A question of depth

A much more cheerful post today! A long one too.

This weekend has seen me learning a lot about hypnosis and I'm sure that not all of these learnings are things I am consciously aware of. Today I experienced something quite remarkable, and whilst I fear my troubles with learning to be hypnotised are far from over once again I feel I am back on the road of progress.

The breakthrough for me here has been that a close friend, who is now into learning some hypnosis, was willing to do a bit of practice with me, and I also found that this was helped by the fact that she has similar problems to me, namely thinking too much about what's going on. It would seem to me that to some extent a knowledge of hypnosis, coupled with a curious and analytical mind, have the effect of making it harder to learn how to be a good subject. I don't know if this is true, but I have heard anecdotal evidence from other people to this effect too; that people who have given it a lot of thought have a much more lukewarm response, possibly because of preconceptions.

The problem I seem to have is consciously thinking about what I should be doing. The best analogy I can think of is from my archery. Once, as an archer, you've practiced and practiced how to draw, aim and loose an arrow from your bow the process becomes a subconscious one and happens almost automatically. Something that I've experienced at archery competitions is that, following a less than satisfactory shot, I will decide to myself "right, I must concentrate with the next one and get it right!". Of course this concentration nicely interferes with the hard learned and consistent routine of my subconscious, and because consistency in archery is essential with my conscious mind pulling strings, literally, there's no telling where my next arrow will end up.

I've also experienced this effect playing musical instruments too. For example, I can play B*witched's To you I belong - one of my favourite ever songs - on the piano from memory quite easily, but if at any point I ever think "now, which notes do I play next?" I'm completely stuffed and end up grinding to an abrupt halt.

I believe the trouble I am experiencing is very similar to this. My subconscious is completely able to take me into hypnosis. Unfortunately because I know the format I am consciously concentrating on making it happen; I am trying to draw that string back or find that E-flat chord when it's really help that I don't need.

Unfortunately I find it impossible, having thought about it, not to do that.

Have you ever had difficulty not thinking something. Pink elephants for example? A mental picture of a pink elephant. Just don't think that thought. If it never occurred to you in the first place it wouldn't be a problem would it, but now I've said it. Don't think it. Forget it now.

Phenomena

My friend and I did several sessions over the weekend and because we both have trouble with thinking too much about what's going on we focused on deepening the trance. In any case I've had a couple of people I've hypnotised comment that I should perhaps spend more time on deepening, so this was useful practice.

With the first session I didn't feel as though anything at all was happening. This didn't perturb me though because I know that to most people a light level of trance just feels like sitting there with your eyes closed. At one point I felt as though my attention had wandered off. This didn't bother me so much though, because my friend was able to float my arm up.

The odd thing with the ideomotor stuff like the lifting arm is that the sensation has changed. When I first did it I could feel catalepsy down my arm and in my fingers, the motion was slow and jerky and it was clearly not a conscious action. Now it's a lot smoother, I'm less aware of the catalepsy and the distinction between whether it's my imagination or my will controlling it is subtler. Certainly with the self hypnosis when I lift my wrist up by just imagining it that is a conscious act, but it feels as though I'm doing so via a different control circuit. That's the best description I can offer anyway. Very strange.

My friend tried to make my hand too heavy to lift and stick it to something and this didn't work though. I still need to learn how to do that one!

Whilst no post hypnotic suggestions seemed to work yet either, at least on the face of it, I do have reason to believe that my subconscious is taking in the suggestions given. The reason for this is that, whilst my friend managed to completely fail to stick my hand to hers, she tried again with a different suggestion. This suggestion was that whilst my hand didn't have to stick to hers, it would want to follow it. Now, as I was sat there looking at my hand and moving it near hers I couldn't perceive or feel any such compulsion affecting it. It was only a few minutes later, when the topic of conversation had moved on and my attention was elsewhere, that my friend pointed out that my hand had been following hers. She'd been moving her hand around and mine had been happily en tow it without me even realising, in the manner that one might idly scratch behind ones ear or tap ones finger when bored. Of course that stopped the moment that she pointed it out.

Another strange effect was when my friend suggested that my hand could lift up but that it really couldn't be bothered and that it would want to stay where it was. I remember opening my eyes, looking at that hand and feeling very disappointed because nothing felt different at all. I just left it there almost as though I was indulging her, not wanting to hurt her feelings because her suggestion hadn't worked. At the time I was sure there was nothing hypnotic about my keeping my hand there, but thinking back it does occur to me that surely the suggestion achieved exactly what was intended, just in a very subtle way.

Now I'm sure you're aware that the narrative may have wandered off for a bit, but have you remembered not to think that thought? You know, the one I mentioned above? ...and whoops, you're thinking about it again! Stop that!

Depth

So far all of this has been rather questionable as to whether hypnosis has been having any effect at all. In fact I'm disappointed to some extent. I've been able to produce the effect of freezing people's whole bodies like statues for several months now, so how come I can only manage some minor behavioural effects that, given the benefit of a doubt, might have just happened that way anyway. I was hoping for something a bit more dramatic. The same anecdotal sources I mentioned earlier suggest that it just takes a bit of time for some people to get used to it, the time it takes for the subconscious to learn, despite the conscious mind.

Anyway, moving on, the most profound experience for me was the last session in which my sparring partner did absolutely nothing but about 30 minutes of deepening. I seriously owe her one for doing that, because it was quite an amazing experience. For the first time I have ever actually felt deeply hypnotised.

