Do I Ever Post

It's amazing how quickly you can get behind on these things. Unfortunately, I probably won't be making any new posts for awhile. If you're interested in any of these topics I've covered, feel free to email me in the meantime.

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.

A little hiatus...

Unfortunately, life has become a bit too hectic lately, so I need to cut back a little. As a result, this blog will be on hiatus until February 10, 2008. Sorry about that!

Pushing past the wall...

I've hit a wall with my current subject. Due to an incredibly hectic schedule, we've only done a couple of sessions over the last three weeks. These sessions had to be kept short, which may have affected the quality.

In the sessions, I was focusing primarily on a couple of things. First, she has been getting frustrated because of the resolution of some bad habits. The biggest one is nail biting. I've finally gotten her to the point that she stopped biting her nails, but she was unhappy that this was solved through hypnosis, not through her own will. So in these sessions, I told her that the strength to stop was actually her own, and that she would continue to let her nails grow through her own ability. This, of course, has now failed miserably, because she believes the strength to stop flowed through me, not her, so left to her own, she felt the need to bite again.

The second area of focus was more of a confusion plan, and is more effective. She is still having a hard time visualizing and reacting to some triggers. In her trance, I had her believe she was awake multiple times, and each time had different triggers and visualizations. These included clothes disappearing and reappearing, boob growth, and people in and out of the room. Since she has full amnesia after each session, I reinforced the memory of each of these events, so she would feel that she was awake for them. The result, while not fully developed yet, has been a much more consistent response to the triggers while awake. I'm thinking that this is due to the logic check portion of her brain ignoring them more, but I'll need to study further.

As always, I'm up for any suggestions. I'm also working on a basic induction, trance, awake file for a different subject, so I'm looking forward to that challenge and some good results there.

Isn't This Work?

Sorry everyone, I haven't been able to post for a couple of weeks. Work sent me all over the country, which tends to mess up your schedule. Since I only do face to face hypnosis, it makes it really hard for me to do any sessions. I'll have a new post later this week. Also, I know some of you do sessions online. Any suggestions for IM, webcams, and how to handle the lack of visual feedback would be greatly appreciated!