Dream or Reality?

SIMPLIFIED VERSION

MOVIE REVIEW:

11-8-2010

I think ‘Inception’ could be one of the “best references books” for us to understand the impact of our deepest internal world – the sub-consciousness and its effect on our life.

In the film, we hear repetitively the classic hypnosis trance scripts or typical hypnotic language. Using these techniques, one can become more persuasive and empower others to expand his awareness, “implant” new ideas on him and even change his beliefs and value systems, thus changing a person’s personality and mindset. This powerful effect is typified in Fischer and Mal’s cases in the film.

Although the audience was bombarded by INCEPTION”s overwhelmingly abundant information, actions, suspicions plus its intensely creative plots, I am impressed by the message of the film delivered without any confusion:

For some people, Dream is reality and reality is dream (like in Chinese: life is a dream.) They take their dream seriously. Ironic!

The film reveals a fact that in our subconscious world, reality is the same as fantasy, imagination and hallucination. One can't tell reality and dream apart. To manipulate this phenomenon positively, one can hypnotize/implant positive ideas into subconscious mind which is similar to a child with age around 7 or 8 in terms of thinking system. This will affect one’s behavior and emotions profoundly and beneficially. Conversely, the implantation of negative ideas no matter consciously or unconsciously may ruin a person’s life. An example is Mal, Cobb’s wife who jumps from a height to find her destiny because of an idea implanted by her husband Cobb. Chilling and horrid!

Studies found that the human thinking system is full of self perceptions and imagination, thus, it can be changed if perception and imagination are changed, so can personality. This can be done through self hypnosis or external hypnosis, in which a human’s conscious and subconsciously mind are both active, except his critical faculty. In the film, the change takes place during deep dreams when the conscious mind is sleeping. I have to say that this is exaggerating, but the idea is thought provoking.

This film challenges a viewer’s boundary to extremes time and again. While I don’t believe anyone can invade into one’s dream, I like the most honest esp. the wildest imagination in the film. That’s the fantasy of the movie.

Why do I say so? I was shocked to find that many scenes in the film coincidentally appear in my recurring dreams - a bridge or a mountain trial or road collapsing out of blue, leaving me trapped or stuck in darkness or on the edge of a cliff; flying weightlessly in zero gravity; a magnificent city emerging from the ground or floating in the sky; a dream within a dream and within another dream …

I believe this is not only the case with me. The film has received exceptional high box-office globally, showing that that dream scenes in INCEPTION may have become a collective memory in a human’s twisting dreaming world during sleep and thus striking a chord with its audience.

Beliefs and ideas are like a strong parasite. Once it is implanted into our subconscious mind, it will grow and eventually rule our conscious mind, determining our life and destiny. Thoughts become things. So be careful of any thoughts or ideals fed into your mind no matter if consciously or unconsciously.

That is why critical thinking is crucial.

Here the director Christopher Nolan talks about his film:

The crucial breakthrough to completing his “Inception” script was considering what could happen if multiple people could share the same dream. “Once you remove the privacy,” Mr. Nolan said, “you’ve created an infinite number of alternative universes in which people can meaningfully interact, with validity, with weight, with dramatic consequences.”

“The potential of the human mind is infinite. It has to feel like you could go absolutely anywhere by the end of the film…”

Inception was the most breathtaking film I have ever seen. You know what, it is a film that I want to see again the first time for its constantly challenging audience’s boundary of imagination; for its ingenuousness and thought-provoking element and more…

How to apply Meta-program to build a better personality?

Date: 18-8-2010

Reflection on NLP courses by Christ Howard Team

Part 6: How to apply Meta-program to build a better personality?

ENNEAGRAM is a modeling of characters in which, nine types of characters are found based on the way how a person makes them fulfilled.( In this system, I am rather a helper and peacemaker.)

Similarly, meta-program is to analyze the tendency of a person’s thinking and behavior based on the mindset, beliefs and values and all internal filters. In this system, I’m in the middle or bias a bit to one side but not extreme except I am IN TIME person most of the time.

In the ancient theory – ENNEAGRAM, a person’s character is more or less determined by birth and inherent, meta-program is more flexible and content/context oriented. In different case, a person can have a different meta-pattern or tendency to think or behave. As they are building blocks of Personality, they are able to improve or alter from environment to environment in this sense intentionally.

To improve personality, we need to understand the strengths and weaknesses in each category of a person’s meta-programs:

In the Principle meta-program, a sensor person is a doer; he will experience first rather just think or imagine what will happen; they like to go to details, while an intuitor prefer to perceive the possibilities, the relationships and meanings of experiences and tends to see things in outline. A mixture will be more completed to be a person with a better personality.

In terms of thinking and feeling, a thinker tends to think objectively, impersonally and to consider causes and events that leads to decision because they are able to dissociate themselves from an event. They will consider causes and consequence of an event. Feelers are associated and tend to look through their own eyes and make judgments personally and subjectively. They usually weigh the value of choices based on their past and on how these values matter to others.

The overuse of dissociation will cause a lack of empathy, "inability" to connect well in relationships, limited awareness of one's own emotions, or a loss of joy and passion for life. However, overuse of association may not able to manage in work under pressure and stress.

The overuse of association will tends to lead a person gets "stuck" in a perceptual position which is unpleasant, painful, inappropriate, confused, or in some other way negative. People with strong skills in associating, but relatively weak skills in disassociating, may be more likely to use external substances, ritualized behaviors or excessive means to help them disassociate from their experience -- rather than internal skills in moving between perceptual positions.

A judger wants to run his own life and prefers to live in a decisive, planned and orderly way. They aim to control and regulate events. A perceiver wants to let his life happen and will prefer to live life in a spontaneous, flexible way. They aim to understand life and adapt to it. The former judge time seriously and the later tend to be unpunctual.



