Just How Real Is Hypnosis, Anyway? - Part II |
Meta-State Trances
From: L. Michael Hall
Meta Reflections – 2010 – #15
April 5, 2010
While “hypnosis” is not real (Meta
Reflection #14), not real externally, not an objective thing, it is
subjectively compelling and can be transformative. Well, it can also be
destructive and neurotizing. It all depends on what suggestions you are giving
yourself in the process. In other words, the content of what you are programming
into yourself with your images, sounds, words, language, ideas, frames, and
meanings determines the quality (or lack thereof) of the state you are inducing.
That’s what “hypnosis” is—an induction of state and you are always inducing
yourself into states. And every time you alter your state and go into an
inward focus of attention on something that you are remembering or imagining
that’s not currently present— you are in a hypnotic state. There’s really
nothing mysterious about it, it is how “thinking” works. You can be present
listening to someone or walking down the street or driving on a highway or
working out in the gym, but on the inside you are not there. You are
somewhere else!
Realizing and recognizing that such state inductions is a trance, de-mystifies
hypnosis a bit. It also highlights the fact that you, and only you, can
hypnotize you. That’s why it is said in the literature on hypnosis that
ultimately all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. You are doing it to yourself. Yes,
someone may be leading the process, but it only works if you allow it to, if
you follow along and use the words to go somewhere in your mind. You can
always resist.
So all of the myths about a hypnotist “controlling” you and making you do things
you don’t want to do is just that—myths. It is not hypnosis that makes
some flap their wings and make sounds like a chicken. They are doing that and
they are choosing to do that. Yes, this myth makes for fascinating Hollywood
movies for those who don’t know better: a hypnotist hypnotizes someone to murder
someone and then gives a post-hypnotic suggestion that they won’t remember it!
But it does not work that way. Milton Erickson once said that if hypnosis had
that kind of power, “there would be a whole lot of people healthier and more
sane.”
Do we use hypnosis in Neuro-Semantics? Do we induce states so that people
transition (trance) from the state that they are in and access new and more
resourceful states? Yes, of course. In fact, every pattern is actually a
hypnotic pattern. That’s because every “pattern” invites a person to go up,
up and away, into the higher realms of the mind, to set new higher frames
that will create more positive and resourceful states.
When we do this, we participate in accessing higher states of mind that we find
enjoyable and effective. We move upward to our frames of reference.
Now in writing this, I’m using the “up” metaphor for trance rather than the
“down” metaphor. Both also are metaphors and so not real! It’s just a way of
talking about things. The “down” metaphor is more traditional and in NLP
history, it came from Transformational Grammar (TG) that talked about surface
sentences and the “deep” structure.
Using the Meta-States Model, in Neuro-Semantics we turn the metaphor upside
down. We talk about going inside and then up to your reference system
as your frames of references by which you create the meanings
that you give to something. These higher frames establish the structure for how
you are thinking about something. And whenever you set a frame, you are
programming into your mind a meaning that contains suggestions and implications
and these will induce you into a state.
What do you think about criticism? Wherever you go in your mind as you answer
that question, you are inducing yourself into a hypnotic state. Do you know
that? That’s because “criticism” is not real. It does not exist in the real
world. What you call “criticism” is a construct that you have created. If it
means to you that someone is saying something that disagrees with you or your
ideas, or saying something that attacks your behaviors, your person, your
reputation, etc., then you probably have some movie playing in your mind about
someone saying words in a certain way that you call “criticism.” If I could peak
into the movie of your mind, what would I see playing? What do you see? Or hear?
Or sense? What hypnotic induction have you used on yourself?
Now given that movie, how much fun do you have playing that movie? Not much? How
much fun would you like to have? And how could you create that fun, that humor,
that silliness? Are you skilled at exaggerating your pictures? At editing the
sounds so that you can alter the way the “criticism” is spoken so that sounds
really different? What if it was sung by someone who can’t carry a tune? What if
it was spoken with a sexy voice? Or a lisp? By Yoda? Donald Duck? Now did you
recognize those questions as a hypnotic induction? They were!
If you went along and playfully entertained fun representations, then you
radically altered the suggestions and implications you have about criticism,
didn’t you? Suppose you access a state of un-insultability and then entertain
those representations and try really hard, as hard as you can try, to feel the
hurt of the criticism. What happens then? What if you step into a state of
unconditional love and appreciation for people, knowing that there’s a little
insecure child inside the person criticizing.
Ah, another paragraph is full of hypnotic language inviting you into more
resourceful trances! Did you notice? I invited you to go up to new frames
linguistically. And it was so easy. I just used some modifiers (adverbs and
adjectives).
None of these are externally real; but if you want them to be subjectively
compelling to your way of being in the world and processing criticism, then you
can go into those higher states about your primary experience. And if you
do, then they set up various suggestions and implications as post-hypnotic
suggestions that will generate a more resourceful response. All of this
“hypnotic” language and framing is just another way to talk about
self-development.
To your expertise with great hypnotic self-actualization!
Author:
L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.
(ISNS) International Society
of Neuro-Semantics
The International Meta-Coach System
P.O. Box 8
Clifton, CO. 81520 USA
1-970-523-7877
meta(at)acsol.net
www.neuro-semantics-trainings.com
©2010 L. Michael Hall, Ph.D. All rights reserved.