The state of mind that provides you with the ability to follow suggestion without conscious intent.

Hypnosis is a tool that is used to help people reach their goals. It is not a cure-all that can be administered once and never revisited. Hypnosis is useful and highly effective when applied for subconscious issues such as weight gain, stress, insomnia, pain, and shyness.

There are dozens of uses for hypnosis.

Hypnosis allows us to place suggestions directly into the subconscious mind, and what takes hold in the subconscious is automatically acted on by the conscious mind.

The practice of improving the quality of life and healing through a relaxed, rested state where the subconscious mind is receptive to external suggestions is called hypnotherapy.

The relaxed, sleep-like state is considered hypnosis.

They are actually the same thing since the state of mind is self-produced even when working with a hypnotist. The difference is that self-hypnosis is self-managed and guided, while standard hypnosis is guided by a hypnotist.

The best hypnotic subjects tend to be people that are intelligent, have the ability to visualize freely, are creatively inclined, and are able to freely express their emotions.

People that are too critical, overanalyze things, have a low mental visualization ability, cannot focus or pay attention for an extended period of time, are of lower than-average intelligence, or are overly inhibited tend to have difficulty removing the conscious barrier to allow themselves to be hypnotized.

Sure you can, you use both everyday!

Examples of the use of the conscious mind are when you are engaged in conversation with someone else, you are working out an analytical problem, or you are pricing out the best deal at the grocery store. Conversely, the subconscious mind is in use when you are daydreaming about a memory, are truly relaxing, or right before falling asleep.

Being hypnotized is really a state of heightened consciousness. A common myth is that you will actually lose consciousness – that simply is not true!

You will be much more aware then before. This is because of your highly focused concentration and relaxed state. After the first hypnosis session, participants often say the hypnotic induction was much different than they expected. Pre-established opinions of hypnosis make subjects think it is much more extreme and intense than it actually is. It is common for people to think that they have not actually been hypnotized at all, when in fact they have.

Many first-timers say that they hear every word and experience a complete relaxation unlike anything achievable without hypnosis

It is what you want it to be. 

Some clients want to stop smoking cigarettes but enjoy pot every once in awhile. Some people want to stop ALL smoking: cigarettes, weed etc. It is what you want it to be.