Guidelines

Follow suggestions with the Hypnotic Mindset - being optimistic, engaged, curious, anticipatory and motivated.

There are various strategies that can be used to engage with a suggestion. Check out the Carleton Skills Training Program and Automatic Imagination Model from the components of hypnosis page on ways to actively engage with the suggestion.

The first time that you follow a suggestion and actively hold a belief, it may feel natural, or it may feel like acting. This is common with all new activities, and as automaticity builds up following suggestions will feel more natural.

If you have active thoughts, put them to use. Start thinking about the suggestion and ways to make it even better. If you are given a suggestion with imagery that doesn’t work for you, provide the imagery that does work. If there’s language that’s confusing or contradictory, throw it out and find the spirit. Don’t be afraid to find your own strategies that work for you. The virtuosos do it, and so can you.

All perception involves the mind creating a projection from uncertain input. You can use this uncertainty to decide what you perceive. This is an age-old hypnosis technique called utilization.

Take mental perceptions, where the perception of our environment consists of the stories we have about ourselves and the world around us. When those stories are weak, we can change and reframe those stories or buy into someone else’s story. When those stories are strong, they can be weakened through uncertainty. You can question a story, challenge it, and look for different angles on it that get you closer to the suggestion.

For emotional perceptions, you can notice things in your body and in your past that match up with the feeling. Take the feeling of love. If you’re feeling lazy and languid, that could be how comfortable you feel around the one you love. If you’re feeling tense and antsy, that could be how excited your partner makes you. Take the things around you in your environment and put them to work for you.

There’s an unspoken assumption in hypnosis that the hypnotist speaks and the tranced hypnotee cannot speak or respond because they are in trance. Hypnotists are taught to read facial expressions and look for twitches or frowns when the hypnotee is not comfortable.

There’s an easy out to this. Set up a prearranged signal where you "tap out" by patting your hand against something. Your partner will bring you out of trance so you can speak up. Don’t think you need to remain still in a stationary trance: brains and bodies work in cycles, and there will be times when you need to move.

If you really like something, tap out and say so, then do it again. If you want a different spin on it, tap out and tell your partner. If you really need more active suggestions and want to stretch and fiddle, tell your partner so they can steer in that direction.

What matters in hypnosis is being yourself and using your own language. You can start by using printed suggestions, but you should feel free to write them on 3x5 cards, and eventually just off the top off your head. Your partner will let you know what suggestions work and don’t work for them.

In some ways, giving good suggestions is like coaching. Your job is to help your partner acheive something by giving direction and feedback that helps them achieve their goals. Being consistent and reliable is a core part of giving good suggestions.

Your partner may not follow the suggestion exactly. Humans, even hypnotized humans, don’t remember everything perfectly, and the more complicated you make the suggestion the more likely it is that something may be missed or confused. Do not tell your partner they’re doing it wrong. Use the "yes, and" technique from improv if you want them to change behavior.

Your partner may even start laughing or drop the suggestion in the middle. That’s usually a sign that they’ve just had a new experience. Give them space to reflect and process what it was like for them, and they’ll let you know when they’re ready to keep going.

Do not poke at the suspension of disbelief involved in the suggestion. Questions like "Are you faking it?" or "Do you really believe this?" are not helpful, and besides the point. Your job is to lift your partner up and work on their successes.

If the suggestion is to do something that is awkward or uncomfortable, then work also has to be done to make the suggestion palatable.

As an example, suppose you want your partner to solve a calculus problem. Giving your partner a suggestion "When you wake up, you will solve this calculus problem!" is clear, but lacks context and coupling. Depending on how your partner feels about math problems, it may also be incongruent.

A better approach is to establish context and coupling, and work on motivation. Having established that that your partner doesn’t hate math problems and took calculus at some point, you can start by setting up the context:

"I want you to think about how much you’ve grown and changed over the years. You’re able to do so many things that you weren’t able to before, and have skills that you may not have thought about for many years. Think about how many hidden talents you have, and how good it feels when you can prove to yourself that you do things that even you forgot how to do. In fact, when you can prove to yourself you have a hidden talent, you’re going to feel amazing, the most rewarding sensation of satisfaction from a job well done."

"Now I want you to think about a time when you were in high school, in your bedroom, doing calculus homework. As you remember that time, you remember all the symbols and concepts from calculus: how derivatives work, how to do integration. And when you bring back those ideas and hidden skills in your mind and remember them, you can nod your head to let me know."

"Excellent. Now when you open your eyes, you’re going to have an opportunity to prove to your brain and yourself just how much you’ve learned and that proof is going to feel wonderfully amazing and satisfying. When I count to three, you’re going to open your eyes and you’re going to solve the calculus problem in front of you."