Communicating with the Subconscious Mind – And Doing some Magic

Let us begin by summarising the entire story in one sentence:

If you could communicate directly with the subconscious mind – you could communicate anything
to anyone at anytime and the outcome of the communication would be exactly what you had
aimed for – every-time.

Aah! Now that I have your undivided attention, let me tell you – it is possible – and YOU can do it
too.

Let’s start with a very-very basic understanding of the Human Brain.

The Brain Stem or the lower part of the brain (which forms a connection between the brain and the
spinal cord) is responsible for biological functions like eating, breathing, sleeping, baser instincts and
reflexes.

The Limbic System is a series of cortical structures surrounding the limit between the cerebral
hemispheres, and is involved in motivation, emotion, learning and memory. It is primarily
responsible for subconscious interpretation of stimuli from the five senses.

The Neo cortex is the part which is involved in higher-order brain functions such as sensory
perception, cognition, generation of motor commands, spatial reasoning and language. It is the
primary centre for your conscious cognitive control.

Now our five senses produce 11 million bits of information per second. These are all processed in
the Limbic System. Only 40 bits per second are passed on to the Neo-Cortex for conscious processing
(thinking, planning etc.).

This means that 99.9% of all information from out five senses is only subconsciously processed. Now
this is a tremendous piece of information and can be utilised to create magic in communication.

The conscious mind is logical, whereas the subconscious mind is imaginal. The imaginal mind builds
stories and the stories do not need to be factual. They just need to make sense conceptually. (You
can relate this with concepts of NLP – for example “The map is not the territory”).

`The conscious mind actively seeks information and hands it off to the subconscious, which passively
receives it, decides how to translate it so it makes a complete story, and then where to store the
story. It doesn’t bother with logic, that’s the conscious mind’s domain. The conscious mind then
goes in search of more information.

The subconscious mind is estimated to be thousands of times more powerful than the conscious
mind. Confusions arise when imagination and logic conflict. When that occurs, imagination wins.

Understanding this basic truth opens the doors to great possibilities.

Imagine being able to influence anyone you meet. Being able to fascinate the people you know and
inspire them to do great things – be a charismatic leader.

That’s what you can do with conversational hypnosis or covert hypnosis as it is sometimes called.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Once you understand the techniques and principles involved, you can take things really deep. When
you walk into a room people’s faces light up with pleasure and you become the centre of attraction.
When you ask your teenage children to do something, they agree without putting up the tiniest bit
of resistance (seems like a dream-doesn’t it). Your customers want to do more business with you just
because they feel compelled to be in your company.

Conversational Hypnosis can make you irresistible. You can ooze charm in an effortless manner. You
can develop the power to make each and every interaction with other people more powerful, more
meaningful, and a lot easier.

You can gain the ability to change people by making sure they have more fun whenever they are
around you.

You can get people to do what you ask in a way that somehow makes them feel good about it. In
other words, once you get the hang of Conversational Hypnosis, you can actually make the world a
better, happier, more interesting and an agreeable place to live in.

Ready to get started??

Let’s first find out what it takes to be able to become a fluent conversational hypnotist.

The three main ingredients for conversational hypnosis

Before you can unleash your talents on the people around you, you need to keep these three things
in mind:

1. Having the right Mindset: Conversational hypnosis isn’t just a collection of skills. It is a state
of mind. It is an attitude. To have a chance of doing the things you want to do with it, you
need to approach it with the right mindset.
2. Conversational hypnosis can be learnt: It makes use of tried and tested hypnosis principles
to give your words and ideas extra energy and power. When you put these principles into
practice, everything you do and say will enable you to communicate with the other person’s
subconscious mind.
3. Conversational Hypnosis requires discipline like any other art: It relies on your thoughts,
words, body language and tonality, working together in harmony. You cannot be thinking
about one thing and doing something completely different. For example, you cannot be
talking about relaxation while drumming your fingers on the table.

