Tuesday, August 11, 2009

If only it were so easy...

I like to keep tabs on traffic to my sites using Google's Analytics service.

It allows me to see what people are looking at, how many people are looking, and how they got to my site. This makes it easier for me to produce content people are looking for, improve the layout and usability of my sites, and how I can better promote them.

Every so often though, it produces some interesting surprises.

One of the most awesome features is that you can see what search terms brought you a viewer from Google. I was looking through that today when I ran across something surprising and strange.

One of my visits was from someone whose search term was "how to make someone your obedient slave with hypnosis."

Apparently, my site for hypnosis mp3 files, iHypnou.com features in position 13 for this term, thanks to some of my talk about hypnosis safety on YouTube where I discussed how rediculous many of the hypnosis videos are, claiming to be for simple relaxation but containing suggestions for obedience and submission.

Obviously, the person didn't find much information about enslaving people, but I'd like to hope they learned how rediculous the idea is before they shell out money for some worthless product.

If only it were so easy for me to rank highly for keyword traffic that I actually want...

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Hypnosis Suggestion of Surgery

Another interesting story about what hypnotic suggestions can do, and what lengths some hypnotist go to in order to craft a successful suggestion:


From the article:

"The therapy involved a number of sessions in which she was familiarized with the procedure of a gastric band surgery, including a real surgical gastric band and stomach model."

"She then underwent several sessions of hypnosis, in which every stage of the surgery was narrated to her ... a recording of surgical tools played in the background. The hypnotherapists also pumped smells into the room to simulate those found in ... a hospital."

Supposedly she has lost 55 pounds, though it doesn't say over what period. I imagine there would be an easier way to achieve weight loss through hypnotic suggestions, but if it works for her, more power to both her and her hypnotists.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Interesting Story on the AP wire from South Korea:


From the article:

"...the hypnotist chanted: "Black hole! You will plunge deeper into a trance. You will feel thrilled all over your body and if my hand touches your body, you will feel intense pleasure."

Of course, the girl was fully aware, even though she had her eyes closed, and rebuffed him, later going to court over it.

The hypnotist's lack of ethics and poor skills cost him the won equivalent of $2,453.

Knowing your Subject

Just the other day, I got a chance for a 4 hour trial session with one of my friends. I like to experiment with new methods when there’s no other objectives to the trance, so that I don’t feel hampered or pressured, and neither does the subject.

This particular friend has had some rather interesting experiences with self hypnosis in the past, so she might not be the best person on which to judge the effectiveness of new hypnotic techniques, but she’s definitely capable of giving good feedback.

I’ve hypnotized her once before, but it had been awhile, so I talked to her again about her self-hypnosis experiences and what she already knew worked for her. If I had been in a hurry to put her into a trance, it would have been easy enough to lead her while she was practically reliving her trance states, but I figured it best to pay more attention to what she was saying.

When she described the self hypnosis she uses for sleep, she told me that she liked to imagine herself on a beach, alone, and how she could almost see herself sinking into the sand. What she used, though she didn’t know it then, was a progressive relaxation induction, and she would normally be asleep before she finished.

With this information, I ran an informal experiment, inducing her in several ways. One was to have her recall a recent hypnosis session and use the natural tendency to shift into a past state to remember it’s sensations to help shift her fully into that state in the present. This induction was rather kinesthetic with a lot of proofs of trance. Another method I used was to have her use a visual focus, and to eventually picture it in her mind’s eye as I used pacing and leading to bring her under.

Now, the second one worked much better, even though I used similar techniques in both, and she was skeptical of how effective the second method would be. The important part was that I matched the reference frame she is accustomed to when undergoing hypnosis.

All it took was a little listening beforehand. If your subject doesn’t have much hypnosis experience, maybe ask them to describe a dream they’ve had, or their favorite place.

If you can work flexibly with your subject, you’ll turn out to be a much more effective and respected hypnotist.