More pain control

Dear reader,

probably because of my pollen allergy I had a headache the other day. It wasn't one with piercing pain like I sometimes have. I already described how I deal with that sort of pain in another post. But the other day I had the image of a room in my head where sand was on the ground. A larger area, but flat, not pain from for example a pyramid with its four (or five) peaks. You'd clean out a room with sand with a broom. So I imagined exactly that. Indeed it helped and my headache went away just like that.

I saw another method quite by accident while watching the mini-series “Wolf Hall”. A boy was at the blacksmith workshop of his father and cut himself. The father said, the boy should hold his hands like this, and the father showed him how. The palms of your hands facing towards you you cross your underarms. Then the boy should keep the arms like that and put them under water. The crossing the arms would confuse the mind. An interesting method, I find. I'll definitely use it some time.

Until next blog,

sarah

Everyday hypnosis

Dear reader,

time and again there are debates even among experts what hypnosis is and what trance is. Many, even hypnotherapists, talk with clients and newbies about “putting them under hypnosis”. I personally prefer Milton Erickson's approach that trance is the state of awareness and hypnosis is the way or method to it. James Tripp on the other hand is famous for his “hypnosis without trance”.

I believe that most people would agree with the following: that this changed state of awareness, whether we call it trance or hypnosis now, is an everyday phenomenon. In order to reach this state of awareness, you don't necessarily need a second person and also words are not always necessary. In the following I'd like to describe a couple of examples and what phenomena are behind them.

One typical example of amnesia, memory loss, is when you get from one place to another and after reaching your destiny, you have no recollection of how you got there. I don't mean that you forgot if you got there by car or bus, but details about the way and occurrences on your way. Irrelevant details got cut out.

On one work day at the Alzheimer's society (of all places!) it happened one time that several of my colleagues came into the room at different times and even though nobody interrupted them, they came in and stopped dead with a desperate look on their face and the question, “What did I want here?” or, “Why am I here?” Although none of the persons in the room interrupted them, someone or something did interrupt their train of though on the way to the room. The original thought was covered up with other thoughts and therefore the reason to enter the room was forgotten.

I already mentioned eye fixation in the previous post, which doesn't necessarily need a shiny plate as a fix point, any more that you need a swinging pocket watch. Especially children can easily get lost in their own thoughts with a shining candle. I had to wait for over three hours in the waiting room at a doctor once. They had magazines and I most certainly had a book with me, too, but I just stared at the wall across from me and just hopped desperately that I would be still enough present to react fast enough when they finally called me up. Since I got myself out of that state only a short time later, I didn't miss the call. All I had needed was a point and the wall had nothing special, it was just plain white. The reason to pick a shiny object a lot is that it's eye-catching literally, because it's shiny.

It can also happen time and again that we notice bruises on our body, but don't remember at all about how we got them. That's pain control, anaesthesia for you and with that it's trance respectively hypnosis. That also applies to the way of doing pain control I described in a previous post, although I deliberately didn't use the words trance and hypnosis then.

Two phenomena are very typical with children and if you ask me, they should by all means not be taken in a negative or mean way. The first is positive hallucination: which is seeing things that aren't there really. For example there are every now and then reports of children that have “invisible friends” or imaginary friends. The reverse of that phenomenon would be negative hallucination: which is especially annoying when you're about to go out and can't find your house keys or car keys, check a table several times and after many unsuccessful attempts, you stand at the table again and suddenly the keys are there in plain sight and unable for you to overlook them on the table. Why didn't we see them before?

But negative hallucinations aren't limited to seeing only. Very annoyingly for the parents, sometimes children can be so absorbed in their own world, that the calls from the parents go unheard. That's not necessarily malicious not listening, but can also simply be a sign of the children being deeply absorbed in their activities in the way that they shut out all stimuli that doesn't directly belong to their activity. Dear parents: this is a normal phenomenon! In this context you should check if the seemingly repeatedly stubborn child is deliberately not listening as a kind of behavioural problem, if it's a hearing problem or if they are absorbed in their activity and therefore not listening. The physician and educator Maria Montessori described a phenomenon with children that are so deeply absorbed and where other obviously noisy children were unable to distract or disturb the child. As far as I know Montessori never wrote or spoke about hypnosis or trance then. Although I only learned about the principle ideas of her at university. The term Montessori used for this concentrated state of consciousness was “flow”.

Book lovers and film fans know how easily hours seem like minutes with a good book or movie. Time distortion is a phenomenon of hypnosis. Sadly we often don't use that phenomenon to our advantage. So good moments fly away way too fast and situations we'd prefer to be over in a flash drag on forever. There are possibilities to manipulate our perception to our advantage. Not only can we make it seem like it's warm for us when it's cold in reality or vice versa, we can also change our perception of time deliberately. We only have to find out how our individual perception of time works and what factors influence it.

One of my favourite phenomena is what I call “traffic trance”. A line of cars is standing at a red traffic. Everyone stares at the light and when the light changes there's inevitably someone every once in a while who doesn't change. We notice that when some other driver behind them gets impatient and honks. Here, again, is eye fixation the reason.

I hope that I was able to show that trance respectively hypnosis is something normal, even everyday. Only we often don't talk about it in those terms. I'd wish that people would be less scared of those words and phenomena, which are linked with trance and hypnosis. Sadly even today many people think that hypnosis has to do with loss of control and one can be turned into an evil criminal or they'd be totally ridiculed in hypnosis shows. Hypnosis is far more than that. Above all it's something totally normal. The phenomena I mentioned are only examples. Maybe you can think of situations you experienced. If you want to share them, write a comment. I'd be happy to read from you.

Until next blog,

sarah

What the... hypnosis

Dear reader,

hypnosis is when someone is swinging a pocket watch back and forth in front of you, counting and telling you that at some point, you won't be able to keep your eyes open and sleep. That is at best how many think about stage-hypnosis.

This was supposed to be a post to introduce you to some hypnosis-people, especially hypnotherapists, meaning people, who use hypnosis for therapy, combined with a bit of history of hypnosis. That's what I had planned for February. As you can see, as a result I didn't write anything at all in February.

The truth is that I have barely any knowledge about the history of hypnosis. I have read two or three general books on hypnosis. Of course they had bits about the history and names of famous people of the past, thanks to YouTube I was able to watch interviews with hypnotists and hypnotherapists and see demonstrations or seminars. But apart from Dr. Milton Erickson, I hardly know more than the name of most people.

In addition to that I noticed during the past couple of months that I forgot now things I knew quite well, say half a year ago or so. Including terms I was able to explain or at least use without any problems back then. Am I getting old? Or am I becoming like Sherlock Holmes, who doesn't know that the earth goes around the sun, because it's irrelevant for his life?

Here comes what I'd like to share with you, for which I don't have to consult (my) books: my history of hypnosis. (Confession: I didn't use a book, but I did look up the dates on wikipedia.)

The name used very often as the sort of father of hypnosis or hypnotherapy is Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-1815). Years ago I liked the actor Alan Rickman a lot. I like him still today, but I'm not that much familiar with his more recent works now as I was years ago. In any case, he was in the movie “Mesmer” playing him in 1994. The frame story of the movie is a court hearing, which Mesmer has to go through. The treatment method of the doctor are so unconventional for his time that many thought he was a charlatan. That's why he was in court for. Later I read a couple of books about Mesmer to find out, what parts of the story in the movie had really happened. Without knowing it, this was my introduction to hypnosis, I guess. Although Mesmer didn't call what he did hypnosis. At first he worked with magnets. In one book I read that story that he was taking part in a sort of parade, when someone came up to him asking for help, because no other doctor was so close and available. He went and was lead to the ill person and only realised when he was there, that he had left the magnets in the coach at the parade. If lifeless stones and magnets were able to help, surely he, Mesmer, a warm living being full of energy, must be able to help with touch and strokes with his hands. Indeed he was able to help, so he didn't use the magnets anymore after that experience. He called what he did “animal magnetism”. Today it's also known as “mesmerism”. His name even became an adjective in English as “mesmerising” (to describe something as being fascinating or hypnotising).

