The experience is unique and personal form person to person so what ever happened, happened and was right for you in that time- so what happened was right.
I want to thank you both for your time and patience with me.
It may not seem like much, but finding myself responding to Matrixman's exercise has given me a much-needed boost. It shows that I *do* respond to one degree or another to more than just guided imagery.
It also finally sank in last night, that I've gotten so caught up in the mechanics of hypnosis, I've lost a lot of the "magic" that drew me to it in the first place. If I am understanding the previous posts of both Maxtrixman and Hypnojunkie, recapturing that sense of wonder may be key to improving how well I respond to suggestion?
Well, I've been working on a script, intended to be read/thought aloud to myself before listening to an audio, or going to a live session. I realize it probably needs work to be more effective, but it does help me get into the right mindset before going "under". I humbly submit what I have so far, and welcome any insights you guys may have that might improve it:
quote: Each time you go into hypnosis, you go into trance easily, quicker and deeper every time You find you are able to focus more easily and clearly, each and every time. Any lingering fears and doubts fade away to nothing. Feel yourself letting go and relaxing easier each time. Allow yourself to become completely carefree and uninhibited. You have no need to dwell on what is happening. Just let it happen, and enjoy what you feel, as you relax.
Treat the hypnotist as your coach -- as a mentor. The hypnotist exists to guide you, to help you achieve your goals and desires. The hypnotist is there to help you unlock your abilities. All you have to do is relax, listen, and do what the hypnotist asks of you. As you do this, it becomes easier to see, hear, and feel anything the hypnotist describes to you. These things become more vivid and real to you, each and every time you go into hypnosis.
Now, imagine yourself becoming drawn into the hypnotist's words. The hypnotist's voice is so relaxing, drawing you down quickly and comfortably. Notice how relaxed and safe you feel, with each word you hear. You know you are safe with the hypnotist, because you always relax when you feel safe.
As you relax, see how readily you respond to the hypnotist's voice. With every word, you respond effortlessly and automatically. You recognize that the hypnotist's suggestions are for your benefit. You accept and follow the hypnotist's words, knowing how much you will benefit from them. Remember, it is always your choice, and you have chosen to follow the hypnotist's words.
All of this happens without having to think about it. It happens because it is what you want.
- Go quickly into deep relaxation - Achieve greater immediate rapport with a hypnotist that I have consciously allowed to "put me under" - Improve my overall response to suggested sights, sounds, and physical sensations - Improve response to post-hypnotic suggestions, including more "involuntary" responses.
The problems I felt I still need to address to achieve those goals (many are not limited to hypnosis):
- Trust issues. On some level, I expect a person is going to trick me in some way, so they can cause me harm, or for their own personal gain. - Feelings of vulnerability that resurface when going deeper into trance. - Lingering doubts about my own abilities - Self-conscious, especially in social situations - Instinct to analyze and test things. While this is good for my job and in the waking world, it hinders my progress with hypnosis.
For the first issue, I figured associating the hypnotist with someone I would naturally trust would help. The sports coaches I had growing up were knowledgeable and supportive, and always there for me when I was struggling. Also, the idea of a mentor is self-evident. They wouldn't be your mentor in the first place, if you didn't trust them and believe in them.
To deal with feeling vulnerable, I wanted to remind myself that I was safe. The fact I am relaxing in the first place is meant to be a sign that I really am safe.
As for the instinct to analyze, the only thing I could think of was to use several different ways to reinforce the idea to relax and "let go"; to get myself to stop thinking about what's happening while I am going into trance.
Now I'm not a licensed hypnotherapist or anything, but it sounds like self hypnosis would be the best route for you. If you don't trust a hypnotist to help you, there isn't much they can do considering all hypnosis is self hypnosis. Or maybe you need to see a different hypnotist. Writing your own script is a good idea in theory but for it to really have effect, you have to be in hypnosis for it to do anything.
