LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT: MYTH OR FOR REAL?

Though a widely spoken about romantic concept, it does seem a tad far-fetched

It is avidly written about in fairytales and romantic novels, It is a favorite topic of most filmmakers and it is what most of us wish would somehow happen to us falling in love with someone, the very first time you lay sight on him/her.

To define it, love at first sight is a strong and immediate attraction to another person based on physical attributes like attractiveness, sex appeal, physical arousal or romantic circumstances. But that is all from the books. What about real life? Is it possible to fall in love with someone the first time you see them or is that just plain attraction which may wane off after some time? So, is love at first sight a reality of just a fairytale myth.

It is not a myth. Even clinical observations show that people have fallen in love at first sight. The relationship may not always work out later, but the concept cannot be dismissed.

While one of the partners may fall in love with the other at first sight itself, the other partner may reciprocate that feeling a bit later. People are more likely to fall in love with some specific quality in the other person than falling in love with the person itself. Also many a time what seems like love at first sight is often just infatuation. At 16 you are bound to fall in and out of love.

Almost every other day I get to hear of some new chick whom Neil has fallen for. I have tried to explain to him that it is not possible to fall in love with someone that easily but it does not make sense to him, and quite understandably.

For many teenagers, falling in love is a sort of a coping mechanism to beat the stress of school or college life. It is like a self-esteem issue. They most often do it to prove a point to themselves or to their friends. Unfortunately movies and books, which create a very rosy picture about this concept, are a major influence. That is not always realistic.

However media professional Sasha Singh is a myth, one just fuelled by the publishing and the movie industry. How can you claim to be in love with someone just by looking at them and not looking at them and not knowing anything more about them.

You can get attracted to the person the first time you see them and want to get to know them better, opines actor Arbaaz Khan, who says he believes in love at first sight. He adds that the love factor comes in when one interacts or converses with the other person spends time with them.

So what was it like for him and wife Malaika? The initial attraction was definitely there and with each meeting we just wanted to get to know each other better. Somehow I knew that she was the one for me, I just felt different right after our first meeting itself, he concludes.

Have you ever been hypnotized?

Day- dreaming is a simple from of self- hypnosis in which we all indulge from time to time. The rhythm of a car engine and the humming sound that speeding tyres produce can together induce varying degrees of hypnosis, particularly when accompanied by monotonous motorway scenery. Absorption in a novel or a television presentation can also induce a hypnotic trance. As these occasions illustrate, you can become fully hypnotized though your eyes remain open, and this holds true even at the deeper levels.

If we all knew the extent to which self-hypnosis enters into the phenomenon of falling in love, much agony and many unhappy marriages could be avoided. Falling is often a more aptly descriptive verb than we are aware of at the time.

As you read the next few dozen sentences, make yourself more comfortable, tense your neck, arms, shoulders- tense them now and then relax them as fully as you can. Take a deep breath, then slowly exhale and imagine you are reading these words to someone sitting nearby. You are reading perhaps a little more slowly and clearly than you customarily speak. Clarity is assured if you place some stress or emphasis on the ‘ess’ sounds. Speak aloud if it is convenient to do so. And you are saying “please relax now, as much as you can, and now listen closely and discover that just by listening you can relax even more. Tense and then relax each part of the body a little at a time, starting with the toes, tense them a little then just let them go limp, lazy, relaxed. And next, the rest of the foot, and the ankles, so that your ankles and feel - feel limp, lazy and relaxed. And this sensation of relaxation rises up and passes to the legs, the knees, the thighs, progressing upwards slowly to the shoulders and back muscles, to the neck and head. Now as you are listening to my voice and only to my voice and only to my voice you will notice a stiffness in your jaw muscles and you will tense and relax your jaw do it now. Sensing a dryness in your throat you will pause a moment to swallow and you will swallow now and go deeper in to relaxation. Counting now from one to five, at the count of five you will become fully alert, feeling rested and revitalized….. One, two, three, four, five, fully awake, feeling great…..!”

If you are as susceptible to verbal persuasion as most of us are, you may have noticed that your own voice has a natural hypnotic effect, and you will have guessed the reason. All skillful manipulators introduce sibilant sounds in their speech to lull the mind into a state of ready suggestibility, of hypnosis. Watch how often this is used in advertising presentations. Incidentally, a competent hypnotist has no need to resort to trick vocabulary though he will tend, quite naturally, to avoid harsh sounding words and phrases, as inducing a state of relaxation is the aim. The need to use precise, literal phrases in guiding the subconscious is essential, as you will fully appreciate later.