Red flags to identify hypnosis

If a person is hearing voices when there's no one around... odds are good they'll be diagnosed with schizophrenia should they visit a doctor.  That's fine if the world contained no other way for a person to hear voices.  But there's actually quite a few ways.

To try and distinguish something intentionally caused using hypnosis from anything else, these are immediate red flags:

• Do you ever hear something that seems to have been interpreted literally instead of how it was intended?
• Example:  Hearing words spoken instead of what the words (given as suggestions) described:
• You might hear insults or taunts that usually end with the sound of laughter but one time might end with a description of laughter instead of the laughter itself: the words "triumphant laughter" are heard instead of voices laughing in triumph.
• If this should ever happen unexpectedly, it's hypnosis.

• Do you ever get tired mentally and notice what you're hearing seems to be off in it's timing?
• Example: Hearing one voice begin talking before the current one finishes but there's no reaction to the interruption.
• If this only happens when you're mentally tired (maybe at the end of the day), it's hypnosis.

• Does repeating a words, phrase, or statement in your head that seemed to precede (trigger) hearing a voice respond cause it to occur again?
• Example: If hearing something prompted you to say "You're not real" and you said or thought it then heard a response 'I'm as real as you're gonna get', try saying it in your head to trigger it again.
• If you can hear the response even 1 additional time, it's hypnosis.

• Do you ever experience something best described as a "shift in awareness" that brings an object or to mind briefly, then later causes something to be heard when you become aware of the object again?
• Example: You're sitting down and your mind briefly becomes aware of your feet for no discernable reason.  Then within a few minutes you become aware you're still wearing shoes and after taking them off here the phrase 'now doesn't that feel better?'

• Do you ever hear the following things as part of a larger phrase or statement said by a voice? If there's a brief pause right before each like the voice is trying to remember them it could be your own awareness filling them in.  If the pause is consistently present (or ever present when the voice must have read your thoughts), it's hypnosis.
• Your own name
• Names of people you know
• Something you just read to yourself
• Something you were just thinking about
• Something you were planning to do

• This one might not be universal, but did you "stumble" on a phrase that turns off what you hear for some period of time?
• Schizophrenia (outside of it being an intentional result of hypnosis) shouldn't have an ON/OFF switch like that.
• If you've found a phrase that can do this, it's hypnosis.

When none of these red flags are present, wait until a time you're mentally tired (or exhausted) and see if they happen then.  Once the mind gets tired (even the unconscious part) following suggestions that were given as hypnosis can get more difficult.  Especially complicated suggestions.