There are many myths in the area of hypnotizeability. Some of the common misunderstandings include the beliefs that hypnotizeable persons are pushovers who has total belief in authoratives, or that they are unintelligible. Neither of these beliefs are true, but there are some characteristics that usually can give a very good indication on, if the client is highly hypnotizeable.

Hypnosis and the imagination seems to be linked in certain ways. As with the imagination, hypnotizeability seems to decrease with age. I'm not indicating that it's hard to enter the hypnotic trance if you are above a certain age, it will just require more sophisticated techniques than what is needed to hypnotize younger people. And let me make it very clear that hypnosis has nothing to do with manipulation, therefore there is no honour in "not being easy to hypnotize". It is very easy to resist hypnosis, you just determine that you don't want to be hypnotized, and that's that.

If you have a history of talking in your sleep, you may be an excellent hypnotic subject. You may have even more potential if you are known to walk in your sleep. This would make you a "Natural Somnambulist" as Dave Elman would have said. But even if you don't think you have ever done this, it doesn't mean that you will have a hard time going into hypnosis. You can easily train your ability to enter the hypnotic state. One way to do this could be to use a technique for self-hypnosis.

So if you have an appointment with a hypnotist, don't worry about hypnotizeability, as I mentioned earlier: anyone with a normal functioning brain can be hypnotized with the appropriate methods. Although this is the case, I will recommend that you try the above mentioned technique for self hypnosis, as it is really easy and it will prepare you for the appointment with the hypnotist.