What questions do you have for Dr. Spiegel?
Whether it’s about Reveri, self-hypnosis, research on hypnosis, hypnotizability, conditions related to hypnosis, or something else, the Reveri Community was invited to ask Dr. Spiegel this week!
Get the recording:
Questions Dr. Spiegel answered:
- General - about hypnosis and Reveri
- Why did you decide to start Reveri? Can you speak a little about the Reveri origin story?
- How will I know that I’m in a state of hypnosis?
- If my arm doesn’t float on its own, does that mean I’m not in hypnosis or I’m not hypnotizable?
- If I’m very low on the hypnotizability scale, do you recommend I use Reveri or hypnosis? If so, how would I get the most benefit from Reveri?
- How is hypnosis similar or different to meditation?
- What should I do if I get interrupted in the middle of a hypnosis session?
- Is it unsafe to not come out of the hypnosis?
- Is hypnosis EVER unsafe or does it cause symptoms of any kind?
- About hypnotizability
- What is hypnotizability?
- Can anyone benefit from hypnosis?
- Can hypnotizability be trained or increased over time?
- About the Dr. Spiegel and Reveri methodology
- Why are the sessions relatively quick, with suggestions happening quickly one after another?
- Why do you suggest people to let their hand or arm float like a balloon? Do you do that in all your in-person sessions?
- Is there an alternative when you are in public?
- Why is it that at the end of our sleep sessions, you still count us back up out of the hypnosis? Some people prefer to stay in the floating hypnotic state and feel this interrupts them.
- When Dr. Spiegel mentions that if you say don’t think of a green elephant, you will think of that even more (podcast interview) . It made me wonder that his instructions in some of the sessions have a “do not do or think about” kind of a thing. For example “not against” or “worry about real problems, not about worrying” “not more worrying” Aren´t those a bit like the green elephant? Can you please clarify? Thank you so much.
- Can the efficacy of hypnosis diminish over time, particularly when using the Reveri app, which presents the same prompts each time?
- Why don’t we offer “progressive relaxation” as a technique? Can you first explain what that is?
- Someone asked about “confusion techniques” for those who are “resistant to hypnosis.” What are these techniques, and why don’t we do them in Reveri?
- Will we ever include progressive relaxation, meditation, breathwork, or confusion techniques in Reveri in the future?
- What if a hypnotist out there wants to learn how to do your methodology to or implement any of your techniques into their own practice? First, is that ok? If it is, how should they go about it? (You don’t offer training, do you?)
- I’ve managed to get hold of a book written by Dr Spiegel and his father titled Trance & Treatment back in the 70s. I’ve only just started, but I’m hooked already. Treatments are amended as we learn more, so I was wondering how, if at all, treatments/theories have altered since writing the book.
- I would like to know if users will be able to form personalized scripts and how one would create these in the app.
- About specific conditions, challenges, or goals related to hypnosis
- What is synesthesia and how is it affecting my relationship with hypnosis? How can I take advantage of it when doing hypnosis?
- I have little difficulty falling asleep. Falling back to sleep is more of a challenge. I’ve used the app many times for this with mixed success. As I float, I don’t necessarily float into my sleep.This leads to the second sleep question. How can I fall back to sleep in seconds? You have a number of micro hypnosis sessions. Might these apply to self hypnosis sleep?
- How might you recommend to modify the suggestions in sessions like Enhance Focus, Relieve Stress, or Improve Sleep where the suggestions are to picture something in your “mind’s eye” for people with aphantasia, or an inability to see things in their mind?
- How hypnosis can affect the symptoms of adhd? And how adhd affects the process of hypnosis (if it does!)?
- Based on Dr. Spiegel’s response, it was asked: is it unlikely that someone with an executive function disorder or ADHD will be hypnotizable?
- How to use Reveri to enhance my creativity and curiosity?
- How to get rid of a lifelong nail biting habit?
- What are the benefits of incorporating hypnosis into therapy, both as a patient undergoing hypnosis and as someone learning self-hypnosis techniques?
- How can self-hypnosis advance learning outcomes and what are some of the best methods to measure those outcomes?
- Only 50% of cancer patients feel prepared for life in cancer survivorship. Can hypnosis be a tool for this population?
- My typical practice is Improve Sleep, but often while exploring different exercises I fall asleep once I begin to float and raise my hand. Do you have any advice or changes I can make to my routine I order to better experience the benefits of other exercises?
All questions we didn’t get to, I will have Dr. Spiegel answer via email. Thank you all for participating! How did you feel about today’s Q&A? 
Still need to get started with Reveri? You can download it in the App Store or Play Store here.