Slacking Realities
Another induction procedure is called "stacking realities." I guess the easiest way to explain a stacked reality is to tell you about doing a group in Michigan once. I was sitting there in Weber's Inn, talking to a group of people about metaphor. And as I began to talk to them about metaphor, it reminded me of a story that Milton Erickson had told me about a group that he had done once at the University of Chicago, in which there were a large number of people sitting around just like this in a sort of semi–circle, and he was up at the front. Now, as he sat there talking to this group of people at the University of Chicago, the story that seemed most appropriate at that point in time was a story that his father had told him about his grandfather who came from Sweden. His grandfather Sven was running a dairy in Sweden, and he found that the cows settled down better if he talked to them in a calm, soothing voice about whatever was on his mind… .
What I've done is to embed story inside of story inside of story until I overload your conscious capacity to keep track of which statement refers to which thing. Even in a sophisticated group of people like this, if I were to go on with the story now and deliver induction messages inside of the story, it would be difficult for you to know which of the realities I was referring to. Am I talking about Grandfather Sven talking to the cows, Erickson talking to a group in Chicago, Erickson's father telling him a story, or is it me talking to you? While your conscious mind is trying to figure that out, your unconscious will be responding.
Let's take an example that is more related to therapy. Let's say a woman comes to see me and says "I have this presenting problem X." I invite her to notice the wind moving the tops of the redwood trees as she looks out of the office window, and begin to relate to her a story about a young woman who had once come to me and sat in that very chair and had watched … closely … the tops of the same redwoods waving … not pushed, of course, by the same wind … back and forth … and that young woman had fallen into a deep reverie, and even as she was listening to the tone of my voice, she remembered a dream in which she had gone to the country to visit someone … someone special who had made her feel particularly comfortable… .
I've just included the beginning of a hypnotic induction inside of the stacked reality. With the stacked reality I overload the person's conscious ability to keep track of what level of reality I'm now operating on. The result then is a confusion, but typically a much more gentle confusion than you get with sensory overload. One way to increase this effect is to incorporate aspects of present reality into the story. The redwoods exist in present reality as well as in the story, so if I talk about the redwoods, it is easy to go back and forth between the two realities. Soon a client gives up trying to keep track of which reality I'm talking about.
Inside of any of those realities, I can then embed a process instruction to make changes. "And as I talked to that young woman who had come to visit me … even as she had her dream … the contents of which I didn't know, nor did I need to … it was only important that she did … and the changes which are attendant upon such dreams … would manifest themselves in a graceful way in her future behavior. Even as I watched her in her dream …I remembered something that had happened once when I visited an old friend of mine in Phoenix, Arizona."
Now I'm doing two things: I'm stacking realities so it's impossible for her to keep track, and I'm giving her instructions about what she should do while I continue—namely to have a dream which changes her behaviour in a graceful way. etc. If there happens to be another person in the office, I'm all set up to do a direct induction. I'll look at the second person and say "And Milton looked at me, and he said 'Sleeepp' … only as long as you need to … to enjoy … perfectly … making a change which will surprise and delight you … the contents of which will not be available until you notice it … in your actual behavior … sometime within the next twenty–four hours … because it's always delightful to be surprised by your unconscious … and so Milton then said to that person that he could of course … at any point … where it was useful … and when his unconscious mind was satisfied … that it had identified a particular change . , . which would be of use to him … he could simply. . , with a sense of refreshment … slowly return … to the level of reality which was most appropriate for him in learning important things. …"
In all of this, I'm presupposing several very important things: (I) personal power: I am congruent in doing whatever I am doing, and (2) rapport: I have tuned myself to the person well enough that they come to trust me as an agent of change.
When you have achieved that, then you can always embed a direct command for a hypnotic response, including a deep trance. The stacked reality gives you an opportunity to create rapport and evaluate the responses you get. Stacked reality overloads more gently than the other kinds of confusion and overload techniques. It also gives you the occasion, since anything can happen in a story, of incorporating an entire induction and utilization. Of course you would need to take more time than I just took to do it smoothly.
The stacked reality can have several functions. It not only gives me an excuse for presenting something in a story which otherwise might be resisted by the person's conscious mind, it can also trigger me into the appropriate behavior, voice tone shifts, etc., for inducing a trance. As I talk about Erickson and I hear myself using the same voice tone that he uses, it makes all my experience with Erickson immediately available to me at the unconscious level. I can't think of a better model for doing hypnotic inductions than Milton Erickson.
A project I might suggest to some of you who would like to work together, is to build a very general, open metaphor designed for a trance induction. Build a set of stacked realities inside which you can embed a very general hypnotic induction. By an open metaphor, I mean that you know in general where you are going. You know where you are going to begin: you know the cast of characters. There are going to be some general interactions, and you are pretty sure about the general outcome you are headed toward. However, you leave the stories open enough that you can incorporate any response that occurs. You always have the choice of shifting to another "reality" if you're not getting the response you want.
Using stacked realities provides an ambiguous frame for what you're doing. Within that frame you can use any or all of the other techniques and maneuvers that we are teaching you.
Exercise 6
I have just demonstrated five more kinds of inductions: (1) Leverage Inductions; (2) Pattern Interruption; (3) Overload; (4) Personal Power, and (5) Stacking Realities. In a moment I'm going to ask you to get into small groups and try them out with each other.
Let me recommend that you do yourself a favor and select something new to try out. You already know how to do what you know how to do. Some people come to our seminars and learn to do what they already know well, all over again. I recommend that you select either an induction method that you are totally unfamiliar with, or one that you have heard about but haven't practiced, When you do that, you will increase your repertoire. The more ways you have to achieve a particular outcome, the more successful you will be with a wider range of people. Some methods are very effective with some people, but not with others. If you have many ways of inducing a trance, you will find that everyone is hypnotizable.