Independently from Mesmer back then, also the Chinese medicine assumes an energy, known as chi or qi. Reiki is a method practised to this day, in which the hands are used to heal.

But Mesmer wasn't quite the beginning. Even the Egypts and Greeks knew sleep temples. Priests, who at that time were also functioning as doctors, healed a variety of illnesses through rites with putting the sick into a healing sleep.

The miracle healings of Jesus, his apostles and the early Christians came most likely often with hypnosis, too. Imposition of hands and fixation of the eyes (fixation) e. g. with a shining metal plate, are typical practices.

Another surgeon one should know is the Scotsman James Braid (1795-1860). He too studied magnetism and coined the term “neurypnology”, so still not “hypnosis” as a term. In Braid's time anaesthesia was still in its infancy. His book is called: Neurypnology; Or, the Rationale of Nervous Sleep Considered in Relation with Animal Magnetism.

James Esdaile (1808-1859) on the other hand reminds me a bit of Erickson. Esdaile had asthma and he moved from Great Britain to India in the hope that the climate there would be better for him. Erickson got vaccinated after a bike accident, but he got an anaphylactic shock from the vaccination, which nearly killed him and as a result he developed allergies. Therefore he moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Anyway, it shouldn't surprise you that Esdailes book title is: Mesmerism in India and Its Practical Application in Surgery and Medicine.

Another doctor, who should be mentioned is the psychiatrist and neurologist Hippolyte Bernheim (1840-1919), who studied the reactions to suggestions. Suggestions are also an important aspect with hypnosis and hypnotherapy. Consequently his form of therapy was the “suggestive therapy”, on which he wrote several books, for example: Suggestive Therapeutics: A Treatise on the Nature and Uses of Hypnotism.

By the way, the so called Russian miracle healer Rasputin (1869-1916) also used hypnosis to help especially the tsar son, when he had one of his bleedings again. I find it inappropriate, to call the treatments of the tsar son miracle healings though. Because Rasputin didn't heal him from hemophilia. He only stopped the immediate bleedings. More on Rasputin in another entry later.

Many people certainly don't know that Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) studied with the neurologist Jean-Martin Charco (1825-1893) and used hypnosis before he invented his psychoanalysis. Later he turned away from hypnosis. Surely in part to spend more time with his own ideas and psychoanalysis. I could also imagine that in part he also didn't like being close to clients and maybe even touch them, since one aspect with psychoanalysis is precisely that of keeping distance and interfering as little as possible.

If I had to write more detailed, I could write a book and would have to look up things more after all. For now this should be enough with the people mentioned to start with. Should hypnotists, hypnotherapists or hypnosis-enthusiasts read this post, I'd be happy to read your additional names and comments.

Until next blog,

sarah

Drug of choice

Dear reader,

a treat for you for new year's eve, although most of you probably won't read it in time and/or won't have time to prepare yourself accordingly before the party. Anyway... 

Drug of choice is something Richard Bandler came up with. The idea is that our body remembers sensations and reactions. Mind you, it's not the drugs that cause you to feel a certain way and experience the world in a certain way. It's your body's response to the drugs that does that. So for example it's not the LSD that makes you feel the way you feel, it's your body's response to the LSD.

Of course with the technique's name "drug of choice" we tend to think of drugs: LSD, or alcohol most commonly, I guess. But it can also be used to help you sleep without your sleeping pills. According to Richard Bandler, you have to take this pill or whatever once and remember it and if you do the remembering well enough, taking the thing once is enough and you can recreate the sensations again as much and as often as you like and need to. I remember Bandler talking about having several teeth removed and he needed to take some kind of meds. He supposedly took them only once and did it with "drug of choice" the next times. The good thing about "drug of choice" is that with alcohol for example, you don't get the negative side- or after-effects like hangover, headache and such. Essentially "drug of choice" means: free drugs as much as you want!

So how do you do this? Let's say you want to get drunk. You remember a past time when you were drunk or drinking anyway. Where's the first location you felt it in your body? I assume it was your mouth. What kind of feeling was it? Maybe a cooling sensation in your mouth. Where did you feel something next? And what kind of sensation? Just as suggestions: your throat? Stomach? What about your hands? Your legs? How about your head? Just go through your body, remember all the parts of your body in the order you feel the effects when you are drinking alcohol. Got them all? Go through them again. As always, do it in the order they happen for you. Do this a couple of times and you'd most likely be drunk quite soon. You may want to make sure you're sitting down somewhere the first time or times you do this. And watch out when you stand up again!

You could also create an anchor for being drunk. That way you may get there faster the next time and you don't always have to sit down going through all the parts of your body time and again.

There's a nice video of the magician Derren Brown doing this with a guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zryGzTbU49I

Derren is quite sneaky with his anchor on the poor chap sending him a short message at an unexpected time. Watch out for the guy with the turban, who's sitting in front of the guy. That's Derren. He's in his costume/disguise from another trick he did prior to this in that show. So it's not like Derren just sends him messages and leaves him alone drunk. Very responsible man, he is.

And also another video working with anchors to enhance the intensity here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsqZYezp_38

The basic idea of this is that you had the sensations before and remember them in a certain order. But others suggested that you don't need to have been drunk in order to make yourself drunk that way. We all have seen drunk people either in real life or on movies. So we have a reference, if not our own. Some say that this is enough already. I haven't tested that yet.

You may also want to take it further than just getting rid of your sleeping pills. They only gave me one once or twice on a night before surgery. But I don't usually take them and wouldn't do it again ever given my experiences and knowledge about hypnosis now. Certainly they gave me some stuff to calm me down before surgeries. You may want to recreate those sensations, too, if you aren't used to sleeping pills. I'm sure you'll go to sleep very soon that way. Even if you don't take sleeping pills. I know I could drift off quite easily that way if I wanted to. However for sleeping problems I usually do something less "dramatic", but equally effective, as I wrote in other posts before.

You could substitute sleeping pills, if you take them on a regular basis and don't want that anymore. Ideally you shouldn't need sleeping pills on a regular basis anyway. Certainly you can get hypnotically drunk with this method, too. How about replacing pills that help you with sexual dysfunctions of some kind with this method? How about if you have a weight problem and make up your own drug with “drug of choice” to help you with that? Or a confidence booster for shy people? Or... post your ideas to use this method in the comments. (Also see my Long live placebo post for that, if you haven't already read it.)

You could also combine effects or effects of different substances and make your own new free drug! It's  free, no negative side-effects, no after-effects. And you can have it as often and as long as you want. I have this naïve idea that people teach this method to addicts and the drug-related crimes and deaths go down and drug taking goes down. But maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part. I haven't worked with addicts, I don't really know about addictions. Would be cool if it worked though.

Please be careful, if you want to use this method to replace actual medication you really need. Like a diabetic who needs regular insulin shots for example. At least consult your doctor about this before. There are some pharmaceuticals you should actually take and not replace them like that. Not without consulting a doctor first anyway.

Until next blog,
sarah

Long live placebo!

Dear reader,

the word placebo comes from the latin and means "I please", certainly does please scientists. Because often when medicine or the effect of something has to be tested, the so called control group gets a placebo, which seemingly looks alike, but doesn't contain anything effectual at all. If there is still a positive change that can be measured objectively on the test person, that's called the placebo effect. Then there's "something" about the way the treatment was given that made the positive change, added to the ingredient, which with a placebo is nothing at all. As far as I know, there is no study so far on placebos as such. They're only used to compare to the "real" ingredient.

