… that was a longer break than a couple of weeks wasn’t it?! Let’s continue … on our how to hypnotise journey! We’ll take a little diversion and look at the use of ambiguity in language in learning how to hypnotize someone. Some may consider these advanced techniques … others may think of them as essential beginning building blocks … and whatever your position … the use of language is a powerful adjunct to some of the other things we have (or will) looked at in other posts.
By the way, the above paragraph is packed with language patterns that do all sorts of things with your brain … now let’s just take one of the simpler patterns … and see if you can spot it. Try the first two words ‘well now’ – this saying has a double meaning. At a conscious level you might take the meaning a certain way … particularly when combined with the follow-on sentence (i.e. Well now, that was a longer break …). What happens t an unconscious level with the second meaning? “Well Now” can also be taken as a command … be well now. As in health.
Some don’t believe that this ambiguous language stuff works as a means of planting suggestions. Yet perhaps that is because the whole story has not been told. It’s not that ‘one phrase’ on its own will make a difference – its about using ambiguity as part of a larger game – in which multiple meanings are held open unconsciously and the one that of those meanings is reinforced consistently. The reinforcement may be done at a level that is not perceived consciously by the person on the receiving end of such an endeavor. And the unconscious meaning that is being reinforced does not have to bear any relation to the ‘meaning’ being communicated consciously.
Confused yet? 
Ambiguity is a simple concept … its application as part of a bigger game is an art form in its own right! The bigger game takes time to master … and we can^t even begin to open that up here. Let’s just say that two separate conversations are occurring between two individuals when they are communicating … a conscious one and an unconscious one. This happens all the time. We are responding to and advertising unconsciously all the time. What happens when one can begin to ‘control’ what used to be their unconscious conversation with another individual? Is it even possible? You bet it is!
We’ll explore some of these concepts over some coming posts. In the meantime — great to be back on-board … happy hypnotic wanderings in 2010.
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Yes folks, the Wandering Hypnotist has had the first break in 18 months. I’ve been in Ethiopia, the UK, Switzerland, France and Poland for the last few weeks. And yes, there are some places on the planet where you can’t get internet access (Try the lowlands in NE Ethiopia!).
I will continue my more regular posts to help you on your journey in learning how to hypnotise in another week or so once I get settled back from my wanderings. You can also look forward to the release of my first eReport on developing profound hypnotic states in the new year.
In the meantime – look after yourself and as always …
Good trip
Technorati Tags: how to hypnotise, travel
In my explorations of learning how to hypnotise so far we’ve explored principles, some beginning techniques and some myths of hypnosis.
Some of the advertisements that you will see being plugged on twitter and other social media sites promise all sorts of things. Let’s take a look some of the ‘tweets’ and the ‘promises’ that will be yours if you just buy that course or eBook:
- How to hypnotize someone to go to bed with you …
- Secretly hypnotize anyone …
- How to hypnotize girls …
- How to covertly mesmerize anyone …
I’m not going to comment on the validity or otherwise of the materials offered when you click on those links.
But just stop for a moment and ask yourself what the underlying motivation is that these ads are appealing to. In my opinion they are appealing to some form of desire to be able to coerce – period.
That’s a dangerous desire folks. Coercion is illegal in many countries. You can’t tell me that trying to get someone to do something that is against their will isn’t coercion. That’s the implication here if you think about it … if you can’t get you way through normal channels … well, just secretly hypnotise them. Hmmmm.
So, just a gentle warning about your motivations in learning how to hypnotise – be careful if you find these ads appealing, you are treading into an ethical and moral minefield. And let’s not forget the law – you don’t want to end up on the wrong side of that.
(There’s also a question about the validity of the claim of being able to secretly hypnotize anyone – some believe it is possible, some don’t … it’s all a matter of definition of what you believe hypnosis is).
Be careful out there!
The wandering hypnotist
Technorati Tags: ethics, how to hypnotise, hypnosis
OK, here’s a little trick that is used to great effect in all sorts of rapid induction techniques. You see, the brain often runs on auto with habituated patterns of behavior dictating most of our daily activities (actually, sometimes I think we are in trance most of the time anyway).
When something suddenly interrupts an automated unit of behavior a strange but interesting thing occurs. There is a pause – a blank 1 or 2 seconds – where the brain doesn’t know what to do. The conscious mind hasn’t fully engaged again and there is essentially a blank slate as far as a hypnotist is concerned. If you give a suggestion in that pause – it is more likely than not that the brain will act on the suggestion.
If you then carry on as if nothing has occurred then quite often the person will have total amnesia of that 2 second pause. So here is the 2 second hypnosis secret in order.
