By Dr. Adriana James
The other day, a good friend asked me a question that I think many parents, teachers, and even professionals in mental health should consider:
“Do movies have an influence on your children?”
My answer? Absolutely—without a doubt.
Not because movies are inherently bad, or because watching one will immediately change who you are, but because of the way our minds process what we see on screen. Movies, whether we realize it or not, are powerful vehicles for suggestion. They can bypass our conscious thinking, speak directly to our unconscious mind, and—over time—change our behavior, beliefs, and even our emotions.
In this article, I’ll walk you through how movies affect the unconscious mind, why this matters for children and adults alike, and what you can do to protect yourself and your family from unwanted influence.
How Movies Bypass Your Critical Thinking
When we talk about how movies influence us, we have to understand the two main parts of the mind:
- The Conscious Mind – This is your logical, reasoning part of the brain. It analyzes, compares, judges, and decides what to accept or reject.
- The Unconscious Mind – This is the part of you that runs automatic behaviors, stores your beliefs, and governs emotional responses. It accepts information at face value without reasoning it out.
In hypnosis, we work directly with the unconscious mind to create change. Here’s the catch: movies can do something similar without you even knowing it.
When you sit down to watch a film, you knowingly suspend your disbelief. You pretend that what you’re watching is real so you can enjoy it—whether that’s blue-skinned, 8-foot aliens in Avatar, or superheroes flying through the air in The Avengers.
During those two hours, your critical faculty (the mental filter that distinguishes fantasy from reality) is lowered. While you still “know” it’s fictional, your unconscious mind is more open to accepting ideas in that context.
And in that window of suggestibility, anything in the movie—products, behaviors, fashions, social ideas—can slip in without your conscious awareness.
We teach practical tools to protect your mind in our 3-Day Hypnosis Training.
Why Advertisers (and Scriptwriters) Love This
You’ve probably noticed “product placement” in films—brand names, gadgets, or cars casually integrated into scenes. This isn’t accidental.
Advertisers understand that when your guard is down, you’re more receptive. That sleek silver car you saw in a movie a year ago? It’s not a coincidence you feel an odd sense of familiarity when you see it in real life.
Movies don’t just sell products. They can normalize new behaviors, trends, and even entire cultural shifts. What might seem shocking or unusual at first can, through repeated exposure in films and television, start to feel “normal” over time.
The Physical Effect on Your Body
Movies don’t just influence your mind—they can also change your physiology.
When you watch a scary movie or a high-adrenaline action sequence, your body responds as if the events were real:
- Adrenaline surges, making you feel excited, alert, or even addicted to the thrill.
- Cortisol, the stress hormone, spikes during intense or frightening scenes. Chronic high cortisol can negatively impact health.
Some people actually become addicted to the adrenaline rush of high-action or horror films, seeking out more and more intense content to recreate that feeling.
Why This Matters for Children
Children up to the age of 7 are especially impressionable because their critical faculties are not yet fully developed.
A teenager I worked with once suffered from chronic nightmares—night after night, he’d wake up screaming. His parents hadn’t connected the dots, but he was constantly watching horror films.
At a conscious level, he knew “it’s just a movie.” But his unconscious mind had accepted the scary images as real during the viewing, storing them for later. When he slept, his unconscious processed those images, replaying them in dreams.
We resolved it with Time Line Therapy® and hypnosis, but the situation could have been avoided if his parents understood the connection between what he watched and how his unconscious mind processed it.
The Broader Societal Impact
The same principle applies to society at large. Over decades, movies have:
- Introduced the idea of artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced technology long before they became reality (Terminator; I, Robot).
- Shifted cultural attitudes toward certain behaviors, fashions, or values simply through repetition and normalization.
- Desensitized audiences to violence, tragedy, or human suffering by framing it as entertainment.
When these ideas become reality, people often feel a strange sense of familiarity, even acceptance—because they’ve already “lived” them in movies.
Protecting Yourself and Your Family
Here are three simple ways to reduce unwanted influence from movies:
- Be selective – Choose content that supports the values and emotional states you want to reinforce.
- Discuss what you watch – Talk with your children about what’s real, what’s fantasy, and the messages hidden in entertainment.
- Take breaks – Avoid back-to-back exposure to intense, frightening, or overly stimulating films.
The bottom line?
Movies are not “just entertainment.” They are immersive experiences that can influence your unconscious mind, shift your emotions, and normalize new ideas—sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
By watching with awareness, you can enjoy the art form while staying in control of what you allow into your mind.
In Part 2 of this series, I’ll share a simple, practical process you can use to guard your unconscious mind from unwanted suggestions—whether from movies, advertising, or everyday media.
If you’d like to go deeper now, discover the 3-Day Hypnosis Training or Hypnosis Trainer’s Training.