In his two part program "Fear and Faith" from 2012, the magician Derren Brown made a fascinating experiment. It was based on the following story: a company had created a drug that was talked about as the new wonder weapon in the military. The soldiers would stop being afraid and be totally fearless. Now the drug was to be tested on a group of civilians and Derren Brown, the well known skeptic wanted to run a documentary on that. In reality the drug was a placebo and the company wasn't real either. What Derren Brown really tested was the placebo effect.

Towards the end of the program he explains to the people, what it was really about. In the meantime however the placebo effect had kicked in with many of them and with very positive effect and I thought sometimes quite surprisingly, indeed. You can watch the whole program on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfDlfhHVvTY (about 47 minutes)

Capsules are more effective than pills and injections more effective than capsules according to Derren Brown. I decided to test that for myself. I couldn't think of something of the shape of a pil, but found that tic tac do look quite like capsules. I bought myself a pack. Since I was for real quite anxcious at that time, I told myself that they would calm me. I sucked them, which took about 10 to 15 minutes and after that I really was calmer. Up until then I thought that the placebo effect could only work, when the test person doesn't know that there is no actual ingredient in. Apparently that's not the case. I was very well aware that tic tac are no tranquilliser capsules, especially since I kept them in their original box. Now there are always different kinds. At least orange and mint. What might be worth testing would be if orange are tranquilliser capsules, whether mint could have another effect and if both would only create reactions according to their ascribed effect. At the moment I don't have an idea or the need for mint capsules. Should I do test that some time, you'll know where you can read about it...

The second part of "Fear and Faith" deals with Derren Brown testing whether he could turn an atheist woman in a believer in about an hour. With indirect hypnosis. I won't tell you how it ends. Only this much: like with all the other programs in which he does bigger experiments with and on people, he tells her at the end of the show what really happened and why.

Here is the link to the second prt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LksVbHxLRvY (about 47 minutes)

Until next blog,
sarah

Good morning!

Dear reader,

how many different meanings can the seemingly simple statement of "Good morning!" have?

When Bilbo Baggins wishes the wizard Gandalf that in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey", instead of an expected greeting back, he gets a stream of interpretation possibilities.

"What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning? Or do you mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or perhaps you mean to say that you feel good on this particular morning? Or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on?"

Confusion or surprise can be one way to induce a trance. Even moreso because Bilbo didn't expect those questions. Your fault, Bilbo. Precise wording and language is very important and sometimes defining.

Bilbo, smart as he is, answers to the many questions Gandalf has, with what I would think to be the only possible answer that makes sense, "All of them at once, I suppose."

Until next blog,
sarah

Thinner too: with savvy - weight and see

Dear reader,

you wanted to be thin and cancelled your fitness studio membership, because you don't need it anyway. Now some food for thought to add to that.

I read once that hypnosis is the best way and one of the best possibilities to achieve that. I have no idea how much of what I did to be thin was in a sense “hypnosis” or not. Regardless of that I can see certain parallels between hypnosis and successfully being thin. Many people believe that hypnosis makes you lose your will. That's not correct. Apart from the conscious and the unconscious, there's also a third very important instance, which is often called “the critical factor”. It's the connection between the conscious and the unconscious. The unconscious holds beliefs. The critical factor checks incoming new information with the already existing beliefs. If they are identical, they go into the unconscious, if not they're blocked out and stay in the conscious mind only.

Hypnosis only works when the critical factor is levelled down. Only then are phenomenon like an immobile (cataleptic) hand possible. Of course the person can still move their hand. But at that moment the barriers of the critical factor are at least that much down so what the hypnotist is saying, that the hand is impossible to move and cataleptic, is accepted to be true. This is enhanced even further through a chain of autosuggestion (“I notice that I can't move my hand. So it must be true that I can't move it. Therefore I can't move it.”) and the hand is immobilised, although under normal circumstances, the hand would be possible to move fully and without difficulty.

The critical factor is the reason why (New Year's) resolutions are so difficult to do and to keep doing them. The critical factor finds many more confirmations for the old habits and beliefs. So they are kept in the end. So for being thin you have to use tricks like a hypnotist.

The most important of all is:

1. State goals in the positive!

State your goals in the positive towards what you want. Remember: if you state it in the negative with „not“, you'll have the negative still in your head. That's not helpful in the long run. I'm warning you, if you state in the negative, you'll have an elephant in your head and he's so big, he'll crush all the positive intentions.

Our brain works best with pictures. That's why they keep saying in order to remember a string of things, to connect them to a story. I find a whole story to be difficult and complicated. I find it better to work with other methods and build yourself a memory palace. Do you know the film “The Machinist”? In it Christian Bale is a man, who's tormented with problems he repressed, so he almost doesn't eat at all, has massive sleeping problems and looks just the way someone would in that situation. It certainly wasn't healthy for him as an actor to lose that much weight for that role. Here are two picture of it:

It really does not look healthy at all. But it gives your mind very clear images of what you want. Only watch out, please, please, not to go just that far really. It should only be images, with which to work on your own goal. To have such a physique is sick and very damaging for you in the long run! Nevertheless: overdo it with the images, which you use, be it in your head or those you pick to remind you. (The 10^th Doctor in “Doctor Who”, David Tennant, is probably more of a role model for being thin, and very likeable, too. Although at least one of his companions described him as “just a long streak of nothing. You know, alien nothing.” Right she is.)

2. Find pictures (real or in the head), which are exaggerating, to be clear on what you want.

(Once someone wrote to me on the internet and wanted help with hypnosis so I would make her breasts bigger. I told her that when I wanted to be thinner, I was thinking about Christian Bale's role in The Machinist and advised to her to do the same. So she searched for a picture of a woman with breasts too big, printed it out and used that image then. A couple of weeks later she wrote to me and told me that her breasts actually had gotten bigger. I don't know if what she said was correct. It seemed so to me. In the end the most important thing is, that she was happy and she seemed to be to me.)

Sometimes I tricked myself and picked a bit wider cloths to wear, which wouldn't be so tight on my body. That gives a feeling of being thin. At least thinner for those cloths, which with more weight would have been tighter. Skinny jeans on the other hand sometimes are quite comfortable and make your thighs be a bit tighter than wider jeans would when you sit down.

Once again English seems to be even more extreme, once you start playing with words. To "lose weight" is, if you're saying it out loud, very close to "loose wait". (Not tight waiting, ey?) In English I like to ask then: Waiting for what? But even in German I don't think it's a good choice of words for the wish of “losing weight”. Nobody likes to lose something. You have to find the words that fit best for yourself. In the end all I can do is make you aware that different words also have diverse meanings that come with them.

Also don't underestimate the support from outside. If a child is big and should lose weight, it's best to make it a family project. It's not helping the child if the family keeps eating fastfood as the child is supposed to eat healthy food.

Two “tricks” I still use now and then are the following: often we mistake thirst for hunger and eat something. It can often help to instead first drink a good amount. In the evening it can also help, at a certain time of hour, to go and brush your teeth. As you know, after that you shouldn't eat anymore. So I only drink unsweetened tea or water then.

Until next blog,

sarah

Try Not To Try

Dear reader,

there is one thing that I want to write about as a sort of preparation for the topic that I know, some are waiting to read about already.

Today I want to write about the word "try" or "trying". There is a scene in Star Wars, in which Master Yoda is with young Luke Skywalker. They're in this moorland or whatever you call it. Luke's spaceship has gone under there and Yoda told him to take it out with the help of the force only, through the power of the mind. Luke says he'll try. To which Yoda says the famous words of, "Do or do not. There is no try."

Many people know, how I think about "try". If someone doesn't know and uses the word "try" in my presence, I usually tell Master Yoda says hi. Some don't think this is a bad word. They say, "if you don't know if the thing will work or not, you can well say you're trying." Can you? Either it works or it doesn't. If you try and it works, you made it. If you try and fail, you failed. In both cases this is a clearer position than "trying". I think, Master Yoda is right. Either the thing will work out one way or another: positive or negative. To "try" however is an uncertain position in between those and in fact unnecessary. Say, there's a person, who's uncertain if something will work or not, for whatever reason. Even then this person doesn't need to try. It would be far better, especially because of that uncertainty, to get at it with "I'll do it." If something isn't quite right yet and it will fail because of that, then it will fail anyway. A bit more self-confidence, please! A positive attitude works much to make something to well.