That’s it. These three ingredients will give you everything you need to make life more enjoyable for
yourself and for everyone around you. Let us now break it down to see what each part of the
process involves and the individual techniques that fall under each of them.

Part 1: Having the right Mindset:

1. Being automatically hypnotic - Hypnosis Plus: I am sure you have heard or read about being
automatically hypnotic (or Hypnosis Plus). This refers to your ability to connect with other
people from the moment the interaction begins. It is all about intention, putting aside your
own thoughts and opinions so you can get in sync with the person in front of you. Hypnosis
with extra positive energy. Hypnosis geared at doing everything you can to make the other
person’s life more enjoyable and fulfilling. It is about them; it is not about you.

Dale Carnegie, the author of How to win friends and influence People interviewed the
famous magician Howard Thurston to find his success keys. They were:
a. He was a master showman who could get his personality across to an audience. He
had what we call stage presence and a larger than life quality that kept people
engaged and engrossed.
 b. Secondly, everything he did was rehearsed in advance down to the smallest detail,
timed precisely to the split second. That would naturally have given him even more
confidence and made what he was doing seem even more astounding and effortless.
c. Third, and the thing that Thurston said was most important of all, was his genuine
interest in people. When ever he went on stage, he felt grateful that so many
people had come to see him. He appreciated the fact that they were helping him
earn a decent living doing what he loved. And because of that, he wanted to give
them the best show that it was within his power to give.
d. Thurston adored his audience and that genuine warmth and respect must have
resonated with every person sitting on the other side of the footlights.

2. Having congruity between your thoughts and action: Imagine trying to smile at someone
when your heart is breaking. Or trying to help someone relax when your head is filled with
images of a stressful situation at work. No matter how hard you try, you simply will not be
able to manage it. There is too much incongruity between what you are thinking and what
you are saying and doing.

In other words, you cannot focus one thing if you hold conflicting ideas about it in your
head, because those conflicting ideas will show up in your performance - in the way you
speak, in your body language in your behaviour, in the tonality of your voice, and even in the
way you breathe. So, the trick is to get yourself into the right frame of mind before any
interaction takes place.

Suppose for example, that someone you know is constantly feeling stressed. With your
conversational hypnosis skills, it is expected that within a few minutes of interaction with
you, they should be feeling a lot more relaxed, lighter, and happier. That however is not
likely to happen, if you yourself are feeling stressed. And the reason of your stress may have
been because another driver cut you off the highway. Or a colleague at work is making
things uncomfortable for you.

If your head is full of those kinds of thoughts, you will not have the clarity or peace of mind
you need to be of any use to anyone else.

3. Building Rapport: So how do you build rapport? In ordinary situations, you might smile and
shake hands. You might talk about something you have in common, like a specific hobby or
sport or a movie that you both liked. You might share a memory of when you were in school
or university.

These are typical ways of building rapport with another person. And then there’s hypnotic
rapport. You have to remember that the aim of every kind of hypnosis is to communicate
with another person’s unconscious mind. That is where the magic happens. So when we talk
about rapport in terms of hypnosis, it is a little bit different.

I am sure you have noticed that with certain people you find it very easy to start and
maintain a conversation? You just seem to hit it off and never run out of things to say. While
with some other people, it is so very difficult – feels almost impossible.
 So why does this happen? That is because the people you hit it off with are comfortable in
their own skin. They communicate to you on an unconscious level that they feel good about
themselves. They project a sort of aura of trust and security that allows you to open up and
feel comfortable within yourself.

The others, however send out a different set of messages altogether. You sense that they
are awkward, inhibited, nervous, and probably scared of saying the wrong thing. Or saying
something they do not want to say. And that makes you feel uncomfortable and less willing
to get involved.

It is needless to say, that you want to be like the former group. You want to be the one who
communicates a sense of trust, a sense of calm, a sense of comfort and security. It is all tied
in with the ability to be automatically hypnotic.

