Covert Metaphor

In psychology and hypnosis we often hear the terms conscious and unconscious mind. Lately, I’ve been thinking about what exactly is the unconscious mind. We can’t exactly see it; it’s just an abstract concept. What the hell is it exactly?

I was under the impression for a long time that psychologists and hypnotists viewed the unconscious mind as being the same thing. I’m still unsure of their subtle differences on perspective.

If you’ve ever ventured into the occult you’ve no doubt heard of or used a pendulum. Most pendulums you can buy these days consist of a string or metal chain tied to some ornate piece of metal or quartz crystal. From time to time people involved in the New Age scene still believe the pendulum moves by itself or by a spirit guide. There is actually a scientific explanation for it.

If you’ve studied psychology and hypnosis before I’m sure you’ve already learned that the unconscious mind can’t differentiate between something real and something vividly imagined. Well, a French natural scientist named Michel-Eugene Chevreul discovered in 1883 while using a pendulum that the unconscious mind can effect physical movements which are not controlled by the conscious mind (see my post on subcommunications); these movements can be sustained by the unconscious mind despite any interference from the conscious mind; and the unconscious mind can be conditioned by repetition.

This is interesting because if we think of our body language as a system of unconscious ideomotor signaling, how is it possible to consciously be aware of it? And what about the rest of our unconscious behavior that  is never physically expressed?

By using a pendulum you can actually get a dialogue going with your unconscious mind. Take a look into it when you get a chance. There are some interesting applications. I’ve had some interesting experiences with automatic writing as well. Please comment if you have any experiences to share.

admin :: Jun.29.2007 :: hypnosis, psychology :: No Comments »

There are three types of intonation patterns: a question, statement, and a command.

When we ask questions we tend to end the sentence with a rising tone. For example, “You’re going to the store, aren’t you?” This indicates an uncertainty on the part of the person asking the question, as well as the expectation of an answer. If we were to say the same statement flatly, without changing the inflection, this might be considered a statement.

By dropping our tone at the end of the sentence we can make a command. Tag questions make this a little easier to execute. Some tag question examples are as follows: isn’t it, aren’t you, don’t you agree, won’t it, and so on.

Practice the following sentences which use tag questions, using all three type of intonation on each one. Make sure you say them out loud to yourself.

“You’ve begun to recognize all of the possibilities, haven’t you?”

“Once you’ve purchased your own home, it will be satisfying knowing you’re investing in yourself, won’t it?”

“You’ve accomplished quite a bit here, haven’t you?”

“It’s nice knowing how far you’ve progressed , isn’t it?”

“You want to do that, don’t you?”

“Many people make powerful leaps in their lives with this material, don’t they?”

“This will be very easy to do, don’t you agree?”

admin :: Jun.28.2007 :: advanced language patterns :: No Comments »

There is a side to persuasion, NLP, language patterns, etc. that has always bothered me. I can’t quite put a label on it, but it has a clinical, mechanical, and disconnected vibe to it. It makes me wonder if the people who have learned different techniques and were disatisfied, created their experiences within the limits of that unnamed vibe I’m trying to put my finger on.

People send out subtle body signals based on their inner feelings and emotions. There is no way to hide these micro-expressions completely. Politicians and speakers can train themselves to severely limit what is expressed, but they can’t hide those signals completely. Our unconscious mind picks out these expressions with ease. You might not always consciously recognize the difference between a fake and a sincere smile, but you know it deep down. You can feel it in your bones. I’m sure you or someone you know has met someone and said, “I don’t know what it is about that person, but they make me uneasy.” And some time later you find out some unsettling information about that person. Or perhaps you meet someone for the first time and you just connect with them instantly. You might feel like you can instantly trust that person.

So, my question is why not subcommunicate real interest and sincerity when you speak to others. Use those anchors, language patterns, and conversational hypnosis techniques to actually help another person in a way you can both benefit. It really is not all that difficult. When you communicate with others, be sincerely interested in what they’re saying. Conjure up feelings of joy, peace, and love. If you’re true to yourself and the other person, they will immediately pick up on those body signals unconsciously, and feel comfortable.

 Why not influence another person’s behavior by helping them feel wonderful?

admin :: Jun.27.2007 :: persuasion :: No Comments »

Some of you, no doubt, are already familiar with George Miller’s paper The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two. Since that article isn’t much of a page turner, let me sum it up in a few sentences. Basically, our conscious minds are only capable of processing seven plus or minus two bits of information at any given time. Anything outside of that becomes more or less too much for the conscious mind to handle. Try it out. Sing a song while you read a book and watch TV, and then plan your weekend too. See how far you get. The point is we are automatically filtering out a ton of information in order to make sense of the world. The unconscious mind is possibly aware of all bits of information, all the time. Who really knows for sure, but certain experiences and experiments indicate that we take in information even during sleep.