To try something means resistance, that something is difficult. Yes, to dare something new can be difficult. I still stick to it: if you have a positive attitude to go with this thing, you have a better chance of succeeding. And something that is bound to fail, will also fail with the best of positive attitudes. So there is no reason to anticipate failure in any way. Lately I told people of the pink elephant and said to them, "If your thoughts are negative, you'll have the pink elephant in your mind, and you don't want that, do you?" (Tag question, by the way! See my last post.)

I practically deleted "try" of my vocabulary. There would be only one exception, in which I would use that word very consciously and where it would be highly effective. If you want that something doesn't work. I'd especially suggest that in hypnosis. For example if you aim for the arm to be stuck and can't be moved, catalepsy, I might say, "Try in vain to move your arm."

While we're on hypnosis, one more thing about the topic of failure in the context of therapy and generally difficult goals: a therapy means work and relapses. Sometimes it doesn't quite work as the therapist and especially the patient wish. Or good resolutions like being thinner or quitting smoking and similar things seem totally destroyed with the first bigger meal or the first cigarette after some time without one. I personally don't have the qualification to do therapy, so I can't give therapies. But I would urge each therapist to anticipate relapses and talk about that in therapy early on. A paradox? First I write about not using the word "try" and now I suggest explicitly talking about failure or rather relapses in therapy before they happen? Yes! Absolutely! Say, someone is depressed. There can be days on which the person feels bad. This happens to not depressed people, too. If the therapist doesn't talk about the possibility of bad days, the person could feel like a complete failure. It would be better to talk about the bad days explicitly and make them part of the therapy process, "You will feel bad on one or two days." What happens, if the person some day feels bad then? Well, it's okay then. The therapist said, I would feel bad one or two days. No problem. What if the therapy ends and the patient is not depressed anymore and didn't have bad days? Even better! The person can be proud, because s/he is better than even the therapist seemed to have thought, who said there will be one or two bad days. The simple anticipation of bad days gives the whole thing a different, a positive view!

By the way, the irish writer Samuel Beckett said the following about failure, "Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

Until next blog,

sarah

On Should, Should Not and Not

Dear reader,

why is it easier to follow "should not" than "should"? "Should not stay up online late at night." Done. I am online late at night. "Should be in bed early." Not really. "Should eat less sweets." A pack of haribo jellybabies last a couple of days at best. "Should eat more fruits and veggies." I'm allergic to some fruits and my guinea pigs eat more veggies than I do. (Okay, we often divide into three.)

I think, part of the answer to that question is in the choice of words, the phrasing. It's similar to asking you "Do not think of a pink elephant." What are you thinking of? Smart people among you may answer with "A blue elephant." Yes, yes... it's a harmless task and everyone smiles about it. But it's less funny when something might happen. Like a mother telling the child, "Do not knock over the glass." I can guarantee you that the possibility of the child knocking over the glass is quite high.

Some say this happens, because we first have to have a positive image in our head of the thing that should not happen. To know that you shouldn't think of a pink elephant, you first have to have a pink elephant in your head. For the child to know not to knock over the glass, she has to see a glass knocked over. In case of the child this is more unconscious than the pink elephant. But still both is in the head.

In german this is relatively harmless so far. English is more complicated. Because the english "not", "knot" and "nod", if spoken the first two are the same and almost undistinguishable from the "nod". What helps is the over all context. For someone where english is a foreign language, the process of "not", "knot" and "nod" and hearing the right one may possibly be more conscious than for someone with english as a native language. In the "right" situation it may still happen that I hear or read other things in the text.

As a hypnotist you can play with that in a beautiful way. There are things called "tag questions". They're easier and more elegant to use in english, I think. In german they don't come across that beautiful. A statement is said and you tag a question to it at the end. A simple thing, isn't it? (In german they're literally called "refrain questions", but the actual refrain isn't there. It's obvious in english though.) To go back to the "knot" from earlier: "It's easy, is it not?" And how did you react to that just now? With a (unconscious) nod? Wonderful!

There's something else, which is called "yes-set" and can be played with and used to manipulate perfectly. Say I want the person sitting with me to agree to a certain thing or be positive about something. I set it up with a bunch of questions or statements, which I know the answer will be "yes" or the person will agree with it. So the person will be programmed to "yes", positive and nodding and eventually will agree to the thing or the statement I want him or her to agree to. But: if someone asks me a chain of questions and I repeatedly say "yes" all the time, I get suspicious. I don't need to be a hypnotist for that. You can vary all that by asking questions in a negative way and the negative will be confirmed. Example: "Kids should really not play with fire." You agree with that statement by shaking your head or saying "no" to confirm it. Although you say "no" or shake your head for "no", you still agree positively to my statement and I keep you in a positive mind-set.

Until next blog,

sarah

My Barnum Effect Test

Dear reader,

well, it's not mine. The experiment is old, of course. The magicians Penn & Teller did their version in their series "Bullshit" (season 7, episode 2: Astrology). Derren Brown shows this experiment as part of an episode of his series "Trick of The Mind" (season 3, episode 1). Which are only two that come to my mind right away, which I've seen myself. Others have done that experiment, too and towards the end of my studies at uni, I did as well.

I talked to the professor of a psychology class. The class was, at least in theory, about doing things and not just teaching and theory. The right course for my experiment, I thought. So I asked the professor if it was okay if I did a little experiment I had thought of doing for a while already. She agreed, so the week before easter holidays, I came in with yellow index cards I told others that over the course of the semester holidays, I had worked on creating a personality test program and would like to test its accuracy with them. I told them to write down: on the left top corner the day of birth, should they know it, also the time. But it wasn't necessary for me to have the time. On the right top corner they were to write a code of any combination of numbers and letters. Just so they knew theirs. In the middle they should write one short sentence that described them. (I should give Penn & Teller credit for that one. In their Bullsh!t episode on astrology, they let a psychology professor do exactly that. Since I couldn't come up with anything else as a basis for information.)

Then the easter holidays came and then the first day after the holidays came and the seminar was later that afternoon. So plenty of times for fellow students to approach me and ask about the test. Well, two came up to me right after the first seminar that day. One saying that she changed courses, but should I have the results, she'd like to know hers. I gave her her index card. The "result" I had stuck on the back of it with a paper-clip. I told her the truth right away that the twist to this wasn't so much the text, nor the test, but how they reacted. Another girl approached me saying she had an appointment at the doctor's. She'd try to change it, but couldn't. I desperately hoped the wouldn't tell the others about my text!

Anyway, I came into the room where the seminar would be held. One girl came to me and asked me about three times, "Are you going to tell us now?" She was really eager.

A short break time during the seminar was my time. I said, "Last time I asked you to fill out index cards for me for a personality test. I've got the results now. Please, pick your card and read it quietly for yourself. Don't share it with others. I want to ask you for quick judgment about how well it fits you." They went and read their card. I asked, "On a scale from 1 to 5, 1 meaning doesn't fit and 5 means it fits, how many think it sucked? 1?" No one. "How many say: a bit? 2?" Still no one. "How many say: so and so? Kind of half half? 3?" Two or three raised their hands. "How many say 4?" I didn't count, a good deal of people. "5?" The rest of them. One half joked, "Mine's like 4.5." That got a laugh. I said, "Of those, who say it's 5, would any of you care to read like the first two or three sentences for us? Just to show how a well done one would have looked like?" One started reading hers. The others started smiling and looking at each other. The reader asked me, if she should go on. I thanked her and said, it was enough and that the reason why the others smiled was, because they had the same text.

