Hypnosis comes from Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word hypnotism was coined in 1843 by Dr. James Braid—an early pioneer in the field. Hypnosis became an alternative word in 1876.
Contrary to popular belief, one should not be asleep while in hypnosis. The eyes are often closed, and the experience is deeply relaxing, but, as my teacher, Debi Livingston points out, when a client falls asleep, it’s one expensive nap! For hypnosis to work, the client must be an active participant, letting all distractions fall away in order to concentrate on the desire for change and the suggestions that will get him or her there.
Hypnos’ son, Morpheus, god of dreams might have been a better choice for the patron god of this craft. There are some hypnotic techniques that produce experiences that feel like dreaming. Nonetheless, I’ll always have affection for ‘ole Hypnos—Somnus is his Roman name. Somnambulism—to sleep walk—is derived from Somnus. In the field of hypnosis, somnambulism is used to refer to a deep stage of trance.
In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, there is a gorgeous passage where we can see the god Hypnos in his House of Sleep. In the story leading up to this passage, Alcyone’s loving husband, Ceyx has gone off to sea and has drowned. The queen of the gods, Juno, can’t bear to watch Alcyone praying for her husband’s safety when he has already died, and she sends the messenger goddess, Iris, to ask Hypnos “to send Alcyone a dream-figure in the shape of her dead Ceyx, to tell her his true fate.” He complies by sending his son, Morpheus to handle the task.
Below is the passage, translated by Anthony S. Kline. The University of Virginia Library generously offers the complete Metapmorphoses online and allows free reproduction for non-commercial use.
Book XI: 573-649, The House of Sleep
There is a deeply cut cave, a hollow mountain, near the Cimmerian country, the house and sanctuary of drowsy Sleep. Phoebus can never reach it with his dawn, mid-day or sunset rays. Clouds mixed with fog, and shadows of the half-light, are exhaled from the ground. No waking cockerel summons Aurora with his crowing: no dog disturbs the silence with its anxious barking, or goose, cackling, more alert than a dog. No beasts, or cattle, or branches in the breeze, no clamour of human tongues. There still silence dwells. But out of the stony depths flows Lethe’s stream, whose waves, sliding over the loose pebbles, with their murmur, induce drowsiness. In front of the cave mouth a wealth of poppies flourish, and innumerable herbs, from whose juices dew-wet Night gathers sleep, and scatters it over the darkened earth. There are no doors in the palace, lest a turning hinge lets out a creak, and no guard at the threshold. But in the cave’s centre there is a tall bed made of ebony, downy, black-hued, spread with a dark-grey sheet, where the god himself lies, his limbs relaxed in slumber. Around him, here and there, lie uncertain dreams, taking different forms, as many as the ears of corn at harvest, as the trees bear leaves, or grains of sand are thrown onshore.
When the nymph entered and, with her hands, brushed aside the dreams in her way, the sacred place shone with the light of her robes. The god, hardly able to lift his eyes heavy with sleep, again and again, falling back, striking his nodding chin on his chest, at last shook himself free of his own influence, and resting on an elbow asked her (for he knew her) why she had come….
