Shortcomings of hypnosis
It was during the period of training the thirty-nine subjects between 1953 and 1963 that I became convinced that the more we used hypnosis, the more reasons we found not to use it.
The first flaw we found in using hypnosis was that the mind of a subject in hypnoses functioned only inductively and not deductively.
We wanted our subjects to function the same as when awake, both inductively and deductively.
Another flaw we noticed was that when people are in hypnosis, they do not ask questions, they only answer questions, and the deeper they go the more they forget of what takes place while there.
We wanted our subjects to remember more at whatever level thy were, not forget.
The one major flaw detected when using hypnosis that convinced us to abandon it was that a hypnotized person's brain, when active under hypnosis, functioned primarily at twenty cycles per second frequency.
That is, the electrical pulsations of the brain pulsed at the rapid "beta" brainwave frequency associated with a full wakeful state, when using the objective (physical) senses, and the left brain hemisphere.
We wanted our trained subjects to function actively on ten cycles per second, not twenty.
Ten cycles per second brainwave frequency is associated with light sleep and dreams, either dreams at night or day dreams, and is associated with use of the subjective senses, the senses of the mind, or psyche.
This is the level where subjects seemed to function clairvoyantly.
When I speak of a person being active under hypnosis, I mean a person playing back a post-hypnotic suggestion.
We discovered that when starting to deepen a subject, in the first stage of depth, the subject starts forgetting some of the information used.
In a second state of depth, the subject forgets more of the information used.
Then, in what I call the third and deepest stage of depth, the subject forgets all of the information used.
Of course, I know that if I suggest to the subject at any stage of depth to remember all, then the subject would remember all. But I wanted a natural response of total recall without having to use any suggestion.
I noticed that after I would work with a subject for many hours at the deepest level, the forgetting effect would be reversed:
The longer I worked with a subject at the deepest hypnotic levels, the more the subject remembered naturally, without any suggestion remember.
In fact, if I wanted the subject to forget what we had done, I had to give a suggestion.
And the longer I worked with subject at these deep levels, the more difficult it became to cause them to forget, until finally we reached a point where they would not forget even if I gave them a strong suggestion to do so.
The subjects appeared to have developed mastery at those depths of mind, and they appeared to have developed the use of the mind deductively.
In the first stage, the subjects appeared to be losing the ability to use their minds deductively.
In the second stage, the effect of losing the ability to use the mind deductively increases.
In the third stage, the effect of losing the ability to use the mind deductively is completed.
But after working with the subjects many more hours at that deep level of hypnosis, the effect starts reversing itself:
The longer the subjects work at that deep level of hypnosis, the more able they become in remembering and using their minds deductively.
What this means is that when the subject functions only inductively, the subject needs to be told what to do.
But if the subject's mind is functioning deductively, the subject will figure out what to do on his own.
Of course this was the situation I wanted. My goals from the beginning involved helping my children function with more control so they could improve their performance.
The situation became that regardless of what I did, I ended up with subjects functioning both inductively and deductively, such as one does when out of hypnosis.
To me, it appeared that the gradual forgetting, followed by the gradual remembering was like reaching the base of an inverted bell-shaped graph.
The more we worked at the base of this graph, and the more experiences (points of reference) the subjects accumulated, the easier it became to work there and the easier it became to remember.
The results appeared to be that at first, the subject ventured into the initial stages of depth like entering into the subconscious.
That is, when the subject started to forget.
When the subject would reach the deepest level, this was like reaching the deepest point in the subconscious, forgetting all.
But the longer the subject worked there, the easier it became to work there.
I figured it was because the subject would accumulate more experience, more points of reference. This made it easier for the subject to function there.
This is like saying that the research subjects were learning to function in the subconscious dimension consciously.
To illustrate what appeared to be happening, let us divide an inverted bell-shape graph in half, so we have a portion on the left and a portion on the right. Now let us say that to begin with, the subjects were using only the left arm of the bell-shaped graph; with training the subjects were able to use either arm of the bell.
It appears to me that the use of only the left arm of the bell-shaped graph would symbolize the mind functioning within the objective world.
When subjects learn to enter, with awareness, into the base of the bell-shaped graph, then from that point they can learn to use the right arm of the bell. The mind would then be functioning within the subjective world.
When minds are involved with things that belong to the objective world, we appear to be using the left arm of the bell, or the beta part of the brain.
When minds are involved with things that belong to the subjective world, we appear to be using the alpha part of the brain.
Functioning from the base of the inverted bell-shaped graph, we are functioning at the center of the alpha dimension, or at ten cycles per second brain frequency.
From there, if a subject desires to use his objective senses, the subject will be using the left arm of the inverted bell-shaped graph, which means information stored on the left-brain hemisphere.
But if the subject desires to use the subjective senses, then they will be using the right arm of the inverted bell-shaped graph, which means information stored on the right-brain hemisphere.
The brain hemispheres appear to function just like the other physical senses.
- For example, the eye serves as a receiver when it detects (receives) light energy.
- The eye then functions as a converter when it converts light energy into nerve energy.
- Finally, the eye functions as a transmitter when it transmits the nerve energy to the brain.
Likewise, the ear receives (detects) mechanical movements of air, sounds and noises, then converts the sounds into nerve energy and transmits the nerve energy to the brain.
In this manner, the ear functions as a receiver, converter and a transmitter similar to the eye.
If we apply the same concept to the brain we find the left-brain hemisphere receiving (detecting) objective energy, converting it into subjective energy and transmitting it to the right-brain hemisphere.
The left-brain hemisphere is then functioning as a receiver, converter and transmitter.
The right-brain hemisphere receives (detects) subjective energy, converts it into objective energy and transmits it to the left-brain hemisphere.
In this manner, he right-brain hemisphere is also functioning as a receiver, converter and transmitter.
Let us now look into awareness.
A subject can direct his or her awareness to any point within the subject's own body at any time.
To me, awareness is a tuning, focusing, sensing faculty. When I mention a subject, of course I mean a person. When I mention a person, I mean a human.
Now here I have a human directing his or her sensing faculty to any point on the subject's own body. A human, when sensing, must analyze what it is sensing and make intelligent use of whatever is sensed.
I see now that there must be human intelligence to make intelligent use of whatever is sensed.
Now I can see that I ended up with human intelligence directing its sensing faculty to any part of its body.
To make better sense of what I was discovering, I found that I had to call the sensing faculty, "Mind."
Now I had human intelligence directing its mind (the sensing faculty) to any point in its body.
I now had human intelligence (instead of a subject) learning to function at the base of the inverted bell shaped graph so that from there, human intelligence could project its mind (its sensing faulty) to sense from either brain hemisphere, the left or the right.
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