- blah blah blah blah (normal conversation)
- pattern interrupt (just something unexpected during an automatic habitual action)
- suggestion – in a different tone of voice if possible (you got 1 or 2 seconds)
- blah blah blah (carry on with you conversation in the same tonality and pace as before the interrupt
That’s it folks. There is more to it than this, but this is the core underlying principle things such as the ‘handshake interrupt’. I teach this stuff in seminars on influence to business groups. It works. I just had a lady give our group some feedback … she interrupted a kiss from her boyfriend just before their lips touched by turning her head away and whispering that she wanted some sunflowers (this boyfriend had only bought her flowers twice in the last 4 years). A few days later he turns up with sunflowers. She asked him if he had just done this because she said so … and he flatly denied it. He had no recollection of her saying anything to him.
So, I’ve let the cat amongst the pigeons here in exposing the sneaky little 2 second hypnotic session. Have fun. Don’t do anything silly with this – and remember you can’t get anyone to do anything that goes against their core principles (contrary to what a lot of hype out there is suggesting). And this takes practice to get right. Good luck on your journey in learning how to hypnotise.
Happy trips
The Wandering Hypnotist
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Now, a real secret that many are never taught in their journey in learning how to hypnotise is simply this – rhythm. Rhythm can be set up in many different ways and some of them are so subtle they bypass the conscious awareness of the person you are attempting to hypnotise.
One way to set up rhythm in the beginning is simply using the pace of your voice. This can take a little practice and one way to experiment with this when you start to learn to hypnotise is to use a metronome (you can get a real one or use a software based one with earphones – I’ll post a blog on how to do this if you are interested at some point). Using a metronome and pacing your script delivery in-time with the beat can work wonders on the impact and effectiveness of your hypnosis induction technique.
It’s almost like poetry … and as you play with a metronome … do a little self-hypnosis and set-up your own internal metronome that you can gently turn on in the background as an internal rhythm generator for your hypnosis techniques.
I have a few other secrets but before getting to them, go away and play with rhythm. Even within this one area there are some really sneaky ways of introducing rhythm in your ” learn to hypnotise ” journey.
Happy journeys.
Technorati Tags: how to hypnotise, hypnosis, hypnosis techniques, learn to hypnotise
Just a quick note folks,
Too many hypnotherapists out there have been trained that they need to relax their client as part of the hypnosis induction routine. There have been a number of discussions in the last couple of weeks in various online hypnosis forums from newbie hypnotherapists asking questions about clients ‘resisting’ their hypnosis induction. Further investigation suggests that ‘going deeper into trance’ is being resisted because the client fears ‘letting go’.
Now, the thing is you see, that hypnosis does not equate necessarily to a ‘relaxed’ state. If you’ve only been taught a set of hypnosis techniques that rely on ‘letting go’ then you are basically stuck as a hypnotherapist if you get someone who polarity responds to your hypnosis routine.
This is where the quality of the training you took really begins to shine through. If you’ve been given a set of techniques and not the principles then you are already in a less flexible situation as a therapist. If you’ve been taught the belief that you need to ‘relax’ the client to effect a hypnotic state then you are even less flexible.
Take care to learn principles and check out if you can the quality of the training you are getting if you are learning how to hypnotise for therapy purposes.
Happy trips
The Wandering Hypnotist
Technorati Tags: how to hypnotise, hypnosis, hypnosis techniques
It is an under-appreciated fact and often unrecognized fact that both the art and science of all those hypnotic induction techniques is about the grabbing and directing attention.
Underlying most of the techniques you will be exposed to as you learn how to hypnotise is this simple yet complex hypnosis secret:
Grabbing and directing attention (whether conscious or unconscious attention) is THE secret behind every induction.
I can already hear some objections so let me share a couple of observations.
- Most beginning hypnosis techniques are about gently guiding the conscious awareness on a little journey while you ‘establish communication’ with subconscious resources without the ‘critical judge’ of the conscious mind so much in-the-way. As you advance you might also be introduced to ‘rapid induction’ hypnosis techniques … there are plenty of twitter ads and search engine ads out there promoting those “how to hypnotize someone in 60 seconds” type of products and courses. In my opinion, these are still of this the ‘grab and direct’ conscious attention hypnosis techniques (I’ll give you a run-down on how these work at some point).
- The other class of hypnosis techniques are about grabbing and directing the attention of the unconscious mind. These are a very different (and powerful) type of hypnotic induction. The conscious mind is secondary … you might not even care about directing the conscious mind … the conscious mind might not even know that the induction has already taken place, the suggestions made and the interaction complete. ‘Conversational hypnosis’ techniques are some of the ways in which you can begin to do this — BUT this is not the be-all or end-all of this class of hypnosis techniques. There are in my opinion much more powerful means of inducing hypnosis unconsciously than conversationally. But this is advanced stuff.
