Have you ever wished you could forget something that happened in the past?
Perhaps there's an embarrassing memory you'd rather not think about, an unpleasant experience that still bothers you, or something someone said that you wish you could simply erase from your mind.
It's understandable to wonder whether hypnosis could help. After all, hypnosis is often associated with the idea of forgetting, remembering things differently, or temporarily blocking out certain experiences.
But can hypnosis actually make you forget something?
The answer is a little more complicated than you might expect.
Hypnosis can influence certain aspects of memory and recall under particular circumstances. Research has also demonstrated that hypnotic suggestions can sometimes produce temporary memory difficulties in highly responsive individuals.
However, this is very different from permanently erasing a memory or removing an experience from your mind.
Hypnotherapy is generally better understood as a potential way of changing how you respond to difficult memories, rather than deleting those memories altogether.
Let's look at what hypnosis can and cannot do, how it affects memory, and whether it might help you feel less troubled by something you'd prefer to forget.
Can hypnosis make you forget something?
Hypnosis may temporarily influence your ability to recall certain information, but it cannot reliably erase a specific memory from your brain.
Research into hypnosis has identified a phenomenon known as posthypnotic amnesia. This refers to difficulty remembering information or experiences following a hypnotic suggestion.
In experimental settings, some highly hypnotizable individuals have demonstrated temporary difficulties recalling information after receiving specific suggestions. These effects can sometimes be reversed by another suggestion.¹
However, this does not mean that the original memory has been permanently removed.
There is an important difference between being unable to recall something at a particular moment and having genuinely erased the memory.
For example, you might find it difficult to remember a particular detail immediately after a suggestion, but that doesn't establish that the information has disappeared or that it cannot be recalled again.
In everyday hypnotherapy, the goal is generally not to make people forget specific events. Instead, treatment may focus on reducing emotional distress, changing unhelpful thought patterns, and developing healthier responses to memories.
Can hypnosis erase bad memories?
No. There is no reliable scientific evidence that hypnotherapy can selectively erase unwanted memories.
Memories are complex. They involve networks of information associated with experiences, emotions, sensations, and other details.
Even when a memory becomes less accessible or less emotionally intense, this does not necessarily mean that the original experience has been erased.
If you are struggling with an unpleasant memory, hypnotherapy may offer a different approach.
Rather than trying to remove the memory, a practitioner might help you work toward:
Feeling less upset when remembering what happened.
Reducing anxiety associated with particular reminders.
Developing a more balanced perspective on the experience.
Becoming less preoccupied with the past.
Responding more calmly when the memory comes to mind.
Focusing more comfortably on your present life.
The distinction is important.
You may not be able to change what happened, but you may be able to change how you feel about it and how much it affects your everyday life.
How does hypnosis affect memory?
Memory isn't simply a recording of everything that happens to us.
Remembering something involves several processes, including encoding, storage, consolidation, and retrieval.
Encoding: Taking in information and forming a memory.
Storage: Retaining information over time.
Consolidation: Stabilizing and integrating newly formed memories.
Retrieval: Accessing information that has previously been stored.
Hypnosis may influence certain aspects of attention, expectation, and memory retrieval.
For example, a person who receives a hypnotic suggestion may experience a temporary change in their ability or willingness to recall particular information.
Research has also investigated how hypnotic suggestions can influence memory experiences and the confidence people place in their recollections.²
However, it is important not to assume that an apparent change in recall means that the underlying memory has been deleted or accurately recovered.
Hypnosis does not provide a reliable way to inspect, edit, or erase the contents of someone's memory.
Can hypnosis make you forget an embarrassing experience?
If you've experienced an embarrassing moment that keeps coming back to mind, you might wish you could forget it completely.
Perhaps you said something you regret, made a mistake in front of other people, or experienced an awkward situation that you still think about.
Embarrassing memories can sometimes feel much more significant than they really are, particularly when you repeatedly revisit them.
Hypnotherapy may help you change your emotional response to these experiences.
For example, a session might focus on:
Feeling less embarrassed when remembering what happened.
Reducing the tendency to replay the experience.
Becoming less concerned about what other people might think.
Recognizing that everyone experiences awkward moments.
Developing a more relaxed attitude toward past mistakes.
Feeling more comfortable moving forward.
The goal would be to make the memory less upsetting or important in your everyday life, rather than attempting to erase it.
Sometimes, being able to remember an embarrassing experience without feeling overwhelmed by it is much more useful than trying to forget it altogether.
Can hypnosis help you forget someone?
Perhaps there is someone from your past you'd rather not think about.
It might be an ex-partner, a former friend, or someone associated with a particularly difficult period in your life.
You may find that certain memories keep coming back, even when you would prefer to concentrate on other things.
