"I know you might not feel like hypnosis is for you. You don't think of yourself as the sort of person who would listen to someone's voice and simply doze off; you're too alert and energetic for that. You can't imagine it would actually work, hearing all the usual speeches about your limbs growing heavy and your eyes getting tired and sinking into a deep hypnotic slumber. You're not sleepy at all.
"But that's not really what hypnosis is about. People associate hypnosis with sleep, because that's what we see in all the movies and television shows about hypnosis and they think that's the way it always works. It's not. Hypnosis is just a state of focus and relaxation, and relaxation can take many forms. You can be active, filled with energy, alert and aware of your surroundings, and still be calm and focused on a single thing.
"Think of it like the air around you. There doesn't really seem like there could be anything more calm and placid in the world than the air you breathe. When you're lying on the grass on a warm, sunny day, resting under the shade of a tree and watching the sky, it seems so endlessly blue and peaceful that you can't imagine it as anything other than still, restful, relaxed.
"But if you lie there long enough, gazing up into the calm blue sky and letting your mind wander as you look up, you'll see clouds passing by. Imagine watching a single cloud, thick and puffy and white, as it slowly moves across the sky in front of your eyes. You can picture it, can't you? That cloud seems small, but that's only because it's far away. It's really almost two miles long and over a hundred thousand tons of water, but it drifts effortlessly on the currents in the beautiful blue sky.
"The currents in the air are all around you, stirring the trees overhead with gentle breezes and drawing the clouds across the sky in front of your eyes, one after another. They flow with gentle, graceful ease and amazing power, but the air still seems calm and placid and tranquil. That can be what hypnosis is like-not a sleepy trance, but a focusing of your energies on a single concentrated point. You'll still be just as alert, just as aware of your surroundings, but you'll be able to stay centered on the things that matter.
"If it helps, imagine releasing a stream of smoke into the air as you lie there, watching the peaceful blue sky and the clouds slowly rolling by. Imagine a slow, lazy curl of purple smoke wafting up into the air and catching each and every breeze as it rises gently up. You can imagine that so easily and vividly in your mind's eye, focusing on the mental image intently as you let everything else fade into the background.
"The smoke shows you all that energy, all those currents that were invisible to you just a moment ago. Here, you see the smoke drawn along in a swirling breeze that heads off behind you. There, you see it curling upwards into slow, spiraling patterns that turn in on themselves in a tiny little vortex before they scatter once more. Everywhere you look, you can see the way the currents reveal themselves in new and fascinating ways. The smoke diffuses into nothingness eventually, fading into the deep and placid blue of the sky, but there's always more swirling in to replace it.
"It's easy now to let all the distractions around you go, listening to my voice and watching the currents swirl and spiral and drift. You can imagine them briefly forming images, the patterns in the flowing smoke seeming to remind you of other objects in the same way you see the clouds above you take on different shapes. Perhaps you see a smiling face in the smoke, or a beckoning hand as it curls upwards towards the endless, calming blue overhead. Since this is all taking place in your mind's eye, you can imagine those shapes to be anything you want.
"It can be a little game between us, lying back on the soft grass and letting the smoke swirl and drift in front of you as you stare up into the deep blue sky. You can imagine the swirling patterns gently filling the air in front of you, constantly billowing and scattering as the currents take your imagination wherever it wants to go. You're focused on the currents, relaxed and entirely free of distractions, and you're enjoying that experience so much. Your mind is entirely at ease now, and doesn't that feel so wonderful?
"If it feels like you're drifting a little too, that's okay. It's natural to feel relaxed when you're floating in the currents like this, watching the spirals and curves as they draw your attention deeper into the lazy patterns in the air. Your focus is exactly where it needs to be right now, and everything else can simply fade into the blue sky as you listen to my voice and feel the tension draining out of you. You still feel wonderfully alert, but now you're letting go of the real world around you and letting your imagination run free.
"Perhaps you can imagine a face for me, in the smoke. Just let the swirling, billowing currents shape the patterns of the smoke into my eyes, my lips speaking to you. It's so easy to picture my smile, the smoke curling around to form my body-I'm exactly how you picture me, and that makes perfect sense because your mind is creating that image right now. It's so wonderful to listen to my voice and allow your imagination to create the perfect body for me, isn't it?