Can you get into hypnosis by yourself? My recommendation would be to see a better hypnotist. I think a better hypnotist would be able to help quell your fears and would be able to help you start resolving the things you want to change.
Have you verbalized these issues to the person you are seeing now?
I can pretty much go into trance at will at this point, and reach at least a medium level quickly every time, whether my eyes are open or shut. Going deeper still takes 10+ minutes of relaxing and letting thoughts drift away with my eyes closed, and varies widely how relaxed I become. For eyes open, I just stare at a single word on the screen/page until the words around it start to fade/blur. After that, I just move my gaze to the start of the script and read aloud.
Trust isn't an issue with my therapist. In session with her, the above concerns quickly fade out of my mind during the pre-talk dialog before the formal induction. Since there is no pre-talk to the recordings she makes of the sessions, I wanted to use this script as a substitute. The suggestions are there to not only reinforce my existing trust in her, but instill trust in anyone else I may allow to hypnotize me.
The vulnerability I feel is independent of whether I am doing a self-hypnosis session or with a recording. It only surfaces when I feel myself "slipping" really deep. I wish I could explain it better, but at some point, I get a feeling of being unable to direct my own thoughts. That I am at the whims of whatever comes into my mind.
The ironic thing is, part of me believes this is the state I've been trying to reach all along.
I have not yet had a chance to talk to her about these issues. They seemed so trivial next to the bigger issues I was dealing with. I also believe that the issues above are the leftovers; they linger only because I was conditioned to believe them for so many years. Now that I am *finally* getting over the years of abuse I suffered, there will soon be nothing left for those issues to feed off of.
Well that's awesome to hear you go into hypnosis so easily as it's an amazing tool that can help you in so many ways. I would think it's best to talk to her about these issues and see what she has to say.
I'm guessing she can help you very quickly and then you won't have to worry about the nuances of writing scripts.
By the way, out of curiosity, what type of deepeners do you use during self hypnosis? Right now, I can achieve hypnosis instantly but it's a very light state and I haven't had much success deepening the state. I'm wondering if what you're doing might help me.
By the way, out of curiosity, what type of deepeners do you use during self hypnosis? Right now, I can achieve hypnosis instantly but it's a very light state and I haven't had much success deepening the state. I'm wondering if what you're doing might help me.
Well, um, this an odd turnabout.
Since you already started a seperate thread for it, I will post in there what helped me.
I talked to my therapist about the vulnerability issue. From her experience, she says it probably has to do with a part of me is afraid of being "too good" at giving up conscious control. Basically, my mind is afraid that once I let go completely, it will cause me to become overly suggestible in situations where it's not appropriate.
She its a good idea to give myself suggestions that clarify in which situations it's OK to let go, and to remind my subconscious that I always have the power to reassert myself, even when "totally open". Pretty much, what I was aiming for with the above script.
If anyone has any ideas on better ways to word what I currently have, I'd love to see what you come up with. If it helps me improve, I'm all for it.
Well that's good to hear that you talked to her but I'm confused as to why she didn't directly help you. Or did she?
It was something she was able to help with over the phone, without me having to schedule a session. As she put it, sometimes, your subconscious just has to hear the affirmations coming from yourself.
She recommended I give the audio of our last session another week, and continue with my self-hypnonis suggestions. Though, she did recommend I either whittle the suggestions down into simpler statements, in keeping with the idea of a pre-session pep-talk, or turn it into a full-blown guided-imagery session.
She also said that if I don't see any improvements to the lingering feelings in the next week, I can schedule an appointment to address them more directly.
Oh ok, I was just curious. If I were you, I would use self hypnosis and then deliver the suggestions as simple affirmation type statements like "I just let things happen and relax." Be careful about saying something about fears in a hypnosis session. Your mind tends to focus on things like that and it might not help your cause. It's why hypnotists don't use the word pain when doing pain work, they use discomfort.
