Exploring The Imaginations
Entertainment hypnotists, a band not renowned for their interest in theory
, acted as if they came from both camps. In the earlier steps of their acts they would use one item - usually the one of forcing hands to stay clasped - to select from the audience those who they could expect to make the best subjects. Implicitly this is saying, "I can't do anything without a good subject." But then they proceed as if, "This is all my doing. I am putting you into a state of hypnosis through my power."
There IS a family resemblance in what is going on in the minds of people who are regarded as being "hypnotised" and that is characterised by the fact that most of the systems that deal with the outside world are inactive and that there is a tight focus on those internal systems that remain active. However this is a broad generalisation not a precise definition. Within this broad generalisation you can have people who are in fact aware of intense internal pictures, perhaps of the past, or of a part of their body (one client of mine saw himself walking through his soot-caked lungs), or of certain sensations, or of feelings, or of the absence of sensations, or of floating, or of nothing except my voice, or of scents, or of a dead relative and so on. The brain waves of such people will be quite different; their experiences will be quite different; their internal chemistry will be quite different. There is too little that they have in common to make is very useful to use just the one word to describe them.
There is one very important fact about muscle tissue that is worth bearing in mind in this context. It has no direct Off switch! ANY electrical message, whether delivered via the nerves or via wires switches a muscle On: it makes it contract. There is no electrical signal that can direct a muscle to expand. That is the reason why throughout the body muscles occur in pairs. You have one muscle to curl a finger and another to straighten it. You have one muscle to bend the knee and another to straighten it. When you are walking your body runs through a sequence of first tensing one muscle of a pair and then the other. The one that is NOT being tensed gets stretched by the action of the other. Then the action is reversed.
You can proceed like this. Sit or lie comfortably. Let your mind rest on your right hand. Think "sleep" or "rest" or "relax" or some other word that you find particularly appropriate. Then repeat it with pauses, just as we have done for other things in Chapter 1. If you are working on yourself you will of course be continuously aware of progress. If you are working on another it is helpful to ask every so often, "How is it going?" so that you know what progress is being made.
As another example of a similar thing, think of the way in which in some people it is possible using hypnotic techniques to help them to overcome an unwanted habit of smoking by connecting the thought or smell or taste of tobacco smoke with the activation of the nausea response. "The very sight or smell of a cigarette will make you sick." This can be made so clear and strong in some people that it is more than enough to ensure that they stop smoking. It should be clear that the creation of such a connection is very similar to the sort of thing that you have already explored in this section.
Then you arouse these pictures in your mind or the other's mind, perhaps by gently repeating certain key words. But since we are interested in how much effect the pictures alone are having on the relaxation try to avoid words such as "relaxed", "calm", "sleep" and so on that might have a direct effect. Continue for about the same length of time that you used for the direct relaxation by means of simple words and directed attention. And again feel free if you are working with another to ask for progress reports so that you know what is going on. Finally at the end ask for some measure of how relaxed the person feels. Then see if any clear pattern emerges FOR A GIVEN INDIVIDUAL. You may discover that one of the two approaches tends to give the better result for one person and the other for another. For, as always, people vary, and we have no way of knowing without trying.
by: Chris Arribbat