"You all have the same text", I said. "And here's another truth: that program I told you about doesn't exist." I could feel the relief that spread in the room. "I didn't even write the text. The text is from the wikipedia entry to 'Barnum effect', which is what happened here: if you have a bunch of information, you pick the things you think fit and make them fit to yourself. Barnum was a circus director, who had that motto of: a little bit for everyone." I went a bit on and then told them about, also that fortune tellers and the like use this technique.

I told them that my mom had told me about an aunt, who had went to a fortune-teller. She told that aunt that she was about to die in a car within the next 1 to 3 months. I said, "She lived longer than 3 months. But can you imagine - and we're right into the topic of this seminar here - the mental stress she would be in, every time she had to go into a car? This could be the one, she'd die in." I said, "So maybe you say: well, that's fortune-telling. I don't believe in that anyway. But you did believe me."

I was about to leave it at that, but one girl raised her hand and asked me something I don't remember anymore. It got us into a quite relaxed, but interested and interesting discussion (probably for 10 to 15 minutes, in any case longer than the teacher intended for that break) about fortune tellers, cold reading and the like. I felt good. It's one thing watching videos of Derren Brown or others doing it or reading about it. It's another to be able to feel that they believe you and knowing you cheated on them. I knew they wouldn't like strangle me or something. But I was quite nervous as to how they would react. I was very pleased how they reacted. Even surprised to find that they actually had questions and were really interested in knowing and discussing more!

Until next blog,

sarah

What a hoot

Dear reader,

after holding forth about Sherlock Holmes, let's go back to Milton Erickson and hypnosis. Erickson liked owls and carved some of them out of wood himself. For some reason there's this cliche that that hypnotist have a pocket watch and use it to wave it in front of their subject's eyes. Well, on the internet I found both: a pocket watch in the shape of an owl. The special thing about this watch is that the wings hide the watch. You have to push the ears together. This way the wings move to the sides and reveal the watch. If you want one yourself, eBay and amazon have them for a cheap price and different colours. Just such for "owl pocket watch".

Several years ago, I found a video with Harlan Kilstein, in which he told an Erickson owl story. In his later years, Erickson was physically very sick. But he had a reputation of being a sharp observer and he still gave lessons in a small room on the grounds where he lived. Once a group of students wanted to test Erickson's ability to observe. In the room where he used to teach, there were many small figures. The plan was to take one of them, lay it down on its side and see, if Erickson noticed and how he'd react. They decided on an owl figure and then waited for Erickson's wife to bring him in in his wheelchair. The figure was positioned in a way that Erickson wouldn't be able to see it from where he was teaching. Erickson came into the room. No reaction. He gave his usual lessons and then let his wife take him back. As she was at the door, he cried, "Stop!" Everybody froze. Erickson said, "That thing that you were wondering, whether I'd notice... well, I don't give a hoot about it." The last part of course is an ambiguity of "I don't care" and a "hoot" being the shout of an owl. Erickson knew very well not only what they had done, but also why, that it has been a test and what kind of test and his comment on it is short, but right to the point and beautiful ambiguity.

Until next blog,

sarah

Pain control

Dear reader,

it seems fitting to write a blog entry on the topic of pain control when I'm sitting here with a sore throat.

I was born handicapped. I don't like that word much, because I'm independent and "handicapped" for me means a limitation. In the end all people are in one way or another helpless or limited or at least a bit inapt.

Anyway, I was born with my right foot missing. I have a prothesis and with it I can walk and ride a normal bike on a regular basis. Many people don't know I have a prothesis and are surprised when they find out about it. They don't see it. It had happened a couple of times in the past that the bone in the leg has grown faster than the rest of the leg. The bone had to be cut off. I know I have taken pain killers they have given me the first time. The next two times I didn't take them. I don't like being numbed and didn't want to sleep with meds. I didn't want to sleep. I wanted to be pain free! I know that the third and (to date) last time I had deliberately slept through the following one or two days after the operation.

I don't quite remember if it was the first or second time. But I remember that my grandmother had been visiting me in the hospital with my dad and my sister. My mom had been there in the hospital with me anyway. I don't remember what my grandma hat told me. The others had gone out of the room and she told me something. Something that made me forget my pain. As soon as the others came back, the spell was broken. I have no idea what she did exactly or how. I'm also not sure she was conscious of what she did. The important thing was, that it helped.

Pain is a messenger. Normally it wants to tell us, "Take better care of yourself!" or "Change something! The way it is now is not good for you." These are important signals, which shouldn't be ignored like that under any circumstances. This is why I suggest to everybody not to shut down all the pain. That's often not necessary anyway. We all can go on pretty good with a certain amount of pain and ignore that. But please not for long! That would be unhealthy and unreasonable. A messenger wants to be heard and requires that something has to be done, changed. This should be respected under all circumstances!

Hypnosis Salad is an organisation, which gives hypnosis seminars. On youtube there's a video with Michael Watson, where he talks with lots of humor about an effective method of pain control a friend of his used. Here are two of the main points of the video about pain:

• Pain is so uncomfortable, because we think of it as uncontrolable.


• At the given moment pain seems endless.

The method Michael Watson describes is so simple and clever. You take the pain and turn it into a symbol (maybe also a colour) and hold this symbol in your hand. Then you throw it into a bin or flush it down the toilet or whatever. Why is it a clever method? Well, by turning the pain into a symbol, you change the sensory perception. It's a feeling changed into something visual. By placing the symbol in your hand it's away from the original place. (Except it's pain in the hand of course. Although even if that's the case it would be a change from a feeling actually in a part of the body to a symbol you can see and hold in the hand.) What did you do there? Taking control through giving a shape and change of location and change of sensory perception! The endlessness stops when we throw away the symbol.

I personally placed a symbol in my hand only one or two times. What I do is my own variation. Let's assume it's a headache. I imagine a geometrical shape with edges or spikes, which could give me the kind of pain in my head that I have at that moment. Often it's something like a polygon or something thorny. A colour may or may not come with the symbol for everyone. For me the shape often comes with a sort of yellow or green. The colour is there without me thinking about one. I keep the shape in my head and imagine it go change into a ball. A ball has no edges, so they can't cause pain. Because of Erickson the colour purple is special for me and has a calming effect. So the ball turns purple. Often what I do is imagine my whole head in a light purple, transparent ball. Like my head is in a gold fish bowl.

Simply by having to concentrate on something, which you have to see in your head, is distraction by itself and changes the intensity. One advice if you're working with colours, too: pick a colour that's far enough away from the pain colour. For example if your pain colour is blue, purple will be rather close to that colour. One time I told my dad about this method and he suggested to take the complementary colour. I never did that. I keep forgetting about it, because purple is my colour of choice automatically or sometimes blue. Also one needs to know which colour the complementary colour is. (Interestingly enough it fits for me with yellow-green and purple already.)

Like I said, you should keep a little bit of pain. It happens for me that at one point I don't have to concentrate on the purple ball anymore and I just keep doing what I do at that moment. The headache is gone by itself then. So it often is enough to make the pain less, but not delete it all together.

Richard Bandler, one of the founders of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) knows a lot about hypnosis. When asked what he does against a toothache, he said he goes to the dentist. And with a headache? He takes aspirin then. The people are surprised about his reply then. With an expert in hypnosis they seem to expect some sort of hypnosis. The method Michael Watson describes or my variation are possible methods. Richard Bandler's way of dealing with a toothache or headache is important anyway: if there are ways and methods to get rid of the pain in an easy way, we should use them, too.

I mentioned Charlie Chaplin in my blog entry about my room of motivation. But the quote fits here once again, too: "Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles."

