Topic: Redefine Hypnosis

Posted under Tag/Wiki Projects and Questions

There's a big difference between hypnosis and mind control. Hypnosis can't make a person do what they don't actually want to do, according to the American Association of Professional Hypnotherapists, or the AAPH, "Hypnosis can not make you do something that is against your morals or ethics."

Furthermore they go on to elaborate that you can't lose control due to hypnosis, indeed "You always have control, and you can always hear what's going on. Hypnosis is nothing but a state of relaxed deep focus." Meaning, essentially, that you actually have even more control and are more in-tune with yourself than you otherwise would be.

Hypnosis is not mind control, quite the oppoosite, "It gives a sense of control and connectedness to your mind and body that supports confidence and success." You are more in control while hypnotized, not less.

Redundancy for the sake of a point.

Source: http://aaph.org/hypnosis-FAQ

If a legitimate medical institution defines hypnosis as, more or less, "not mind control" then I feel that the wiki should be changed to reflect that. As it stands there's really no point in having /both/ the mind control and hypnosis tags as they both overlap with each other and, frankly, both result in the same things, someone being completely controlled by someone else.

One could argue that hypnosis is done with a swinging thing and results in swirly eyes, but that's just silly. There are multiple instances of mind control non-hypnotized subjects having swirly-eye-itis, as well. Just a couple being here and here.

Frankly, the hypnosis tag is more or less just redundant at this point, especially since it implies mind control currently. It either needs redefined to be what it actually is or made to alias to the mind control tag when put on a post. Since it isn't one of the fun tags such as WHSD or the like its redundancy with the mind control tag just isn't needed.

So, tl;dr, I feel that the hypnosis tag should be redefined to resemble what hypnosis is actually defined as, ". . . a state of very heightened awareness and focus. . ." or aliased to mind control as the current redundancy of the two non-fun tags simply isn't needed and only furthers the incorrect assumption that hypnosis is somehow malign and can/does/will control someone.

Edit: Upon further thought I realized that the term "mesmerize" would work perfectly in place of the current hypnosis tag, it's still mind control, but it infers more what the traditional "hypnosis" most people think of when thinking of hypnosis, where it's someone doing swirly-eyed swinging-thing stuff to control someone else.

Updated by animperfectpatsy

Pop culture tells us that hypnosis is waving a pendulum and causing the swirly eyes. It could also be pure talk therapy.

2023/2673 mind_control posts are tagged hypnosis.
650 are not

Get the second number bigger, maybe, or alias it to mind_control. There are hypnosis posts that just look like plain mind_control like post #926455.

Updated by anonymous

Keep in mind that just because hypnosis doesn't work like that in the real world doesn't mean it can't in the fictional world. It wouldn't be the first case of a tag that is technically inaccurate but is kept around because of pop culture and it darn well won't be the last.

Updated by anonymous

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