People ask me what I am actually doing up there.
They have seen the show, or they have listened to one of the
recordings, and somewhere in the first few minutes something happened
that they cannot quite describe. They want to know whether there was a
trick in it.
There is no trick. There is a procedure, it has a name, and it is
about a hundred years old in one form or another. Most of what I do is
built on the Elman induction.
Here is the plain version.
Who Elman was
Dave Elman was an American who came up in vaudeville and radio in the
first half of the twentieth century. He worked as a stage hypnotist,
then spent the back half of his life teaching hypnosis to physicians and
dentists — doctors who wanted something practical they could use in an
office, in the time an office actually allows. His book on the subject
is still on the shelf of nearly every hypnotist I know.
That origin explains everything about the method. It was designed for
people with no patience and no spare time. Nothing in it is
decorative.
I came to hypnosis sideways myself — I was a master electrician for
years before I was ever paid to do this — and I think that is why the
Elman work suited me. It is built like a system, not like a mood.
The plain version
An induction is not a spell. It is a short sequence of small steps,
each one of which you can verify for yourself as you go.
That last part is the whole design. You are not asked to believe
anything. You are asked to do a small thing and then notice the result,
and the noticing is what does the work.
Roughly, the sequence runs like this.
Eye closure. You close your eyes. That is all.
Nothing has happened yet and nothing is supposed to have happened
yet.
Relax the eyes so completely they will not work. You
let the small muscles around the eyes go so slack that, for the moment,
they will not open. Then you try them — gently — and find they do
not.
That is the first piece of evidence, and it is the
hinge of the entire method. Something you asked your body to do, it did,
and you felt it. Not a claim, not a promise. A result.
Let it spread. The same quality of relaxation you
just proved you could produce in the eyes gets carried down through the
face, the neck, the shoulders, and onward. You are not learning a new
skill for each body part. You are repeating one you have already
demonstrated.
Deepening by opening and closing. You open your eyes
and close them again, and each time the state settles further.
Hypnotists call this fractionation. It is simply repetition. Anything a
mind does repeatedly, it does more easily.
A count down, and the numbers go. You count
backwards, and at some point the numbers become vague, or dull, or you
lose interest in them and cannot be bothered to continue. That is a
normal and rather ordinary experience.
Why it is built like a
ladder
Look at the shape of it: eyes, test, spread, repeat, count.
Every rung is small enough that failing it is unlikely and passing it
is undeniable. You never have to make a leap of faith, because you are
never more than one small step from where you already are.
This is the opposite of what people imagine. They picture a hypnotist
doing something to a subject — some transfer of will across the
room. What is actually happening is a series of instructions the subject
carries out, each one confirmed by the subject’s own experience before
the next one arrives.
I do not put anybody under. People do this themselves, in order,
while I keep the sequence and the timing.
Compliance, then evidence, then more compliance on the strength of
that evidence. That is the entire engine.
Why it is fast
Some inductions are long and scenic. Staircases, beaches, gardens, a
great deal of description.
Elman’s is short, because a physician’s schedule is short. There is
no imagery to speak of and no waiting around. That is also why it
survives well on a recording: it holds up without the atmosphere.
Short does not mean rushed. On a recording I pace it more generously
than I would on stage, because I cannot see you and cannot adjust in the
moment.
What it is not
Three things, and I say all three from stage every single show.
It is not sleep. The word gets used because it is
convenient shorthand, and it is misleading. Hypnosis is a focused state,
not an unconscious one. People in it are typically aware of the room,
aware of the temperature, aware of the person next to them.
You do not lose control. Nobody has ever been made
to do something genuinely against their nature, not by me and not by
anyone. On stage, the volunteers are participating. They are choosing
it, they know they are choosing it, and they remember doing it. That is
why they are laughing on the way back to their seats.
Nothing goes wrong when it ends. Nobody gets stuck.
The state is not a place you are trapped in; it is an attention you are
holding, and attention resolves the way attention always does.
What it usually feels like
Here is the part that disappoints people, and it is worth saying out
loud because it stops a lot of unnecessary worrying.
Most people do not feel anything dramatic. They feel comfortable,
heavy in the arms, a bit far away, occasionally so ordinary that they
conclude nothing happened.
The state does not announce itself. There is no click. A good number
of people finish a session convinced it did not work, then notice
afterwards that the last twenty minutes are hard to account for.
And if it does not go anywhere the first time, that means very
little. It is a skill that improves with repetition, which is the honest
reason I sell recordings rather than single sessions. The sequence run
once is an interesting experience. The sequence run thirty times is how
anything changes.
To be clear about what I do and do not offer: my recordings are for
relaxation and mindset, they are not medical treatment, and they do not
treat any condition. If you are under a clinician’s care, keep them in
the loop. And if you snore heavily, gasp or stop breathing during the
night, or fall asleep during the day without meaning to, please see a
doctor — some sleep problems are physical and belong with a
physician.
Start Tonight
I made a free guided session called The Military Sleep
Method. It runs eleven minutes, walks you through the whole
sequence in my voice, and comes with the Nightly Wind-Down Checklist so
you know what to do with the hour before bed.
Both are free here: https://davidbryansmith.com/free-track-download/
If you use it and want more, The Sleep Reset Program is seven guided
sessions that build on the same approach. It’s at https://davidbryansmith.com/product/bst-better-sleep-tonight/
whenever you’re ready. No rush. Start with the free one.