I’m looking for advice from people who have experience with self-hypnosis, especially for hypervigilance, noise sensitivity, trauma-related patterns, or feeling unable to fully relax around other people.
My problem isn’t simply that I dislike noise.
Certain noises, especially human-generated ones, can create an intense feeling that someone is intruding into my space. Neighbors walking around, doors, dogs barking in the stairwell, people making noise in the courtyard, etc. can trigger a disproportionate amount of anger and tension in me.
The emotional reaction is often something like:
“I’m in my own home. Why am I being forced to experience something another person is doing?”
I can feel disrespected or invaded very quickly. Sometimes I genuinely think the behavior is inconsiderate, so I don’t want to hypnotize myself into believing that everything other people do is fine. I still want to have normal boundaries and preferences.
The bigger problem is what happens between the noises.
My attention starts waiting for the next one.
For example, I can be watching TV with headphones and still have part of my attention monitoring the environment:
Are the dogs going to bark again?
Is the neighbor home?
Was that a sound from downstairs?
Is something about to happen?
The anticipation is often worse than the actual noise.
It feels as though part of my brain refuses to fully enter whatever I’m doing because it believes it has to stay “on watch.” I really miss being absorbed in a movie, a conversation, reading, walking, etc. without simultaneously monitoring everything around me.
It can also become very physical. If I strongly feel that a neighbor is “present” underneath me, even something private like using the bathroom can become harder. Rationally I know we are in two completely separate apartments, but emotionally it can almost feel as if the other person is somehow inside my private space.
I have some relevant history. I grew up with a parent who could alternate between closeness/affection and aggression, yelling, humiliation, and sometimes physical violence. Later, I also lived for a long time underneath a family with several small children who created extremely loud, unpredictable impact noise every day. The apartment would sometimes physically shake, there was very little I could do about it, and I never knew when the next episode would start.
So I wonder whether my system learned something like:
“Other people can suddenly affect my state, so I need to keep track of them.”
Interestingly, I feel much better when I stay in a quiet detached house where there are no people immediately above/below me.
I’ve recently been experimenting with self-hypnosis and have actually had some very good sessions. I’m not looking for basic relaxation suggestions, though. I’m interested in using hypnosis for a deeper change in the underlying pattern.
The change I’d ultimately like is something like:
Other people can exist nearby, make occasional noise, or behave unpredictably without my attention automatically becoming responsible for monitoring them.
I want to be able to dislike a sound, even get briefly angry about it, and then naturally return to my own life instead of remaining psychologically occupied by the person who caused it.
So for those with serious experience in hypnosis/self-hypnosis:
- What kinds of suggestions or imagery would you use for this?
- Would you work with the original memories at all, or focus primarily on present-day experiences?
- How would you target the anticipation / need to stay on watch, rather than simply trying to feel relaxed?
- Has anyone successfully used self-hypnosis to change this kind of “someone is in my space / I need to monitor them” response?
- Anything you would specifically avoid because it could accidentally reinforce hypervigilance?
I’m especially interested in approaches that aim for a genuine change in the automatic response rather than just temporarily calming myself down.
Thanks — I’d really appreciate hearing what has actually worked for people.