Exploring the Persuasion and Power of Suggestibility

Nicholas PollakOP-ED

Some days present challenges that can make a day exhausting. You can be so emotionally overwhelmed that you slip into hypnosis by tuning out everything around you. Once a conscious mind becomes overloaded, it is ready to go into hypnosis.

A somnambulist is a person who is a deep level hypnotic subject. There are 197 levels of hypnosis. In a short time, a somnambulist will go to the deepest level. I have taken a somnambulist from a state of 100 percent wakefulness to 100 percent hypnosis in a literal a second.

I mention somnambulism as a means of  understanding that when a person is mentally overloaded, he will automatically fall into a state of hypnosis. This leaves him “suggestible” to anything he hears. When he acts on something he hears. the results are not necessarily pleasant. One lady I knew was walking past a TV when she heard an ad for Miracle Grow.  In a flash, she was inside of Home Depot, purchasing a bag of Miracle Grow. The only problem was: She had no plants, no yard. She lived in an apartment.

A hypnotist employs suggestibility to create a hypnotic trance and implement the changes a client is looking for.  Changes start within the subconscious. Awhile later, they become the new behaviors. Our conscious minds are 10 percent of our brainpower, our subconscious the other 90.

It can be difficult for someone who wants to break a habit to do so because the 90 percent overpowers the 10 percent.

Not Really Mysterious

Suggestibility is no more or less than how we take in and speak out information. We communicate in a combination of two ways. One is “physical” or “literal,” the other  “emotional” or “inference.”.

Literal: “The dog has been inside for two hours. Take him for a walk so he can do his business.”

Direct and clear.

We know how and why the dog needs to go out.

Inference: “The dog hasn’t been out for a couple of hours.”

The statement may appear literal, but it is an inference. You would have to ask questions to gain more of an understanding.

Another example: I would ask someone to jump. A physical/literal would just jump. An inferential/emotional would first ask why, then which way, back, forward, left or right side, legs apart or together and how high before actually executing the jump. “Emotionals” have a tendency to see many possibilities from every statement.

Opposite Directions

To confuse further, how ever you take in information, you will speak out in the opposite way. If you take in information literally, you will speak out in inference. In 22 years of hypnosis, I only have seen one person who was 100 percent literal and one who was 100 percent inference.

To gain better communication, we must listen to how we speak and to how others speak.

As a hypnotist, I must know a client’s suggestibility. It would be pointless to help a client change if he or she is 100 percent inference and the hypnotist suggested literal. My advice would not work. The client would have wasted his money. 

If you have been to a hypnotism stage show,  you have seen hypnotist ask the audience to participate in suggestibility testing to determine those who respond best. They will be brought on stage.

No Interference or Interruption

Such persons are somnambulists. They respond well to any suggestion offered because they are exactly 50-50 literal and inference. They have no communication filters. They are overloaded a lot of the time, allowing for quick, effective hypnosis. One person in five is a somnambulist.  There always will be plenty of people who will hypnotize well at a stage show.

Since I specialize in clinical hypnotherapy, it is critical for me to ensure that I have an excellent handle on how a client and I are communicating.

I have a questionnaire for clients to point me in the right direction. I do, however, further test  suggestibility by using literal and inferential examples until I determine the person’s suggestibility. I make suggestions that they would need to create an effective session.

It is possible to change from being a somnambulist. That requires training with a hypnotherapist. Once your suggestibility is changed by as little as 1 percent, you no longer  are a somnambulist, nor are you subject to the overload of the somnambulist.

Do not hesitate to contact me by telephone, 310.204.3321, or by email at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net. See my website at www.hypnotherapy4you.net