Squirreling - The Effective Alternative to 'Self-Hypnosis'

From Derren-Brown@yahoogroups.co.uk, "taxidriver90" wrote:
>
> Hi barry. Thanks for replying.
>
> You said..........I taught her to Squirrel (my effective alternative to self-hypnosis)
and built in another level which I called hibernation.........
>
>
> This sounds fascinating, would you mind elaborating a little on this please?
>
> Thanks again.
>
> TD

Re: Anaesthesia

Hi TD

I don't think there is any such thing as self-hypnosis. Self-relaxation, yes, but self-hypnosis, no. After all, I can hypnotise you and make you forget your name, but I can't hypnotise me and make me forget my name.

So instead of teaching my patients self-relaxation, I set them up for Squirreling. Squirreling is my effective alternative to self-hypnosis.

Essentially, I help a hypnotized patient get into a state they want to be able to replicate on their own, and then set triggers so they can launch the state for themselves, and come out of it again. It is hypnosis by post-hypnosis command.

I call it Squirreling because the in-word is usually Squirrel and the out-word is usually Rabbit. (I used to be less prescriptive but patients would faff around for ages trying to decide on their triggers so (unless they have a problem with small, furry creatures) I took the choice away. Squirrel and Rabbit were the triggers chosen by the first person I ever did it with, so I stuck with them.)

Hibernating (which I have only done once and which I thought had not worked) was a case of setting another trigger to be fired inside the squirrel state in order to achieve another experience - one of the equivalent of a general anaesthetic. I explained it to the patient while they were squirreled and used Hibernate and Emerge as the triggers.

In principle I don't see why there should be a limit to how many layers one might construct within squirreling.