Helping the hypnotist

I have, on a few occasions, heard hypnotists saying this their subject:

"Don't try to help me, let it happen automatically"

Some of these times the subject has been me, and my own experience was that this instruction was very unhelpful, and even restricting, until I figured out a way to get past it.

I have said before that the biggest misunderstandings that some hypnotists have come out of their either being no good whatsoever as a subject themself, or else being a very good subject. This is, to my mind, another of such misunderstandings; a result of said hypnotist not appreciating what a subject with only mild abilities is experiencing.

Consider something like the magnetic hands set piece. You place your hands straight out in front of you, hands facing each other, close your eyes and imagine that there's a magnetic attraction between your palms.

Now, as you do that, consider this: Don't try to move your hands, let them move automatically.

Not that the exact phrasing of the statement isn't that important, it's more about the suggestion that there is a specific way in which the subject should respond. If you're anything like me you will be asking yourself the same question that I was, which I think is implicit in the statement: "Am I doing this consciously, or not?" The statement also gives the impression that consciously responding is something that the subject shouldn't be doing. "Am I doing something wrong by having my hands come together in this way?"

Now obviously this isn't the case for all subjects but the result for me, and for many subjects I've seen hypnotists fail with, is that the subject stops moving their hands together, or the equivalent thereof, consciously holds them exactly where they are, and stops to wait for hypnosis to move the hands instead.

My response to hypnosis is improving gradually but continuously and now I know how to respond to that kind of suggestion, which is to consider the question as to who or what is moving my hands to be unimportant, and appreciate that all that matters is that they are moving. To start with my response to many suggestions has felt very conscious and deliberate, but as time has gone on I have gotten better at responding and the process has felt more automatic.

This is why the learning analogy is something that works for me. The process by which my response to hypnosis has improved reminds me most, of all things in my life, of my experience of learning to play the piano. This started with me poking gingerly and very deliberately at the keyboard, but over time the process became much more natural and, if you like, "automatic". Conscious incompetence to unconscious competence is a gradual process for most people. It's now easy enough for me to find my way around a piano keyboard, play back tunes from memory, and sight read music, although I will confess I rarely practice these days. The one thing that was always guaranteed to throw a spanner in the works for me and bring any recital of a piece of music to a keyboard mashing halt was to try to think too consciously about the process, or worse question whether it was a conscious process.

I can easily picture a well seasoned pianist, who can barely remember when they were learning, or who was a child prodigy, telling a beginner to not just let their hands press the keys automatically; after all it's what works for them. I can also imagine someone who has never actually played a piano themself, but has heard that same mantra said by an expert, repeating that mantra because it works for someone who can play the piano very well and thus must be good advice.

This comes back to my feelings about that group of people that I have decided to call "undeveloped" subjects ("analyticals"). It is my belief that there is nothing wrong with these people as such, with respect to their apparent inability to go into trance, but that they simply lack certain important bits of information and practice with that information.

Many hypnotists, and as a result of my cynicism and the difficulty I had whilst starting out as a subject I would be inclined toward saying most hypnotists, do not know this information or how to teach it because they only work with subjects who already know it.

So in summary I would suggest this to you: You and your subject should not care what part of the subject's brain is responding to the suggestion; all that matters is that they're responding.