Part 2: It can be learnt. Some tried and tested Hypnotic Principles that Really Work:

4. The well-known ABS Formula: To undertake any kind of hypnosis on another person, you
need to be able to achieve three things, which make up the ABS formula as follows:

a. A – Stands for Absorbing Attention: Hypnosis is a natural, highly focused state of

mind. It is not focussed on whats going on in the outside world, but on whats going
on inside in the unconscious mind. That is why you need to draw the other person
in, to pull them into the hypnotic experience so you’ve got their attention. Because -
very simply put - if you haven’t got their attention, nothing you do will make the
slightest impact on them. And if you haven’t got their attention, how can you
possibly put them into a trance? And getting someone’s attention isn’t as difficult as
it sounds. You can do it simply by:

i.
Going into your “Hypnosis Plus” state of mind
ii.
Making eye contact
iii.
Telling them a story, a metaphor or something they will find interesting.
iv.Hijacking something they are saying and steering the conversation into
something hypnotic.
v. Showing them a picture or diagram can also be effective

b. B – Stands for Bypassing the Critical Factor: And what do we mean by the critical
factor? It is part of the conscious mind. It is the voice in your head that analyses
everything, makes judgments and rejects information. It is at work when you hear
yourself thinking “I cannot do that” or “That will work”. It is simply filling your head
with a bunch of limitations. Since the goal is to get at the unconscious mind, you
need to bypass the critical factor and stop it from interfering. You need to stop it
from distracting the other person so they can push past those limitations and enjoy
new and liberating experiences. There are lots of different techniques that will
enable you to do that, which involve the use of:

i. Engaging stories
ii. Power words and linguistic bridges
iii. Hypnotic themes
iv. Hot words
 c. S – Stands for Stimulating the Unconscious Mind: Once you have got the other
person’s attention, and once you have bypassed their critical factor, you have
already started stimulating the unconscious mind. You have already begun the
process of taking them into a hypnotic state. As you can imagine, this process is a
fluid one. It can happen in a matter of minutes, or even seconds. It has been broken
down into steps to give you some insight into what is taking place, but in practice it
should be smooth and flowing. For instance, all the techniques mentioned above for
bypassing the critical factor can be used together, all at the same time. Let let us
take a quick look at each one in turn.

5. Enchanting them with engaging stories: Everyone loves a good story, whether they read it
themselves, have it read to them, or watch it on screen. Stories have the power to transport
us to different times and places. They give us permission to step out of reality for a period of
time and put our everyday lives on hold. Stories can be about something that has happened
to you, or something that happened to someone else, as in the “My Friend Vishal…” format,
or something you have heard or read about. As soon as you start telling a story, the other
person starts listening. They want to know more. They are keen to hear what happens, who
does what, how the plot unfolds, and how things get resolved in the end. Even the most
gripping story can be made more powerful by spicing it up. One way to do that is with
metaphors and similes. So instead of saying you had an enjoyable meal at the restaurant,
you might say the chicken reshmi kabab was as soft as butter. Perhaps the restaurant felt
like a Shahi Darbaar the waiters treated you as royalty.

6. Using Power Words & Linguistic Bridges: This can pack a powerful punch. Power words or
phrases are surprisingly simple. There are hundreds of them, but the Big 5 are the following:

i. And
ii. Because
iii. Which Means
iv. Imagine
v. Remember.

The first three in the list are linguistic bridges. They combine things. So you can say close
your eyes and relax, although one does not necessarily guarantee the other. But the word
and creates a linguistic bridge that links the two thoughts in your mind, and that is often
enough to activate the unconscious.

Likewise, you can add the other two words in to create a cumulative effect. So you might say
close your eyes and relax because it feels good to let go of all that stress, which means you
can allow yourself to feel comfortable.

The words imagine and remember work in a slightly different way. As soon as you ask
someone to imagine something, it activates their imagination.

