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04 - Common Misconceptions

Man, when I started writing this, I thought it’d be a short little excursion to clear some things up for newbies. This chapter’s taken on a life of its own complete with its own side-bosses and intricacies to navigate. I know I’ve been front-loading a dump truck’s worth of vegetables here, but I promise you everything will go much more smoothly after having gone through this.

VAK and Aphantasia

Section titled “VAK and Aphantasia”

If you’re in the recreational hypnosis space, you’ve probably heard about the VAK (visual / auditory / kinesthetic) system. NLP, a product of the 70s and a major proprietor of preferred VAK modalities, has a habit of filing the serial numbers off of science and leaving hypnotists in the dust. These preferred modalities of learning have largely been disproven, and we’re left stuck with an entire community of hypnotists trying to apply it to response. Worse yet, when a subject has aphantasia, they end up stuck in a rut either being given a pile of suggestions that are difficult to implement, or their hypnotist is at a loss because they can no longer use their broken crutch.

So, in light of this:

  • Don’t bother trying to infer or use a subject’s preferred modality through language cues, as it is not correlated with response. “I see what you’re saying” and “I hear you” are figures of speech and have no correlation to how someone thinks.
  • Don’t use that silly apple visualization imagination exercise as an indication of suggestibility. If it doesn’t go well, you’ve just shot yourself in the foot and caused lasting damage to your subject by indicating to them they can’t be hypnotized. Oops.
  • Do use the apple exercise to see how your subject engages with imaginative instructions. Do they hate them? Did they start to salivate? So long as you don’t fuck up and call it a suggestibility test, it’s good data to see how they engage.
  • Do check in and ensure you’re using suggestions your subject can follow.
  • Do use VAK to rotate through indirect suggestions when describing a scene. It’s a useful acronym and memory device if you need filler.

Individuals with aphantasia can definitely experience hypnosis. In a study, there is a significant drop in response in those who self-report having aphantasia. However, those that are unaware that they experience suggestions differently (the blinded aphantasics in the group) had an almost equivalent response. We can infer this change in response has less to do with the intensity of their visual representation, and more to do with their willingness and ability to engage with suggestions.

A chart showing n=428 of normal hypnotic subjects responding normally, blind aphantasic subjects responding slightly less, and self-reported aphantasics responding significantly than the other two groups. *From Investigating Relationships Between Trait Visual Imagery and Phenomenological Control: The Role of Context Effects

So, when working with someone with aphantasia:

  • Do make sure someone can follow your suggestions. You can just ask.
  • Do suggest that they’re welcome to imagine the suggestions in any way that feels natural. It’s OK to think of concepts. Avoid directly asking them to visualize something.
  • Do follow their preferences. If they don’t like being asked to imagine something, use a different tool.
  • Do tell them that aphantasia has no bearing on their suggestibility or ability to experience hypnotic suggestion.
  • Don’t be an asshole and ask them something along the lines like “oh, but what would it be like if you could visualize the apple?” That’s just disrespectful.

Analytical Subjects

Section titled “Analytical Subjects”

I didn’t want to write about this.

People get their heads so far into the game of hypnosis that they forget that they’re working with an actual person who wants to be hypnotized. Subjects are often objectified as mind-control sponges that just need to have their shell cracked through some sort of misdirection. The reality is that you’re working with someone who wants to have a good time, and there’s no good reason to avoid recruiting their help and feedback unless you’re worried about bruising your ego.

Analytical people may be more difficult for you to hypnotize. It is no more difficult for them to experience hypnosis. It doesn’t mean it’s any harder for someone to do something just because it’s harder to explain to them what to do.

If you’re working with someone that questions you, it might benefit you to adjust your approach.

  • Provide clear instructions. Tell them what you want them to do.
  • Tell them that there will always be more than one explanation for why something happened. If you fixate on looking for evidence of something being ineffective, you will likely find it. You’re not trying to force them into an experience, you’re trying to enable them to have one. Invite them to look for things that work, rather than those that don’t.
  • Avoid using physiological misdirection. If you abuse the fact that your arm rises naturally on a deep breath, they’ll likely pick up on it.
  • Tell them what you want them to focus on.

You can even use the arm levitation trick without any dishonesty.

