Meditation and Hypnosis: A User's Guide to (Re)Finding Your Center
- Mourad Chouaki
- Jul 6
- 7 min read
Talking about meditation is often more complex than the practice itself. In an age of wellness injunctions, mindfulness apps, and silent retreats, meditation fascinates as much as it frustrates. It’s recommended in corporations for stress management, celebrated in neuroscience circles—yet still, for many, meditating remains... boring.
There’s a subtle irony in the art of meditation: the more we talk about it, the further we get from it. And yet, it is perhaps only through language—through trying to name it—that we can begin to trace the contours of an overlooked presence: the seated, alert, silent mind.
As the world vibrates to the rhythm of notifications and productivity per minute, sitting down to “do nothing” seems nearly absurd—countercultural, even. Absurd… or perhaps essential.
This article seeks to clarify what meditation really is, why it feels so difficult today, and how it distinguishes itself from—or connects with—another altered state practice: hypnosis.
I. Too Many Methods, Not Enough Meaning: Meditation in a Confused Age
Search “meditation” online today, and you're overwhelmed by a cascade of offerings: mindfulness meditation, transcendental meditation, active meditation, body scans, heart coherence, zazen, vipassana, guided visualizations, etc.
It’s as if our era suddenly rediscovered the simple act of sitting still, closing one’s eyes, and observing the inner landscape—and with it, doors we didn’t know existed began to open.
But this renewed interest, while revealing a deep hunger for self-connection, also brings its share of excess: commodification, dilution, methodological confusion. As with anything, the broader the offer, the blurrier the essence. Meditation is not a performance in calmness. It is, more modestly, a reversal—a turning back toward what is already present. And slowly, learning to inhabit that space: the now.
Mindfulness has never been more monetized, stylized, and institutionalized—in corporations, hospitals, even schools. And paradoxically, meditation has never felt so inaccessible.
Why? Because it’s often packaged as a tool for productivity, a shortcut to enlightenment, or a quick mental cleanse between emails. It becomes a consumer product, severed from its philosophical and initiatic roots. Emptied of its demands, it keeps only its promises: calm, focus, wellbeing. A sort of mental yoga shot to down after burnout.
Yet meditation was never designed to be useful. It is not a technique, but a relationship. Not a skill, but a posture. A shift in the gravitational center of awareness.
Its Latin root, meditari, means “to be in the middle,” “to consider with care.” In Sanskrit, dhyāna refers to a meditative absorption that precedes ego dissolution. In Sufi traditions, we find murāqaba—vigilant watchfulness—or iʿtibār, the contemplative perception of inner and outer signs.
These are not trivial terms. They reflect two contrasting visions of the mind: one seeks to extract value from consciousness, the other to bow before its mystery. The latter, contemplative and non-instrumental, has become almost inaudible in today’s world. We must learn again how to hear it.
To meditate, perhaps, is simply to stop fleeing from what is already here.
II. Meditation Is Staying with What Is (Even Chaos)
Many people abandon meditation after a few attempts:
“I can’t stop thinking.” “My mind races.” “I’m too restless for this.”
This is the illusion. Meditation is not about emptying the mind or reaching a serene state.
Meditation is staying—even when it’s messy, painful, noisy.
Even when your whole being wants to flee.
In the beginning, it can feel brutal. Suddenly, you hear thoughts you didn’t know you had, feel bodily tensions that were numbed out, face unnamed anxieties surfacing uninvited. This is good. It means you’ve stopped covering it all up. Meditation begins precisely where distraction ends. Not in peace, but in exposure.
In my own Vipassana retreat, the first days were disorienting. Ten hours of seated silence per day. No talking. No books. No distractions. After two hours, I crashed into a nap, exhausted by stillness. I woke up disoriented. It was only 9 a.m. Day One had barely begun.
And yet, something slowly shifted. What felt like boredom became space. Thoughts slowed—not because I forced them out, but because they no longer dominated. Two core Buddhist principles took form:
Upekka (equanimity): the art of observing without reacting.
Anicca (impermanence): everything passes, even discomfort.
These truths aren’t intellectual. They’re cellular. Learned not through study, but by staying. Over time, body and mind begin to understand: a sensation, a memory, a fear can be felt without being seized or avoided. Suffering is not erased. But it is recontextualized within a rhythm far greater.
III. The Inner Voice: From Tyrant to Companion
One of the most persistent obstacles in meditation is the inner commentary: that voice that judges, narrates, worries, plans. In Western philosophy, we’ve deified it as the Cartesian “I think, therefore I am.” This entity—called ego, mind, manas, or inner manager—functions like a hyperactive command center. We are taught to believe it is us.
But meditation challenges that premise. It invites us to step out of its orbit. The voice doesn’t need to be silenced. It needs to lose its monopoly. It can then become a whisper, one voice among others. A guide, even.
Instead of: “You’re doing this wrong,” it may say, “Come back.” Instead of: “You’re not calm enough,” it may say, “Just observe.”
Here’s a simple exercise:
Sit down comfortably.
Inhale deeply through your mouth, as if through a straw.
Hold your breath.
Notice what arises.
Exhale slowly, delicately.
