Deep Trance Identification

Using exquisite models for the new behavior generator is based on what we call a "referential index shift" — "becoming" another person. If you do a really complete referential index shift, it's called "deep trance identification," one of the hardest hypnotic phenomena of all. Deep trance identification is a state of consciousness in which you assume the identity of someone else. You do it so completely that for that period of time you don't know you are doing it. Of course, there are varying degrees of this. It's possible to adopt the nonverbal and verbal behavior of another person so completely that you automatically acquire many skills that he has, even though you have no conscious representation of those skills. It's essentially what we did with people like Milton Erickson in order to learn quickly to be able to get the results they got.

There are certain necessary elements to assisting someone in doing deep trance identification. First, you have to remove the identity of the person with whom you are working. That presupposes a lot of amnesia: he is going to have amnesia for who he is. Secondly, it presupposes that he is going to have the ability to generate his behavior based on what he has observed about somebody else. In other words, if he is going to do deep trance identification with Melvin Schwartz, it means that all of his behavior has to be generated from Melvin Schwartz' verbal and nonverbal behavior. You need to give instructions to his unconscious to sort through his experience of the model's behavior: This includes voice tonality, facial expressions, posture, movement style, and typical ways of responding.

There are many ways to go after deep trance identification. Let me give you one way. The first thing I would do is work for a total age–regression to get rid of the identity of the person that I am working with. By the way, doing this will tell you how much work you are going to have to do to get deep trance identification.

Now, how could you get age–regression? What kinds of experiences would lead to age–regression? Think of universals for a moment. What universal experiences do people use to age–regress themselves?

Woman: The first time you learned to walk.

Man: Childhood memories.

No. Let me rephrase the question. You are mentioning things that are out of people's childhood, but not things that you've used to age–regress yourself. Let me give you an example. One of the things that people use to regress themselves is their college yearbook. People pull out their yearbooks specifically to regress themselves. College reunions arc another classic example of an age–regression technique. What else?

Woman: Photograph albums.

Man: Boxes of memorabilia.

Yes. Exactly.

Man: Odors.

Odors is one way it happens spontaneously, but not a way that people deliberately use. Woman: Old music. Now there's a zinger. Man: Souvenirs.

What else do people do? People return to their home town and go back to the old neighborhood. The things we're talking about now are things that people characteristically do. If I'm going to go for a hypnotic phenomenon, I want to design an experience in which the spontaneous reaction is the response I want—in this case regression—so I'm going to use these kinds of universal experiences.

One of the ways of doing age–regression is to induce a trance and have somebody see before himself the book of time. "And in that book there will be photographs from your entire life, and the page you are open to now is your present age totally and completely. But as you turn the page back one year, suddenly and completely, you are back there again … feeling what you felt then … and knowing only what you knew then and nothing more … honestly and completely … such that you can turn back one page … of time … at a time … going back fully and completely in each year … until you go all the way back to age six … such that when you are back there fully and completely… at age six … honestly knowing what you knew then and only then , . . will you be ready to continue … spontaneously … one of your hands will begin to float up, only as an indication to me … that you are honestly six years old."

That's how I design a technique to accomplish any phenomenon. There is no trance phenomenon that people don't already do anyway. Age–regression is not something that only hypnotists do. It's something that people do to themselves. They open a box of memorabilia; they pick up each object and they return to the age they were when they had the object. They discover that the box is really a time machine. "So you can cut a small hole in the side, and pick up something from your childhood and make it very small and you see the door … the opening in the box before you … and slowly you begin to walk into the box of time … and as you step through that door you have strange and confusing feelings. As you step through you look around and there are big objects lying all around you and each object has a door …. And you know, although you arc slightly frightened, that if you walk through any of those doors … you will become the age … at which that object appeared in your life… ."

You see, it's utter nonsense that I'm saying. However, I'm designing a context in which it is possible and logical for people to experience an alternative reality. Of course, you always use feedback to notice if the person is responding or not. You use all the usual behavioral cues to let you know if the person is actually regressing.

Once you get age–regression, you can do something with it. You have a six–year–old sitting in front of you. What do six–year–olds do to become somebody else?

Man: They play dress–up.

Exactly. They go up to the attic and play dress–up; they play "pretend." So you have them put on a set of clothes, only they don't know whose clothes these are, 'This is a funny set of clothes. It's not like mama's clothes. It's not daddy's clothes. It's not army clothes. I have no idea whose clothes these are. It doesn't make any sense … but suddenly, unconsciously … you begin to forget that you are the child … and you begin to become a person whom you don't know at six years old … but your unconscious knows who it is … and can take that person's tone of voice … that person's responses … only that person's movement … and only that person's behavior such that for the next ten minutes you will sit there … and develop unconsciously … a personality which is based on only what–you know … about that particular human being … so that in ten minutes your eyes will spontaneously flutter open … and you will be completely that particular human being."

Does that make sense to you as a way of doing it? You see, we could give you many specific strategies for using hypnosis to get different results. What we are trying to do now instead, is to give you an idea about how we conceive of using hypnosis to do anything. I build any particular hypnotic phenomenon by figuring out how I can get to it as naturally and easily as possible. If you can't get age–regression and identification this way, you can always use refraining to get it.

Man: Isn't there a lot of variation in how fast you can go when you do deep trance identification? And don't clients have to have some flexibility before they can do it?

Yes. Typically I don't attempt to do deep trance identification until I have somebody who is an exquisite subject, and who is trained to respond to me quickly. I would try to get many other trance phenomena before I would try deep trance identification. It seems foolish to me to attempt it with somebody who does not already know how to do amnesia and negative and positive hallucination, because those are minimum requirements. So I would do many other things first.