The Transparent Hypnotist

Lounging back on the couch, no inhibitions about my bare feet resting upon a coffee table (yes, teacher I would sit like this at home), the conversation turned to the ever-encroaching coldness of a mountain morning. The fact was that my peers and I were cold. The heat had not been turned on in the house and the coffee cups, a source of fast heat, had rapidly cooled to room temperature. Now, I am sure you are saying, “Silly girl, Ellie, go put on some socks.” Ah yes, that would have helped. The problem was all my socks were dirty and I was not so desperate to put on a pair that had already done their foot warming duty.

The morning was cloudy so there was no patch of sun where I could rest my frigid appendages and I would have had to share the smidgen of it with ten others.

“You know, I once new a person who through hypnosis thought herself a decent tan. Really. The hypnotist was working on relaxation with her and she visualized herself lying in the warm sun of a Brazilian beach. When she was back in normal consciousness, she had a nice, healthy tan - there was even a tan line where her watch blocked out the imaginary rays,” said one of my pale faced peers. My first thought was not about the reality of being able to manifest such a change, but rather, would such an exercise cause skin damage. Does a hypnotic tan involve harmful UV rays? Just a thought, but I digress.

My pale faced friend continued, “Well, I immediately thought I would try it. No luck. I just got hot and sweaty.”

Bingo. Hot and sweaty would be a nice reprieve for those of us not completely prepared for wintery temperatures. Another peer volunteered to do a group hypnosis session for feeling warmth.

Becoming even more comfortable, I was lulled into a hypnotic state. There was no cold. There was not hot - just a mellow me. Did she take us to that warm, perfect-bodied Brazilian beach? Nope. We were guided into a sauna experience, eucalyptus included. Our bodies relaxed in the moist heat or that was the general consensus. Then I became aware of a noise, a wheezing, a gasping sound. I came out of the experience and the sound came with me. Was it me? Was I having an asthma attack? No. My breathing was fine. As my eyes accustomed to the dim light of the cloudy day, I looked around the room. Our leader had her eyes closed and seemed to be guiding everyone through her experience, oblivious to the here and now. Did no one else hear the wheezing?

Then I spotted my pale faced friend. She indeed seemed to be struggling with her breathing. As I debated internally about what to do, she opened her eyes, got up and left the group. I followed her into the kitchen where she was got a drink of water. By this time another from our group had also arrived to see if she was okay. As it turned out, she had suffered from terrible asthma as a child and someone suggested she try a moist sauna to help her open up her lungs. It did just the opposite and today she had gone back to that experience. My other friend thought quickly and did a rapid induction (with her permission) and took her back to a time before the incident when her breathing was normal. Her breathing returned to normal. The wheezing stopped and he gave her suggestions to continue breathing well.

When we all reconvened, our guide was mortified to say the least. We discussed what had happened.

The hero of the day spoke up, “Maybe you should have guided us into an Infrared Sauna.” Then he laughed.

“What’s an Infrared Suana?” someone else asked, getting us a bit off topic. It uses the idea of radiant heat to heat the body rather than heating the air. It could be a much more positive experience for those who deal with asthma. He went on to discuss the far infrared sauna he had thought of as an investment for his health. He listed off some of the positive affects of such a thing, but broke it down to the base element - sweat. He is a believer that sweat detoxifies the body. He had ideas about meditating in such a suana and also getting the sweat factor.

Then the conversation moved on and everyone had ideas about how the breathing incident could have been avoided. My pale friend had it right, though (in my opinion). Rather than indulge in blame, avoidance and general negativity, she looked at the bright side. Maybe she needed to release something that involved her asthma. She would give some thought to that. But then she also said she had learned a lot about saunas and that was a good thing.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 25th, 2008 at 7:47 am and is filed under Babble, Blogvertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.