Hold again.
Observe.
In these moments of active suspension, something becomes clear. Confronted with stillness, the inner voice has two choices: agitate, or soften. With time, it chooses the latter. It becomes presence.
IV. Hypnosis and Meditation: Divergent Twins of Consciousness
While meditation trains us to stay in lucid presence, hypnosis guides us into intentional, symbolic transformation. These practices are distinct in posture but deeply complementary, especially in psychotherapy.
Different Postures, Same Terrain
Meditative and hypnotic states share neurological features:
reduced Default Mode Network activity (mental chatter),
increased prefrontal cortex activation,
heightened inter-hemispheric coherence,
enhanced neuroplasticity potential (Barabasz & Barabasz, 2008; Tang et al., 2015)
But while meditation involves open, non-directive awareness, hypnosis works via focused, goal-oriented attention. A particular state is induced to allow targeted transformation—of an emotion, symptom, memory, or belief.
Meditation prepares the ground—stabilizing attention, reducing reactivity. Hypnosis enters this softened terrain to symbolically rework inner material. The meditator learns to observe the inner world; hypnosis may help reshape its architecture.
In Psychotherapy: A Catalyst for Change
Recognized by institutions like INSERM (2015), hypnosis proves effective across many areas:
Chronic and psychosomatic painHypnosis modulates pain perception through attentional and symbolic mechanisms (Rainville et al., 1997).
Anxiety, phobias, panic disordersIt dampens limbic hyperreactivity and activates internal stabilizing resources (Oakley & Halligan, 2013).
Behavioral disorders and addictionsWorking with metaphors, sensory anchors, or symbolic regressions, hypnosis bypasses conscious resistance (Araoz, 1985).
Existential and identity accompanimentBeyond symptom relief, modern hypnosis (especially Ericksonian and humanistic) facilitates deep insight into internal conflicts, life choices, archetypes, or transgenerational patterns.
A Fertile Dynamic
Combined, meditative presence and hypnotic imagination create a powerful synergy in therapeutic work:
Meditation stabilizes, defuses automatic reactions, cultivates neutrality.
Hypnosis then orients change, drawing on imagination, memory, and somatic intelligence.
One grounds being. The other invites becoming anew.
V. Meditation, Hypnosis, Contemplation — What For?(Or: Does It Even Serve a Purpose?)
Perhaps this is the most modern question of all:Why meditate?If it doesn’t bring instant peace, productivity, or peak experience… what’s the point?
Because to meditate is to remember we are not only what we do.It’s a way of resisting fragmentation. Of returning to inner continuity. Of living without losing oneself.
Neuroscience affirms what mystics intuited:Meditation reshapes the brain—boosting emotional regulation (prefrontal cortex), attention (anterior cingulate), body awareness (insula), and downregulating the DMN, cortisol levels, and emotional reactivity (Tang et al., 2015; Goyal et al., 2014; Lutz et al., 2008).
But is that the essence?
Maybe meditation “serves no purpose”—just like love or beauty don’t. They transform, yes, but not in ways that can be monetized. They transform because they touch something alive.
If meditation is the art of inhabiting the present without reaction, hypnosis is the art of conversing with the unconscious without coercion. One teaches observation. The other, soft transformation.
Together, they restore inner coherence. They do not promise enlightenment. They offer grounding. Reconnection. Perspective.
To contemplate.To listen.To regulate.To reconnect.
Maybe that’s what healing means.
So no, it’s not “useful.”
But it’s vital.
In a world where everything must serve, what serves no purpose becomes a sacred form of resistance.
The author
⫸ Mourad – Ericksonian hypnosis practitioner, trainer, and founder of @morpheose⫸ Offerings:
1:1 sessions in Geneva (17 rue Charles-Giron) and via video
Ericksonian hypnosis trainings
Retreats and workshops for individuals & organizations
Ex-physicist and political scientist, former BCG consultant, athlete, and ever-curious explorer of consciousness.
Bibliographic References
Neuroscience and Meditation
Lutz, A., Slagter, H. A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2008). Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Tang, Y.-Y., Hölzel, B. K., & Posner, M. I. (2015). The neuroscience of mindfulness meditation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 16(4), 213–225.
Goyal, M. et al. (2014). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine.
Brewer, J. A., et al. (2011). Meditation experience is associated with increased cortical thickness. Neuroreport.
Ricard, M., Lutz, A., & Davidson, R. J. (2014). Mind of the Meditator. Scientific American.
Therapeutic Hypnosis
Rainville, P., et al. (1997). Pain affect encoded in human anterior cingulate but not somatosensory cortex. Science.
Oakley, D. A., & Halligan, P. W. (2013). Hypnotic suggestion and cognitive neuroscience. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Jensen, M. P., Patterson, D. R., & Hypnosis Working Group (2017). Hypnotic approaches for chronic pain management. American Psychologist.
Barabasz, A., & Barabasz, M. (2008). Hypnosis and the Brain. Springer.
Araoz, D. L. (1985). The New Hypnosis. Brunner/Mazel.
INSERM (2015). Évaluation de l’efficacité de la pratique de l’hypnose. Collective report.