Up until this weekend my experience of hypnotic trances has left me doubting that anything is happening at all. If it wasn't for the ideomotor "convincers", such as my hand floating up, I wouldn't have reason to believe anything was happening at all, which of course is the whole point of a convincer anyway. Were I to describe the experience I would say it is like sitting there with your eyes closed, letting yourself feel relaxed and listening to someone talk to you. There's nothing special about it at all.

With each session, however, I became more aware of something else going on. After a while I would find my thoughts drifting away from what was being said. It was like daydreaming to some extent in that my train of thought just seemed to go off on a tangential track. It was almost a feeling of being distant, as though the outside world was further away; again it felt to me like daydreaming.

Now, my friend seems to have a very good sense of how deep she is at any given time. As far as I can tell I have nothing near that level of insight into my own state of depth. In fact it seems as though this attempt to gain such insight, asking myself how deep I am, that seems to always bring me back to that really light state of trance again. This results in my trance being almost tidal, with my going deeper, realising I've done so and consequentally returning to that light trance state again as a result of consciously trying to stay deep.

Now you may say "well just don't think that then". Well, quite frankly, that's not easy! Have you succeeded in not remembering what you're supposed to not be thinking about?

Oh dear! And you were doing so well too!

Anyway, this sensation was something I'd barely noticed on the first session, but on the second session I realised that my mind had wandered off and that my friend was on 10, counting down from 20, and that I couldn't remember any number since she said 15 because my attention had just wandered off. I told her about this afterward and she admitted that she had been leaving some numbers out, but none between 15 and 10.

Of course having the realisation in trance that you've drifted off, coming back to awareness as a result, I've found it impossible to drift back. Ever try really, really hard to go to sleep? No amount of conscious effort will get you there.

It was the third session over the course of the weekend where something truly incredible happened though. Basically we decided to forget the suggestions and just focus on deepening, and suffice to say that worked very well! Well, sort of.

So we started out with a re-induction suggestion. For some reason my friend doesn't like the "sleep!" thing so instead we'd been pressing down on each other's shoulders and saying "relax", to much the same effect. To be honest I've not had any trouble accessing a light trance anyway as I've done so numerous times with my self hypnosis, but it did seem much easier with that instruction, and easier each time. This time my head also sagged a little as I closed my eyes without my having to think about relaxing it. That's how hypnosis seems to be manifesting itself; creeping in around the edges of my attention rather than as a lightning bolt from centre front, which I think would be scarier but certainly less frustrating.

Anyway this session started off like any other. I felt as though I hadn't gone anywhere at first, I was just sat there with my eyes closed almost as though I was pretending to be hypnotised. Then as time went on my attention would start to wander again, starting with the same tangential thought process as daydreaming. I would not be listening to my friend's words, I was just getting sidetracked by my own thoughts.

Then I'd realise what I was doing, think "Hey great! I'm going deeper! Let's keep it up!" at which point I would inevitably slide back to that light trance state again. It was quite frustrating, because it would be a while before I forgot about trying to daydream and so consequently started daydreaming again.

Could you daydream on demand? I certainly can't!

Could you even identify the moment at which you started daydreaming?

What did happen though, was that I found myself going progressively further away each time I did go deeper. I was either going faster or allowing myself to go for longer before I caught myself, and don't ask me which because my perception of time wasn't exactly good at that point. Even though it was almost a feeling of delight that I had each time I noticed what was happening, that thought always brought me back again. It was quite frustrating.

What did characterise these expeditions into a deeper state to me, and what made them seem different to daydreaming, was this. When one daydreams ones thoughts may go in any direction but they keep also keep flowing along at a steady pace. What was happening more and more each time in this trance was it felt as though my thoughts were just slowing down. Getting slower and slower the more their relevance diverged from the outside world.

It was at this point that it happened. On my last slide into a deeper state, and I can't remember going in, only realising once I had, it was as though my thoughts had just come to a complete halt. It was an odd and not unpleasant experience. In fact, thinking back, it felt pretty good. Come to think of it, if that's anything like the state that my somnambulistic subjects have fallen into each time I've said sleep I can see just why they're so keen to do it.

The strangest bit was still to come though, and it happened the moment I realised where I was, tried really hard to stay there and thus guaranteed my return from that state. My vision was suddenly flashing black-white-black-white-black-white as though someone was holding a powerful strobe light in front of my closed eyes. It was so incredibly vivid I found myself wondering what on earth could be going on in the outside world to cause it and tried hard to clear my vision, although interestingly I never came close to making my eyelids move. Quite an odd experience; to see a bright flashing light that wasn't there!

Then of course I was back in that light trance state again, wishing I could somehow break the paradox of thinking of a way to not think. I wanted to go back but I couldn't.

My friend started giving me some positive suggestions as a prelude to waking me up, and of course because this was slightly more interesting than the deepening I was unable to drag my conscious attention away from listening to what she was saying. Interestingly I can't remember any of the words she used now though, that memory seems very distant.

Then she woke me up, and that was that! I told her where I'd been and she said she'd noticed that I'd sort of come and gone during the session. I really owe her a huge debt of gratitude for keeping it up for that length of time as it really was an amazing experience for me. I definitely can't wait for my next chance to further hone my skills as a hypnotee, as well as a hypnotist.

Whew! What a long post! That's all for now; I hope you enjoy!

Oh, and I hope you've managed to forget those elephants... DAMN!