The State/Agreement Distinction
February 1, 2008
Anyone who has read the Wikipedia article on hypnosis is aware of the debate between whether hypnosis is a distinct state or whether it’s simply a set of agreements between the hypnotist and the subject.
I’ve been pondering the debate all morning as I’ve watched the work of Brian David Phillips in the advanced class at Hypnoticon. The beauty of watching hypnotists performing hypnosis demonstrations for others is that their goal (much like magicians teaching magic tricks) is to precisely and exquisitely demonstrate the phenomenon in ways that allow others to replicate the behavior.
More and more, I am falling on the “agreement” side of the argument. I find myself agreeing with Derren Brown that hypnosis is simply the use of a set of tools (in this case, tools of influence) in a particular way that comes together as a phenomenon called “hypnosis”.
In this case, the tool set is largely based upon compliance. I’m looking forward to testing this theory later in “walkabout hypnosis” – if I have compliance, can I create the state/agreement known as “hypnotic trance” using any action/induction?
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4 Responses to “The State/Agreement Distinction”
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I don’t personally think it’s an either-or thing. I think that the state makes the agreement more likely, and the agreement makes moving into the state more likely.
There are times (and I’m not counting fractionation here!) when I move into alpha-theta far more easily than others. (And since we met and shared hypnosis time at Hypnoticon, I’m sure you’re laughing right now at the idea of me being easier.
) At times when I’m having issue making state, the conscious agreement still makes alpha-theta possible.
As an example, there have been times of very high emotional stress when friends wanted to calm me down and help me cope in a way they know from experience works. Instead of the usual five to ten seconds for depth I usually experience, these times can take me five to ten *minutes*… unless I consciously agree and silently activate anchors. On the plus side, some of my most powerful anchors and triggers have come out of these times – after I was able to move past the state in which I began, I was able to achieve some really incredibly positive states.
On the other hand, there are times when people I might not normally have cared to initiate deep alpha-theta on me have caught me at a moment of alpha and deepened the state, or times when I didn’t plan on going into alpha-theta and someone triggered that response. At that point, either my unconscious agrees and the state remains deepened, or I “bounce.” What happens next depends on circumstances. But the initial alpha (accessing information, daydreaming, etc.) usually makes the quick shift possible, before any agreement is entered.
Here’s where I clarify what I meant… I completely agree with everything you said, Dee. The thing I was talking about with the state is that there’s no single state that could be classed as “trance”, any more than there’s a state that can be classed as “meditation”. There are certain physiological markers present (e.g. alpha-theta brainwave patterns), but those markers are present in a bunch of other places. Trance is only one of them.
The agreement is, in my current opinion, the far more singular marker of hypnosis.
[...] interesting to me not as it relates strictly to hypnosis, but to the power of the mind itself. As I said recently, hypnosis is not a distinct state (i.e. having physiological markers unique to it) but indicative [...]
trance…
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