It will be interesting to see which of your fingers will move first. It may be the ring finger or the thumb. One of the fingers is going to jerk or move. You don’t know when or on which hand. Keep watching and you will begin to notice a slight movement, possibly in the right hand. There, the thumb is jerking. It’s moving, just like that.
As the movement begins, you will notice an interesting thing. Very slowly, the spaces between the fingers will widen. The fingers will move apart and you will notice that the spaces between the fingers will get wider and wider. They will move slowly apart. The fingers will seem to be spreading wider and wider and wider. See how they spread. Slowly moving wider and wider apart.
Good, Esther. You are doing fine. The fingers are so wide apart. And soon you will notice that the fingers will want to arch up from the thigh, as if they want to lift higher and higher. Notice how your index finger is lifting. As it does, the other fingers will want to follow upward-slowly rising, up, up.
See how the other fingers are rising now. As they lift, you will become aware of a feeling of lightness, so much so that the fingers will arch up and the whole hand will slowly lift and rise as if it feels like a feather, as if a balloon is lifting it up in the air, lifting, lifting-up, up, up-pulling it higher and higher and higher. The hand is so light, so very light. As you watch your hand rise, you will notice that the arm comes up, up, up in the air, a little higher and higher and higher.
Keep watching the hand and arm as it rises straight up and you will soon become aware of how drowsy and tired your eyes become. As your arm continues to rise, you will get tired and relaxed and sleepy, very sleepy. Your eyes will get heavy and your lids may want to close. And as your arm rises higher and higher, you will want to feel more relaxed and sleepy, and you will want to enjoy the peaceful, relaxed feeling of letting your eyes close and of being asleep.
Your arm is stretched out directly in front of you now. You cannot take your eyes off your hand, yet your lids are getting heavy, very heavy, and your breathing is getting slow and regular. Breathe deeply, in and out.
As you keep watching your hand and arm and keep feeling more and more drowsy and relaxed, you will notice that the direction of the hand will change. The arm will bend and the hand will move closer and closer to your face-up, up, up-and as it rises you will slowly but steadily go into a deep, deep sleep in which you will relax deeply and to your satisfaction. The arm will continue to rise up, up-lifting, lifting up, until it touches your face and you will get sleepier and sleepier, but you must not go to sleep until your hand touches your face. When the hand touches your face, you will be asleep, deeply asleep.
Your hand is now changing direction. It is moving up toward your face very slowly. Your eyelids are getting heavy. You are getting sleepier and sleepier and sleepier. Your eyelids are blinking faster and faster, because you are trying to fight sleep. Do not fight sleep. Welcome sleep. Let your eyes get heavy, very heavy and let the hand move up toward your face. You get very tired and drowsy. Your eyes are closing. When your hand touches your face, you will be asleep, deeply asleep. You are drowsy. Your eyes are like lead. Your hand moves to your face. It is almost touching. It is touching and your eyes close-now.
Good, Esther. Go to sleep, just sleep. And as you sleep you feel tired and relaxed. I want you to concentrate on relaxation, a state of tensionless relaxation. Think of nothing else, but sleep, deep sleep.
(PAUSE)
DR. HOLLANDER: Now, Esther, remember I told you that I was interested in you? That I saw great potential in you?
ESTHER PEGALOSI: Yes.
Q: Well, I said that because I have confidence in you and I feel that you can be the strong, confident person you want to be. That you can be anything you want to be. I am going to begin now to teach you how to be that strong, confident person. Would that be something you want to be?
A: Yes.
Q: Fine. You can put your hand down now. Just relax. You can open your eyes if you want to. Look around and reassure yourself of your surroundings and then let your eyes close again. That’s it. That’s fine.
Esther, I am going to touch your wrist now. I want you to pay attention to the feelings in your wrist. Feel completely the touch of my fingers on your wrist and when you feel that you have that feeling firmly in mind so that you can remember it easily, you can indicate that by saying “yes” without disturbing the trance at all.
(PAUSE)
PEGALOSI: Yes.
HOLLANDER: Good. Fine. Now, Esther, if it is all right with you, any time in the future that I take your wrist in this way and the situation is appropriate, you can remember the way you feel now. You can go into a deep hypnotic trance, a trance deep enough to achieve whatever goal is in your mind, whether the goal is remembering a pleasant incident in the past or a goal of ignoring discomfort or the goal of feeling like the strong, confident person that you know you can be. And if your subconscious mind is willing to respond in this way, it will cause the first finger of the right hand to move up into the air, and we can wonder will that finger move, will the unconscious cause it to move. You can think about that finger and it is-it’s moving up into the air and it continues to move up into the air, all by itself. Yes. Good. Good! That’s it, Esther, just relax. Now at anytime in the future that I take your wrist in this way, you can respond fully, you can respond confidently, knowing that when you awaken from such an experience, you will be more capable of being the kind of person you really want to be; the kind of person you have always known you could be. With increasing anticipation, Esther, you will awaken each morning looking forward to behaving, being and looking more like the kind of person you have always known you could be.
Now, I am going to ask you to awaken in a moment bound by each of these three suggestions: the suggestion of responding rapidly to your signal, the sensation of my fingers on your wrist; the suggestion of responding with a deep enough trance to achieve the goal that you have in mind; and the suggestion that you respond confident of being a better person in every way, a little better each day. Not dramatically, but just a little better each day. More like the kind of person you really want to be. Anytime in the future that I take your wrist and the situation is appropriate, you can respond easily, profoundly and rapidly.
In a moment, I am going to count from one to three and I will ask you to awaken feeling good, feeling refreshed and feeling tremendously satisfied. As I count from one to three, your unconscious mind can pay attention to that counting and those instructions, so that any time in the future, no matter who introduces the hypnotic experience, whether you bring the experience back by yourself or whether you permit someone else to induce the trance, you will be able to terminate the trance easily and rapidly by simply following the suggestions that I give you now:
One, you think of awakening. Two, you take a very deep breath and feel the energy coming back all through your body. Three, you are awake, wide awake.
(PAUSE)
HOLLANDER: How about that? How do you feel?
PEGALOSI: Fine. It was…I don’t know-funny. I got dizzy watching my finger come up by itself.
(LAUGHTER)
Q: The surprising thing is that it does come up by itself. And you did it. So you see that when you go under, you can achieve anything, virtually anything.
A: I guess.
Q: Even things that you don’t even realize you have the power to achieve. Do you see that?
A: Yes…I guess.
Q: Okay. Do you remember the instructions that I gave you on how to put yourself into a trance?
A: To think about my hand, do you mean?
Q: Not exactly. You missed it a bit. You recall the feeling of my fingers on your wrist?