Why the "Hypno" in Hypnosis?

Hypnosis was being used as early as 6,000 years ago in Egyptian sleep temples. These were like hospitals or healing places. Treatment included chanting - which put the patients in a dream-like or trance-like state - followed by analysis of their dreams to determine the course of treatment.

Other healing techniques used could include fasting, baths, and meditation.

During the eighteen century an Austrian doctor named Franz Anton Mesmer made a name for himself - and hypnosis - by using what he called a magnetic force that could 'cure' people of disease without surgery or medicine. He was quite successful.

He would sit his patient in a tub of water - called a baquet - that contained bottles of iron fillings. There were also metal rods sticking out of the water for the patient to hold on to. In many patients this caused seizures or deep sleeps. This is where the word Mesmerism comes from.

In 1741 a Scottish surgeon named James Braid saw one of Dr. Mesmer's demonstrations and became intrigued with what caused the subject to seem to be asleep and under Mesmer's control.

Dr. Braid began his own experiments and was the first to show that a hypnotic state could be obtained using physical agents. In 1842 he coined the word "hypnotism" and although he later tried to change it to "monoideism", it didn't fly.