Using failure to achieve success

Anyone who's ever done hypnosis knows their fair share of failures. There's the subject who hits a plateau, and can't go deeper into trance. There's the trigger that never seems to work. There's the hallucination that is never seen. There's the instruction that seems to be ignored, or worse, works in an unexpected way My best example, I gave a woman a simple relax trigger every time she heard the word relax. All of my triggers before this one had been specific to me saying it, but in this case, I wanted it to work with anyone saying relax, so I took out the part locking the trigger to my voice. However, I didn't explicitly say that it could be anyone saying the word relax. So what happened? When I said relax, she relaxed. When someone else said relax, she got very anxious, because she didn't know for sure if she should relax or not.

But I digress. I've been having some success lately with a new method that I call "planned resistance". I use this method in two cases. I originally used it when the subject's conscious mind tends to resist any trigger or instruction. I also found that it works well when the trigger or instruction is more difficult, causing the subject to expect to fail.

Triggers and instructions work basically the same way, so I'll use the example of a trigger. The idea is to build some failure, in decreasing amounts, into the first few times the trigger is used. When I create a trigger, I also script out exactly how the subject will react the first few times that the trigger is used. Initially, the trigger is partially effective, and I instruct the subject that they will think their own resistance prevented the trigger from completely succeeding. The next two times, the trigger works progressively more, giving the impression that the trigger is becoming stronger than their resistance. On the fourth time, it works completely.

This creates some good trance and mental patterns. It emphasizes that triggers grow stronger over time and with each use. It builds failure into the model, allowing them to accept a failure and continue to strengthen and obey the trigger the next time. Even if the trigger doesn't work completely the fourth time, as long as it gets stronger, the pattern will eventually lead to it working. It creates a pathway for other triggers and instructions that they will eventually overcome resistance. Finally, like a woman who decides she wants to pick up a guy at a bar and has a few drinks first to either get up the courage or have an excuse, it allows the subject to both resist and later give up her resistance.

A planted seed that grows slowly...

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A new update!!

I apologize, I know I've disappointed many of you with the long stretch of inactivity. Unfortunately, there were too many things going on in my life to focus completely on this, or invest time in new sessions. The good news is, I now see the light at the end of the tunnel... hallelujah (or however you spell that!)

I'm currently working on two new concepts for sessions. I've seen limited materials on each idea, but in talking directly with others, I've found similar ideas that have worked in the past. My first new test is using on-demand amnesia. There are two triggers as part of this. When I say the first trigger, it acts as a marker for that instance in time. When I say the second, the subject forgets everything that happened between the two triggers. Others I spoke with already had success with similar amnesia ideas. When you think about the way the brain handles amnesia in trance (everything is remembered until the trance ends) and dreams (where you remember the dream immediately after waking up, but forget over the next hour), the brain has the amazing ability to erase. This doesn't even include factors such as drugs or alcohol.

The second idea is using the idea of brain plasticity and visualization for behavior modification. Brain plasticity is rewiring of the brain based on experience. For each experience you have, your mind forms new pathways. The more times you have the same experience, the more your brain strengthens that pathway. In many ways, it's like a mental rut, although it can be positive as well as negative, depending on the experience or action. Hypnosis is already great at creating links between new items and existing pathways. For instance, your brain has a pathway for creating an orgasm, and now we create a link that says anytime I rub the back of your neck, you will have an orgasm. While similar to this, I'm looking to take it a step further, and use visualization to close off a pathway. So let's take a woman who always orgasms when using a certain vibrator. I now block that pathway, so her brain now must figure out a new path to get to the end result (orgasm). In addition, I can also seed the new pathway, such as orgasm through g-spot stimulation, making the new pathway easier for her to create from scratch. By removing the known pathway (vibrator), and beginning the new pathway (g-spot), she then learns to get orgasms through g-spot stimulation. This is different than normal hypnosis, which ties the g-spot to existing pathway. Instead, she now has a new behavior for having an orgasm, and this behavior will quickly become permanent. It'll be easier to explain once I have a working example, so I'll leave it off here for now. I have created a poll to get some opinions on the subject in the meantime.