Brain Party Hacks
There are plenty of reasons to learn hypnosis. Self hypnosis to sleep better, play better golf, overcome social anxiety so you can more easily get out there and get some. Then there is straight up, watch-swinging hypnosis. Direct hypnosis or overt hypnosis. It comes in many names.
Direct hypnosis is very much like self hypnosis, as it’s done to improve some aspect of self, only somebody else is doing the hypnotizing. Then there is the world of covert or conversational hypnosis. This comes in plenty of forms, and it is learned for a variety of reasons.
Therapeutic Invention
The guy who invented covert hypnosis (Milton Erickson) did so because direct hypnosis was too slow and clunky. And despite coming to see a Dr. for their issues, many people took a while to trust some old guy in a wheelchair to monkey around inside their brain. So Dr. Erickson invented a much better type of hypnosis that worked much more quickly.
Never Talk About Fight Club
The most important rule when using any kind of covert hypnosis is to never say you are doing anything funny. The only time it’s OK to use even slightly non-normal language is in therapy, when the patient expects the therapist to use some kind of technology. All other times, never mention the word hypnosis.
Covert Hypnosis Situations
Most people learn covert hypnosis for two reasons: To get paid, and to get laid. Plenty of books have been written for both cases. Sales and seduction. But in this post, I’d like to talk about a much more playful use of covert hypnosis. Sales and seduction both have a specific outcome. But what happens if you only want to have fun?
Hypnotic Party Tricks
A great way to use some of the many hypnotic language patterns within the Milton Model (that set of language patterns invented by Dr. Milton Erickson) is in regular conversations. You can use these anywhere, but using them with friends in relaxed, social settings is best. If you do intend to become a famous YouTube Street Hypnotist, we’ll give you some basic tips (it’s a lot easier than many believe) at the end of this article.
Ambiguous
We’ll be using many of the ambiguity patterns. Most jokes are based on ambiguity. Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven ate nine! Get it? Seven ate nine sounds like seven eight nine, which comes after six being afraid of seven. Ate and eight mean two different things but they sound the same.
See, if you’ve ever told a joke at a party then you’ve already been using part of the Milton Model without even knowing it. In this specific case, the ambiguity was a quick hit to the brain that caused a short but powerful burst of holding two ideas in mind at once, which generally results in a funny feeling in the brain and a chuckle.
Quick Hits
When these ambiguities come quickly and are constrained to a few words, that’s pretty much the definition of a joke. Even in long drawn out comedy scenes, most of the comedy comes from some kind of ambiguity. A meaning that doesn’t pan out the way people thought.
Long Ambiguities
The short ones will get you a quick laugh. But longer ones are much more fun. Especially when you are being purposely confusing, telling some goofy story that makes no sense, but you keep a straight face as if it does. When using longer ambiguities, it’s very important to not ever let anybody know you’re using any language technology. Just spin their brains in circles and let them wonder what the heck is going on.
Main Caveat
Unlike jokes, which are necessarily memorized stories to get a laugh, these won’t be so memorize-able. Meaning the quality of your delivery will have a large impact on how well these work. This will require you kind of watch people as you are delivering them. Since these will come unannounced, they will take a lot of practice.
If you announced you were going to tell a joke, everybody would patiently wait for the punchline. But since these are covert, you’ll have to drop these in whenever you can. These will have to be a blend between hit-and-run confusion patterns, and longer, drawn out stories that spin their unsuspecting minds deeper down the rabbit hole the longer you talk.
Punctuation Ambiguity
These are the easiest to start with. You start a sentence, but the last word of the first sentence is also the first word of the next sentence. If you make sure both sentences are on different subjects, the more of these you string together, the more confused they’ll be. Key here is you act like there is nothing wrong with the way you are talking.
Examples
The other day I was eating some ice cream trucks aren’t nearly as popular as when I was a kids these days don’t seem to have a lot of respect for people are gaining a lot more weight recently it’s been getting a lot easier to order stuff online shopping is so convenient but I run out of money at the end of every month I have to pay my bills. I hate doing that, right?
