suppressing the "consciousness," and working directly on the exposed "unconscious" to suggest and manipulate behavior.
There are several ways to put a person into a hypnotic state. The best known is the "gaze method," in which the subject's attention is focused on a single point, such as a five-yen coin that moves like a pendulum, thereby suppressing their rational faculties and inducing a suggestible state.
Other techniques include the "startle method", which involves startling the subject by suddenly clapping or flashing penlights in front of them, and applying a suggestion at the moment the subject's unconsciousness is aroused by the surprise; the "relaxation method", in which the subject is put in a chair or on a bed to release their tension and draw out their unconsciousness; and the "back reversal method", which consists of going behind the subject's back and telling them that their body is being pulled backwards to put them in a hypnotic state. There are also cases where multiple of these methods were combined.
This hypnotic state is also called the "trance state". In medical terms, it's believed that relaxing the brain suppresses the secretion of noradrenaline, which is said to stimulate the brain and reduce the activity of the "forty-six areas" of the neocortex, which controls judgment and behavior, thereby causing the brain to go into this trance state. The degree of suggestion applied to the subject, that is, the degree to which the subject can be manipulated is related to the depth of this trance state. When a person falls into a deep trance, it's possible for them to be subjected to a "posthypnotic suggestion", whereby a suggestion made during the trance state remains in effect even after the hypnosis has been broken.
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