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Fractionation - let's have a look

Most of us would agree that fractionation is one of the most powerful techniques for deepening trance. The traditional explanation for fractionation is that it is a way of rapidly conditioning a person to trance; that is, instead of having a number of separate inductions into trance (whereby a subject/client learns trance), the conditioning is compressed into moments.

What interests me, is that I don't think that the traditional way of understanding fractionation is the full explanation. It seems to me that having say, a week between sessions is very different from getting somebody to open their eyes, become more aware, close them, and go deeper into hypnosis.

What's actually happening here? The most general way to describe this - it seems to me - is that the client is going from a state of awareness to non awareness, or, from disassociation to association (with the body).

If this is the case, perhaps there is room to refine fractionation, perhaps by adding suggestions that reinforce body awareness... Gurdjief (a Russian mystic) had a technique called Sense/Look/Listen, which was very interesting in this regard. I'll expand on it if I get some replies!

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Permalink Reply by bruce on July 26, 2008 at 1:32am: David, I have to say I like your approach a lot.

I also don't use the 10,000. times... it's too exagerated for me.

This discussion has me wondering something else though... and that's the whole issue of associaton/disassociation. I've mulled this one around before, and perhaps it should be a new thread/topic, but here it is: we use intense association to create dissociation. For instance, your technique of noticing how much deeper into relaxion could be said to be associative - the client is noticing a body state; at a certain point (I would submit) the client stops noticing the body, and drifts off into deep trance.

In the same way, when we emerge (or whatever you want to call it) somebody from hypnosis, we do so by having them become aware of their body, and then their surroundings.

It's facinating... Many psychological problems, I believe, are due to an exagerated mind/body split. What I mean to say is that the modern condition tends to be one where we ignore our feelings; when I say feelings, I mean actual body sensations. When we loose touch with these, we tend to loose our direction in life, and our sense of "aliveness." At the same time, it's this split (in a way) that we are working with in hypnosis. Am I rambling?... this should probably be on my blog or another thread.

Does anybody else think along these lines?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Don Reno on July 27, 2008 at 12:02pm: My take on fractionation is that getting into hypnosis is a learning process. Each time a person enters hypnosis they learn a little more about how to do it.

The state of hypnosis is a very personal thing. I can tell you how it feels to me, but you can only know for sure by your own experience. And, for at least the first few times in trance, that experience is a little bit different each time. So many or most of us learn to be in hypnosis much like we develop habits...each time we do it better (or at least, differently), and we build upon the foundation of previous experience.

So the first time you are hypnotized you learn what it feels like. And you go deep...or not so deep. The next time you can mostly repeat the experience, and you can add to it. And so on for each time you go into trance. I think this would be true whether the trances were a week apart or seconds apart. This, to me, is what fractionation is about.

Don Reno; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by bruce on August 22, 2008 at 10:24pm: Just an update here:

Wow! Combining fractionation with a few quick breaths (about seven) and then a deep breath, holding the breath for a few counts, opening the eyes and then sighing and closing the eyes works incredibly well. Really, try this out, it super-charges fractionation.

The Gurdjief sense/look/listen exercise (ref. earlier in this discussion) didn't work so well.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Janice Manson - MindClickPartners.com on August 23, 2008 at 9:27am: Please share what is meant by Sense/Look/Listen...
thanks; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Gilson Costa on August 23, 2008 at 5:08pm: I make a distinction between repetition and fractionatio. The first is the main way to "learning". the second means literally "chunk down" to make a bigger effect. When we repeat something we tend to learn it. When we fractionate it we chunk the whole experience in smaller pieces and repeat the pieces fast.

Say the person has a session a week. He/she will "learn" the process that will become streamlined. But, if we, in a matter of minutes, put the person back and forth into a trance, that´s fractionation.

From my point of view, fractionation works because ou body has a latency in it´s response, when getting back to "normal" state. When something frighten us, the reaction is instantaneous, but the return to normal state is long. At this point if another thing frighten us the reaction is compounded, that means it´s bigger than the sum of two "frights".

So, fractionation means to use small chunks to get an effect bigger than the sums of parts.; ▶ Reply to This