Notice how one idea just blends into the other? You can talk like this pretty easily with a little practice. If you drop in a few of these sentences, and remember to keep a straight face and act normal, you can have fun watching people as they struggle of figure out what just happened.
Scope Ambiguity
This takes a bit more practice, but it can create a delayed reaction. For example, consider the sentence:
Tall trees and flowers.
What does this mean, tall trees and tall flowers? Or tall trees and normal sized flowers? Since flowers aren’t usually very tall, most people would take it to mean tall trees and regular sized flowers. So consider this collection of sentences:
The other day I went to the park and they had these tall trees and flowers. The trees were huge, I mean they had this one with a humongous swing hanging from it. But the flowers were also pretty cool. I mean they were so tall that you had to take en elevator to get up to the top to see what kind they actually were.
When you first say “tall trees and flowers,” the person listening will probably imagine a tall tree and some regular flowers. Then you spend some time talking about the tall trees. Then by the time you start to talk about the tall flowers, this will be different than the image they had. But by then this image will be kind of fuzzy, so while they are trying to listen, they’ll be trying to remember why their image (which is now a fuzzy memory) is different that the tall flowers you are talking about.
How To Build
Start with an adjective, and put two nouns after it. Choose the two nouns so most people will assume the adjective applies to the first noun, but not the second noun. Once you drop the sentence (adjective noun1 and noun2) give a lengthy description of noun1. Then give a lengthy description of noun2, but make sure to describe it as having the adjective applied to it.
Examples
Serious people and babies
The other day I saw a group of serious people and babies in the park. I guess they were all waiting for some bus to come and take them somewhere, and the bus was late. I looked in a couple of the cribs and a few of the babies were studying calculus. I guess kids don’t just play anymore.
Hungry people and umbrellas
I went to the local buffet and there were a bunch of hungry people and umbrellas waiting in line. I guess they were having some kind of discount, but I don’t think they had any umbrella food. I guess they were disappointed.
Nervous children and swing sets
Yesterday I went to the park and there were a whole bunch of nervous children and swing sets. I guess the kids were waiting for their teacher to show up and give them a test or something. But the swing sets looked worried for another reason that I never really figured out. Kind of strange, actually.
Syntactic Ambiguity I
This is similar to the scope ambiguity, but instead of an adjective and a couple of nouns, this one uses a verb and a couple of nouns. The verb has to be in the -ing form (growing, eating, etc.) and it has to be both an adjective and a verb. For example consider the following:
Growing plants and people.
Growing plants can mean the act of growing plants. Planting seeds. Watering seeds. Keeping the bugs off. All could be described by the term, “growing plants.” But the term growing plants could also mean plants that are meant for growing. There are eating plants that you are supposed to eat. And there are growing plants, which you’re only supposed to grow.
Right away this is a little confusing. Because that two word phrase, growing plants, could mean two different things, depending on whether the word “growing” is considered an adjective or a verb. But then you add on the second noun, and it’s even more confusing. It almost sounds like you are growing plants, and you are growing people. But that can’t be right, can it?
Yesterday I went down to the plant store and they had growing plants and people, but I was hoping to find some eating plants, like one of those Venus fly traps, I think those would be pretty cool.
Syntactic Ambiguity II
Another way to use these is to add an adjective instead of another noun. For example, consider the following sentence:
Hiding criminals can be dangerous.
This could mean two things. One is if you let a criminal in your house, and help him hide, that can be dangerous because the cops might show up and arrest the both of you. Or it could mean if you have a criminal hiding in your house and you don’t know it, they might pop out unexpectedly and kill you. And that is also dangerous.
Extra Confusing Power
A way to make people really confused when listening to you talk is take two of these and combine them in a cause-effect relationship. First you make the statement, but you do so in a way that will lead to a certain assumption about what you just said. Then you keep talking, and then break that assumption. This will lead to your listeners having to backtrack in their mind, and at the same time try to follow what you are saying. This can make things even more confusing.
Hiding criminals can lead to growing anxiety. This happened to me the other day. I had some criminals that had been hiding in my house for a couple of days, and they had a whole bunch of anxiety plants they’d been secretly growing in my back yard. I ended up having to call one those exterminators.
