Discover how easily you can be hypnotized with language

Hypnosis sounds very mythical and for many people it is a strange phenomenon. That's because they don't understand it yet. Thanks to Rasti Rostelli, there have been many misconceptions about hypnosis. Not that he can do anything about it, he uses them to his advantage as an entertainer, but they do instill an idea in people that is not true. All the while people are constantly being hypnotized by others

Hypnosis and language

When we look at how we experience the world, that alone is an interesting phenomenon. After all, we experience the world in our own unique way. The world is "just" the world, only our perception of that world differs from person to person.

That's because of our filters. Those filters are:

• Omit
• Distort
• Generalize

The first two serve the third. We leave many things out so as not to go crazy with all the information coming at us. According to Ap Dijksterhuis, that's 11.2 million bits of information per second (source: the smart unconscious). If you consider that a letter contains about 5 bits of information, you can imagine how much information comes at you.

Of those, he says, you only process 60 consciously. That's not much at all, of course, far from one percent. So most of it you leave out and process unconsciously. That's fine of course because your brain can easily do that too.

For example, you omit all ultraviolet colors and sounds that are too high or too low. We as humans don't need those either, but they are there.

The filters we use

The other filters we use are the most interesting. One is distort and the other is generalize. The filter distort causes us to create reality for ourselves so that it fits our idea of reality. Generalizing we use as the basis of learning.

Almost everything we learned we generalized to make it easy on ourselves. Think of riding a bike, driving a car, reading, as well as getting scared of certain things or getting angry at certain things.

Also, what we believe is often a generalization such as: "Men aren't good at this" or "Learning is hard. These types of beliefs are not necessarily helpful to have but distorting and omitting the filters does ensure that they are maintained.

And what else do we believe in?

One of the most sneaky ways to influence is to work with presuppositions. A presupposition is that which you must presuppose in order for the sentence you hear or read to be true and accepted. This goes very unconsciously.

For example:

'The cat runs after the dog'

What do you have to presuppose here for this sentence to ring true? At least that there is a cat and there is a dog. That they somehow run in a way that creates a sequence. That they can run at all.

That's a lot of things you just assume and don't think about. This sentence hypnotizes you to start thinking about a dog, a cat, that they can run and do that in a certain order.

Now you may be thinking, what does it matter. So what!

Exactly and that is now what makes it so interesting. Because you don't pay very much attention to it, you get hypnotized easily.

Take a look at the following phrases:

How deep is your trance right now as you read this do you think?

When you are in a trance aren't you curious how easy it is to change?

What is presupposed in these sentences? First, the first sentence.

You can read, you are in a trance and that trance has a certain depth. The second premise is especially interesting, what if you were to answer "not that much depth" you do assume the premise that you are in trance. Are you beginning to realize how powerful this is already?

Next sentence:

It is presupposed that you will go into trance because of the word when, that you are curious, that it is easy to change. So if you were to answer with, for example, "I am curious about that yes...," you are making the presupposition that you:

1. Easy can change
2. In trance will go

And that can be very valuable in conversations. Not just for the hypnotherapist of course, but for anyone who works with people and communicates.

What is your goal with your communication

What is your goal with your communication. This is important to have clear. From there, you start thinking about what you want to presuppose. If that is, for example, that "change is easy," then you can weave that into your communication in different ways, such as these:

• When you realize change is easy what would you do? This or that...
• What do you think will be the first result of that change is easy?

And so there are more to think of, of course. This is a study in itself but a very interesting one to delve into I think. I would also love to hear what you think about this.