People distort reality based on what they want or don’t want to see. If you’re an artist or musician you might imagine a picture in your mind’s eye or hear a tune before you compose it. This is a sort of hallucination, a distortion of reality. There isn’t actually any picture on the canvas or music playing in the room, but we subjectively distort objective reality. Perhaps we stand together watching the sunset on the beach. You’re thinking sailing, I’m thinking limbo at the luau. We’re subjectively experiencing different realities.

Without generalizations the world would be chaos. So we follow certain rules in order to make sense of our world. If you learned how to open up a book, you can probably figure out how to open a different one. If you learned how to ride a bike, you don’t have to learn the process again when you ride a different bike.

Deletions, distortions, and generalizations are filters that help us create our own model of the world. We can’t always consciously choose those filters. Each person filters the world in their own unique way, and consequently we don’t always understand each other, but sometimes assume everyone else is working with the same map we are. There are those rare individuals who take a step back, drop their filters as best as they can, and try to understand another person’s reality without judgement.

admin :: Jun.26.2007 :: NLP :: No Comments »

A lot of the terms in NLP and hypnotherapy have this ominous and unapproachable aura about them. Nested loops are nothing more than multiple embedded stories. The idea is to start one story, stop somewhere in the middle of it, and then use some kind of transition phrase and start another story. You can chain as many stories together as long as you can remember to close the loops.

I know some people who are so good at doing this, they span the loops out over a period of days. At some point a few days later when one of these stories is finished, you first think, “What was that story about, again? Oh yeah.” And the message has been deeply embedded into your unconscious mind, completely bypassing the conscious mind. It blows my mind to think there are some people out there acutely aware of everyone’s exact position, playing each person’s next move like a pawn.

Some good transitional phrases to use between stories might be, “Oh, that reminds me of…” or “and speaking of … ” and so on.

If you really want to get into learning how to create metaphor with nested loops, chaining anchors, etc. take a serious look into Igor Ledochowski’s Conversational Hypnosis course. It might seem a bit pricey, I know, but it comes with 16 CD’s and a 600 page book! One of the bonus CD’s is comprised of 5 levels of stories, allowing you to deconstruct and master these techniques with multiple listens. Then start collecting stories/metaphor  specifically written to effect change in people. One of my favorite books is 101 Healing Stories by George W. Burns. Once you learn the format of the stories, you can adapt them very easily to any situation.

Cheers!  

admin :: Jun.25.2007 :: metaphor :: No Comments »

Anchoring can get downright complex if you really begin to explore the possibilities. I’d never thought much about using anchors while telling a story or using a metaphor, but it works wonders. You can anchor using anything really, a certain gesture (my favorite), tone of your voice, tilt of the head, etc.

 First things first. You have an objective like selling a house. You’ll want to elicit a negative emotion and a positive emotion and anchor both emotions accordingly as you get them to tell you their past experiences of buying a house. What were the positive and negative experiences? Pace their response and anchor the positive and negative emotions. Then you can feed them back the anchors within a metaphor:

“You know, it was just about 6 months ago I was showing someone a house in this neighborhood. I told him to buy then because this area is growing temendously (positive anchor), but he wasn’t so sure, and told me he’d wait a bit. He came by a few days ago asking about the same house. I told him it was sold already, and that house has since doubled in value (positive anchor). I feel sorry for him. He’s just kicking himself for not buying it (negative anchor).”

 This can be used with anything really. You can be downright devious with this if you want to, but be careful!

Start embedding suggestions/commands and things start really getting interesting…

admin :: Jun.24.2007 :: metaphor :: 1 Comment »

Read the following story by Hans  Christian Andersen and identify any theme or moral message. Then rewrite the story using all three central representational systems, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (VAK).

ROUND about the garden ran a hedge of hazel-bushes; beyond the hedge were fields and meadows with cows and sheep; but in the middle of the garden stood a Rose-tree in bloom, under which sat a Snail, whose shell contained a great deal—that is, himself.

“Only wait till my time comes,” he said; “I shall do more than grow roses, bear nuts, or give milk, like the hazel-bush, the cows and the sheep.”

“I expect a great deal from you,” said the rose-tree. “May I ask when it will appear?”

“I take my time,” said the snail. “You’re always in such a hurry. That does not excite expectation.”

The following year the snail lay in almost the same spot, in the sunshine under the rose-tree, which was again budding and bearing roses as fresh and beautiful as ever. The snail crept half out of his shell, stretched out his horns, and drew them in again.

“Everything is just as it was last year! No progress at all; the rose-tree sticks to its roses and gets no farther.”