Until next blog,

sarah

Ericksonian birthday or christmas presents

Dear reader,

Sidney Rosen has in his book "My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson" one story ("Calluses"), which is about a construction worker, who had fallen and was left totally paralysed and in pain. He asked Erickson, what he could do. Erickson said, that there's not much he could do. Develop calluses on his pain nerves, so he wouldn't feel the pain so much. Erickson suggested to him to collect comics, jokes and funny sayings and make scrapbooks out of them, which he could give to fellow workmen when they were in the hospital. That's just what the man did.

That's just what I did last year for one of my aunts with a strenuously collected collection of comics with Snoopy from the Peanuts. My aunts had a dog for many decades. Not anymore, because it's a bit easier to travel without one. I asked my dad, if he believed she'd enjoy reading comics. He had doubts. After I told him what I had in mind, he believed she'd like it for sure. So I collected and glued a thin notebook full of those comics and wrote her a card saying basically, that my dad had told me she won't read comics. But this one here was a very special one. She called me later to say thank you and that she reads one or two pages every day.

Our daily newspaper has a quote on the front page, which relates to one of the bigger articles on the page. I collected some of them over the past months for another notebook, which I had stumbled upon in our flat some time ago. No one wanted that notebook anymore, but it was small and nice and read. My friend and colleague from work likes read and quotes. The notebook is just big enough for one quote on each page and the pages are perforated, so you could rip them out. So I spent the past days now sorting the quotes fitting in such a way that one on the front the one on the back of a page were in some way or another somewhat related to each other. Yesterday I went through them one final time and cut the quotes straight. I wrote down many of them for myself, so I'd have them, too. I was up until half past two in the morning yesterday. Time passed unnoticed. I had written in german and listened to Derren Brown in english reading his book. It must have been hypnosis. Apart from the fact that time had passed so quickly, I couldn't remember consciously either which quotes I had written down or what I had heard Derren Brown say even a short time later when I was in bed. Amnesia. Trance is a natural phenomena and I don't think about it much, that I hardly can remember consciously the quotes or the audio book. It had been fun and after all the book is finally ready before christmas. That's what's really important.

I want to give the reader a warning: such notebooks, even small thin ones, need time and if you don't already have a big collection of quotes, you should plan long ahead of time for such a present. I have taken my time with those two books for that reason. I had to. The newspaper only came once a day and I couldn't use every comic or quote in it. Planing period: at best months ahead.

Until next blog,

sarah

The purple wizard of the desert

Dear reader,

today is a big day. I fulfill my promise to write about Milton Erickson. He was born december, 5 1901 in Aurum, Nevada. His birthday seemed more appropriate to me to write about him than his day of death: march, 25 1980 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Erickson was born into a farmer family with 7 sisters and only 1 brother. Erickson took his time when he started to speak as a child. His mom was fine with that though. She simply said, "When the time arrives, then he will talk." He was 4 years old when he started talking. He had a rough time at school first. He'd start reading a dictionary not at least going through it starting with the first letter of the word he was looking up, but started reading with at the letter "a", until he finally came to the letter and word he actually wanted to look up. Hence his nickname "Dictionary". He was dyslexic.

In 1919 he graduated from high school, but everyone thought this would be the end for him. Erickson got a polio infection (his first) and was completely paralysed when he overheard the doctor in the next room telling his mom that "The boy will be dead by morning." Erickson found out through much, much practice that he could control one of his eyes and make it move the way he wanted and he spent many hours getting his mom's attention and he was able to communicate to her to move the chest in his room some way. What he couldn't tell her was that the chest was blocking his view from the window and he wanted to see the sunset, before he died. Well, he only saw part of it He was unconscious for 3 days.

He needed to learn everything again. His youngest sister was just about that age where she'd start to learn how to walk, so Erickson was able to look and learn from her. This time consciously. Erickson himself said the polio infection gave him a "terrific advantage" over others. Even when he was sick in bed, unable to move, he studied his family and other people in the house. He found out that his siblings could say "yes", but mean "no" or say "no", but mean "yes". So he learned the basics of careful observation, phrasing and body language. When he was reasonably able to walk again, Erickson and one of his friends decided to go on a canoe tour. Luckily his family wasn't present at the actual time of departure, because on short notice his friend cancled the tour. I think his family wouldn't have let him go alone. When Erickson had to move the canoe, he needed help. He made an experiment out of that for the tour to never ask for help directly, but always create a situation in which others would ask him or offer help. That's how more often than not people would find him sitting learning german vocabularies for his medical studies, until someone would come along.

Even as a student he was interested in hypnosis and worked in hospitals, in psychiatric hospitals first. His boss once told him that the walking cane he needed to walk, was helpful and made him likeable for both patients and colleagues. The female patients wouldn't feel threatened by a man with a walking cane and male colleagues wouldn't see him as serious competition. In 1947 he had an unfortunate accident on his bike and although he didn't like to get vaccinations, he decided to get a tetanus vaccination this time. He got an anaphylactic shock, which he was lucky to survive and which gave him pollen allergies for the rest of his life. That was the reason for him to stop working in hospitals and move to Phoenix, where the desert climate was nicer for him with the allergies.

In 1953 he got a post-polio syndrome on top of the discomfort he already had to deal with. He worked closely with many well known therapists, among them Jay Haley, Gregory Bateson, Margaret Mead. John Grinder and Richard Bandler, who created neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and analysed and used Erickson's hypnotic language patterns for that. My friend John is one of those methods, as I explained in earlier posts already.

As maybe you could tell from my, this post here already, there are many stories around Erickson. Even if I spend the next posts to tell some of those, it would take some time. Erickson was a genius story teller. But he didn't just tell stories for entertainment, but to help and heal in an indirect way.

Many people then and now know Erickson from his older days when he was half paralysed in a wheel-chair, hard of hearing, had double vision and suffered from chronic pain. It's impressive to see him even in short youtube videos. Even in those you can sense he was full of lust for life and energy of life although (or maybe because?) he suffered so much. I think, his obvious physical problems made him more believeable for his patients. Who would you believe more readily, when he tells you that pain control is possible: a seemingly young, healthy, energetic doctor, or a sickly elderly man in a wheel-chair? ;-)

These are only a very few aspects of Erickson's life and work. Many stories and aspects I know and thought of as I wrote this, I left out. One single post isn't enough by far.

If you're interested in learning more about Erickson, I can warmly recommend to read Sidney Rosen's collection of Erickson stories My Voice Will Go with You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson. If you want to get a glimps of what Erickson was like with his students, I recommend his 5-days-seminar, which his student Jeffrey Zeig recorded. The written version of that is published under the title A Teaching Seminar With Milton H. Erickson. If you have further questions or want more suggestions, just write to me. For now this will be it about Erickson. But I'm sure this won't be the last post, where I'll mention him.

Until next blog,

sarah

Darn mirror neurons!

Dear reader,

my mom will die. We went to the doctor on tuesday and got the MRI results and to make a long story short: my mom is bleeding deep in the brain on many places. Since thursday she also has fever. The doctor already told us on tuesday that an infect is about to come. There is no more hope. At least we know what's coming now and there's somewhat of an end in sight to her suffering, the suffering of all of us.

For several weeks now I've had headaches on and off. My dad told me the other day that, he too, has headaches sometimes. I think the places change for me. I don't pay much attention to it. For my dad the headache is where my mom was hit on the head. Responsible for this phenomena is what's called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are neurons (nerves) in primates' brains, which are activated when we watch others do things. What's so special about them is that the same neurons are active both when we are (passive) watching someone and (active) actually doing something. So for the brain it doesn't matter whether we watch someone or do the activity ourselves. In both cases the same area, the same neurons are active. There's much debate going on about mirror neurons. The way I understand it, they are making us smile when we see others smile. They say when I was little and a certain friend started crying, I cried, too.

