Fancy hypnotising your Mum so she doesn’t force you to eat sprouts? How about hypnotising your granny so she doesn't keep playing the new Cliff Richard single? You may be out of luck: different people can be hypnotised to different degrees and some people are nearly impossible to hypnotise. It seems that people who become easily engrossed in reading, listening to music or daydreaming are the people most easy to hypnotise. Hypnosis can be more a more subtle process than swinging a watch in front of a person's face and telling them that they feel sleepy. When we look at the world our conscious brains tend to be focused on just one event, but other information is still being fed in just in case our attention has to shift. Through subliminal messages, it can be possible to place images or sounds into a person’s mind even when their attention is held somewhere else. For example, if a picture of a chocolate bar was quickly flashed up onto the screen during a film, just for a fraction of a second, you might suddenly find yourself thinking, "Mmmm, I really feel like some chocolate" without knowing why that thought flashed into your mind... In the UK, sending subliminal messages like this is against the law – advertisers have to find other, more obvious ways of making us want to spend money! Although someone under hypnosis is in a very relaxed state, hypnosis can’t replace sleep. It isn't possible to dream during hypnosis, and dreaming is generally thought to be an essential part of sleeping. Some researchers think that dreams are the brain’s nightly way of sorting, storing and generally making sense of the day’s experiences.

	Like a filmmaker, direct someone else's dream.
	People are very suggestive when they dream. If you wake up to a radio sometimes the music or news stories you hear can leak into your dreams, taking the story line down very unexpected paths. It is also possible to place yourself in someone else's dream. But you need to get the person's permission first!
	After getting your friend’s permission, wait until they fall asleep and start dreaming. You should be able to tell when they’re dreaming as their eyes will move around under their eyelids. Dreaming takes place in the part of sleep called REM or rapid eye movement sleep.
	By talking softly to your friend when they are dreaming you can control the dream. Don't talk too loudly or they will wake up!
	When they wake up you can check if it worked.