A difference in
perception
This blog post will be of interest to my hypnotist friends and
anyone who would wonder as to the way that hypnosis works.
Hypnosis is all about changing people’s perceptions. By
perceptions I am talking about how they experience the world – the way they
receive and process information through their senses. As a hypnotist I guide
their perceptions in such a way that they think differently. In a stage or
street hypnosis context the perceptions may be guided so that I am invisible or
someone has a set of horns growing out of their head. Or that their hand is
stuck to a lamppost. Or that they can’t remember their name. Or that the next
puff of the cigarette they are smoking will be the most disgusting thing that
they have ever tasted.
In hypnotherapy perceptions are changed so that someone
thinks differently – to let go of some trauma, to react differently, to have
different habits. It is just another change to the way they perceive things.
Perceive things differently, get a different thought process.
So hypnosis is all about changing perceptions.
The way that you perceive the world is not actually reality.
Well, it is your reality, yet it is
coloured by your life’s experience and may not be accurate to the original
source of the information. Confused? Let’s take the eyes as an example.
The millions of rods and cones in your eyes receive
reflected light. This information is coded into an electro-chemical pulse which
fires through your neurology. It gets passed through the visual cortex in your
brain where it is processed for depth, colour, movement, and distance and so
on, and it is then crossed referenced against your life’s learning. Then on
something known as the visual special sketch pad the image is formed in your
mind.
What you see is not reality. It is your perception, or
impression, of that reality, coloured by your life’s experience. The human mind
looks to familiarise its experiences. In doing so it adjusts the information to
suit. A hypnotist will change this perception to what they want it to be.
You can do this with a little demonstration to yourself.
Here is the methodology I use to help people see an imaginary dog. I often do
this process right at the very start of a session. The reason for this is that
I get to know how I need to work with a client – how visual they can be, how to
work with their imagination, the way they handle instructions, the language I
must use – it is a good calibration tool. I can also then use it to springboard
into pure hypnosis, using it as an induction.
If you can see then this methodology will work for you. If
it doesn’t you just may need more explanation, or to have it put in a different
way, or need a little bit of training. Yet it is possible for all of us to have
a ‘positive hallucination’ – we do it all the time.
My ‘standard’ methodology goes like this.
“Look at the settee
over there. Take in everything that you can see. As much detail as possible.
Take in the information so that you can remember exactly what it looks like
now.
Not now, but in a
moment, I will ask you to close your eyes. As you close your eyes I want you to
hold onto the image that you can see right now, so that when your eyes are
closed you can still see the settee. OK, go ahead and close your eyes and hold
onto the image of the settee. Make it real in your mind.
You can see the
settee? Good. Your eyes are closed yet you can still see the settee. That’s
because your mind creates the image. Every time our eyes are open information
is received by the eyes, and then processed by your mind and the image is
created. What you see is not reality – it is your perception of reality. You
create the images whether your eyes are open or closed.
Now here’s the thing.
Not now but in a moment I am going to say 1, 2 and then click my fingers. When
I click my fingers a dog will appear in your mind on the settee. 1, 2,
and what type of dog is this dog? Good. Did you tell it to be that type of dog,
or did it just appear? It just appeared. That’s good. And what is it doing? OK,
did you tell it to do that? That’s right, it is just doing that.
Now here’s the thing.
Not now but in a moment I am going to say 1, 2, eyes open. Your eyes will open
and you will look at the settee. And when you open your eyes you will hold onto
the image of the dog, the same way in reverse you held onto the image of the
settee. So I will say 1, 2, eyes open and you will look at the settee and see
that dog there. 1, 2, eyes open and what is that dog doing now?
That’s right…”
For those of you who are familiar with Anthony Jacquin and
Kev Sheldrake’s Automatic Imagination Model (AIM) you can see there are
numerous opportunities within the above framework to utilise AIM. If my client cannot
hold onto the image when they open their eyes I often utilise AIM as a method
to ensure that they can. There are obviously many ways of working with a ‘live’
subject as every subject is different. Yet every subject can do this process –
they do it every time they form an image, eyes open or shut.
From here I often have a play, the dog gets a unicorn’s
horn, grows twice as big, shrinks to the size of a mouse, is wearing silly
clothes, that kind of thing. Often I give the suggestion that every time they
look towards the settee they will see the dog – and it can give them comfort during
a hypnotherapy.
And from here the hypnotists amongst you will spot many
opportunities to springboard directly into hypnosis. The moment you have ‘automatic
perception changes at your suggestion’ you have hypnosis.
As all of our senses work the same way – we ‘perceive’
reality, all of our senses can be subject to perception changes. Perhaps the
hypnotists amongst you can have a play with other senses too – I do!
This blog is a technical post designed to get the hypnotists
thinking. Let me know how you get on, and please give me feedback! Hopefully, especially
when you play with this, you hypnotists will realise (if you haven’t already)
that the rituals you use aren’t necessary to create hypnotic phenomena – you can
just go straight to phenomena. Use your skills to springboard from a phenomena creation
and welcome to the quick world of amazing hypnosis...
