Voice Tone And Other Basics
by Peter Saks on October 23, 2009
The goal of hypnotic induction is making subject of hypnosis as relaxed as he only can be. You may think it sounds like an easy task, but most of the people find this simple activity surprisingly difficult. It is because, we don't practice relaxation and releasing stress, so it is very hard for us to do it on command.
That is why you have to re-educate hypnotized person how to relax properly. You can't just say: "Now, relax your whole body". If you don't understand why, just try it yourself. You need to use much more descriptive language, your words should sooth and cause deep relaxation. Walk subject of hypnosis through the process of relaxing every part of his body, one by one, starting from head or toes.
The place you start from doesn't matter, however for me it is more logical to begin with the head. It is connected with the fact that first thing, hypnotized person usually does, is close his eyes and from there you can naturally follow with relaxation of muscles around his eyes, face, neck etc.
The most common way to begin hypnotic induction is asking the subject to take a couple of deep breaths. Usually, you ask subject of hypnosis to take three breaths, as it is a magic number for our brains, but we won't get into too much details about it in our article. The breathing alone can carry a lot of relaxation power. We rarely take deep breaths nowadays and our minds are lacking oxygen, so by supplying more air for your brain, you can feel more at ease.
After this, you suggest to your subject that he is getting: "more and more sleepy." These words carry some impact and should make your subject feel more relaxed, however the real money is in the way you say them.
It is important to stay aware of the fact that whenever you induce trance, you should use, confident, authoritative and reassuring tone of voice. Also remember to speak slower than you normally do. It makes you sound more dominant and helps to avoid confusion and misunderstanding. It is also good to speak slower and slower with time.
I guess it is quite obvious, but the key to being really effective with suggestions is emphasising the more important words. Lets say you say something like: "go deeper into trance". The power word in here is deeper, so you need to put a lot of stress on it. The other issue is that deeper used once doesn't have an impact of: "go deeper and deeper into trance." This kind of small changes make a world of difference.
If you want to achieve even better effect, I recommend splitting the power word, in to parts. This way, if you will say "deep" slowly and then "per" even slower and with deeper tone of voice, subconscious mind of hypnotized person will follow this tone change and get into an deeper trance.
Other trick you may use is, dragging out the words you are trying to emphasise. If you will say the power word longer, it will have much more powerful impact. A good idea is also putting even bigger stress on the second deeper, so the suggestion sounds like a natural downward spiral.