Something else is related to this, too, I think: ideomotor movents. I don't know, if this is actually true, but for me the words are made of "idea" and "motoric". The idea, which is the thought of a movement, leads to real movement. They are tiny, sort of micro-movements, but still movements. They're muscle movements then, or muscle tension, something like that and not actual visible movements. You can make "movements you thought of" visible though. Take a piece of string. Anything works. Something thin, long. On one end you put some weight on it. It doesn't have to be very heavy actually, just enough to serve as a pendulum. (Alternatively you can actually use a pendulum, too. I like to take a necklace I have with a stone hanging on it.) The pendulum needs hang in the air like that. Ideally take the string between your thumb and index finger only. You can support the elbow somewhere, but the wrist and upper arm have to be unsupported in any way. The elbow might rest on the arm of a chair and the string hanging next to the chair or use a table or something. Then concentrate on the end of the pendulum that's in the air. For starters just imagine it moving in no particular way at all, just moving. Then start playing with it: side to side, left to right, back and forth, or circle. If you want to and the pendulum is moving nicely, you can take a look at your hand now. The hand is making the movement. The string is only serving to make movement longer and more visible and the weight at the end of it, makes the movement even more visible. Many people may know the pendulum as a tool for witches, to (supposedly) communicate with spirits. In fact however there's nothing but micro-movements we thought of made visible through the pendulum. Some may be outraged or others still skeptical, but the so-called Ouija board, works the same way. (That's a board with the letters of the alphabet and you've got an arrow on which one or more people place their fingers and the arrow moves to the letters creating words as answers to questions asked). Flying tables or other objects are done with another trick, but what's called moving tables or moving glasses is done with ideomotor movements. The Ouija board only works if at least one of the persons involved knows the right answer. Derren Brown in his book "Tricks of the Mind" writes about one time when he was with friends and they wanted to communicate with one of his dead relatives. He knew about ideomotor movements at that time and deliberately didn't want to touch the arrow of the Ouija board. After the group asked for the name of the dead relative, they got a name all right, but it was not the real name of the relative and later one of the group said he had the name in his head. That's why that name came up.

Does that mean the pendulum is nothing but a cheap toy to play with ideomotor movements made visible? No. You can really communicate using a pendulum. Communicate with your unconscious. You can for example use it, if you're unsure making a decision. Either set up a movement for yes and no. (Be careful! Don't use left for yes and right for no. Make it distinct movements such as left and right for yes and circle for no.) Or you wish for any which movement may come up for yes and then ask for another movement for no. And then you can ask all kinds of questions and see what your unconscious thinks about them and shows you through movement. You could work with more than yes and no only, but I wouldn't make it more complicated than necessary. You could use diagonal for "maybe", too, or back and forth for "not sure". Something like that. You can also take a piece of paper and write a word in each corner (for example: yes, no, maybe, not sure) use the middle of the paper as a "starting point" and start swinging. The answers will be defined depending on which of the corners you end up.

The great escapologist Harry Houdini was a real mommy's boy. He was deeply hurt when his mom had died. He would have loved to be able to communicate with her. But he saw through the methods the so-called mediums used to supposedly communicate with the dead and spend much time debunking charlatan. I don't know, if it's possible to talk to the dead or not. What I do know however and wanted to describe here is that things like the pendulum or the Ouija board work entirely without "an invisible hand". And still this effect and the possibilities to really use it, fascinate me.

I once heard that our muscles already do ideomotor movements, before we do the real movements. So our body knows how we want to move next, before we actually do it. What good is our conscious then?

Until next blog,

sarah

Ventriloquism helps (part 2)

Dear reader,

we visited my mom yesterday. It was the first time for my sister and me. A friend of my parents', who also was with them on the tour, drove us. He and my dad had seen her before already in the hospital in france. I didn't say to her yet what I described in my last post, that I wanted to tel her. Although I thought about what and how to say it, in case other people would listen, too, and I wouldn't be able to say it directly the way I would if we had been alone. During the visiting hours in the hospital the doctors take some time off and go through the rooms talking to the relatives. The doctor didn't say much. We already knew the next steps and for now there's not much more we can do than just wait. When the doctor was there, she told us my mom is biting quite a bit when they're doing the oral hygiene. Understandably so. Who would like someone else "fumbling around" in our mouth and the tube to breathe certainly isn't comfortable for her. As the doctor went away, I would have liked to tell my mom what I want to tell her. Especially since the doctor had talked about biting. Not that my mom would take it as an order to bite. I didn't feel all too comfortable about it though that such words were used in her presence. I don't believe that people need to be that strict and have to watch there every word thinking three times about which ones to use, before actually saying them in her presence. After all she's still very far away and they sedated her, that's giving her tranquilizer, for the transportation to germany and the other day too, to change the tubes as well. A part of me is mean and wondering how the heck she's supposed to wake up from the coma if they sedate her again. On the other hand, of course, I see the point of doing that and that its necessary to do. We'll see. I wonder if it's possible to wake someone up by first picking up on the breathing rhythm of the other person and then taking over so to speak and leading to breathe together in such a way that would wake her up. Adjusting the breathing and then leading to breathe together in a different way is very indirect and often the other person doesn't notice, but it can be very effective and create change. That's especially important in hypnosis and relaxation and an inconspicuous, but very important thing. When we like other people in our daily life, this often happens, too. We adjust our breathing to match theirs, the tempo of how fast or slow we talk adjusts to one another and other aspects attune as well. I don't know what's possible in that aspect for my mom and me. My knowledge about hypnosis is mostly theory and otherwise limited to a little playing around with myself. apart from the two already mentioned friends where what I wanted to do didn't go too well. The situation with my mom will indeed be a test, just like the headline of my last entry read. Writing it this way has a morbid taste to it, or at least one may read it that way. Test. Like my mom is a test subject, someone to play around with. We'll see what comes out. (So much for: not giving continued details...)

I believe it was the beginning of this week when I brought my bat Gaston from Bochum back to my parents here. I wanted to have him to practise ventriloquism better with a real figure. Besides he's soft and warm and a pretty good substitute for my guinea pigs, which I often take out in the eve in front of my tv to have them on my lap. Up until two days ago my dad had some stomach problems. I gave him a big heart cushion, but he said it didn't fit that well. The other day we sat together watching tv. I had Gaston on my belly, because mine wasn't doing all too good either. My dad didn't want to have Gaston for himself. But then I wanted to get something from the kitchen. Normally I gave the guinea pigs away to my parents if I wanted something from the kitchen in the past so I wouldn't need to take them with me when I had them out on my lap. And now I did the same with Gaston somewhat casually giving him to my dad. He spread the wings, like I did and placed him on his belly. Some time later he said that the bat was really good. The wings would keep it all nice and warm. Up until the day before yesterday we took turns taking Gaston. When he had him, I took the heart. The day before yesterday he didn't want Gaston anymore. Only yesterday again I casually left him with my dad and as I walked out I saw my dad about to stick his hand into Gaston. When I was back from the kitchen with a yoghurt, Gaston said to me, "Hello. Getting hungry, aye?" I saw that my dad's lips were, quite "professionally" slightly parted, but they didn't move. We both had to grin.

Ventriloquism helps. Even if it's just by turning a figure into a hot bag for the belly. Another aspect of it is that for ventriloquism the jaws have to be relaxed. Otherwise you'll feel it in your jaws after a while. Many people when they're stressed are literally clenching their teeth so their jaws are all tense. I realised now that I'm getting more playful again and started practising ventriloquism again. It seems that I don't watch my jaws when I'm stressed. In theory ventriloquism could help against stress, since you've got to have relaxed jaws to do it. Now that my mom is closer to us again, the situation is more relaxed again for all of us. It was nice to see my dad getting a bit more playful again and seeing him play a bit with Gaston. Given that he knows nothing and only has seen some short videos with ventriloquists that I showed him, I was pleasantly surprised. Then again "Hello. Getting hungry, aye?" doesn't have difficult letters in it, for which you'd usually need to move your lips. ;-)

Until next blog,

sarah

The Test(?)