I don't know that you need a full blown visualization. I think some consistent well formed affirmations would work fine. I have this exercise I learned from Jaime Smart that might help you with believing the affirmations.
Try this outside of hypnosis first. Say an affirmation and take the time to feel what happens in your body. It may take some time to get a clear feeling. Then just accept whatever comes up after you say the affirmation and repeat it again. Notice the difference. When you just accept something as is without the need to change it, the change happens on it's own almost. You can shift beliefs very quickly with enough practice using this method and I personally think it's very powerful to use in hypnosis. I use it in my self hypnosis sessions. But practice with it outside of hypnosis first.
Just test it out on a few beliefs you have. Remember, there is no need to change anything and you accept whatever comes up.
A couple of times now, I was relaxing and sinking nicely into trance, happily letting thoughts come and go. Then, all of a sudden, everything just stops, and I just instantly pop out, but without any startle response, and without the disorientation that normally occurs when first coming out of trance. It's as though I was never in, yet I know for certain I was. There is no emotion associated with it, other than a feeling of, "What the heck just happened?"
Last evening, I lay down for a brief nap (no intention to meditate). I ended up having a dream of several people having a debate, but everything they said was jibberish. I got the distinct impression it was a debate over hypnosis, but the words they spoke all ran together. Even more bizarre, it was on a loop. While I was "free" to go off where I wanted in the dream, the voices followed and remained in the background the whole time.
Later that night, when it was time for bed, I tried for an hour to get to sleep. Every time I was on the verge, I got "pushed" back awake. I got a vague impression along the lines of, "Hang on, I'm busy with soemthing at the moment."
I'm not too worried about it, so much as wondering what the heck is rattling around inside there.
On the upside, I've started experiencing illusionary sounds while in trance. Several times now, the voice on the "Improve Visualization" audio will start to fade away, then suddenly return to regular volume, but sounds like it's coming from inside my mind instead of the headphones. Other times, sounds from what I'm visualizing will momentarily appear to coming from somewhere in my room, instead of inside my mind.
It is my personal opinion that something is going on deeper that is causing your issues with hypnosis. I don't know why your hypnotist hasn't touched on these issues. Personally, I have found that when I feel resistance to something in hypnosis, it means something is going on.
Each time I've had resistance, through work with my hypnotherapist, we've been able to figure out what's going on and the issue has cleared away. It's my guess that the issue/s might revolve around trust.
It's also my opinion that those issues should be addressed immediately since your sessions depend on trust with your hypnotist. I would once again bring this up to your hypnotist and ask that they address these issues and/or find a new person to see who can help you.
Well, you are right, it's an issue of trust. But, not where I thought it was.
Turns out, the lack of trust is in my instincts. More specifically, I need to learn to trust that my instincts will protect me from harmful outside suggestions, even when I'm not consciously monitoring and directing my thoughts.
It's been two days since I had that revelation, and I've been given a few new tools to "reconnect" with my instincts, and toss aside the feeling of panic should it pop up in the future.
Over the weekend, I met up with a hypnotist who does recreational hypnosis in addition to regular therapy. He had an interesting insight during our session, and demonstrated it to me in no uncertain terms.
According to him, I've been relaxing so much that I am actually going into the Esdaile state. It would explain alot about why I respond weakly to physical suggestion, and have trouble feeling suggested physical sensations in hypnosis. In effect, my body is going to sleep while my mind remains active and aware.
He had me close my eyes and just allow myself to relax down for a minute or two, until I reached the point were my body felt really heavy. He then asked me persmission to work on my left hand, and had me imagine my arm was no longer part of my body. Then, he had me open my eyes and watch as he pinched, pulled, and twisted the skin on my hand and arm. All I felt was a slight pressure on my skin where he was working.
I was floored. I watched him do things I *knew* should hurt like crazy, yet the worst I felt was a dull pressure against my skin.
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Script to improve suggestibility?
Posted - 10/06/2009 : 12:51:52 AM