Hypnosis cannot reliably remove memories of another person, but hypnotherapy may help you work on the emotional associations that make those memories difficult.
For example, suggestions might focus on:
Feeling less emotionally affected by reminders of the person.
Reducing repetitive thoughts about the relationship.
Developing a greater sense of independence.
Feeling more comfortable with life as it is today.
Recognizing that the relationship is part of your past.
Becoming more open to new experiences and relationships.
This can be particularly relevant when memories are associated with heartbreak, disappointment, or regret.
You don't necessarily need to forget someone to move on from the relationship.
It may be enough to reach a point where remembering them no longer has the same emotional impact.
Can hypnosis help you forget a traumatic experience?
This is a particularly important question because traumatic experiences can involve complicated emotional and psychological responses.
If you have experienced something frightening, distressing, or overwhelming, you might wish you could erase the memory completely.
However, hypnosis should not be used with the expectation that it can delete traumatic memories.
A more appropriate therapeutic goal may be to help you reduce distress associated with the experience and develop a greater sense of safety and control in the present.
Depending on your circumstances, a qualified mental health professional may consider hypnosis as one component of a broader treatment approach.
There are important limitations to consider:
Hypnosis does not guarantee that traumatic memories will disappear.
It should not be used to force you to revisit distressing experiences.
Guided imagery should not be treated as a way of discovering hidden or forgotten facts.
A practitioner should not suggest that you must recover memories to make progress.
Trauma-related difficulties may require specialized psychological treatment.
If you are experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), consider speaking with a licensed mental health professional about established treatments.
The priority should be your safety and well-being, not trying to make yourself forget something before you are ready to address it.
Can hypnosis help you stop thinking about something?
Sometimes the problem isn't that you remember something unpleasant. It's that you cannot seem to stop thinking about it.
You might find yourself repeatedly analyzing what happened, imagining alternative outcomes, or worrying about what someone else thought.
This type of repetitive thinking is sometimes called rumination.
It can make it difficult to concentrate on everyday activities and enjoy the present.
Hypnotherapy may help some people explore the thoughts and emotional responses contributing to this pattern.
Suggestions could focus on:
Recognizing when you're becoming caught up in repetitive thinking.
Redirecting your attention toward the present.
Developing a calmer response to unwanted thoughts.
Reducing excessive self-criticism.
Becoming less preoccupied with things you cannot change.
Focusing on activities and experiences that matter to you now.
The intention isn't to prevent you from remembering or thinking about the past.
Instead, it is to help you develop more flexibility in deciding where to direct your attention.
Can hypnosis help you change how a memory makes you feel?
Yes, this is a more realistic therapeutic goal than trying to erase a memory.
A memory can remain accessible while your emotional response to it changes.
For example, something that once made you feel embarrassed might eventually become an experience you can remember without much discomfort.
Similarly, a disappointing experience might become something you recognize as a valuable lesson rather than something that defines your future.
Hypnotherapy may incorporate techniques such as guided imagery, relaxation, and positive suggestions to help you explore alternative ways of responding to memories.
However, the extent to which these approaches help depends on the individual and the nature of the difficulty.
It is also important to distinguish between changing your emotional response to a memory and changing the factual content of the memory.
You should not be encouraged to replace a real memory with an imagined alternative or assume that something happened differently simply because it feels different during hypnosis.
Can hypnosis make you forget something temporarily?
Under certain experimental conditions, yes.
Researchers have studied a phenomenon called posthypnotic amnesia, in which a person has difficulty consciously recalling information after receiving a hypnotic suggestion.
For example, participants in laboratory studies have been given lists of words to learn and subsequently received suggestions that they would temporarily be unable to remember those words.
Some highly hypnotizable participants have demonstrated reduced conscious recall following these suggestions.³
However, these experiments are not equivalent to permanently forgetting a personal experience.
They also do not demonstrate that someone can reliably choose a specific unwanted memory and make it disappear.
The effects are influenced by individual differences and experimental conditions.
This is an interesting area of hypnosis research, but it should not be confused with a practical method for erasing memories in everyday life.
Can hypnosis help you recover forgotten memories?
This is almost the opposite of wanting to forget something, but it is an important issue when discussing hypnosis and memory.
Some people believe that hypnosis can help them recover memories that have been forgotten or hidden away.
However, hypnosis does not provide a reliable method of recovering accurate memories.
In fact, research has raised concerns that hypnotic suggestions and guided imagery can sometimes increase confidence in inaccurate recollections.
A review of research on hypnosis and memory retrieval published in 2025 concluded that hypnosis did not improve accurate recall in the studies reviewed and that some studies found increased recall of events that had never happened.⁴
This is particularly important because people can sometimes feel very confident about memories that are inaccurate.
For this reason, hypnosis should never be treated as a reliable way to establish whether a suspected event actually happened.