The summer and the autumn passed; the rose-tree bore roses and buds till the snow fell and the weather became raw and wet; then it bent down its head, and the snail crept into the ground.

A new year began; the roses made their appearance, and the snail made his too.

“You are an old rose-tree now,” said the snail. “You must make haste and die. You have given the world all that you had in you; whether it was of much importance is a question that I have not had time to think about. But this much is clear and plain, that you have not done the least for your inner development, or you would have produced something else. Have you anything to say in defence? You will now soon be nothing but a stick. Do you understand what I say?”

“You frighten me,” said the rose-tree. “I have never thought of that.”

“No, you have never taken the trouble to think at all. Have you ever given yourself an account why you bloomed, and how your blooming comes about—why just in that way and in no other?”

“No,” said the rose-tree. “I bloom in gladness, because I cannot do otherwise. The sun shone and warmed me, and the air refreshed me; I drank the clear dew and the invigorating rain. I breathed and I lived! Out of the earth there arose a power within me, whilst from above I also received strength; I felt an ever-renewed and ever-increasing happiness, and therefore I was obliged to go on blooming. That was my life; I could not do otherwise.”

“You have led a very easy life,” remarked the snail.

“Certainly. Everything was given me,” said the rose-tree. “But still more was given to you. Yours is one of those deep-thinking natures, one of those highly gifted minds that astonishes the world.”

“I have not the slightest intention of doing so,” said the snail. “The world is nothing to me. What have I to do with the world? I have enough to do with myself, and enough in myself”

“But must we not all here on earth give up our best parts to others, and offer as much as lies in our power? It is true, I have only given roses. But you—you who are so richly endowed—what have you given to the world? What will you give it?”

“What have I given? What am I going to give? I spit at it; it’s good for nothing, and does not concern me. For my part, you may go on bearing roses; you cannot do anything else. Let the hazel bush bear nuts, and the cows and sheep give milk; they have each their public. I have mine in myself. I retire within myself and there I stop. The world is nothing to me.”

With this the snail withdrew into his house and blocked up the entrance.

“That’s very sad,” said the rose tree. “I cannot creep into myself, however much I might wish to do so; I have to go on bearing roses. Then they drop their leaves, which are blown away by the wind. But I once saw how a rose was laid in the mistress’s hymn-book, and how one of my roses found a place in the bosom of a young beautiful girl, and how another was kissed by the lips of a child in the glad joy of life. That did me good; it was a real blessing. Those are my recollections, my life.”

And the rose tree went on blooming in innocence, while the snail lay idling in his house—the world was nothing to him.

Years passed by.

The snail had turned to earth in the earth, and the rose tree too. Even the souvenir rose in the hymn-book was faded, but in the garden there were other rose trees and other snails. The latter crept into their houses and spat at the world, for it did not concern them.

Shall we read the story all over again? It will be just the same.

admin :: Jun.23.2007 :: metaphor :: No Comments »

We experience so-called reality through our physical senses. The sense impressions of the external world are received predominately through six central sense receptors. A combination of what we hear, see, feel, smell, taste, and touch make up most of our experiences. NLP traditionally uses five senses, disregarding taste, but I feel taste can be used very powerfully in a metaphor. The senses in NLP are referred to as The Representational System. Each person accesses the external world through a unique sequence of The Representation System. NLP emphasizes the three senses of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (VAK); our eyes see pictures, our ears hear sounds, and our body feels sensations. Everybody represents information primarily through visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, but people aren’t necessarily fixed in any one system and will tend to shift according to the situation. But for the most part each person prefers one representational system over another which can cause a discrepancy in communication. I find it unfortunate that the public school system in the US doesn’t teach children based on their favored representational systems. I suspect it’s the same in other countries as well. All children are forced into one mold, and if you didn’t process the information according to the teacher’s representational system, then tough luck!

Each representational system uses specific predicates or process words to represent a model of the world. When you construct a metaphor or story, it will be to your advantage to include all representational systems if you are speaking to more than one person. This ensures all people listening, get the message. Of course if you are speaking to one person and you are aware of their preferred choice of processing, then you can tailor your vocabulary to match their own.

See if can match the following examples to their correct representational system:

“I can clearly see it in my mind’s eye.”

“Yeah, we got into this heated argument, but in the end we we’re able to get a handle on the situation.”

“Please state your purpose loud and clear.”

I’m currently preparing a free sensory word list for download. It should be available sometime this weekend. 

admin :: Jun.22.2007 :: NLP :: No Comments »

I looked up isomorphism is the merriam webster dictionary, but its definition didn’t convey the meaning I was looking for in terms of a metaphor. When you construct an isomorphic metaphor, what you are doing is essentially making a one-to-one comparison. You take a real situation with real people and apply it to a story in the same sequential order. A Disney movie with talking animals and a moral message is a good example. The recent series of Harry Potter movies is a perfect example. Didn’t you know you were being persuaded, even programmed when you watch such movies? Ah, that’s a different story for a different time.