Extended Quotes
This is a lot of fun. It involves talking about what somebody else said. Only that thing the other person said included them talking about what somebody else said. Once you get that going, you can drop in some of the above patterns. To make things even more confusing, drop in a couple of pronouns that aren’t clear.
Lack of Referential Index
This is when you use a pronoun and it’s not clear who you are referring to.
Jack and Fred went down to the bar and he told the bartender they didn’t have any money but he said it was OK so they started drinking but then the bartender kicked them out because they didn’t have any money.
All Together Now
Start off with a simple story about something that happened to a friend of yours. Then within that story, have somebody else pop in and start doing some things. Then use a bunch of “he” and “she” and “they” without really being specific. In the middle of all that, drop in a few aforementioned ambiguity patterns. Then come to the end of your story and act like nothing’s wrong.
This will take a lot of practice. You’ll need to practice each pattern individually until you are fluent and can spit them out without thinking. But it’s well worth the time, as when you drop these at a party or some other social gathering, it will be like a brain bomb just went off and everybody has lost the ability to think.
Example
Oh, hey, this reminds me of a this guy I used to hang out with. He and his cousin, I think, went on this fishing trip with these other guys and he was trying out this new kind of bait, a kind my friend hadn’t seen before. And he was telling them that it’s like when he used to grow plants in his backyard, how growing plants aren’t nearly as enjoyable as eating plants, but once he got married, his wife made him get rid of the tomatoes and switch them out with petunias or something. But once they were planted, it was less enjoyable which is why he took up fishing in the first place. But he didn’t catch anything and he moved away so I haven’t talked to him in a while.
Quick Hit Brain Spin
A nice trick to use is talk about content that is confusing in itself. Things like talking about thinking is usually good to spin everybody’s mind around. One way to keep track, at least longer than your listeners, is to think about something real and tangible. In your head, keep the picture normal, but when describing the picture use thought like objects.
Example – Real Content
The other day I was bored, so I decided to rearrange my sock drawer. I know that sounds like a really boring thing to do, but it’s been a while since I did that. And since I keep losing socks, and buying new ones, there’s a whole bunch of socks in there that are only one instead of a pair, right? So I had to take all the socks out, put them on the floor, keep the ones that matched and then toss out the others. It was really boring but I’m glad it’s over.
Example – Translated Content
The other day I was bored, so I decided to rearrange my brain. I know that sounds a little weird, but I was pretty bored, and it’s been a while since I took a good hard look at all the thoughts floating around in my head. Sometimes I’ll have a really good idea, and I start to create a full idea but I never follow through. And when that happens I’ll just start up on another idea from scratch. So I end up with a whole bunch of thoughts floating around in my brain, but I’m not sure which ones are only half-thought out ideas, and which ones are fully thought out ideas. So I had to lay them all out in front of me, and kind of move them around, and get rid of the ones that were only half an idea. It took some time, but I think my brain is a lot more organized. I should do this kind of thing more often.
YouTube Secrets
OK, here’s how to become a world famous YouTube Street Hypnotist. It’s actually pretty simple. Take some time to go through the patterns on this page. Write out a couple dozen if them. This will take the most amount of time.
Then each day, go to a different part of town, and read one of your pre-written patterns to somebody on the street. Give them a believable excuse. Tell them you’re practicing to be a hypnotist and you want to practice or something. It helps if you have the patterns memorized so you can deliver them with the most emotional oomph.
Then after saying the same pattern to a couple dozen people, put together the three or four that gave you the best response. Doing this will you some ideas on how to write more crazy stories using the same patterns.
General YouTube Strategy
This is the general strategy of all those “man on the street” type videos. Do the same thing to twenty or thirty people, and ditch the ones that didn’t work. Put together the three or four responses that did work. With some basic editing, you can easily produce a three or four minute video of you saying crazy things to people and them having a total brain freeze.
One Video A Week
If you did this once a week, before long you’d have some pretty good skills, and a pretty good YouTube following.
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