General comments on my memory
1/28/2005
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I started journaling about 3 hours after our session and already realized that some things I had been recalling on the drive away from the session had already been forgotten. I forgot to transfer the file I made there to home so I started a second journal I planned to merge with the first. In doing the second one I realize that I do not recall today (Saturday) nearly as much as I had been when doing the first journal. When I do get back to the computer where I placed the first journal I’ll probably remember the things I discussed in there, but for now they are lost to me.
I think that it is not so much that things get forgotten but rather that they are disassociated with anything else and thus do not reenter my thoughts. If you asked me about something I’d probably remember it and remember things connected to it – the memory is probably there, it is just inaccessible without some clue. What memories and associations I do have fade much more quickly than do normal memories.
What is most retained are things near transitions. The discussions at the start and end of the session are remembered as are things near other transitions such as rolling over or changing to or from laying down. It may be that the transition stands out and serves as a memory anchor for what happened near the transition. What is retained the least are long sequences of similar things. A few sessions ago X had me in the chair and gave me suggestion after suggestion. I remembered receiving the stream but the particulars of most of the suggestions are lost to me. Similarly, I remember that while face down on the table X was involving me in many things but mostly that time compresses in my memory to a general impression.
An apt analogy is the fading of dreams. Sometimes you wake up from a particularly strong dream with a vivid memory and strong impressions, but unless you write it down you may find that you have forgotten the details of the dream and retain just an impression and maybe a vague theme (like “it was really scary involving a dark cave”). Details of many parts of my hypnotized time are strongest when first awakened and then quickly fade—not as quickly as dreams can fade but they do fade and leave just an impression. It may well be that the forgetfulness of hypnosis and the forgetfulness of dreams is based on the same mental mechanism. Also note that you never wake up and remember two dreams.
B: you said that I looked like I was asleep. Maybe I was – my decision making and planning capabilities were certainly in a deep slumber and my inner dialog was slow, unwilling to think deeply, and at times “knocked out” and replaced only with X’s words, your touches, and my responses to these. However, not many sleeping people are listening to somebody’s words, incorporating attitude changes, and even moving and talking doing and experiencing without question whatever they are told while staying asleep. I am basically a hypnotized sleep walker and it may be that I experience hypnosis as a dream.
Can experiences in dreams affect your attitude, actions, and reactions once awake, perhaps in ways you do not directly realize? I think it is pretty clear that they can and do. Can what you experience when in the dream of deep hypnosis affect your attitude, actions, and reactions once awake? They can and do, perhaps by the same mechanism. A big difference is that regular dreams are sort of the subconscious going wild and following whatever paths it chooses or stumbles upon. In a hypnotic dream my attention is either focused on the hypnotist or focused on whatever she directs and the paths I’m taking are not the random draws from my subconscious but are instead what she is choosing for me.
I am curious if I show REM behavior when under and, if so, at what stages?
Suppose it assisted some goal to have me forget some part of the session or some specific thing? You would have the most chance of my forgetting if you slipped the item into the midst of similar items and the item did not surprise me in a way that made it stand out. An alternative or complimentary approach you could try would be suggesting that I not think about X, that if I started to think about X I’d instead think about Y (chose for “Y” something I’d tend to enjoy thinking about a lot anyway). If I end up not thinking about X for a few days odds are that it will have faded completely and I’d not remember it unless externally prompted by somebody who was there.
You could also encourage forgetfulness by planting suggestions about not needing to remember, not wanting to remember, that remembering spoils the magic, to enjoy forgetting, etc. I do know that right now I’m not bothered by not being able to remember many session details, that not remembering is by itself somewhat relaxing.
Another way to encourage forgetfulness is taking advantage of the lack of clues and associations that would organize the memory. The more separated the trance world is from my normal world, the fewer clues and associations I seem to form. The more "different" the feelings and events I experience in trance are, the less likely I seem to be to wonder upon those memories outside of trance. This makes for an odd hypnotic effect in that the more unusual the hypnotic experience the more likely it is to be forgotten. “Unusual” here does not mean weird or odd, just different in mental perception. A complimentary effect is that the more I’ve complied with the more likely I am to comply with the next suggestion. (Basically, successfully following a suggestion generally puts me deeper -- more I’m told to do the deeper I go.). It may be that this is how stage hypnotists work. I’ve never figured out to the degree that the participants are really hypnotized, how much their hypnosis is affecting their compliance, and if their seeming frequent amnesia is real. To the degree that the behavior is real, it may be because of these two effects working together – the more they do the deeper they are, and the more unusual the things they do the least the memories are associated with they everyday experiences and the more likely the behavior will be forgotten.
