[img]560|left|Nicholas D. Pollak|remove link|no_popup[/img]My wife and I were in a café in Santa Monica when a motorcycle cop walked in to have his dinner.

She noticed a series of nine stripes on the arm of his uniform. When he sat down next to our table, she asked him what the stripes meant. A symbol of rank? No, they indicated how many years he had been a motorcycle cop, he said.

A friendly guy, we started a nice conversation. My wife asked him if he was riding a Harley Davidson or a BMW. Until two months ago, he rode a Harley before switching to a BMW. He is a fan of Harley Davidsons, but as a cop riding all day, the BMW is smoother, quieter, more comfortable. I have heard this sentiment expressed by others who also have the same keen desire to ride.

When the conversation drifted to hypnosis, to my amazement he was quite uninformed. He first asked whether hypnosis was possible. I told him it was. It would be difficult for him to go into hypnosis. But once he understood the process and trusted the hypnotist, chances were by the third session he would easily enter a hypnotic state.

Methodical in the Extreme

He would need to be conditioned because of the way he took in information. He analyzed everything said to him. He would not just react. Instead, he would ponder what needed to be done before acting. Once he had tried to go into hypnosis at a hypnotism show and failed.

He often had difficulty falling asleep but overcame it by concentrating on a relaxing picture in his mind.

I told him he was, in effect, using self-hypnosis to put himself to sleep. Through self-conditioning, he had learned to slow his mind so he could sleep. We talked about the looks he sees in the eyes of drivers, how he actually was using hypnosis every time he stopped a motorist.

Every time I a lecture on hypnosis, I ask the audience how they came. They drove, they will say. I ask how many cars they remember seeing.. No one can remember a single car. All had arrived safely. yet they had driven in a daze, the daze of hypnosis.

Their minds were somewhere different. They would only come back to the now if something out of the ordinary happened, an accident or a cop’s red light in the rearview mirror.

The cop understood and agreed, but he still wanted to know how he was using hypnosis. Overloading the conscious mind creates hypnosis. When overload occurs, the mind goes into a fight/flight mode, wh trying to escape the overload so it can process what is happening. If the conscious mind is not given the time to process the information, it escapes by turning off the conscious mind and fleeing into the subconscious. That is hypnosis.

Hypnosis and the Law

The motorcycle cop has everyone hypnotized because most of us aren’t stopped.

When we are flagged, we start to be concerned about why we were stopped and what will happen. Most people were compliant , he agreed, and yes, all definitely had a look of hypnosis on their faces. He was aware that when he spoke with a motorist, the person understood what he was saying and often did not repeat the infractions.

There is an excellent chance when someone is stopped he will clearly remember the occasion for some time. The lesson viewed as a replay from the subconscious will change a behavior.

But why? The subconscious does not know what is good, bad, right wrong, real or false. It only stores information. The conscious decides the distinctions.

When a significant event occurs – being stopped by a cop – it will register strongly within the subconscious. Next time, we are unlikely to repeat the behavior because the subconscious knows we do not want to do it again.

Our new friend the motorcycle cop was interested in the workings of the conscious and subconscious. Not only was he intrigued by my explanations, he readily accepted them. “When an explanation is clear, concise and obviously accurate, “ he said, “it is to be considered, learned, understood and used in one’s daily life.”

If you have any questions please 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