Improve Your Tonality to Improve Your Performance in Hypnosis

Improving in the art of hypnosis is always going to be a great idea.  When you are working in the area of hypnosis it is not only important to know what you are doing but perfecting the ways or the HOW you do it is vital.  Know how and what to do will create an unbreakable base for you as a hypnotist.

Hypnosis is a performance art so learning the performance part of hypnosis is a given.  Part of performance in learning hypnosis is to understand the elements of hypnotic language.  One of those elements is tonality.  Tonality is the key to unlocking a great deal of information in hypnosis. 

It is vital that you spend time learning what words to say but equally important to know how to say those words in order to get your point across.  A helpful study by Mr. Birdwhistell is the study of how the actual meanings of words were broken down between words, tonality and body language.  The conclusion of the study was surprising for many.

The study showed that choice of words is very important but the words themselves really only accounted for 7% of the meaning in the word.  However the way you say the word, or the tonality you use, was responsible for 38% of the words meaning.  And astonishing 55% of the meaning derived from statements and words comes from the body language you use, your nonverbal communications.

This study tells us that if you focus only on the choice of words you use you will more than likely be a poor hypnotist.  However if you focus on the words and the performance of those words you will capture more of the elements to becoming a great hypnotist.

In order to study the performance area of hypnotism you must first understand that hypnosis is something you do with a person.  You must learn how to convey the presentation of your statements and this is where we start.

The use of differing tonality in the language you use as a hypnotist will change the meanings of the statements you are saying to your subjects.  It is important to play with the different ways you can say words as the meanings will change as your delivery of the word changes. 

Take the word ‘no’ for instance.  There is technically only one meaning for the word itself; however you can change that meaning if you change your tone as you say the word.  Play with it say ‘no’ in ways that would imply yes or maybe.  There is a way to say ‘no’ that is stern and serious and a way to say it playfully and so on and so forth.

Now that we know the importance behind the way we say different things we can go over the principals of performance.  The first principal of performance is to ‘go first’.  This is the best and most simple way to deliver your statements and words accurately and with fine precision.

‘Going first’ is a good place to start because it is important to really feel what you are going to say in order to make it true for your subject.  In ‘going first’ you will immerse yourself in the emotion, situation or come to agree with the story you will be telling, this will help your story in delivering it in a believable way. 

If you are not in the correct state of mind, meaning one of agreement with your statements, you will not be convincing.  Every thought you have will always affect you emotionally and behaviorally.  For instance if you are trying to imply that there is danger in a situation and you are conveying a feeling of carefree happiness your point will be lost to the true emotion you are feeling. 

This is where BMIR’s come into play.  BMIR is a shorter way of saying Behavioral Manifestation of an Internal Representation.  What this means is when you think of something, every time your thoughts change it will show the new thought through your movements, body language, breathing and tonality.  Because of this reaction to thought the best way to perform anything is to enter that particular state of mind.  Imagine yourself in the situation, use the same tone of voice you would if you were actually going through the motions of that particular situation.  This will help you to accurately deliver the thoughts and ideas you want to. 

So this was a vast amount of information for a simple task, to review ‘going first’ you must first take the hypnotic theme you are working with and put it into motion within your mind.  Use your imagination to put yourself into situations where what you want to convey is true.  When you do this the delivery will be accurate representation of the feelings, ideas and thoughts you are pursuing.

The second performance principal we are going to cover here is the principal of squeezing the meaning.  In this factor of performance you are going to do just as it sounds, squeeze all of the meaning out of key words you use in your language. 

In order to accomplish this you will want to match the tone and feel of your voice with the feelings or ideas you are attempting to convey.  When you learn how to accurately do this and practice it into perfection you will be able to bring your words to life for your listener. 

The language you use will begin to be filled with the actual meaning and feelings that come from your choice of words and the way you say them.  For instance if you want your subject to relax, you don’t scream relax at them while jumping up and down you would draw the word out using a mellow and calming tone of voice.

 In doing this you are letting the tone of your voice do the hard work and you convey a state of mind or feeling.  Rhythm in what you are saying is also accomplished here with very little effort, it just happens naturally as you say the words with the meanings they posses

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