Someone asked me recently if hypnosis can be used to help him learn French because he feels he has hit a plateau. Yes it can! The state of hypnosis is a state of high mental alertness (contrary to popular belief). Hypnotic states are associated with increased theta wave activity*. See this Forb’s article on theta wave and foreign language learning. The article talks about Researchers from two Swiss universities found that they could enhance the learning of words from a foreign language by exposing people to the words during non-rapid eye movement sleep (NonREM sleep) – the deep, dreamless sleep period that most of us experience during the first few hours of the night. They found that learning the foreign words overlapped with the appearance of theta brain waves, an intriguing result since theta is the brain wave state often associated with heightened learning while awake.
The best way to use hypnosis to learn a new language is probably through self-hypnosis. If you would like to find out more about self hypnosis, just drop me a line.
*Sabourin, M. E., Cutcomb, S. D., Crawford, H. J., & Pribram, K. (1990). EEG correlates of hypnotic susceptibility and hypnotic trance: Spectral analysis and coherence. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 10(2), 125-142.
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