If you have questions about something you cannot remember, avoid allowing a practitioner to lead you toward a particular explanation or imagined account.
A responsible practitioner should understand the limitations of memory and avoid making suggestions that could influence your recollections.
Does everyone respond to memory-related hypnosis in the same way?
No. People vary in their responsiveness to hypnotic suggestions.
Some individuals are more responsive to suggestions involving changes in memory, attention, and subjective experience.
Others may experience relaxation and focused attention without noticing significant changes in their ability to recall information.
Research into posthypnotic amnesia has identified differences between people with higher and lower levels of hypnotic responsiveness.³
However, responsiveness to hypnosis does not mean that someone can erase memories or control their memory system at will.
It is also important to recognize that a person's experience during hypnosis is not necessarily an indication of what has happened to the underlying memory.
Someone might feel that they have forgotten something without the memory itself having been permanently removed.
What happens during a hypnotherapy session if you want to forget something?
If you approach a hypnotherapist because a particular memory is bothering you, the session should begin with a discussion of what you hope to achieve.
Rather than assuming that forgetting is the best solution, a responsible practitioner should explore why the memory is troubling you and whether there are more appropriate therapeutic goals.
For example, you might explain that:
You feel embarrassed whenever you remember something.
You keep thinking about a past relationship.
You feel guilty about a decision.
You become anxious when reminded of an unpleasant experience.
You struggle to stop replaying a particular event.
The practitioner may then suggest an approach focused on emotional well-being rather than memory deletion.
A session might include the following:
1. Understanding the difficulty
You discuss the memory and the feelings associated with it, sharing only what you feel comfortable discussing.
2. Relaxation and focused attention
The practitioner guides you through an exercise designed to help you relax and focus your attention.
3. Therapeutic suggestions
Suggestions may encourage a calmer, more balanced response to the thoughts and feelings associated with the experience.
4. Guided imagery
You may be invited to imagine yourself responding to reminders of the experience with greater confidence and emotional comfort.
5. Reinforcing positive changes
Suggestions may focus on developing healthier habits of thinking and directing more attention toward the present.
6. Returning to ordinary awareness
The session concludes with guidance to bring your attention back to your surroundings.
The precise approach will depend on your circumstances and the practitioner's professional training.
You should never feel pressured to disclose something you're uncomfortable discussing or to revisit a distressing experience unnecessarily.
What can you do instead of trying to forget something?
If a particular memory is bothering you, there are several practical approaches that may help you feel more comfortable with it.
Practice self-compassion.
Try to avoid judging yourself harshly for something that happened in the past. Recognize that you're human and that making mistakes is part of life.
Challenge unhelpful thinking.
If you repeatedly imagine the worst possible interpretation of an experience, consider whether there is a more balanced way of looking at it.
Focus on the present.
When you notice yourself dwelling on the past, gently redirect your attention toward what you're doing now.
Talk about your feelings.
Sharing your experiences with someone you trust or a qualified therapist may help you process emotions that have been difficult to manage alone.
Develop healthier routines.
Regular exercise, adequate sleep, enjoyable activities, and meaningful social connections can support general emotional well-being.
Seek appropriate professional support.
If a memory is causing significant distress, a mental health professional can help you explore suitable treatments, including evidence-based approaches for trauma-related difficulties when appropriate.
These strategies don't require you to forget what happened. They can help you develop a healthier relationship with your memories.
Final thoughts
So, can hypnosis make you forget something?
Hypnosis can sometimes influence memory recall temporarily, particularly in people who are highly responsive to hypnotic suggestions. However, there is no reliable evidence that hypnotherapy can selectively and permanently erase unwanted memories.
If something from your past is bothering you, a more realistic goal may be to change how you feel about remembering it.
You might want to feel less embarrassed, reduce feelings of guilt, move on from a difficult relationship, or stop allowing an unpleasant experience to influence your everyday life.
Hypnotherapy may offer a supportive approach to exploring these goals, although its effectiveness will depend on the individual and the nature of the problem.
You don't necessarily need to forget something to move forward.
Sometimes, the most helpful change is being able to remember what happened without allowing it to have the same emotional hold over you.
Notes
1. John F. Kihlstrom, “Hypnosis, Memory and Amnesia,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences 352, no. 1362 (1997): 1727–32.
2. Kihlstrom, “Hypnosis, Memory and Amnesia.”
3. R. A. Bryant, A. J. Barnier, D. Mallard, and R. Tibbits, “Posthypnotic Amnesia for Material Learned before Hypnosis,” International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 47, no. 1 (1999): 46–64.
4. Elisa Krackow, Jihan Rashed, and Islay Thompson, “Does Hypnosis Aid Memory Retrieval?: A Review of Steven Jay Lynn's Research,” International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 73, no. 3 (2025): 381–90.