07 May 29 7:38 a.m. When I was beginning my journey I went to a lecture on hypnotism as I felt that there was something important to being able to regress and remember things that you have forgotten. I listen to what the guy had to say, but I never felt that hypnotism was the right tool, and later I found out why. I know a few people that are certified hypnotists and are doing past life regressing and so-called healing, but from talking to them, and to people who have had hypnosis treatments, healing is not what is taking place…
While there are similarities between meditation and hypnotism, the major difference is that with Mediation… YOU have conscious choice and control over your experience. You put yourself into an altered state of consciousness and you outline your journey and then allow yourself to follow it or wherever it takes you. Even with a guided mediation, you are still in control of the experience because you can bring yourself out of your altered state of consciousness whenever you want to, while with hypnotism, you are under the control of the hypnotist.
Another difference is that while on your journey, you are also aware of your thoughts, feelings and emotions and you can allow yourself to move with them, as this is a crucial and a KEY point in beginning to heal your issues. In order to do this, you need to be fully conscious and ware of your thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions and also how and what your body is feeling, and then to be able to bring all this back when you end your meditation.
9:32 a.m. I was checking my old Personal free website and I noticed that they have now added “google ads” to the top of the webpage. I decided to check it out to see what was being linked to my site and as I scrolled down the list.. guess what I found? Yep, a site on hypnotism. I found it interesting that the very first line read “Want to convince people to do whatever you ask?” and a little further on down the page was the following comment,
“ If you’ve ever wanted to simply convince people that you know what they should do …. and have them do it …. then this will be the most important message you ever read.”
Need I say more?
JR
Saysame (Says-a-me) 
I find it interesting how with meditation, as you said, the individual performing the "induction", if you will, is the same person going into the altered state of mind – almost a form of self-hypnosis vs. something more like conversational hypnosis where there is no apparent acknowledgment of any induction taking place by the individual being induced/suggested.
What I wonder is whether there is a difference between the state of mind during meditation and the state of mind during deep hypnosis. As anapestsb said above covert hypnosis would contradict this idea, as the person can be hypnotized without them even being aware of it.
There would be certain points of awareness that would be the same during meditation or hypnosis, as each provide the vehicle for an altered state of consciousness. The basic difference would be in that in the case of meditation, the person determines their experience whereas during hypnosis, the person has either willingly or unwillingly given their choice away to the person that is in CONTROL of their experience. The key factor in all this is INTENT… whether you are looking to heal the cause or whatever the issue is, or you are merely looking for a quick fix. In the case of covert hypnosis, you are not aware that you are being controlled and manipulated, but saying that, you don’t need to be hypnotized to be in an altered state of consciousness or to be controlled by another.