hypnotic metaphores are ...

Words come out of your brain as ideas concepts and emotions, get translated by your mouth into sounds, and enter someone else, as those sounds, where they are translated into ideas concepts and emotions that are familiar to their brain. there is absolutely no guarantee these are even remotely the same.

Quite a lot of the time however the meaning translates just fine. Language is great that way, it establishes guidelines for those words, what they mean, and if you share a language with someone you generally share the ideas and concepts part. The emotions associated with each word however are almost entirely related to personal experience. Assuming most hypnosis is done on people who have at least some shared experiences means that you can however use words to recall specific emotions which are common. A beach is relaxing, a line at a hospital is stressful, being at school without underwear is shameful and being surrounded by good friends is comforting. There are exceptions but those are rare.

Using these ideas once you have a certain level of rapport (a type of interpersonal trust, something for another post) hypnosis can proceed very easily by creating metaphoric connections between emotions you want to draw out, and a situation that normally would not have any connection to those emotions. Walking down stairs is not necesarily relaxing, but if you tell the subject to imagine one step being slightly relaxing, the word "relaxing" draws that emotional connection albeit weakly. The concept of stairs is then used to imply that if one stair is relaxing the next is more, and so on, and an entire flight of stairs, why thats a huge amount of relaxation now isnt it. Once you learn to construct hypnotic metaphores, the possibilities begin to really open up. the key is, using the initial connection to create a weak emotional association, and the metaphore to navigate through that association, increasing / decreasing / moving / changing the emotion at hand.

Metaphors are simply one of the easiest and more effective trance tools you can use.

One common pitfall is to be too specific in your metaphor, saying to your hypnotic subject that they are "going down a staircase" in your mind could mean "I want you to see a black staircase with a hand railing that you're going down into with a dark end that hopefully feels good as you are stepping down" ... in their mind it could mean "go down a set of metal stairs leading into a park" This can lead to problems later on where you tell them to look down the hallway and they suddenly have to shift their imagery from their sunny park to a dark hallway. This obviously can lead to misconceptions. A good way around this is to ask periodic questions, how does it feel to walk down, what do you see, what do you hear, and most importantly re-connect the emotional goal with the metaphor "these details make you feel more and more X dont they now"

Anyways that's all for now, I know this is not a complete guide, more of a simple overview and slight breakdon of a tool.

I'm available for chat on various IM if there are those of you interested in one on ones.

whats that there at the bottom?

So down at the bottom at the request of some friendly folks I created a hypno survey for those interested in trying their hands (minds?) at a little hypnosis.

the survey isnt too long and I promise to get back through whatever contact you prefer on there.

Just a short tidbit for now, still here though.

working on another informational post still in the editing phase

All Hypnosis is Self Hypnosis, except when it's my Hypnosis

Is a tour a tour, if it isnt guided?

Hypnotists say that little bit about self hypnosis for a reason, hypnosis IS a lot like a tour, your mind is in a state of trance (SELF hypnosis) however the hypnotist acts as a guide, a mind in trance tends to be very... narrow minded...
The presence of the hypnotist in the situation gives the subject (I wish there was a less clinical way of saying hypnotizee... which sounds like chimpanzee) a focal point. as well as a goal that's outside of their own mind.

so, as the hypnotist really what you are is a tourguide, showing your... entranced tourist?... what their mind is capable of when their conscious thoughts limitations and fears arent getting in the way.

As for the trancees in the audience. For some of you trance will be a museum tour, others get a ride on a safari jeep. However your mind wants it to be just remember, you dont necesarily choose where to go and what to see, but you should know that you can leave at the first sign of trouble, or should some aspect seem more interesting than others wonder off the group.

Enough metaphors for now

I've come up with a little trance script for beginners to try out on their friends

• This is a line for you to say
• This is a line for you to read but not say! 

Script is as follows -

• read this whole thing and practice alone before you do it on your .. victim?
• Get in a comfortable place, a reclining chair, a soft bed, a soft rug or a warm bath will all do
• Close your eyes
• feel free to reword anything here though I'll explain the logic of my choice of words
• You are going to count up to 100 then backwards to zero
  
• For each number you count, you take a breath
• You may begin when you feel ready
• always tell them what they're going to do, THEN get them started once they have the whole gyst, nothing worse than the subject running ahead of the tour.
• Let yourself feel the breath imagining it as it flows into your lips
• Pacing is important in these next few lines, try and say them in time with breathing, taking your own time to pay attention to your trance partner
• Flowing into your throat and your lungs
• Filling them up
• Then flowing right back out
• Feeling and Seeing and Hearing the air make it's way through your body
• make a normal act like breathing, occupy a lot of the brain's processing powers. one of the secrets of hypnosis is keeping people too distracted to notice they are getting relaxed. In this section I am working 3 senses (feeling seeing hearing) again feel free to improvise
• Now as you count your numbers, you know you are simply saying words.
• You might notice the letters that makes up each number you say
• make things gradual, devide them into steps, if they're counting try and slowly bring them to experiencing the numbers as separate letters, you can divide this more, or less depending on how relaxed your friend is. pay attention to the friend, facial muscles relax in trance, as do body muscles, breath actually naturally becomes shallower and slower, not deeper. in my own experience. even words become harder to notice.
• You might even notice how it feels to say each and every letter that makes up those words.
• And as those letters come out, you can feel them too coming out of your body, much like your breath.
• once the counting experience becomes divided into abstract letters it starts making less sense to the mind. (distracting senses = relaxing) you are occupying a person's speech and language center by making them constantly spell words. and therefore making them more open to relaxing to suggestions.
• Each letter starts somewhere deep whithin and flows out of you
• Every time you count deeper you can see further where the letters are coming from.
• Let each letter pull the other letters along with it, noticing each one as it flows out of you when you say it.
• connecting the numbers to the previous act of letting air out. it becomes more natural now for the mind to just automatically do this.
• And as your mind feels each letter being expelled from you mind, and feels your breath flowing.
• and it lets you move to another metaphore - numbers leaving = less thought
• And as you notice how your mind gets quieter and more serene the deeper you count.
• And just keep counting as the numbers and the letters flow out pulling your mind along feeling that lightness....
• (time to do your own thing hypnotist, bring the subject down, give them a few metaphores for how deep their trance is getting and how they might feel or notice or tell or see that it's happening)
• try things like making the numbers fade away untill .... a room appears with... stairs? or, untill a hallway appears, with... doors I'm sure you're getting the idea
• suggestions can then be planted "every time X you can feel Y "
• keeping things positive helps the mind process ... for example "Dont bite your fingernail" as a suggestion ... means the mind has to think of biting fingernails... and then how to "dont" that action... instead try creating another action that occurs instead (when your fingernails move near your mouth you feel an all encompassing urge to run them through your hair)
• (a good way to bring them out now, is to reverse the count, let the numbers flow IN and eventually just bring them out the same way they came in, bring them off the bed/chair/bath as they awaken and you have a perfectly wrapped little trance)

Enjoy everyone.