It is unclear to me if I could be hypnotically trained to forget on command. It may be that if I get used to forgetting that you could associate that behavior with specific moments of your choice.
I think that it is not so much that things get forgotten but rather that they are disassociated with anything else and thus do not reenter my thoughts. If you asked me about something I’d probably remember it and remember things connected to it – the memory is probably there, it is just inaccessible without some clue. What memories and associations I do have fade much more quickly than do normal memories.
What is most retained are things near transitions. The discussions at the start and end of the session are remembered as are things near other transitions such as rolling over or changing to or from laying down. It may be that the transition stands out and serves as a memory anchor for what happened near the transition. What is retained the least are long sequences of similar things. A few sessions ago X had me in the chair and gave me suggestion after suggestion. I remembered receiving the stream but the particulars of most of the suggestions are lost to me. Similarly, I remember that while face down on the table X was involving me in many things but mostly that time compresses in my memory to a general impression.
An apt analogy is the fading of dreams. Sometimes you wake up from a particularly strong dream with a vivid memory and strong impressions, but unless you write it down you may find that you have forgotten the details of the dream and retain just an impression and maybe a vague theme (like “it was really scary involving a dark cave”). Details of many parts of my hypnotized time are strongest when first awakened and then quickly fade—not as quickly as dreams can fade but they do fade and leave just an impression. It may well be that the forgetfulness of hypnosis and the forgetfulness of dreams is based on the same mental mechanism. Also note that you never wake up and remember two dreams.
B: you said that I looked like I was asleep. Maybe I was – my decision making and planning capabilities were certainly in a deep slumber and my inner dialog was slow, unwilling to think deeply, and at times “knocked out” and replaced only with X’s words, your touches, and my responses to these. However, not many sleeping people are listening to somebody’s words, incorporating attitude changes, and even moving and talking doing and experiencing without question whatever they are told while staying asleep. I am basically a hypnotized sleep walker and it may be that I experience hypnosis as a dream.
Can experiences in dreams affect your attitude, actions, and reactions once awake, perhaps in ways you do not directly realize? I think it is pretty clear that they can and do. Can what you experience when in the dream of deep hypnosis affect your attitude, actions, and reactions once awake? They can and do, perhaps by the same mechanism. A big difference is that regular dreams are sort of the subconscious going wild and following whatever paths it chooses or stumbles upon. In a hypnotic dream my attention is either focused on the hypnotist or focused on whatever she directs and the paths I’m taking are not the random draws from my subconscious but are instead what she is choosing for me.
I am curious if I show REM behavior when under and, if so, at what stages?
Suppose it assisted some goal to have me forget some part of the session or some specific thing? You would have the most chance of my forgetting if you slipped the item into the midst of similar items and the item did not surprise me in a way that made it stand out. An alternative or complimentary approach you could try would be suggesting that I not think about X, that if I started to think about X I’d instead think about Y (chose for “Y” something I’d tend to enjoy thinking about a lot anyway). If I end up not thinking about X for a few days odds are that it will have faded completely and I’d not remember it unless externally prompted by somebody who was there.
You could also encourage forgetfulness by planting suggestions about not needing to remember, not wanting to remember, that remembering spoils the magic, to enjoy forgetting, etc. I do know that right now I’m not bothered by not being able to remember many session details, that not remembering is by itself somewhat relaxing.
Another way to encourage forgetfulness is taking advantage of the lack of clues and associations that would organize the memory. The more separated the trance world is from my normal world, the fewer clues and associations I seem to form. The more "different" the feelings and events I experience in trance are, the less likely I seem to be to wonder upon those memories outside of trance. This makes for an odd hypnotic effect in that the more unusual the hypnotic experience the more likely it is to be forgotten. “Unusual” here does not mean weird or odd, just different in mental perception. A complimentary effect is that the more I’ve complied with the more likely I am to comply with the next suggestion. (Basically, successfully following a suggestion generally puts me deeper -- more I’m told to do the deeper I go.). It may be that this is how stage hypnotists work. I’ve never figured out to the degree that the participants are really hypnotized, how much their hypnosis is affecting their compliance, and if their seeming frequent amnesia is real. To the degree that the behavior is real, it may be because of these two effects working together – the more they do the deeper they are, and the more unusual the things they do the least the memories are associated with they everyday experiences and the more likely the behavior will be forgotten.
It is unclear to me if I could be hypnotically trained to forget on command. It may be that if I get used to forgetting that you could associate that behavior with specific moments of your choice.
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