thought simply as an amplifier of experience.
Example 2; Now I'm going to get a little more complicated. Let's pretend that 1 just walked up to Liz here, and said "Hello, my name is Richard Bandler" and extended my hand. (He does this as he says it.) As her hand comes up, I've already got an unconscious response. Now I need a way to amplify it and utilize it. I might take her wrist and turn her palm toward her face and say "Look at your hand." That gives her a program to replace the one I've just interrupted.
"Watch the changing focus … of your eyes … as you see the tops of your lids slowly move down … over … eyes … only as fast as you become aware of that need to blink. Take all the time you need, and allow your hand to go down only as fast … as you become completely relaxed … in your own special way. And it isn't important how fast that hand goes down. It's only important that it goes down … at the same rate … and speed … that the other hand begins …to lift up.
Because there's something that you want to learn about . , . and it isn't really important that anyone but you knows what that special learning is, because your unconscious mind has known … all along … and if you're going to learn about it, it will be important … slow down!… to learn about it in a balanced way… . And your unconscious mind knows what kind of balance will be necessary… . That's right — — It's so useful and it's really so important …to allow your unconscious mind …to give you , . . the opportunity … and ask it for your own meanings … to make changes and to have a learning experience … and new understandings … which you can use … for yourself … in some way … which will be … beneficial to you as an individual human being… .
Now, I don't know … whether or not … you could begin to dream a dream … which has within it the solution that your unconscious knows … will give you what you want. But I do know that if and when you do begin that dream, it won't make any sense at all. And it's not important that you understand… . It's only important that you learn … and you learn … exactly what you need to know… .
Every night … Liz … you engage in the natural process of dreaming… . Some of those dreams you're aware of … and some you're not aware of. … That's right… . And I'm going to reach down now. . , . I'm going to lift up your arm … and I'm not going to tell you to put it down … any faster … than you take all the time that's necessary … to begin to build a conscious understanding … of what it means … to use your unconscious creatively. And when your hand touches your thigh, you will slowly awaken … and you will take that new understanding with you. In the meantime … there'll be no need to listen to anything … else… . But it is so pleasant to eavesdrop in a way that you learn. …"
Now, can you tell which of her movements were conscious movements, and which ones were not? If you're going to work with altered states, it's very important to be able to discern that. In the beginning, there were many, many movements that she made with her body. Some of those were movements that she made in relationship to her own conscious responses to what was going on, and many of them were not.
Woman: When she turned on the chair, that seemed like it was a conscious movement.
OK. When her left hand lifted up off of her thigh, was that a conscious movement?
Man: I would say no.
What leads you to say that? What about the movement was different?
Man: It was flowing. It seemed smooth.
Can you be even more specific about exactly what you observed? When she moved her feet, she made a perfectly smooth movement, but it was a very, very conscious movement. Liz, did you know your hand was going to lift up? …
Liz: I'm not sure of that. {Her hand lifts in a gesture, responding to the embedded command.)
It just did! Her hand lifting just now was a very unconscious movement. One of the characteristics of unconscious movement that you can notice is that at the beginning, the movement is often very small and hesitant.
Pick up your hand —deliberately pick up your hand. When you pick up your hand consciously, do you begin with your wrist? … No, you don't begin with your wrist. You begin with your elbow, or possibly your shoulder. Martial arts masters begin with their belly—their center. That's really different than starting to lift at the wrist.
Even if she were to begin with her elbow, the quality of movement is very different when it's unconscious. I would have the tendency to call it jerky movement. It's a more graceful kind of movement in one sense, but it's more hesitant; there are lots of pauses. Conscious movement is more like a whole program, and as it begins, you can see where it's going to end. It's all one piece.
There's a real difference between the kind of movement that you get when a person is in an altered state, as compared to a familiar suite. There's a real difference between the way her hand lifted up off her thigh when I gave her the instructions in trance, and when I asked her to lift her hand deliberately. If she decided in her mind "I want a Kleenex" and reached for one, it would look very different than if i instructed her to do it in trance.
It's really important to recognize these differences if you want to know what state your client is experiencing. When I lifted up her hand and I told her to allow it to go down and so on, it began to move down very slowly with small pauses, like a leaf from a tree. That was really good unconscious movement. Then it began to go down more smoothly and faster. Her conscious mind had interceded. Her arm began to have weight again. I said "Slow down!" and it looked as if her arm hit something, or as if it were on the end of a string. It stopped as if a string held it there, and then it went down with the same kind of movement as before. Being able to discern the difference between the two kinds of movement allowed me to be able to amplify one and diminish the other. That allowed me to boost her more and more into an altered state.
Now, what about the handshake movement? When I come over here and I put out my hand, what kind of movement does she respond with? When people engage in automatic unconscious programs like shaking hands, or perhaps taking out a pack of cigarettes, their movement usually looks more like conscious movement in that as it begins, you can see where it's going to end. It has a definite direction. There are still ways to distinguish this kind of movement from conscious movement, and if you watch examples of both you will know what I mean. When people engage in automatic programs like shaking hands, they perform the motor activity smoothly and easily, but without focusing their attention on their movement. It looks automatic.
OK. What 1 just did with Liz was another example of a process instruction, with some other things added. First I spent a little time developing a trance state, amplifying unconscious responses. Then 1 began to instruct her to have "new understandings" and to use them in a "beneficial way." I didn't say what the new understandings were, or even what they were about, and I didn't mention what the beneficial way would be. I didn't mention that because I had no idea what they were. I left that entirely up to her unconscious mind.
Then I asked her to dream a dream in which she will learn what it means to use her unconscious creatively. Again, I'm not saying anything that means anything in and of itself. I'm allowing her to make the most appropriate meaning out of it for her. And then I equate completing that task with allowing her hand to come down.
When you give process instructions, you use a lot of words like "understanding," "resource," and "curiosity." We call these kinds of words nominalizations. They are actually process words that are used as nouns. If you turn a word like "understanding" back into a verb "You will understand… , " you realize that a lot of information is deleted. You will understand what? If someone uses nominalizations when they're speaking to you, it forces you to go inside and access meaning. If a client says to you "Well, I'm looking for satisfaction," you can turn satisfaction back into a verb and ask "You are trying to satisfy yourself how?" or "You would like to satisfy yourself about what?" But if you don't do that, then you have to fill in the missing pieces yourself. That's what most therapists do with what their clients say. They hallucinate what the person means. If all I say is "I'm looking for support" you have to go inside and get your ideas of what it means for someone to support someone else.