With one word

One word has the potential to completely change the course of a trance.

By this I mean that whilst a hypnotist may have the intention to create a specific effect with their words, those words can sometimes engender unintended consequences for the subject due to their associations with and interpretation of those words.

The first time I came across this effect was back in December when I went to London to meet up with Will, Ben and Darren. I had hypnotised Will, suggested amnesia for the trance and was giving other suggestions, which I was compounding. Will came out of the trance and told me that he had been forgetting what the suggestions had been quite effectively until I used the word "remember", as in "...so remember that..." when I went to reiterate what I'd said, and at that point he did indeed remember everything.

An unintended consequence, and a lesson to steer clear of such words in future if I want to induce amnesia.

More recently I experienced this phenomenon for myself as a subject, and it has given me an even more real insight into how important it can be as a hypnotist to choose ones words carefully.

To set the scene, sometime in the past I remember somebody asking me the question “Are you afraid of the dark?”

To this I answered something like “No, only the nightmarish creatures that lurk therein.”

The remark was made in jest of course, but as with so many of such remarks that I make it contains a tiny element of truth. Many years ago I went to see the film Jurassic Park when it was first released, and in particular the scene in the kitchen with the Velociraptors left quite a lasting impression on me. I am able to admit this freely in the knowledge that it's not just me, there are many guys of my age who suffered the same effect from that film.

I do like to credit myself with having a good imagination, and much of the reason for the above is that it can backfire on me. If I'm on my own somewhere and those images pop into my mind I have little trouble imagining a peril of my own, cretaceous or otherwise, somewhere nearby and in images as clear as day. I guess it all goes back to primal fight or flight instincts that we all have.

So no I'm not scared of the dark, but please don't put me on my own somewhere and let my imagination start down that road. That way lies the potential for irrational terror if the critical part of my mind can't keep it in check.

It hadn't occurred to me at all to link the above to hypnosis, but as I'm constantly finding hypnosis seems to find its own way down into every corner of my mind, whether I want it to or not.

What happened to me recently went as follows. Over a skype video chat a friend had hypnotised me, talking me down into quite a deep state of trance (deep for me anyway), and the intention was to try to get me to experience a hallucination. This is one side of hypnosis that absolutely fascinates me, and I'm simply yearning to learn how to do it. I've already mentioned how, at the last HypnoMeet, Ben managed to get me to imagine a clock, picture it, know where it was in the room, etc.

So the patter reaching my ears was encouraging me to engage my imagination, to try to imagine what it would be like if I could see something what wasn't there in reality, and so on. After all, people do this all the time; see something in passing and then at a second glance realise that it's not really there, or it's something else entirely. The same goes for feeling things, or hearing things, etc.

It was at this point that somehow the words "your fears" came into the narrative.

The context was completely innocent, it was merely an example of how the imagination can play tricks on the mind, but the word "fears" kick started an unexpected avalanche of thoughts. I was sat on my own in a darkened room and without warning the thoughts I have described above came bubbling to to the surface from the depths of obscurity.

Some part of my mind already knew what it looked like, where it would be in the room, and this time it wasn't a clock!

I was still intent on the hypotist's voice as they continued to give me instructions to picture the illusion they were intent on generating, and I was following that, but of course we all know what the imagination likes to do when it is told not to think of something. I felt the fear and it was strong, irrationally so; I was amazed how real it was.

What would I see if I opened my eyes? Would I see the illusion I was being asked to imagine, or would I see the thing I was trying so hard to stop myself picturing? I knew which was stronger. I didn't want to open my eyes.

As that emotion escalated inside of me I reached the point where I considered asking to come out of trance. It was at that point that somehow I regained control and suppressed those feelings; pushing them back down deep. I suspect I did this in my usual critical fashion and at the expense of the depth of the trance I was in.

We continued the session, and it seemed as though those disturbing thoughts went away just as quickly as they'd arrived, but sadly I proved unable to produce a hallucination.

It occurred to me after the session that what I must have experienced was probably what's known as an abreaction, albeit a minor one. I raised the subject with my friend and we chatted about it for a while. I was told that I did seem to loose a lot of my response after the fear comment.

Whilst the experience was quite intense when it happened and my emotional response took me completely by surprise I do not regret having had it for a moment. I see it as a valuable lesson and I gained a lot of insight into both the way my mind works and hypnosis in general. It certainly hasn't put me off trying to see that elusive clock either!

The lesson here is to choose your words carefully. It only takes one word to completely change a trance.