An Essential Hypnosis Technique – Activating the Imagination

This article will cover another essential skill you need to effectively hypnotize people: how to activate and stimulate a person’s imagination. I will also show how and why this is important. OK, let’s do it!

your powerful imagination

Most people think of their imagination as something they “phase out” as they get older. They do not believe that their imagination has any real effect on their daily life today. This is not really surprising considering that children grow up to discover that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny are simply myths that their well-intentioned parents perpetuated. As a result, they begin to think of imagination as silly, powerless, and associated with things that aren’t real. What a shame!

I want to boldly and firmly state here and now that it is the exact opposite! Your imagination is NOT dumb! Your imagination is very real and has an extremely powerful effect on your daily life, whether you realize it or not. That, my friend, is a FACT.

You see, your imagination is how your subconscious mind processes information, interprets the world, and communicates. In short, imagination is as much the “language” of the subconscious mind as binary code is the language of computers.

An example of the power of your imagination

In a moment I’m going to give you a very clear example of the power of your imagination. But first I want to tell you about a general rule that hypnotists often follow; is relevant to the example below. That rule is: When your imagination and willpower are at war, your imagination is always the winner.

Now let me give you an example of this process in action so you can see more clearly what I’m talking about. Let’s look at a person who is trying to quit smoking through sheer willpower. The subconscious mind of this smoker has been programmed to continue smoking for years of reinforcement through repetition. One day, this smoker decides that he is tired of smoking and decides to quit. He throws away his cigarettes and spends the rest of the day without smoking. However, when he wakes up the next morning, the war begins. His subconscious mind begins to do what he has been trained to do. He reminds her of smoking, and it reminds her a lot. The process that follows may resemble the steps below.

• Remember that he usually smokes first thing in the morning. He uses his willpower to quickly extinguish the idea of ​​smoking a cigarette.
• His willpower begins to weaken a bit (as it always does), and he begins to imagine how much better he would feel if he just smoked a cigarette. He “resists” again.
• You find yourself imagining the thrill you would feel when the nicotine floods your system. He “resists” again.
• He imagines himself going to the store and buying some cigarettes. He “resists” again.
• Repeat this process several more times.
• He goes to the store.
• He smokes like a freight train to retrieve the cigarettes he lost earlier that day.

Sounds familiar? Has this process ever happened to you in one way or another? Now do you understand what I mean? That smoker’s subconscious mind needs to be reprogrammed by using his imagination to repeatedly mentally rehearse the desired new smoke-free behavior.

Another rule of thumb

There is another rule of thumb that many hypnotists follow that I want to share with you because it is very relevant here. This general rule states: The subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined and will respond accordingly to both.

Maybe you don’t believe that. Well, as always, I’m going to prove it to you right now by asking you some questions. Have you ever seen a really scary horror movie? Did you feel anxious when the group of actors decided to split up in the dark forest where an ax murderer lurked? Did you call them “delusional idiots” out loud? Did you jump when the ax killer ran out from behind a tree and cut some poor soul in half with his sharp axe?

Are you convinced now? The funny thing is that a part of you knew that it was just a movie, that it wasn’t real. On the other hand, another part of you, your imagination, was responding as if it were real. Your imagination triggered your emotions making you feel anxious and scared. Then your imagination activated your physiology making you “jump”.

Perhaps now you can see how powerful your imagination really is and how much of an effect it has on your emotions, physiology, and behavior.

How to use imagination in hypnosis

Now that you have a clear idea of ​​how important your imagination is, it’s time to learn some techniques for making positive use of it in the hypnosis process, whether you’re hypnotizing another person or self-hypnotizing yourself. You see, by stimulating the imagination, you give your hypnotic suggestions much more power. Also, your suggestions will be much more effective. Let’s go ahead and look at a couple of hypnosis techniques to accomplish this.

1. Use words that activate the imagination.

This is a very simple technique. All you have to do is use certain keywords that automatically make a person’s imagination “fire.” Simply ask the person you are hypnotizing:

• Conceived ____.
• Picture ____ in your mind’s eye.
• Visualize _____.
• Create a mental image of _____.
• Visualize ____.

Simply fill in the blanks with what you want your subject/client to imagine. Please make sure it is something positive and beneficial for the person.

2. Ask questions that require them to use their imagination.

Did you realize that it’s perfectly fine to ask the person you’re hypnotizing questions while you’re under hypnosis? Don’t worry; if you ask the right kind of questions, you will not bring the person out of the trance. In fact, if you use questions that stimulate the imagination, you will keep the person in a trance and may even make them dig deeper. Take a look at the examples below.

• Do you imagine, imagine, visualize, etc, ____?
• How quickly can you imagine, represent, visualize, etc., _____?
• What color is ____?
• How does it look?
• What size is it ___?
• How clearly can you see ____ there in front of you?

Just use your own imagination to fill in the blanks or ask more questions.

3. Use analogies, metaphors, stories, and symbolism.

I will go into more detail about these hypnotic language patterns and techniques in future articles. For now, I want to give you a very simple example of how to use this technique to stimulate a person’s imagination and cause the very simple hypnotic phenomenon of “making” someone unable to lift their arm off a table. It sounds exciting? Good. I will show you how. Keep reading!

It’s actually very simple to “make” people unable to raise an arm. You really just need to engage their imagination. The great thing about this is that you don’t even have to do a formal hypnotic induction for it to work. This will be a perfect example of what is called “wake hypnosis”. Just follow the steps below.

1. Ask the person to rest one arm on the table with palm down and fingers together. This gains the compliance of the person you are hypnotizing and gets him used to following her suggestions.
2. Speak confidently as if you have no doubt that what you suggest will happen.
3. Ask him to imagine that the arm is like a heavy, dense block of lead. Don’t tell the client that the arm is a block of lead; the subconscious mind might reject that. Simply ask him to imagine that the arm is like a heavy, dense block of lead.
4. Make suggestions about how that arm will start to feel. “That arm, that arm that’s resting on the table in front of you there, can start to feel very heavy, almost like it’s sinking into the table, it’s so heavy. Maybe you can feel an incredible sense of heaviness in that arm. like it’s too much effort to lift. You may even start to feel like it’s impossible to lift that arm even if you wanted to because it’s like a dense block of lead.”
5. Repeat this process several times to really engage the person’s imagination and get their subconscious mind to actually activate physiological responses to that suggestion. Pay close attention to subtle clues that this is happening.
6. When you’re convinced the suggestion is working, quickly ask the person to try and see if they can raise that arm. Don’t ask if you can raise that arm. Rather, have him try and see that he can’t lift that arm. If you’ve done things right, you should see the person struggle to raise their arm. Just let the person try it for a few seconds, and then stop the test.
7. Eliminate the suggestion by telling the person that the arm is back to normal. Then congratulate him on being such a wonderful hypnotic subject!

Well, that’s all for now. I hope you have enjoyed this hypnosis lesson. In the next series of articles I will go deeper into hypnotic language patterns. Stay tuned!