You see, learning can remain in one state of consciousness. State–conditioned learning is a fact. Once a group of medical students I worked with were given an examination in the same room in which they learned the material. Each one passed the exam beautifully. Five minutes after the exam, they were taken across the campus to the gymnasium and given the same examination. Seventy–five percent of them flunked it, because the learnings of their classroom were not always available in other contexts. And the learnings of the gymnasium weren't very useful in taking a medical exam.
This selective availability of information keeps your mind from being cluttered unnecessarily, but it can also prevent you from having learnings when and where you need them.
The best way to have a learning is to have it only when you need it. You see, if you constantly thought of your phone number all day long every day, you'd go crazy. If you can think of it whenever you want to, except when you are near a telephone, it doesn't work for you. If you try to understand why that's the case, you still won't be able to call home. But if you only think of it when you want to tell it to someone else, or to dial your home, it's a learning that serves you well.
So think of the things you want to take out of the Grand Ballroom
. . and think about the places you want to take them. . , . You don't have to think about what you are going to do with the learnings when you get there…. Just think about the furniture in your living room … the bed that you sleep in at night … that favorite office chair … your secretary … the carpet in the place where you work … the clients you've seen too many times … the business associates that you've always wanted to get … to do anything … that you want them to. Think about friends … and lovers . . , think about times and places … in your future … that are places worthy …of taking these learnings and understandings , . . and having them spontaneously emerge… .
Because while your conscious mind has worked diligently during the past three days … to understand something that isn't about it, but about the rest of each of you … your unconscious mind has been collecting information … in the way that it knows how to … and can't avoid… . And you can allow that information …to settle in your unconscious … and you unconsciously know … how to sort through that information … to make changes in yourself … changes that although you may or may not notice them … can be lasting and pervasive.
Now, some of you have not yet made good enough friends … with your unconscious process … and we want you to realize … that your unconscious is not a person … it's a part of you… . It's not a part of you as a piece is a part… . It's a part of you because it works differently … than your conscious mind. Your unconscious, for one thing, is much more lethargic. … It only does things for a purpose… . And the purpose of sorting through the learnings of the Grand Ballroom … is so that your conscious mind … can be surprised delightfully … when it finds itself doing new things … and not knowing exactly how … and especially not why, it is. … And as long as there is a Grand Ballroom, the learnings of the Grand Ballroom will go with you… .
Goodbye.
Appendix I Eye Accessing Cues
While most people lump all of their internal information processing together and call it "thinking," Bandler and Grinder have noted that it can be very useful to divide thinking into the different sensory modalities in which it occurs. When we process information internally, we can do it visually, auditorily, kinesthetically, olfactorily, or gustatorily. As you read the word "circus," you may know what it means by seeing images of circus rings, elephants, or trapeze artists; by hearing carnival music; by feeling excited; or by smelling and tasting popcorn or cotton candy. It is possible to access the meaning of a word in any one, or any combination, of the five sensory channels.
Bandler and Grinder have observed that people move their eyes in systematic directions, depending upon the kind of thinking they are doing. These movements are called eye accessing cues. The chart (left) indicates the kind of processing most people do when moving their eyes in a particular direction. A small percentage of individuals are "reversed," that is, they move their eyes in a mirror image of this chart. Eye accessing cues are discussed in chapter 1 of Frogs into Princes, and an in–depth discussion of how this information can be used appears in Neuro–Linguistic Programming, Volume I.
This chart is easiest to use if you simply superimpose it over someone's face, so that as you see her looking in a particular direction you can also visualize the label for that eye accessing cue.
Vr Visual remembered: seeing images of things seen before, in the way they were seen before. Sample questions that usually elicit this kind of processing include: "What color are your mother's eyes?" "What does your coat look like?"
Vc Visual constructed: seeing images of things never seen before, or seeing things differently than they were seen before. Questions that usually elicit this kind of processing include: "What would an orange hippopotamus with purple spots look like?" "What would you look like from the other side of the room?"
Ar Auditory remembered: remembering sounds heard before. Questions that usually elicit this kind of processing include: "What's the last thing I said?" "What does your alarm clock sound like?"
Ac Auditory constructed: hearing sounds not heard before. Questions that tend to elicit this kind of processing include: "What would the sound of clapping turning into the sound of birds
singing sound like?" "What would your name sound like backwards?"
Ad Auditory digitaclass="underline" Talking to oneself. Questions that tend to elicit this kind of processing include: "Say something to yourself that you often say to yourself." "Recite the Pledge of Allegiance."
K Kinesthetic: Feeling emotions, tactile sensations (sense of touch), or proprioceptive feelings (feelings of muscle movement). Questions to elicit this kind of processing include: "What does it feel like to be happy?" "What is the feeling of touching a pine cone?" "What does it feel like to run?"
Appendix II
Hypnotic Language Patterns: The Milton–Model
Milton Erickson used language very systematically in his hypnotic work, often in unusual ways. These patterns were first described by Richard Bandler and John Grinder in their book, Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Vol. I.
Using this "Milton–Model" is a prerequisite to effective hypnotic communication, and all of the induction examples in this book have used these language patterns. Many readers will unconsciously begin to learn the hypnotic language patterns by reading the many examples of inductions in this book. This appendix makes these patterns more explicit, so that you can practice using one pattern at a time, in order to systematically incorporate them all into your behavior.