Dear reader,

three days after my birthday, September, 9 my mom had a bad bike accident. She and my dad and friends were out and she fell. At the moment she's still in an induced coma, which is normal after heavy head injuries and the usual way to go, putting her in an induced coma. I can't say much more at this moment and I also don't want to write about this at this moment now. Not because it would be bad, but to spare me the continued updating with details about her condition.

I think, in bad situations, crisis, people try to make sense of it, so that the bad situation isn't totally "senseless". The situation with my mom brought me back to hypnosis and trance. That's why the condition of my mom is worth mentioning for me here and now. Because I think that a coma is in some ways similar to a trance. (Although "trance" and "hypnosis" aren't the same, some of you may understand better if I wrote about "hypnosis" rather than "trance". I'll soon write about my favourite therapist Milton Erickson and explain more about trance, hypnosis and other related things then.) Trance and coma are in any case an altered state of consciousness. Both are states in which we filter less of what others tell us and accept it more easily than we would in a waking state.

It took some time for me to think those things that way. At first she was in france anyway, because they were doing their tour there and she only got back here to germany in a neighbour town on the night of the 17/18th. So there was hardly anything I could have done, even if I wanted to. And even now I can't quite help her the way I want to yet. I've got a cold now. Since my mom is still at the intensive care unit in the hospital, I don't want to risk infecting her.

Here is my thought: a coma is a special state of consciousness, at least in some parts similar to a trance state. Also it's very possible that doctors, nurses and now also visitors like my family and friends, may talk directly to my mom or talk among themselves in her present and use words that don't help her in the healing process. For example someone might mention the possibility of her being paralysed or something. Yes, the possibility of that is real. But in her state it's dangerous to hear something like that. Even if she doesn't sense the things around her on a conscious level, I do believe she senses them somehow in some way unconsciously still.

Therefore I'd like to tell her something I'd tell other people, who want to work with me with hypnosis and tell her something like this, "Some people say that you can't her. But you have two ears, which work well and you hear many things other people say. Either they're talking to you or among themselves in here. I want you to only keep in mind those things you think are important and true and which help you now. All the other things you can easily ignore and forget."

I think it's important to say something like that before starting to do hypnosis with someone. Because it gives the other person the opportunity, the legitimation(!), that not everything I tell that person has to be accepted. It may well happen that I unconsciously or unknowingly tell things the person doesn't like. With those few lines the person can ignore just those selected things and feel good about it, and without disregarding everything else that follows, just because a part of it didn't fit in their values and way of thinking. I therefore think it's an important protection for my mom now. Especially now. Even if she's not consciously aware of it and I may have to repeat something like that several times, as long as she's in the coma.

I don't believe in (a) god. But the thoughts I thought about those things I described here over the past days. Maybe they're some way of nudging me back to hypnosis. After I wanted to make two friends hypnotically drunk and it didn't work on one of them and only a bit on the other, I sort of gave up hypnotising other people. Even though I know this was nobody's "fault" that the experiment didn't work out well. It still made me feel bad and I unfairly blame myself and thinking many too many negative thoughts about it. Now is my new chance with my mom and to truly help her.

Until next blog,

sarah

so ventriloquism – have you eliminated every other possibility of employment?

Dear reader,

the headline for today's blog is what a journalist asked the ventriloquist (or short "vent") Jeff Dunham about his job decision. I read an interview with Jeff Dunham on the internet today, in which he said, "When somebody who is 9 years old comes to me and says they want to be a ventriloquist, I think that's great because it's a great hobby. ... When somebody who's 28 years old comes to me and says they want to be a ventriloquist, I think, have you eliminated every other possibility of a hobby? And I just think that it's kind of sad because really, your life's gotten to the point that you're going to pick up a doll and make it talk for other people? That's really sad dude." Jeff Dunham, you're playing with dolls yourself. And you're wrong.

My interest in ventriloquism started with Jeff Dunham. In 2008 or so I saw something with him on youtube and thought it was quite entertaining. Back then I watched it purely for entertainment. What he did there or the question of "how" never came to my mind at that time.

In spring this year I found our two therapy puppets to work with and ventriloquism was interesting for me now. I watched Jeff Dunham again. This time not for entertainment. The therapy puppet girl was the one I worked with first. It became obvious to me very fast that those kind of puppets are not quite good for the use I had in mind. You can stick one of each of your hands in either of her arms and use her hands that way. And you can stick a hand in her head to move the mouth. You can even stick a finger in her tongue to make it work: for example stick out the tongue at someone. So you really need three hands to work the puppet. I borrowed Lucy for about a week to take her home with me. At least I'd have someone to work with. Every other hand puppet of sorts I found at home didn't have a moving mouth. Where's the fun in ventriloquism with a puppet with no moving mouth? Soon after that I took the boy, Fritzchen home with me. He was somewhat different, although he works the same way Lucy does. I used him even still at work with my colleague and the intern that worked with us at that time. Both reacted to him instantly. I thought to myself, "I almost don't need to learn to talk without moving my lips! They don't look at me, they look at him!" I thought of a word used in magic: misdirection. The magician makes you look somewhere, for example using one of his hands and with the other he secretly does whatever makes the trick work. Ventriloquism is nothing else. When you're not moving your lips and next to you is a puppet moving his or her lips, the whole attention goes to the puppet.

The more I thought about it, the more things I found in common for magic, hypnosis and ventriloquism. In hypnotherapy there's a method called "my friend John technique". This method is great when you don't know how the other person will react to what you want to say, but you want to say it anyway. You tell it as a story, like something that happened to your friend "John" or someone. You can use quotes that way, too. Mark Twain once said, "Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live." Even if you don't agree with what Mark Twain said, you won't be angry with me. I didn't say it, Mark Twain did. I directed the possible disagreement of this statement away from me. A ventriloquist figure (that's the professional term they use for the puppets, although most people don't know that term) works just that way. Jeff Dunham can let Achmed the dead terrorist say, "Silence! I keel you!" and the audience will cheer. Let a real terrorist do that once. The figures can be nasty like nothing else and get away with it. They can say things a normal human can't say that easily, if at all.

The vent Ronn Lucas remembers a situation where a heckler was really annoying. So he let his figure heckle him back. This got to a point where the heckler stood up and lifted his fist to beat... no, not Ronn. The guy went after the figure! After all the figure had heckled him! What a nice compliment to give the vent, isn't it? For the guy the figure was real and alive.

Jay Johnson is a vent, who became famous in america in the late 1970's with the tv series "Soap". As you may have guessed, he played a vent, with his figure, Bob. The thing with Chuck and Bob was treated as a real person by almost everybody, who had something to do with him. Just from the way Bob behaved there wasn't any other way of reacting.

Jay Johnson also was in an episode (A Riddle for Puppets) of the series "Mrs. Columbo". There, too, he played a vent. In that episode he went to a children hospital to entertain the kids. As we learn over the course of this episode he was a kid when he learned about ventriloquism. Back then he was a very sad kid and had heard noises from a building. So he went in to find a puppet maker at work. He taught the boy all he knew about ventriloquism and also made the boy his own figure. The boy naturally couldn't pay with money. The man told his student to find another kid, who was just as sad as he was back then and make the child happy. That would be his way of paying him back.

Surely, a fictional story. But a very beautiful motivation for your work, I think. P. T. Barnum was a guy, who created a circus with a little bit of everything. He wanted the visitors to have fun, because they'd find at least one thing they'd really enjoy. Barnum once said, "The noblest art is that of making others happy."

That's what I want to do. I don't want to do inclusive education. For many of us it means "repairing" or "fixing" and not respecting the people for who they are the way they are. There are already clowns going into children hospitals to entertain the kids. I also heard of a group of old people doing magic for old people. I think I want to learn ventriloquism really to make other people happy. That's my plan. When I use the my friend John technique, I don't even need a qualification in hypnotherapy to tell stories with my vent figures. The positive effect to help and heal will be like magic. :-)

Until next blog,

sarah