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Comment by achow | Hacker News Reader

Any pointers to an app or website for self or guided hypnosis? Keen to see whether it can work for a friend (depression patient).

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Reveri App [1] Huberman lab podcast episode on hypnosis [2]

[1] https://www.reveri.com/ [2] https://hubermanlab.com/dr-david-spiegel-using-hypnosis-to-e...

I have been on the Android wait list for Reveri since forever, seems like its not happening anytime soon. Is there an alternative to Reveri on Android?

Don't try to treat depression with an app or website, nor in isolation using only what you've learned from an app or website. As TFA points out this stuff should be done by people who know what they're doing.

Yes, depression has been cured by hypnotherapy. But you have to find someone who knows what they are doing. Even most professional hypnotherapists don't really know what they're doing, so your friend shouldn't be afraid to try different ones until they find someone effective. I suffered from depression and was cured by a hypnotherapist, but he is arguably one of the greatest therapists in the world. Meeting him wasn't cheap, but it gave me my life, so it was literally priceless. Not every therapist can do that. (Although the guy spends a large amount of his time teaching seminars all over the world to transfer his knowledge, yet his work is called "pseudoscience" and ignored or dismissed by academia.)

Youtube? Imho meditation is basically the same. And playing an instrument has very similar effect to me and doesn't give me such "what kind of hokus pokus am i doing here?" vibes. If your friend doesn't like sounding bad, try a hang drum, everybody can make beautiful music with these right away. Guitar isn't hard too, learn a chord you like or 2 and go from there.

How is meditation the same? Specifically guided meditation?

Hypnosis and meditation use very similar techniques to reach a very similar state of mind. I'd say that the main difference is that people talking about meditation usually come from a spiritual viewpoint, whereas hypnosis is more scientific.

It's also that meditation is usually observant and not goal-directed, or at least it's taught that way, while hypnosis is usually used to achieve a specific goal, which means the hypnotist is intentionally making an effort to influence the client.

I don’t know. A couple of very popular non-guided meditation practices are either about focusing on the breath or being mindful of the present. I’d say they are very different at least in the approach.

Based on your guitar and hocus-pocus comment I reckon that you know about as much about meditation (guitar or not) as a Chicken Soup For The Soul reader knows about theology.

> I'd say that the main difference

Is definitely the practices themselves.

Whatever, i think in the context of this article and depression, the suggestion to also check out meditation and especially musical instruments is solid advice. Surely I could have marked my subjective experience better like "TO ME these are basically the same." Your reckoning disqualifies you for further discussion.

These folks offer mp3 downloads, and also have mobile apps. Been using them since about 2003. They have a clinical approach and are legit.

https://www.hypnosisdownloads.com/

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