Hypnosis Questions - Am I sleeping?

We recieve this question all of the time - about sleeping and hypnosis, and if it is ok to "drift off":

Hi there. I'm new to hypnosis and bought your law of attraction album about a week ago.

The first 3 times i used it I was very much awake but also totally relaxed and visualizing the instructions. But then after the 4th or so time I keep drifting off and my mind wonders elsewhere so far away that I actually dont even hear your voice anymore.

Just every once in while my mind will come back to your voice and back to the story but it doesn't take long then my mind is gone again. I've basically got one foot in dream world and the other is awake. Drifting back and forth between these two states. My question is would that affect the goal of the hypnosis and should I try and stay more awake and follow the visualizations as directed? Thanks a lot for your time and effort!

The Answer

This is quite common.

Many people think they are in a state of sleep when they go into deep hypnosis, and it’s easy to figure out whether you did:

Ask yourself: did you hear Brennan count from 1 back up to 5 at the end of the session? If so, then you were definitely listening on a very deep level, which is excellent. If not then you were asleep.
If you are falling asleep then there are some easy adjustments you can make to prevent this in the future:

1. Sit up. You will feel much more awake and will probably hear the whole recording.. then you can gradually adjust to a position where you enter a trance but don't fall asleep - hypnosis is better experienced when you are at an angle rather than completely flat - it is much harder to drift off to sleep.
2. Grip onto something that will keep that arm elevated (e.g., drape the arm over the back of the sofa, hold onto the frame of your headboard, etc). With a little practice you will be able to get into a trance state still, but you won't fall asleep.

So there you have it, an easy way to tell if you are sleeping, and an easy adjustment to make.