WarpMyMind

I was just thinking that hypnosis might work better on someone if it's in a foreign language... here's my reasoning:
I speak a bit of German, and I think that it might be easier to relax if I was hearing words that weren't English, because this way my conscious mind could relax my just listening to the sounds and musicality of the words/induction and my subconscious might actually concentrate on the meaning.

How does that sound? Plausible? Problematic?

Anyway, just a thought.

Patch_Winter wrote:I was just thinking that hypnosis might work better on someone if it's in a foreign language...

Interesting idea. One relevant point is that the "language" of your subconscious isn't necessarily a fully verbal thing. Milton Erickson, MD, (of Phoenix... Arizona...) was renowned for doing non-verbal inductions. He did the handshake induction almost routinely, and there are several good accounts of him doing trancework with people with whom he did not share a common audible language. In those cases, he worked entirely in "body language."

As far as obtaining trance goes, your expectations and prior experience are more important than the language of the hypnotist. I've heard of one practitioner who mentioned in passing that he was a hypnotist. A little later in the conversation he raised his index finger while making a point and -- accidentally -- got eye-fixation and signs of deepening trance.

The problem, if there is one, is going to be in setting "triggers," or posthypnotic suggestions, in an understandable way. If you're recording your own material, then it's not an issue. If someone else is recording material for you, then you have to be sure that you can understand what the key phrase is and what the desired outcome is.

Having passed HS German only because of the extremely charitable nature of the instructor, I can't help you with any language-specific issues. It is interesting to note the German idiom and it's relationship with trancework, though. "Passen sie auf" translates to "pay attention" but transliterates as "pass (you) out."

Have fun. And if you try this out, please post a report on how it went.

-- Blink
... slowly...