I went through the classic path of learning to hypnotize by going through the first class of techniques above, then the second class … and only realized some fundamental underlying secrets in the last few years. I’ve begun to talk about some of them in these posts … but not all has been revealed yet 
.
So, as you go forward and learn how to hypnotise keep an eye and ear out on whether you grabbing and directing the conscious mind or the unconscious mind … and as you develop more skill begin to figure out which is more effective generally for you.
Happy trips
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So, we’ve spent some time over the last couple of weeks looking at some basic principles for learning how to hypnotise. You’ll note that I haven’t even introduced any ‘techniques yet – they’ll come, but the principles come first.
So let’s recap shall we? The principles so far in this ‘how to hypnotise’ blog are:
1. Hypnosis is not something you do to people – it is something that they do to themselves.
2. Know what it is like to experience hypnosis yourself
3. Start with the end in mind
4. We do hypnosis all the time
My next blog entry is going to be a final basic principle (the final one I’ll be sharing at this point at least) in learning how to hypnotise before we move onto the first core technique.
(Note, if you are impatient you can always click on the link over there in the sidebar and have a look at a product I’ve reviewed myself and can happily recommend. It has a different take than me, but is packed full of information. Actually, I’ll put a review up on this site at some point).
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So, in our exploration of how to hypnotise, this is where we are so far:
Hypnosis is not something you do to people – it is something that they do to themselves
Know what it is like to experience hypnosis yourself
Start with the end in mind
And now we must bust another myth in your exploration of how to hypnotise. Back in the 20th century some academic types tried to ‘measure’ the depth of hypnosis. They tried to figure out the ‘parameters’ or ‘attributes’ that could be used identify the state of hypnosis. Amongst these attributes were
- Anesthesia (loss of feeling)
- Amnesia (loss of memory)
- Time distortion (things go subjectively really slowly or really fast)
- Positive hallucination (seeing something that isn’t there)
- Negative hallucination (not seeing something that is there)
Now, the important thing to realize is that these are ‘natural’ states that we as humans go in and out of all the time – probably all of them within a normal day. The myth is that hypnosis is some ‘special state’. Well, it isn’t. That’s not quite correct, what’s special about it is the purposeful intent to attain this state (with some or all of these attributes) for a specific purpose.
To summarize the point …
The hypnotic state is a natural state we go in and out of all the time.
Have a great trip!
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We’ve already briefly explored two ideas that are corner stones for learning to hypnotize somebody in the posts “The first thing you need to know about hypnosis is …“ and “Want to learn how to hypnotize someone ?“. If you take-to-heart these two ideas you will be well ahead of the field. Many beginning hypnotists (and even quite a few who have gone through some form of training) never really get these ideas … so I’ll repeat them:
Hypnosis is not something you do to people – it is something that they do to themselves.
Know what it is like to experience hypnosis yourself.
Another important thing you need to keep in mind is that hypnosis is not an end in itself – actually, if you learn how to hypnotise without understanding that it is just a tool then you won’t find it that interesting. Learning how to hypnotise isn’t that difficult, in fact you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to assist someone in producing the hypnotic state within themselves – but then what?
Let’s list some of the uses that hypnosis can be put to:
- Learning to relax
- Stopping a habit
- Remembering forgotten facts
- To control an autonomic response (e.g. gaining access to body functions that are normally not accessible consciously)
- Pain control
- To change feelings about events
- Forensic retrieval of suppressed details
- Generation of wild and unusual states and perceptions (anyone want a trip)
- To access creativity
- To work with symbolic themes or access dreams
- To reprogram thought patterns
- To implant an idea
- To enhance someone’s feelings (seduction anyone?)
- To regress into ‘past lives’
- To regress to childhood
- To heal
- To entertain (stage hypnosis)
- To meditate
And that’s just a start. And here’s the real point I’m trying to make with this post – learning how to hypnotise is just part of the game … if you know nothing about repressed memories and abreactions let’s say, and you start messing around with memory … you might be in for more than you or the other person bargained. Each of those uses I listed is an area of learning in and of itself. Hypnosis is a tool – the use of the tool is where the art and science is.
So if you want to learn hypnosis, my suggestion is to always start with an end mind – it will make the journey a much more worthwhile endeavor.
Have a great trip!
Technorati Tags: how to hypnotise, learn hypnotism, learn to hypnotize
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