All About Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy - and What Makes It Possible - The Unconscious Mind

Understanding how the conscious and subconscious mind interact is key to personal development. By accessing and reprogramming the subconscious, we can overcome limitations, unlock our full potential, and create a better life.

How Does the Mind Work?

Let us start with how our mind is working. The human mind operates on two levels: the conscious and the subconscious.

The Conscious Mind

Located in the right side of the prefrontal cortex, the conscious mind is about the size of a small coin and processes 7±2 bits of information at a time. It’s easily redirected—consider your breathing, the feeling of your chair, your shoes, or the sensation of your tongue touching your teeth. A moment ago, these sensations were managed subconsciously, but now, as you focus on them, they shift into conscious awareness, pushing other information out.

The conscious mind is responsible for active awareness, decision-making, and filtering information. It helps us think critically but often interprets reality through biases and stereotypes, making it less reliable than we assume.

The Subconscious (Unconscious) Mind

The subconscious mind tracks, manages, and controls 99.9% of our daily functions—breathing, cell division, memories, emotions, pain, and sleep—without us being aware of it. It remembers everything and influences our beliefs, behaviours, and automatic responses.

Its primary function is protection, steering us away from perceived pain and toward pleasure. It also shapes our moral and ethical values, forming the foundation of our identity.

💡 Tip: If you misplace something, ask your subconscious: Where is it? Then let go—don’t force it. Your subconscious will retrieve the answer when you need it. It’s not magic; it simply remembers everything.

The Critical Faculty

The critical faculty acts as a mental firewall, filtering new information and allowing only what aligns with our existing beliefs. It develops in early childhood and ensures that new ideas don’t disrupt our current worldview.

During hypnosis, this gatekeeper relaxes, enabling positive suggestions to reach the subconscious more easily. However, it remains an observer, ensuring that only safe and beneficial suggestions are accepted.

Unconscious mind is beyond belief powerful

What Is Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a natural state of focused attention, where the brain operates at the same frequency as dreaming. In this relaxed state, the conscious mind steps aside, allowing deeper access to the subconscious, where root causes of challenges can be addressed.

We naturally enter hypnosis multiple times a day—when watching TV, scrolling through social media, or daydreaming. In hypnosis, people may experience deep relaxation, tingling sensations, heaviness, or a floating feeling. These sensations vary from person to person.

It’s essential to understand that hypnosis is not sleep. The brain remains active, focused, and suggestible, but the subconscious mind’s protective role ensures that no suggestion against your values is accepted. Hypnosis cannot force you to act against your will—it is a collaborative process that facilitates personal transformation.

What Is Hypnotherapy?

Hypnotherapy uses hypnosis to access the subconscious and reprogram limiting beliefs, unlocking an individual’s inner resources for healing and transformation. By bypassing the critical faculty, it facilitates emotional, mental, and physical change.

Hypnotherapy can help with wide range of challenges like pain relief, anxiety, burnout, weight management, allergies, phobias, quit smoking, but we are going to talk about them later:

By rewiring neural pathways, hypnotherapy replaces negative thought patterns with positive, empowering beliefs, leading to lasting transformation.

The Key to Transformation

Understanding how the conscious and subconscious minds interact is crucial for personal development. By accessing and reprogramming the subconscious, we can overcome limitations, unlock potential, and create a better life.