09 - Intentions

What makes an induction an induction?

You can think of them as bundles of road-tested suggestions. Often, they’ll have some of these components:

Relaxation. It’s easier to take suggestions when you’re buttered up.
Going deeper. Deeper is ambiguous - but it indirectly gives your subject the option to zone out or to just let your words become more effective.
Playing Simon Says. You say thing, and that thing starts to happen automatically. You’re creating a gradual shift from ‘doing’ to ‘happening.’
Dissociation. Fractionation feels ‘weird’ and ‘abstract’ and makes it feel like something special is happening. This gives you credibility.
Building rapport and trust. Do you know what you’re doing? I have no fucking clue, but at least you’re doing your reading.
Giving you, the hypnotist, time to get into the groove. It’s normal for the first bit of your induction to be the roughest when you’re starting out - by the time you’re a minute in, you’ll be confident and butter smooth.
Time to notice (and later utilize) responses Saying funny words doesn’t make shit happen. All the action is happening in your subject, where they’re hopefully able and willing to follow along.

Introducing Your First Induction

Often, when a newbie asks around to find out what they should be doing to get started with hypnosis, they’re given a few resources, and told to practice doing PMRs (progressive muscle relaxation.) This isn’t bad advice, but it leaves a lot to be desired. (Hell, I’m guilty of telling folks “just start with a PMR,” too.)

Asking someone to read a book or guide before getting started is similar to consuming an entire banana before enjoying it. With a PMR, you really only learn one technique - pummeling the subject into relaxation through brute force. There’s a middle ground between “read a lot” and “just tell the subject to relax repeatedly and figure it out.”

Here’s my proposal. Start with Graham Old’s Sensory Overlap Induction. Like a PMR, it’s low risk, reasonably easy to learn, and doesn’t require much of the subject. In contrast, it’s more fun for both the subject and hypnotist. You’ll also pick up a set of techniques you can use in almost any hypnotic situation.

There are no weird dynamics here, just invitations to relax. If lewd is your thing, that’s great! But, if you want to practice and improve, we can open ourselves up to more opportunities by keeping it clean and straightforward. There’s no expectation of ‘trance,’ but we do have a bit of hypnotic phenomena tacked on at the end. The goal for our subject is to notice any changes in how they feel, not to get something done. With this frame, you can rapidly get feedback without implying anything went wrong or coloring the experience.

Even if you have some experience using inductions, the analysis here will give you fresh ideas on how things work under the hood, as well as show you how to start critically thinking about scripts.

But What about PMRs?

In earlier versions, I’d recommend learning to do a PMR. While this is easy to memorize and execute, it’s not the most informative place to start. While I will be walking you through the sensory overlap technique, here are some other options, including two PMRs that I like. All of these would fit neatly into your tool belt.

Binaural Histolog PMR - A good tool for your toolbag.
Binaural Histolog Fractionation - Better suited to lightly experienced subjects.
How To Do Induction’s (Graham Old’s) PMR - Yet another PMR.

FWIW, it’s perfectly fine to start out with doing PMRs. If that feels easier to you, please do so! Regardless, there’s still plenty you can learn by reading the rest of this guide.

Overdoing It

While it’s tempting to want to absolutely knock their socks off with the intensity of what you want to provide, I’m going to ask you to avoid that urge. Sure, validation is fantastic, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting them to have a fun ride. However, if you blow all of their previous times in trance out of the water, or set an incredibly high bar, they’ll have nothing to look forward to, and other sessions will pale in comparison. It’s not only OK to be mediocre while practicing, but desirable. It’s often much easier to seek a more intense ride later, than to try to make peace with the fact that you’ve already hit the peak.

So - don’t worry about your ego or being impressive. This is a practice session.

Sensory Overlap Commentary

Graham Old, the author of howtodoinductions.com, introduces his induction with some context. Classically, we’re often problematically told to overload “analytic” subjects. In a therapeutic setting, people don’t want to be overloaded. This approach also assumes you can out-think your client, and beating them into submission is a shitty way to start collaborating on a problem. His goal is to get the subject to embrace their internal experience, rather than fight it.

As I said before, there’s no expectation of trance in this induction. For the subject, it’s an exercise in letting the experience happen to the best of their abilities. Relaxation and catalepsy are very likely to occur, but they’re perks. Whatever happens is normal and valid, and worth talking about in the exit interview.

Not Just for the Nerds

I’d like to add that this induction and structure isn’t only for analytic subjects. It’s just well designed. There’s no expectation of trance, and you can validate whatever happens as their real experience.

The thought that we need to treat “analytical” individuals differently is silly. I stopped having trouble working with them when I was able to provide clear instructions.

Here are some common misunderstandings from those prone to analysis:

They may not know how to engage with the suggestions you provide.
They’re not used to letting experiences happen.
They may not realize they’re supposed to actively engage with suggestions.
They may be trying to figure out what you’re doing, and think that their analysis prevents hypnosis from working.
They may be skeptical, and immediately devaluing their own experience.

Most of this is taken care of with the pre-talk.