Igor: So now onto something completely different, that’s what Monty Python liked to say. Let’s have a little talk about memory shall we?
All: Yes.
Igor: We all know what a memory is, we all have recollections don’t we? And you of course all realize that hypnosis can allow you to augment your memory in different ways. As far as hypnosis is concerned there are three different levels of intensity I would like to invite you to think about when it comes to memory and this is specifically oh you know what, let’s get some other things here…this is specifically in relation to hypnosis as a method for using memory, right? So whatever your regular memory is that’s fine.
Three Types of Hypnotic Memory 1. Hypermnesia
Then we have something called hypermnesia. Hypermnesia is basically the ability to recall something particularly clearly, better than you’d normally recall it when you have your normal memory process active. This is classically the level at which something like forensic hypnosis would work, right, and depending on what country you’re in, or some countries will allow forensic hypnosis in terms of legal cases some won’t. It doesn’t matter, the point is this is primarily the level that they will engage in for that. It’s just getting more information.
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CHPH 2.0 ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved 2. RevivificationThe next step is revivification. You’ve all done a revivification haven’t you? Brought an experience back to life, so the difference between hypermnesia and revivification is that in revivification, you are not so concerned about the content, the information in the memory, but the experience of it. They get to relive it to some degree.
3. Regression
Finally we have a regression. And what is a regression? A regression is when you are so in that experience of the past that you literally forget there is any future after – that came afterwards for that moment in time. They are in that moment in time completely and this form of reality has disappeared for a while. Does it make sense?
Q: Can you explain that with an example.
Igor: Sure let me put it this way to you, it makes a little easier. In the classical text on hypnosis, if you go reading around the subject, which I encourage you to do by the way, they will present these three topics, these three ideas as being separate phenomenon in hypnosis. They are different things because of the experience of them. However, I’m going to encourage you to think of it as a continuum.
You start off with regular memory up here somewhere. When you intensify regular memory it becomes very clear, but you don’t necessarily feel anything about it, right? You just know it happened, but there is not necessarily an emotion attached. So at that point you get to hypermnesia. When you start becoming more and more involved in that very clear memory it begins to come to life more and more for you. You start feeling things. You start dropping yourself in it. You know like when you have one of these really intense day dreams where you go back to some time and you are really reliving it. That’s a classic revivification.
Now if the person is so consumed by that re-experiencing of the memory that they begin to forget where they are currently physically, how old they are currently physically and all the history that they have experienced after that particular memory, so they feel as old, act as old, think as old as that memory
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CHPH 2.0 ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved was. Now you have a classic regression. See how that works. So the classic regression you’ll see people talking like a child. You will have them moving and behaving like a child, if it’s of course a childhood, because that’s where – that’s the intensity with which they have revivified that particular experience, that particular memory. Make sense now? Has that helped a little bit more?Q: Oh yeah very much so.
Igor: Okay, now bear in mind that in the classic literature they will not say this. They will say this is a different phenomenon. Now you have all probably heard about the idea of doing regression work as the hypnotherapist, yes? Once again a lot of schools when they do the regression hypnotherapy will tell you that you need to have a regression, it’s got to be a proper regression and so on, but when they actually demonstrate their regression work, do you know what they are primarily are demonstrating? A revivification. As far as therapeutic work goes, all you need is something from revivification onwards. A mild revivification is enough and that make sense doesn’t it. Think about the PCAT Formula, what's the first step? The parameters, the problem, you have to activate the neural network don’t you? In hypermnesia it’s not really active. You have access to the information but you are not really feeling anything there. Do you see how that works? That’s why it’s like looking through the window at the room with a problem in it, but if you throw paint at the window, does it stick to any part of the room?
No, on a revivification on the other hand, you get to pop your head through the door and look around. Now you can start splashing paint around. In a regression you not only enter the room, but you close and lock the door and bar the windows, now you are in the room and of course the same applies there, you throw the paint around in here, it still sticks to the right places. Do you see how that works?
Makes your life tremendously easier because getting a revivification is quite easy isn’t it? You have pretty much all done it haven’t you? And I will show in time how to set up your therapy practice so that if ever you have to do a regression it will be so easy to do, I mean so easy to do, it will actually be harder to keep the client out of the regression than to put them into it. Would you like to know how to do that?
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CHPH 2.0 ©Street Hypnosis All Rights Reserved All: Yes.Igor: Better stick around. So do you understand this idea in terms of how memory works in general as processes yes?