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200.06 - Maximizing Response and Empowerment

Okay - I know I keep crossing the streams between therapeutic and recreational tools in hypnosis. My dreams of working in changework or even therapy are pretty shot for one reason or another - but I’ll be damned if I don’t scrape up the good bits.

In recreational settings - we we have the rare affordance to directly coach our subjects on how to maximize response. Use your best judgement in applying these - you certainly don’t want to use all of these at once, but you may want them as food for thought in your back pocket.

You can deliver or use any of these concepts before or during your session. You can absolutely coach and ask questions right in the middle of your session. Worst case you get to hear some goofy zonked sounds out of them and have a giggle.

Engagement Ideas

If your partner seems a bit passive, you might think of some of these options. If you just went through an attempted hand-stick, nothing happened, you asked them what they were imagining and they said “nothing,” the key to motivating them might be in this section.

  • Remind your partner that they have an active and participatory role, and ask for their engagement. Coaching engagement will almost always be better than deepening trance.
  • “And of course, you could open your eyes right now. But that’s not why you’re here. I want you to try and open your eyes and show me that you can’t.” (I think this one’s from Mark Wiseman.)
  • An MMHA variation on the previous is “but you could open your eyes any day.”
  • “Imagine X is happening. Now, imagine that X is happening, and you’re not making it happen.” A riff on the CSTP by Binaural Histolog
  • Invite them to interrupt during the process. It’s pretty shocking at first - but it’s better than hearing ‘meh’ after spending 15 minutes with them if you’re doing something in a traditional structure.

Absorption Ideas

Maybe your partner’s attention is bouncing all over the place - or perhaps they’re just anxious. That’s fine - you still need to secure active participation - but some of these ideas might help.

  • “I don’t want you to force or fight anything, I just want you to experience what you experience with your mind.” (A riff on an idea from Graham Old.)
  • “It’s all right to find yourself analyzing during our session. As long as you’re taking an active role, it’s okay to notice the way I phrase things, become aware of the tiniest differences in your response, or even occasionally finding your mind drifting off to think about what’s for dinner. The only thing I don’t want you to do is question your experience - that’s like trying to figure out if you’re watching a movie or not, while you’re in the middle of a movie.”
  • “Everything (thoughts) can settle down in it’s own time… ” You can reassure them that it’s okay and even normal for thoughts to come up during the process. I’ve cracked this joke before somewhere - but if your subject isn’t thinking - they’re probably dead.
  • Utilize the sounds or what they find distracting to them. They have a noisy fridge in the background, or cars passing by? “And as your attention wavers occasionally… you may notice the cars in the background, or the sound of the compressor on the refrigerator, or even the nuance in the sounds of the chair beneath you… And that’s perfectly fine… these sounds can remind you that you can just relax, as everything continues on in the background…”
  • “I don’t want you to force anything - if you feel something happening, just let it happen.”
  • Distractible subject, and doing a trance-focused session? (Are they OK with large bodies of water?) “And it’s all right to find your focus drifting, rising or falling… Trance isn’t always like a straight dive down… it’s more of like…” (Take your pick - have fun!)
    • A pendulum swinging - we pause at the sides sometimes before eventually, we just settle down in the middle.
    • Taking a car ride or a train - sometimes we enter into a tunnel, and sometimes we come out of the light… But as we continue on that ride, we can close our inner mind’s eye more and more… still seeing some of that light graze by from the window… but becoming darker and darker as we relax…
    • Like a candle… Initially, the light is very bright, as there’s nothing in the way… But we may find the wick slowly surrounded by the wax, soaking it in, becoming heavier, and finding that even though the wax has melted… it’s thick and dense, soaking in the flame, making it smaller, as the wax spreads, and the candle softens.
    • Clouds blocking the sun.
    • A book we’re reading late at night. Perhaps it’s fiction, and our favorite character or villain grabs our attention… but eventually, we turn the page, finding our hands becoming heavier, and our eyelids drooping. At some point, we just realize we no longer need to focus anymore…
    • A flower closing it’s pedals late at night. Of course the sun has long gone, but it takes some time for this flower to adjust… slowly wrapping itself back up. And perhaps some light comes along it’s way as the sun sets, and may even begin to open back up slightly - it’s only natural - but it becomes easier and more natural for it to close down further and further for the night.