Article: Most People Hypnotised While Driving Their Cars

In his book "Dream Psycles - A New Awakening in Hypnosis," author and certified hypnotherapist Carl Allen Schoner argues that if you drive a car, hypnosis matters! Many people think of hypnosis as an elusive trance state rather than an active state of awareness characterized by a crystal clear line of communication between the conscious and subconscious mind. The truth is, "hypnosis" is a normal, necessary, fluid state of mind that we as human beings experience all of the time. It is a crystallized state of communication between the conscious and subconscious mind, and once this state is established you no longer struggle with analyzing the world around you; instead, the process of controlling your world becomes quite automatic.

It does not take a hypnotist to induce a hypnotic state of mind.

In fact, we are all constantly moving in and out of these fluid hypnotic states as we engage in normal daily activities, such as day dreaming, studying, watching television, and even driving our cars. These transitions are so natural that they usually go undetected, except at times when we are startled to discover that we have driven 50 miles past our destination on the freeway.

Let's take that driving example further. Think about it for a moment. When you drive, you are in many ways driving subconsciously. If you were to consciously think about all of the dangers associated with your driving, you would immediately stop the car and leap out of the vehicle! Your heart would be pounding fiercely and you would break out in a cold sweat. Driving is the most dangerous activity we engage in, and yet we do it every day, scarcely giving a second thought to the daring high-speed maneuvers we execute in our attempts to be the first to get where we want to go.

We accomplish this dramatic feat by turning the task of driving over to our subconscious mind and autonomic nervous system.

The subconscious is quite skilled at driving, just as it is at walking, swimming, or riding a bike. Once it knows how to do something, it just does it; it doesn't need to think about it again. When you drive, your subconscious mind handles most of the driving while your conscious mind entertains higher cognitive functions such as contemplating your golf score, anticipating your evening date, or deciding what you will have for dinner.

This is a natural process that in effect minimizes the dangers of driving on a conscious level so that you can function behind the wheel. It does a fine job. So good, in fact, that many people not only minimize their fear of the danger of driving, but they actually become totally oblivious to those dangers. These people then carelessly speed, tailgate, swerve recklessly in and out of lanes, read, talk on the phone, eat, and even apply makeup while driving.

They are totally hypnotized at this point, operating on a purely subconscious level, totally oblivious to the danger that they are creating for others as well as themselves.

The hypnotic state we achieve while driving is a totally automatic response. We do not have to think about the state of awareness we must achieve in order to fearlessly drive a car; we simply do it. The same can be said about so much of what we do in life. We are so accustomed to reaching this state that it has become a completely transparent transition. This response frees up our conscious mind to work on other matters, and this is why so many good ideas seem to come to us while we are driving our cars.

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About the author: Carl Allen Schoner holds a degree in behavioral science and is a certified clinical hypnotherapist. As a gifted artist and author his artwork and articles have appeared in many prestigious publications such as Consulting Magazine, The California Law School Journal, Chess Life Magazine, and The Saturday Evening Post.  

Source: 24-7 PressRelease