No Swinging Watches For This Hypnotist

At 6 a.m. the ritual would begin. I would click the "on" button of the television and plant mysellf on the couch in our den. Instantaneously, I would be sucked into the animated world of Scooby and Shaggy--not to escape from Saturday morning Cartoonland until five hours later when the networks began broadcasting sports like golf and bowling.

In this realm of Shaggy and Scooby's melodramatic mystery marathon, I first learned about hypnotism. In a twisted Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde sequence, for instance, Scooby would be entranced, and would alternate between babbling, snack-seeking "man's best friend" and blood-hungry canine demon. All with the swing of an heirloom pocketwatch.

Hypnotism, I learned from these half-hour jaunts through caves and graveyards, was mystical indeed. In an instant, a person (or dog) could be drawn into a seemingly snooze-like state and become malleable to instructions like "cluck like a chicken." Hypnotism was a truth serum, a behavior transformation inducer, a trip into the unknown and untreated side of the human consciousness.

So, in my own search for local hypnotists, when I let my fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages, I expected to find listings for "Magic Marla" and "Hypnotist Hilda" entries that promised an experience of body-possession or body-snatching. I expected to enter a dark and dank hole in the wall and arrive at a psychadelic mecca, complete with crystal ball and entrancer clad in gypsy-garb.

Well, let me reveal the truth. Hyponotism, the Scooby and Shaggy way, is a hoax. It's not like that at all.

When I entered the Brookline office of psychotherapist Shirley R. Aleo, I found not eerie skulls or flapping bats but instead plush creme carpeting, framed paintings of pottery and flowers, and cushy couches that seemed to jump from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. There were decorative shells on the oak coffee table, and Aleo herself wore a light pink skirt suit and heels. Not exactly the setting of "Scooby Doo."

I chatted with my future hypnotist about her trade.

"Hypnosis is a very effective tool," she said. "It is the best stress management technique you're ever going to find."

What?!? "Stress management"? Again, I don't remember any utterance of that from Scooby or Shaggy.

I learned that Aleo does not use hypnotism as a truth serum--although once a customer did ask her to use the procedure on his girlfriend to find out if she was having an affair--but that she uses a combination of psychotherapy and hypnotism for more practical reasons. Hypnotism can cure insomnia, phobias and anxiety reactions. It can speed up weight loss. It can even help LSAT, GRE and SAT test-takers who are having trouble concentrating on those series of timed multiple-choice questions.

Imagine that. Instead of going to Princeton Review or Kaplan to raise your LSAT scores, you go to your local hypnotist instead. Sounds revolutionary enough to me.

According to Aleo, in everyday life we tend to depend on the critical, conscious part of our mind. Hypnotism taps into the subconscious part--and when we are in a relaxed conscious state, we can use this less arguable state of mind and nourish it with positive ideas. Hypnotism is natural. According to Aleo, we are often in this relaxed mindframe without even knowing it.

With that as an introduction, I had to try it myself.

The lights were dimmed, and I laid on the couch, my head cushioned with a pillow and my arms crossed lightly on my chest.

"For the next few minutes you will not be concerned with your problems. You will have no worries, and you will only be concerned with the sound of my voice," Aleo began.

"I will take you through a series of relaxation exercises, and we will begin with your head," she continued. "Feel it relax and sink into the couch."

And so she guided me through the relaxation process, and her soothing voice forced the tension from my body, from my forehead, my shoulders, my fingertips, my knees.

I journeyed into that semi-awake, semi-asleep state and her voice dropped into a half-audible blur of indiscriminate sounds.

I remember gaining a sense of timelessness and trying to block out flashes of the hovering 12-page psychology paper I hadn't started yet. And it worked.

Seventeen minutes later, I "awoke" from my somewhat somnolent stage to her steady counting, "You will awake when I count to three, relaxed and more refreshed than before."

Then I began to understand what she had been talking about before. In that state of half-awakeness, I could see how someone could be given positive instructions and actually adhere to them.

Skeptical about the whole thing? I was, also, at first. Hey, I wanted to see the swinging pendulum and the crystal ball, too.

But I tried it, and it's really not so bad. In fact it's very soothing, very relaxing--just like Shirley promised.

Okay, so Aleo's hypnotism may not make you reveal your innermost truths or compel you to "cluck like a chicken." It may not match the excitement of a Scooby-trance.

But if it de-stresses you or makes you better able to sleep, where's the harm? And remember this--Scooby and Shaggy's hypnotism didn't offer to help raise your scores on the LSAT ,did it?