And remember where imagination resides? In the unconscious mind. The same thing
happens when you ask them to remember something. Memories are not part of their
conscious world, so to access them, they have to go deep inside.
 7. Using Hypnotic Themes to set the desired feeling: Some of the hypnotic themes come to us
automatically. For a majority of hypnotic processes, the main themes concern relaxation
and feeling comfortable. They are also called trance themes, although that’s just another
way of describing the same thing.

Other hypnotic themes could be safety, security, peace, dreams, or even hypnosis itself.
You can take whatever hypnotic theme you want to focus on and use power words or
linguistic bridges to turn it into a smooth and compelling hypnotic conversation. Even with
just these 5 power words, you can talk for a very long time if you want to. And once you
put in a few metaphors or similes, it is easy to see how even the simplest of stories can
become a compelling adventure that your listener is drawn into.

8. Turning up the heat with Hot Words: Hot words are words that are emotionally charged.
They have the power and energy built into them, which gives them the ability to penetrate
through to the unconscious mind. But unlike other words that you might use, hot words do
something extra. They evoke a strong reaction, an emotional response, which can only
come from one place – the unconscious mind.

And as soon as you have that response you can start to make use of it as part of the hypnotic
process. You can find hot words in plenty of different places. They are used by inspirational
teachers, politicians, and motivational speakers. They are abundantly present in the pages
of the more sensationalist newspapers and racy tabloids. They also make frequent
appearances in the many forms of advertising you are subjected to on an everyday basis.

Hot words are designed to grab your attention, to pull you straight into a story, to get you to
react and elicit an emotion. And as you can see, that is almost the entire ABS Formula in a
nutshell.

For example, with all the Mallyas and Choksis of the world today, a typical newspaper
headline may be: Company boss flees country with stolen cash. A more conservative
newspaper might run the same story in a less dramatic way, with a headline like this: CEO
absconds with company profits.

Both headlines tell the same story, but the first one is more engaging. The words “flees”
and “stolen” are simple, direct, and packed with emotion. He didn’t just leave the country,
he fled. He didn’t just take the money, he stole it.

Your emotions cannot help but be stirred up when you read it, thinking about the man’s
greed, his criminal activity, the workers and suppliers who will never get paid, the state he
has left his family in , and so on.

Of course, everything you have read about so far has a real purpose. And that purpose is to
create a hypnotic experience. In other words, to put someone into a hypnotic trance so you
can communicate with their unconscious mind. But how do you know if you have achieved
it?

Part 3: Disciplining yourself. Recognising Trance Signals:

9. How to spot when someone is in Trance: When someone is in trance, you can always tell
once you catch the tell-tale signs. There are certain trance signals you can watch for. There
may be individual differences, but once you know what the signals are, it is quite easy to
spot them. And as soon as you do spot them, it shows that the person’s unconscious mind is
paying attention. Here are a few typical trance signals to look out for:
i. Relaxation of the body
ii. Changes in breathing
iii. Pupil dilation
iv. Softening of the eyes - as if becoming unfocussed
v. Eyes wanting to close
vi. Lack of movement.

These are all signs that someone is going into a trance.

A hypnotherapist, in a formal hypnotherapy session, would typically describe these trance

signals to the person to increase the effect. For example, he would tell them, “Your
breathing is slowly, slowing down”. Or that “Your eyes have started drooping – they are
starting to feel heavy and they want to close.”

In an everyday situation however, on observing these signals, you can acknowledge to

yourself that the other person is entering a state of trance (and that whatever you are doing
is working).

If you are reading this subject for the first time, it can be overwhelming to have this much
information presented to you all at once. But really the trick to learning conversational
hypnosis is to put yourself into a state of “Hypnosis Plus” first, and get comfortable with
using power words, stories and metaphors until it becomes second nature.

Once you gain the confidence to try things out and see how they work, you will be well on
your way to using conversational hypnosis in your daily interactions. And when you have
done that, you will find your conversations becoming more powerful, more influential, and
more irresistible to everyone you meet.

You will then – start doing magic.

Submitted by Jaydeep H Goswami