Using Ambiguous Language, Mispronounced Words and Confusion

Don't let a trance state develop until I have counted all the way down from five... and you can respond to any form of counting... and notice how it develops in stages... with each count from five... and before (four) you three (free) yourself... and allow yourself to (two) go all the way in trance... you can discover what it means being at one now... with your thoughts and feelings and a deep sense of relaxation... as you notice that developing in its own special way... wondering as you wander comfortably... drifting and relaxing... whether you will go deeper with the words that I say or the spaces between the words...(then at the end of the induction)...and as you drift back to a sense of oneness you can rise up to (two) an awakeful state with each count...feeling a sense of threedom (freedom) and before (four) you come all the way back you can let go of the experience on a conscious level and end the counting on five...then opening your eyes...

As you wander along wondering where the wandering will take you, you can wonder what else you will discover as I talk to ...your unconscious (a command to be unconscious/in trance)...mind, it is your right to decide whether your right (correct or right) hand will lift up or your left hand will lift up, and you know which hand is right (correct or right) and the right (correct or right) hand can lift while the wrong hand will be left ...(left hand is wrong/wrong hand will stay where it is) where it is, and you came here today and noticed that it is a nice day for a change (good outside, good day to change)...not like the other day where the weather just makes you wonder whether ...it is worth the change (command that it is worth changing and money change) ... you spend on tents (tense) when it takes all that effort to put them up and tents (tense) come down so easily and effortlessly, and you can take the tents (tense) down in so many ways it's impossible not to be able to take the tents (tense) down...and as you glisten (listen - Commonly used by Bandler) up to each word I say and be calm (become) aware of what it is like to wear something different and try on something new and wonder where you'll wear that...in what situations and what contexts...and in a minute you can take an (on) hour (our) ... discussion and the meaning and discoveries you have made and discoveries you don't know that you have made and wander (wonder) through what's new and realise that 70% of discomfort is made up of comfort (discomfort = 10 letters, comfort = 7 letters) and I wonder what that will mean to you the next time someone is mean to you and you take their meaning and pick up what they mean in a new way a way you didn't know you knew...dismissing the dis (common youth term - dissing you - meaning putting you down or being mean to you) and discovering (diss covering - hiding it) the comfort in yourself...

I enjoy mispronouncing words that most people seem to overlook or not notice

'You can take every trance (chance) you get to really relax'
'I don't know if that movement will be in the lift (left) hand or the right hand'
'I don't know which hand will lift right arm (on) up into the air'
No more/know more
insecurity/in security
Nowhere/Know where
Tents/Tense
Wonder/Wander
Stairs/Stares
In trance/Entrance
Heal/Heel
Changing state, or going from state to state etc... (Driving down USA for example - changing states of mind)

Tags: confusion, dan, dynamic, erickson, ericksonian, ernest, healing, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, ideo, More…jones, milton, rossi

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Permalink Reply by Blankfrost on March 27, 2009 at 8:09am

is their a specific reason to count down in ambiguty? does it help in anyway?

the mind is a very strange complex thing. i always thought that with hypnosis you had to listen and understand everything the hypnotist is saying as if to understand and then follow a intruction but with alot of ericksons work it almost seems to be the opposite with embedded commands, confuson, ambiguaty etc.. many of these things your not aware of and they still are so effective.

when your using ambiguty what if they get so confused and end up thinking something like (what the hell is this guy on about this is stupid) or what if they don't get the changing state to state thing and just perceive it as going from state to state (USA)?? or does it always work out because the mind is just wired a certain way???

Permalink Reply by Blankfrost on March 27, 2009 at 8:28am

hey im curious to knoe if anyone ever tryed a pattern interrupt with any other pattern besides a handshake like maybe asking someone a question then interruping it or maybe interrupting a high-five or if someone is going to turn on a TV or pick something up from the table interupting that? just curious??

Permalink Reply by dan jones on March 27, 2009 at 1:46pm

The counting down thing I did here for fun, and in some situations have done it without the client realising what I am doing (like Derren talking about 'I BIKE (by) gifts for people...and they BeaM eXcitement...' etc...and like with the Derren thing when Simon Pegg didn't notice neither do clients, especially if you are going at a pace so that they can't back track. For example I regularly say things like 'and you can take every TRANCE (chance) you get to relax deeply and work on....etc...' or Igor Ledochowski's 'I've got a friend that works in a NEW CLEAR VISION (nuclear fission) power plant...etc'

With indirect or covert Ericksonian hypnosis it should be impossible to understand everything that is going on because (being covert) it should go unnoticed by the conscious mind to make changes on an unconscious level. It is because the conscious mind isn't aware of them that they are so effective.

For example; if I told you to close your eyes and go deep into a trance and that I'm going to count from 10 down to 1 and then you will be in a deep trance and I want your right arm to lift up etc... It probably wouldn't work...

