If you've been trying to figure out what a Reiki session actually feels like before you book one, you've probably already noticed that the answers online range from "deeply moving spiritual awakening" to "I just lay there and nothing happened." Both of those are real. Neither one tells you very much.
Here's what I can tell you: every Reiki session is different. What you experience depends on your nervous system, your history, how much your body has been waiting for this, and what the practitioner you're working with actually does.
So before I walk you through what my sessions look and feel like — I want to give you the honest landscape of what Reiki experiences generally feel like. And then I'll tell you what mine specifically involves, because it's probably not what you're picturing when you hear the word "Reiki."
Why Every Session Is Different — And That's Normal
No two Reiki practitioners do exactly the same thing. Some work completely hands-off, hovering above the body. Some do hands-on, with light touch at specific positions. Some work primarily with chakras. Some incorporate other tools. Some are purely Usui Reiki. Some have trained in multiple modalities and bring them together.
There is no single "correct" Reiki session. Which means if you've had Reiki before with someone else, mine will likely feel different. And if this is your first time, you're not walking into something you can benchmark against anything.
The most common experience is an almost immediate release of stress and a feeling of deep relaxation. Reiki is cumulative — even people who don't notice much the first time usually have progressively deeper experiences if they continue.
What People Typically Feel During a Reiki Session
Physical sensations are the ones people are usually most surprised by. Fluctuations of energy can often be felt as pins-and-needles tingling, hot flashes, goosebumps, chills, throbbing, and warmth or heat from the practitioner's hands. Some notice tingling — a gentle buzzing or pulsing that moves through a specific area. Others describe a heaviness in their limbs, a pleasant weighted quality, as if the body has finally given itself permission to stop holding itself up. Some feel the opposite — a lightness, as if something has lifted without them having to decide to release it.
Emotional release is one of the most common and least expected experiences. During a session, people may experience tears, laughter, or feelings of profound peace and contentment. You don't need to know why you're crying. Your body does. And it's been waiting for permission.
Altered states — somewhere between sleep and waking. Recipients frequently feel that they are hovering in a threshold state of consciousness, simultaneously aware of their surroundings and deeply indrawn. This isn't unusual — it's your nervous system shifting from sympathetic (alert and scanning) to parasympathetic (safe and resting). That threshold feeling IS the shift.
Visual experiences — seeing color, soft light, or moving shapes behind closed eyes. This is your brain in a theta brainwave state — the same state as deep meditation. Visual impressions are common in that state.
And sometimes — nothing obvious. You might feel nothing dramatic, and that doesn't mean nothing is happening. People who felt nothing during a session frequently notice over the following 24–48 hours that they slept differently, felt lighter, or had something emotionally shift that they couldn't connect to anything specific.
What an ASÉ Reiki & Hypnotherapy Session Actually Looks Like
I hold two separate Reiki Level 2 certifications, and my practice draws from years of studying multiple energy healing traditions — from traditional African spiritual healing practices to somatic bodywork to the neuroscience of the nervous system and subconscious rewiring. What I do is not a single modality. It's a curated integration of everything I've learned, shaped by what actually works for the specific person in front of me.
Here's what that actually looks like from the moment you arrive.
Before We Begin: The Intake
Before we start, we talk. I want to know what's going on for you — not just the presenting issue, but what's underneath it. What your nervous system has been carrying. What you're hoping to move, release, or access. What you've already tried.
This conversation matters because I customise the live hypnotherapy portion of every session specifically to what you need. I'm not running a script. I'm meeting you where you are.
Phase One: The Guided Hypnotic Descent
Once you're on the table, the session begins with a pre-recorded guided hypnotic induction I've designed specifically for this work.
This is where something most Reiki sessions don't do happens first: your nervous system gets regulated before the energy work begins. The recording guides you down through layers of relaxation — using specific language patterns, breathing cues, and suggestions that signal to your nervous system that it is safe to release. Your brainwaves begin shifting from beta (alert, analytical) toward alpha (relaxed, receptive) and eventually theta (deeply inward, subconscious accessible).
