Milton Erickson’s Hypnosis Secret: The Trance Voice Induction

There are many types of inductions in the area of Conversational Hypnosis.  As you learn each of them you see that they are appropriate for different people at different stages of their lives.  Another of the many inductions we are learning about is the trance-voice induction. 

While the discovery of this type of induction was attributed to John Grinder and Richard Bandler, it was actually Milton Erickson who was the true discoverer of the trance-voice induction.  It was only when Grinder and Bandler, creators of NLP, studied and modeled Dr. Milton Erickson’s hypnosis that they “discovered” the trance-voice induction. 

Erickson’s discovery in this type of induction will be very helpful to you in your practices.  The trance-voice induction is powerful, interesting and shrouded by myth.  You know the myth that a certain tone of voice, usually monotone, would instantly cause people to fall into deep trances.  Another myth that surrounds the trance-voice is that there were some sort of magical powers involved that would cause a tone of voice to instantly send those around you into trance.

Well the truth about the trance-voice induction is that it will in a way fulfill the above myths but not to the degree in which they are usually regarded.  In a trance-voice induction the listener is conditioned over a period of time to respond hypnotically to your specific trance voice. 

This is specific to you and the person you have conditioned to go into trance when you use a certain tone of voice, not something anyone can do to everyone with a certain pitch of voice.  The trance-voice induction and its conditioning are similar to Pavlov and his dogs.  He conditioned the dogs to have the expectation of food when a bell was rung.  After a while whenever the dogs heard the bell they would begin to salivate whether food was presented or not.

There certainly is not magical happenings in this induction, there is actually work to be done.  You have to condition you subjects to respond hypnotically to your trance voice.   In order to do this you are still required to create the experiences in order to condition each new subject.    

There can be a big problem with this idea if you use your normal speaking voice for your trance voice.  You will be conditioning people to respond to you every time they hear you speak; this is not a good idea.  In order to avoid sending everyone you know into trance all the time you will want to develop a trance voice that is varied from your normal conversational speaking voice. 

This all ties into knowing when you should and should not be using hypnosis on a person.  There are appropriate times; in an office or park when there is no task other than hypnotism at hand.  There are times when it is inappropriate; in a car with someone who is driving.  These inappropriate times would be hard to control if you did not have at least two different voices; one for hypnosis and one for casual conversation.

Even Milton Erickson, the discoverer of trance-voice induction used many different voices for appropriate environments.

In order to set up your separate induction voice you need to learn to add different qualities to your speaking.  We have covered in past articles how to change the tone, rhythm and pitch so it is easily recognized by the unconscious to connect that voice with trance characteristics. You should also add pauses and make your voice soothing and comfortable; these will be things that are identified with your trance voice.

In the trance-voice induction you will need to keep in mind all the other aspects of inductions you have learned previously.  You will need to use all the skills you have learned; language skills, hypnotic gaze, piggy back inductions, yes sets and of course other indirect skill such as the ‘my friend John/Jane’ concept.

When you start to use this induction you will be incorporating two very different aspects into one, you will be speaking to both the conscious and unconscious at the same time with two different voices.  

The two voices will of course be varied so they can be picked up on by the conscious and unconscious.  How varied you would like to make them is up to you.  The more difference between your voices the more obvious and direct you will become, the slighter the difference the less obvious.

As time goes on you will develop many different trance voices, each one will accomplish different purposes.  Each purpose will depend on the subjects you are developing voices for but it is safe to say you will probably at some point have different voices for story telling, learning, relaxation and excitement.  They will all vary slightly to call to action either the conscious or unconscious. 

The different voices you create will be used to recall within your subject time when they experienced the thing you want them to do; the learning voice will talk about times they have learned.  As you do this you are attaching the experiences, their experiences to the act of learning.

 This activates the neurology in their brains that makes it easier for them to learn.  When that neurology is activated the setting is created for that activity to happen more efficiently and quickly; in our example learning.  As your listener activates all the learning experiences they have had inside their mind they will become more able to learn.

As Milton Erickson discovered through his excellent hypnosis the secret of the trance-voice induction is to essentially return the neurology in the brain to a certain experience through the conditioning to voice.  Once they start to respond to you in that way you will see they are in trance.

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