So, I will take a real problem with real people, changing the names to protect the innocent, and construct a very simple isomorphic metaphor using animals as an example. Keep it simple in the beginning, one or two paragraphs at the most and slowly build on it.

Real-life situation:

Frank and his young son Jacob have just moved to a new town. Jacob was forced to leave his school and friends, leave everything he knew for unfamiliar territory. Jacob is having problems feeling comfortable in a new school, surrounded by many unfamiliar faces. What to do?

Isomorphic metaphor:

Once there were two Brent Geese, Father and son, migrating from Taymyr Peninsula to the Wadden Sea. The younger goose asked his Father, “Why do we have to leave the Peninsula? I’m afraid of this place called the Wadden Sea.”

Then just as his Father replied, “But you’ve never been there.” a huge gust of wind came and blew the younger goose away, separating him from his Father. He was startled but he managed to keep flying. He looked around, but no longer saw his Father. He was alone, nervous and a little scared. It was getting dark. He kept his wings flapping, but his fear caused him to tense up, and he began losing altitude fast.

Suddenly another younger goose, perhaps a little older than himself, flew beside him maintaining the same speed. The older goose asked, “Hey man, are you going to Wadden Sea? You’re going the wrong way. You can follow me, but you need to relax, let go of your fear. You’re losing altitude!”


The young goose didn’t know how he could relax. He saw the older goose barely flapping his wings, while he was in a panic flapping as hard as he could. He let go a bit and let the wind carry him.

“That’s it, just let go of the fear and let the wind carry you.” And the young goose began to gain altitude.

As they were approaching the Wadden Sea, the older goose said, “I have to leave now, so you’ll need to fly in on your own.” He showed the young goose again how to relax and let the wind carry him. He even showed him a few trick moves.

The younger goose was feeling confident at this point and arrived at the Wadden Sea without fail. When he landed, his Father ran up to him and asked, “Are you ok? How did you manage to fly in?”

He stood up confidently, ruffling his feathers and said, “All by myself of course.”

 Ok, well that wasn’t award winning prose or anything, but I wrote it up quickly to give an example of isomorphic metaphor. I must say I was a bit lax on sequence. I included both Father and son, but introduced an outside character which wasn’t really there. A true isomorphic metaphor maps one-to-one, but if it works, use it.

admin :: Jun.21.2007 :: metaphor :: No Comments »

Recently 20/20 wrote on the Science of Excellence list about NLPers, therapy junkies, and persuasion being into micromanagement. This reminded me of a time when a young couple, both of them good friends of mine, just moved in together for the first time. It wasn’t all that surprising though since they’d been a couple for at least four or five years at that point.

They were both casual smokers back then. Both were in college. He was a musician and they both liked to go to parties. No big deal. So one Saturday morning after they moved in, they asked me to come to breakfast. They never carried cigarettes, but would smoke if one was offered. Only that particular morning he produced an expensive looking pack of English cigarettes and gave them to her.

Her eyes lit up and she smiled from ear to ear. And then she suddenly said…

“There is nothing like a good cup of coffee and a delicious cigarette in the morning. Just sitting in the morning sun, listening to the birds, and letting your thoughts go free. I sure do love to smoke a good cigarette!”

He looked confused and asked her, “Hmmm..I didn’t think you were into smoking so much. Just once every so often for fun.”

She didn’t look at him, but continued to speak about cigarettes, “Cigarettes are really terrible. They blacken your lungs, shorten your life span. They stink and taste awful. In fact, I hate smoking!”


At that point I had no idea what to make of these two, but I just watched both of them in silence. I wondered if this was the end of the beginning.

Now he said, “You know, those cigarettes were kind of expensive and I thought it would just be fun to smoke them after a nice breakfast is all. One minute you’re loving it and suddenly you hate them?”

And she leaned over, kissed him on the cheek and replied, “I have a choice about which opinion I want to hold–and that depends upon whether we have cigarettes or not.”

People’s stories evolve. Not all situations fit in a box. Use whatever works at the time. You’re the expert where you are. I want you to go ahead and think of a situation that you or someone else has to work through. Is it similar to anything else you’ve experienced? If so, how did you get through it? Write it out and read it back to yourself. It can be a few simple paragraphs. And begin to let your story evolve. Perhaps it was you or a friend, or maybe a bear in the woods?

Before psychology, before NLP, before books and CD’s we had shamans telling stories…don’t try too hard.

admin :: Jun.20.2007 :: metaphor :: No Comments »