Whereas if I told you, when I was in school about 6 years old I used to love playing games, I would alway want to play tricks on my friends with things like itching powder, or fake poo or cheap magic tricks from joke shops and I never really scratched the surface with the number of tricks and gags and stuff that the local joke shop had in stock, I always wanted Mum to buy me bits and often wanted the more adult tricks, you know the ones that were normally just out of reach that allowed you to do make up to look like you've been in an accident or the fake cigarettes etc...and I remember in school playing jokes on other kids and the teachers like putting itching powder down peoples necks or fake bugs in their bags or drinks. I remember one day going into school thinking someone had beaten me to it because I saw people itching their heads...but when I looked closer, I could see their hair was moving with lice and that an outbreak of lice had happened...I immediately started to scratch and could feel the lice in my hair...even though I knew my hair didn't have any lice in it...you know what that's like do you not?

Now that second section is likely to have made you scratch or currently be feeling an itch you want to scratch (even though reading this you are likely to try to fight it and not scratch)...So the second way gets an arm levitation without directly asking for it and without the client realising they were manipulated...and this levitation in a real situation can be used and prolonged etc by telling the story differently or interupting it etc...

Ideally you don't want to use ambiguity to the extent that it breaks rapport...In a hypnosis context people are more comfortable with a little weirdness and also are more likely to assume everything that is said and done is relating to the therapy which helps them accept it...

The unconscious mind perceives all options at once..so the conscious mind (if I were to talk about going from state to state) should hopefully only follow the state to state driving through the USA idea (which is just the CONTENT), while unconsciously every other option is accessed and it is patterns of associations (like a thread you are weaving throughout) that the unconscious picks up on as the main message...

The conscious mind generally pays attention to content (like following a story and aware of the different things in the story like objects, places visited etc) whereas the unconscious mind picks up on the patterns and the deeper structure (like the submodalities, recurring patterns between stories told, or patterns in stories that have significance within a specific frame - like in a hypnosis session, etc..)

Permalink Reply by dan jones on March 27, 2009 at 1:55pm

Yes, over the years I've interrupted many patterns and used many techniques (like asking a question then interrupting the answer etc)...

A good interrupt is to say something like 'can I stop you a minutes' then when the person stops talking say 'forget it! It's nothing!' which puts them momentarily into a responsive state, and can be also be good for inducing amnesia...

See the video below for a pattern interrupt or two...

Feel free to say what you saw happen...

Permalink Reply by Blankfrost on March 27, 2009 at 6:35pm

well just correct me if or when im wrong (im a pretty awkward learner) my conclusion is.
Ambiguty is really good for embbeding ideas and seggestions to lead the subject where you want? and it often causes confusion which is even better because your unconcious is more likly to smoothen the words out in its own way which the concious won't be aware of??

Permalink Reply by dan jones on March 27, 2009 at 11:13pm

Sounds like you're on the right track...

Your unconscious does correct mistakes, making them stand out from the communication. Ambiguity can be used on other levels like the ambiguous touch inductions (Ericksons main handshake induction was an ambiguous touch induction - I see videos of these are posted on youtube/google video etc...)

Permalink Reply by dan jones on March 27, 2009 at 11:59pm

Did you read the answer to your USA state changing question and ambiguous counting question above?

Permalink Reply by Lea Otto on March 28, 2009 at 9:45am

hmmm "...What you saw happen..." you say.
Well I can see a lot happening: from times you face him to language patterns etc. It brings to my attention the fact that I've seen this clip a million times but haven't done a full type up and break down of it. I think I'll do that and point out what I've noticed now that I have a better understanding of the techniques used. I'll upload it as a file though because it'll likely be too long to be put in the comments window. Can't do much with font formatting here either.

Permalink Reply by Blankfrost on March 28, 2009 at 3:53pm

yeah i read the answers would it be better if you analog marked the numbers out in the counting and the state thing? so it stood out more to the unconcious?

idea in hypnosis when counting i guess. is when counting backward to the subject they feel they are going deeper but with hypnosis videos and audio i find as they count backward i don't feel any different throughout the counting and when they got to 0 i feel the same as when they started counting in the beggining? unless the countings ment to do something else and i wasn't aware of it?

i heard in counting you can use confusion along with a few seggestions like saying (10 feeling good, 9 going deeper 13 feeling very relaxed now 8 going deeper) is this true or is it generally a unhelpful method?

Permalink Reply by dan jones on March 29, 2009 at 2:49am

I would say that random numbers would be confusing. You want to count as a metaphor for going deeper or more awake, which is useful for anchoring as well so the person can just use the counting to go deeper and to come back again themselve and in the future a hypnotist can use it again...

You could mark them out, but being mistakes they will already stand out.

So did you move your arm?

Permalink Reply by dan jones on March 29, 2009 at 10:56pm

Hi John, The video appears to work when I click on it? I agree it is useful overloading the conscious mind allowing for better communication with the unconscious mind and it's processes...

I'm often mispronouncing things, saying wrong words (like trance instead of chance, or be calm, instead of become) or forming gramatically poor sentences, or not finishing sentences (so they finish the sentences for me as self suggestions...)

Permalink Reply by Blankfrost on April 1, 2009 at 6:56am

Was my arm suppose to move? but i did feel quite itcy when i was reading the text about scratching strangly (im im itching now)

on hypnosis CDs they often get you to count backward while their speaking to you? but its hard to listen to what they are saying and continue to count backward at the same time? so is the counting used to distract you while they give seggestions? im not sure could you explain please