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I didn't want to talk to you too much in the beginning because whenever I begin to teach a hypnosis course it's a little bit difficult for me to keep from demonstrating at large. I asked you to notice what kinds of things seemed to allow you to go back to the state of consciousness that you were in when you actually had the experience you mentioned, and which things seemed to make it harder for you. Which things seemed to jar you, and which seemed to lead you more into being relaxed? Which things seemed to be disjointed, and which allowed you to forget where you were a little bit?
Woman: Anything that had to with my body put me in deeper, and anything that had to do with my mind, like what I thought about it or my reactions to it, took me out a little.
I want to know exactly what the other person actually did. Give me some examples.
Woman: OK. I was playing the piano. When the person said "You can feel the contact of your fingers on the keys," it made me go deeper. If he said something like "You think the music is you," then I came out.
Man: It was easier for me when the tempo of his voice was the same rate as my breathing.
What kinds of things made it harder?
Man: Urn, when something he said was incongruous with what I had been thinking. I saw myself in an indoor skating rink, and it threw me when somebody suggested something outdoors.
Yeah, you're in an indoor skating rink and somebody says "You look up and notice how beautiful the sky is."
Woman: My partner said to me "You can hear and feel your breathing." That really jarred me, because I couldn't do them both at the same time. I thought "No, just a minute. I can't do that."