This is strategic. The subconscious where your patterns live, and the body where your energy is stored, are only accessible when the nervous system is NOT in fight-or-flight. Safety has to come before access. Most Reiki sessions begin with someone who is still running at medium-to-high sympathetic activation. My sessions begin by deliberately bringing that activation down first.
While the recording is working on your conscious mind and nervous system, I am already working.
Phase Two: Energy Balancing and Reiki
While you're descending into the hypnotic state, I begin working with your energy field. I work with both hands-on and hands-off — depending on what I'm sensing and what we discussed before the session.
I use tuning forks. Tuning forks are calibrated to specific frequencies. When activated and brought to or near the body, they produce a tone that resonates through tissue. Sound is vibration, and vibration affects biological systems measurably. The forks I use are calibrated to frequencies that support nervous system regulation and energy centre activation. You may hear them. You may feel the vibration move through areas you didn't know were holding anything.
I use pressure points. Drawing from multiple traditions — including energy medicine and somatic bodywork — I work specific points on the body that hold tension, track emotional history, and correspond to energy pathways.
I incorporate binaural beats and sound bowls as needed. Sound at specific frequencies shifts brainwave states. When the moment calls for it, these become part of what's happening in your session.
During this phase, you may feel warmth or tingling where my hands are — or in parts of your body nowhere near my hands. You may feel emotional waves move through without knowing where they came from. You may cry without knowing why — and that's not a crisis, that's a release. Your body was holding that. It finally felt safe enough to let it go.
Phase Three: Live Hypnotherapy
About halfway through the session, I shift from the recorded induction to live hypnotherapy. By this point your nervous system is regulated, your brainwaves have shifted, your subconscious is accessible, and the energy work has already started moving what needed to move. You are in the exact neurological state where the deepest reprogramming is possible.
Based on what you shared with me before the session, I guide you through a live hypnotherapy process customised specifically to you. Not a generic script — targeted, responsive, and designed to reach the subconscious layer where your survival patterns, limiting beliefs, and stored emotional experiences actually live.
This is where people often experience the deepest releases. Where something they've been carrying for years moves. Where they feel — sometimes for the first time — what it's like to be in their body without the thing that's been weighing it down.
Coming Back: The Close
The session ends gradually. The transition out is as intentional as the descent in — giving your system time to integrate, your nervous system time to stabilise in the new state, and your conscious mind time to gently return.
When you open your eyes, you'll likely feel quiet in a way that's different from regular relaxation. Not just calm. Something closer to settled. I'll give you a few minutes to simply be in that space before we debrief — and I'll share anything significant I noticed in your field during the session.
What People Say Afterward
The words vary. But the theme is almost always the same version of the same thing: "That was not what I expected." Not in a disappointed way. In a surprised-by-how-real-it-was way. In an I-didn't-think-I-needed-to-cry-but-something-happened way.
Some people feel immediately lighter. Some feel a wave of tiredness — which is actually the nervous system finally releasing tension it's been gripping for years. Some feel clear in a way they haven't felt in a long time. Some feel emotionally soft and need a quiet evening. Some feel energised.
All of those are right. All of those are the session working.
A Few Things to Know Before You Book
Wear comfortable clothing. You'll be on a table for the full session. Layers are good because your body temperature may shift.
Drink water before and after. Your body will be processing things during and after the session. Hydration supports that.
Give yourself a gentle evening. This is not the day to book back-to-back plans. Give your system time to integrate.
Don't measure the session by what you felt. Dramatic physical sensation is not the metric for whether it worked. Some of the deepest sessions are the quiet ones — where the shift happened below the threshold of feeling but shows up clearly in the days that follow.
Come with something in mind. You don't have to have it all figured out — but come with a sense of what you're hoping to move, shift, or release. That gives us a direction before we start.
Please note: Reiki and hypnotherapy are complementary modalities and are not a replacement for medical or mental health care. Please continue working with your healthcare provider for any medical conditions.