There are usually two different questions hiding under this one, and they are worth separating, because the answers are nothing alike.
The first is: will hypnosis harm me? Will I lose control, will I wake up, could I hurt myself.
The second is: will what I see be real? Is it a memory or imagination.
Science answers the first fairly clearly. It answers the second rather differently from how most pages about regression hypnosis would like to admit. I will describe both honestly, because I think anyone considering a session should know what they are walking into.
What hypnosis actually is
Start with a definition, because a lot of television has attached itself to the word.
The American Psychological Association defines hypnosis (in the revised Division 30 definition from 2015) as a state of consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness, characterised by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion (Elkins et al., American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 2015).
Notice what is not in that definition: no sleep, no loss of awareness, no handing control to anyone. There is focused attention and heightened responsiveness to suggestion. That last word returns later in this text — it is the key to both answers.
What the research says about safety
Hypnosis is one of the better-researched techniques in this neighbourhood, largely because medicine has used it for decades, for pain, procedures and irritable bowel syndrome.
The broadest available summary is a review of meta-analyses published in 2024 in Frontiers in Psychology, covering 49 meta-analyses and 261 randomised trials from 2003–2022 (Rosendahl, Alldredge and Haddenhorst, 2024). On safety:
- Zero reported serious adverse events attributable to hypnosis.
- Other adverse events occurred in 0.47% of participants in an analysis covering 429 people.
- Eight of the 49 reviews reported no adverse events at all.
- The individual cases described were slight dizziness after a first session, and one withdrawal due to a panic attack.
The authors note an important limitation honestly: safety data was reported in fewer than half the reviews. So the picture is good but incomplete, and should be read that way.
It is also worth remembering that this research concerns clinical hypnosis used in medicine, not past life regression specifically. The hypnotic state is the same; the context and the purpose are not.
Four fears I hear most often
”Will I lose control?”
No. In hypnosis you stay conscious and you decide throughout what you say and whether you continue. You can open your eyes, ask for a break or end the session at any moment. This is not a state in which someone directs you against your will — even if they tried.
”What if I don’t wake up?”
There is no state you can get stuck in. If the practitioner left the room and never came back, you would either come out of trance by yourself or fall asleep and wake up normally.
”Will I remember?”
Yes. Most people remember the session the way they remember a vivid dream or a strong memory — sometimes more clearly. Post-hypnotic amnesia is rare and is not the aim of this kind of work.
”Will I say something I don’t want to reveal?”
No. Hypnosis is not truth serum — you control what you say. What is worth knowing is that a regression session can be emotional and may stir up things you had not planned to touch. That is not an argument for avoiding it; it is an argument for booking with someone you trust.
Who is advised against it
This needs specifics rather than generalities.
Psychosis is treated in the clinical literature as an absolute contraindication to hypnosis. The reason: the work rests on imagination and dissociation, and in someone who has difficulty telling reality from imagining, that can make things worse. The same applies to active, severe dissociative disorders and pronounced paranoia.
In every other situation — epilepsy, serious cardiac conditions, pregnancy, psychiatric treatment, current medication, active addiction — the decision belongs to your treating doctor, not to a hypnotherapist and not to an article on the internet. If any of those apply to you, simply check before booking.
And one thing I want to say plainly: a regression session is not treatment and does not replace psychotherapy or psychiatric care. If you are struggling with depression, anxiety disorders or unprocessed trauma, the right address is a mental health professional. Regression can be a worthwhile experience alongside that kind of help — not instead of it.
Honestly about memory: is what I see real?
Now the second question — the one most pages about regression hypnosis do not touch.
The research on memory under hypnosis is fairly consistent and not flattering to the method. Hypnosis does not work as a reliable tool for retrieving memories. Under hypnosis people produce more material, but it is not thereby more accurate.
Nicholas Spanos demonstrated that false memories of early childhood can be created through both hypnotic and non-hypnotic procedures. His work on past-life accounts pointed toward role-playing and confabulation. The broader mechanisms of false memory were reviewed by Elizabeth Loftus in the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology.
The strongest practical evidence is what courts did with it: testimony “refreshed” under hypnosis is generally inadmissible in many jurisdictions — precisely because hypnosis increases suggestibility, the tendency to confabulate and, importantly, false confidence in one’s own memories.
What does that mean for you?
That historical verifiability is not what this session offers. If you are looking for proof of reincarnation, regression hypnosis will not supply it, and nobody honest should promise otherwise.
What a session can give is something else: a coherent, deeply moving experience that very often turns out to be accurate at the level of meaning — saying something true about your relationships, your fears and your repeating patterns, regardless of whether the images are memory, metaphor, or both at once. For most people who come to me, that is where the value sits.
You do not have to settle what this is in order to benefit from it. But it is worth going into a session knowing the question stays open.
What actually makes the difference: who runs the session
If hypnosis increases suggestibility, then the single most important safety factor becomes whether the practitioner suggests the answers.
A well-run regression session consists of asking open questions and following what appears. A badly run one consists of feeding content, steering toward a predetermined narrative, or finishing the client’s sentences. The difference between the two is, in practice, the difference between your experience and somebody else’s script.
So when choosing someone for this work, it is worth checking:
- Verifiable certification. LBL practitioners can be checked in the Michael Newton Institute’s public register. A certificate that cannot be verified anywhere is worth as much as a graphic in a footer.
- A clear scope. Does this person say what a session is and is not — or promise healing for everything.
- Reviews that describe how the session was run, not only its effects.
- A transparent price list and a transparent account of how a session goes.
If you are hesitating
Hesitation before a first session is normal and is not in itself a contraindication — on the contrary, it usually accompanies people who take this seriously.
If you have questions this text did not settle, write to me. I answer personally, and I do not talk anyone into a session they have doubts about — that is what the conversation before booking is for, not the one after.
You can also look through accounts from people who have already been. Several of them describe exactly that moment of hesitation before deciding.
Sources
- Elkins, Barabasz, Council, Spiegel — Advancing Research and Practice: The Revised APA Division 30 Definition of Hypnosis, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 2015. The current definition of hypnosis.
- Rosendahl, Alldredge, Haddenhorst — Meta-analytic evidence on the efficacy of hypnosis for mental and somatic health issues: a 20-year perspective, Frontiers in Psychology, 2024. Review of 49 meta-analyses and 261 RCTs; adverse event data.
- Spanos et al. — Creating false memories of infancy with hypnotic and non-hypnotic procedures, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 1999. Creation of false memories.
- Loftus — false memory research, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 2006. Review of false memory mechanisms.
- Find an LBL Facilitator — Michael Newton Institute. Public register of certified practitioners.