All right, with that arm extended, I’d like you to imagine what it would be like for it to become lighter. You can use any metaphor or concept you’d like. Please choose something you think will work for you or find appealing. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

Now - you’re likely aware of the fact that when you inhale deeply, your arm rises automatically. It’s all right that you’re aware of this. What I’d like you to focus on is how it feels as if it’s rising on it’s own. Immerse yourself in that metaphor or imaginative concept. Close your eyes if you need to. Take as much time as you need to get that idea prepared and let me know when you’re ready to continue.

I don’t want you to force or fight anything. Don’t fake it, either. I just want you to feel what you feel, notice what you notice, and experience what you experience. With your arm extended, and as you immerse yourself in that concept, just notice how it feels. There’s no wrong answer. Even if it doesn’t rise an inch, I’ll still be pleased with your engagement. If it happens, let it, but that isn’t the point of this.

If you need a hint, look for the smallest noticeable difference that may be happening. If it falls out of awareness, that’s all right, just go through the cycle of immersing yourself in the concept you chose earlier and see what you notice.

Skill issue aside, it can be disappointing and even frustrating to watch someone’s arm rise all on its own, and then hear about how they think they weren’t hypnotized. I’d ask you to just let it be; it’s not your job to convince them what their experience was, just to facilitate it. Depending on your read of the situation, you can ask clean questions like “Do you usually do that?” or “What did it feel like?” I’d even go as far as saying that some people experience hypnosis, then deny it because it’s a much more comfortable conclusion than to realize something can happen outside of awareness. In the end, it’s on them to figure it out.

Depth and Response

Section titled “Depth and Response”

I harped about this enough in the previous trance guide, but it’s worth restating. Hypnotic depth doesn’t have much to do with phenomenological response. However, feeling hypnotized absolutely helps someone attribute their response to hypnosis, when it happens.

If someone’s having trouble responding to a suggestion, it’s either that they dislike the suggestion, or the instructions on how to make it happen are unclear. You can’t really magically give someone a new skill in hypnosis. It’s the same if someone doesn’t know how to experience amnesia on command. Zonking them harder isn’t the solution.

If someone is in a deep trance, they may not want to respond, or feel they’re so relaxed they’re unable to speak. If that happens, you can try a few suggestions that they can speak, or just bring them back up to talk. They might be annoyed, but communication is paramount.

Eye Accessing Cues

Section titled “Eye Accessing Cues”

Eye accessing cues have mostly been dismissed as a pseudoscience. For them to be real, wouldn’t blind individuals exhibit an inability to recall, remember, and reconstruct memories? Well, the truth is more nuanced.

While accessing cues are bullshit, we can observe related patterns of recall and reconstruction. It’s not at all as silly as someone being right-handed looking to the top left to remember a visual event, though.

Spatial reinstatement of gaze patterns has proven important for episodic remembering. The present study extends this finding and provides direct evidence that the actual replay of an ordered sequence of eye movements unfolding over time facilitates episodic remembering, and that specific spatio-temporal scanpath properties differentially contribute depending on the nature of the goal-relevant memory.

- Eye-movement replay supports episodic remembering

In less fancy terms - if someone recalls something, there’s a tendency for them to go through the same eye movements.

There’s a myth from NLP that preventing eye movement prevents memory recall. There might be some truth to this. However, it’s more likely that this is adding a layer of distraction and compliance that makes remembering more difficult. For instance - remembering what you had for lunch last week might be difficult - but try doing that while a cat out of nowhere starts inspecting your right nostril with their tongue. Same thing if you stare intently into someone’s eyes and bark “TRY TO REMEMBER YOUR NAME NOW, YOU CAN’T REMEMBER, CAN YOU,” without giving them time to think.

The Subconscious

Section titled “The Subconscious”

While hypnotists liberally use suggestions of the subconscious to increase expectancy and hype up automatic response, it’s largely a misattribution of predictive processing that happens outside of our awareness. Graham Old, a hypnotherapist, puts it fairly well.

…the very notion that there is such a thing as “the subconscious,” rather than simply mental processes that take place beneath our conscious awareness, is hardly established fact.

Old, Graham. How To Do Hypnosis: The Practical Introduction to Therapeutic Hypnosis (p. 345). Plastic Spoon. Kindle Edition.

While we could just redefine the subconscious to mean unconscious, and then therefore the cause of any automatic response, I’d recommend you stay away from suggestions using this concept. There are risks you or your partner may not be aware of. Hypnotists and subjects have the tendency to anthropomorphize the subconscious as a part of the self, which is all well and good until people start asking automatic processes and reflexes for consent to do something.

Don’t do that.

Additional Reading

Section titled “Additional Reading”