used by specialists to repress or suggest away symptoms in a patient such as anxiety, itching, or headaches. Hypnosis is produced essentially by creating a deep relaxation and focused concentration in the subject. They then become mostly unresponsive to ordinary forms of stimulation, and although they are sometimes told to sleep, they are also told to listen and be ready to respond to commands made by the hypnotist. The word sleep is used in hypnosis not to induce actual sleep, but in practice it is understood that sleep is simply the hypnotic trance. The prefix hypno- is named after the Greek god Hypno which means "sleep." In this state they will accept commands, even if the suggestions are illogical. In general, however, subjects cannot be made to do something that conflicts with their moral sense. This is because there are beliefs that are impossible to change, because that person feels so strongly about it, subjects would not be likely to commit murder or robbery even if the instructer told them to do so. There are hypothetically two layers of "morals" that, of course cannot be seen. On the first layer is the morals that were installed throughout the life of the patient. The second layer is generally called the "fixed" morals. The classical methods used to produce hypnosis are usually simple and frequently employ direct commands or monotonous suggestions repeated continuously. Subjects are requested to concentrate on the hypnotist's voice, or they may be asked to concentrate on some object or to concentrate on some repetitive sound. The hypnotist tells the subject over and over again to feel relaxed, or to let his or her eyelids grow heavy and close, to breathe deeply and comfortably, and to go into a deep sleep. The degree of hypnosis is tested by challenging subjects to perform some simple task while suggesting that they cannot do it. For instance, the hypnotist may say, "You will be unable to open your eyes no matter how hard yo...