In the secondary meta-programs, regarding motivation filter, a toward person tends to be motivated by rewards, praise, positive feedback and future goals. An 'Away from' person is motivated more by threats, fear of failure, or avoiding negative possibilities.

The brighter side of toward type is they are very initiative and positive. But their goals may be not realistic and their motivation will be affected by the unwanted details and results and give up eventually. It can lead a person to make decisions potentially risky, not perceiving or recognizing pitfalls and obstacles which could prevent a goal from being reached


The away person has no big goals usually, sees things with negative filters and keep negative memory more than positive, despite the fact that many good things did occur. Likewise, they may come to expect negative events to occur in the future.


An ideal meta-programmed person should be balanced between the two extreme personalities. This is proved by many successful and generally happy people. In short, “Dream for the best, be prepared for the worst." Be optimistic and realistic, down to the earth and focusing on goals that are reachable but can also big.

So, how to change to be a better programmed person or to be with an ideal personality?

To take ecological check on your old personality and determine what the desirable personality you want. Aim the target and put in into action.

Be an action taker because successful people are all action takers.

To me, the biggest issue is taking action...



Reference: http://www.nlpls.com/articles/metaPrograms.php
Picture: http://www.philippinesalawikain.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/personality11.bmp

Life is a long term hypnotic journey

Reflection on NLP courses by Christ Howard Team

16 August, 2010

Part 5: Life is a long term hypnotic journey

Reflection on NLP courses by Christ Howard Team

16 August, 2010

Part 5: Life is a long term hypnotic journey

The advanced course last for another five days from 9 a.m. to evening and was completed last night. The superbly intensive course was an eye-opening event and heart searching journey. An enlightenment and life experience!

I was overwhelmed by the profound information, concepts and teachings that will take me life time to digest and practice.

In this higher level course, we need to solve value issue – a system shapes and determines behavior in a personal, business and social context.

Value is simply what is important to a person. It is a projection of a set of internal Filters that determine an individual’s Model of the World. We learnt the sources of values, how to elicit, align and change them for self, others and organizations.

In a demonstration during leaning the skills of value elicitation and awareness expansion, a classmate's value system changed from most away to 70% toward direction to his goal - he put profit to the last and leadership to the first and salesmanship to the second. An upside down change! He turned out to be more realistic, more accountable and process-enjoyable guy rather than wishful thinker. Amazing transformation!

One of my favorable parts is Masterful Hypnosis - a part has been fascinated to me for a long time.

In the initial practice, I was skeptical about hypnotic power and a deep trance I could fall, though I have come to the point that we are creature of hypnosis and hypnosis exists everywhere around us. I was spellbound to see for myself that it worked! Hypnosis is achievable for everyone!! It just needs a bit imagination plus trust to the coach and to your own unconsciousness.

For instance, a lady suffering from a severe neck, back pain thus excruciating head pain has been hypnotized for about 15 minutes. Immediately after the process, her pains from head to back reduced from degree 70 to zero according to her. She knows the pains there but they don't bother her any more as the painful areas have been numbed;

I myself was amazed to see I could talk to audience without stage fright after seconds of concentration of my mind. Soon I was completed engaged in my talk and enjoyed the process that I would be scared before. Despite the fact that the talk only last 4 minutes, I wonder that everyone has the potential to become a speaker, when observing all speakers' exciting gestures and faces! Unbelievable!

I realized that if I believe in my own subconscious mind and imagination, I will get into trance and create empowering neurological change at the unconscious level. That’s because the critical faculty is removed at this moment and positive thinking, suggestions and your desired values, behaviors and ideas can go straight into unconscious mind, resulting in performance change or enhancement substantially.

Hypnosis is also popularly applied in pain control, refreshment and focus and emotional control:

Sensations of pain can be also eliminated and relaxation is shifted and congruency between body and mind can be developed.


From the course and Peter real life experiences, the truth in my mind has been cemented that happiness, reality, problems and solutions are all a state of mind and imagination.

It is your choice to decide what you want to attain and to be:

Let's remember Neville's theories about reality and future:

Man believes that reality resides in the solid objects he sees around him, that it is in the world that the drama of life originates, that events spring suddenly into existence, created moment by moment out of antecedent physical facts. But causation does not lie in the external world of facts. The drama of life originates in the imagination of man. The real act of becoming takes place within man's imagination and not without.


The future will not be fundamentally different from the imaginal activities of man; therefore the individual who can summon at will whatever imaginal activity he pleases, and to whom the visions of his imagination as real as the forms of nature, is master of his fate.

The course has expanded our awareness in terms of critically, positively thinking; shown how dreams can turned to reality in a strategically, smartly way and how life can be controlled by self instead by events or fate.

Picture source: http://media.readersdigest.com.au/dynamic/02/03/66/happy-istock.jpg

INCEPTION V.S. NLP Theories

Film Review:

9-8-2010

Film Review:


9-8-2010

I think ‘Inception’ could be one of the “best references” for us to learn Neurological Linguistic Patterns (NLP) and hypnosis theories. It helps me to understand the impact of our deepest internal world – the sub-consciousness effect on our life.

In the film, we can hear repetitively Erickson’s classic hypnosis trance scripts or typical hypnotic language; it vividly features the elements of NLP theories like chunking, reframing and spin patterns. By using these techniques, one can become more persuasive and empower others to expand awareness and “implant” new ideas and even change their beliefs and value systems, thus changing a person’s personality, emotions, behavior and results in life. This powerful effect is typified in Fischer and Mal’s cases in the film.

Although the audience was bombarded by INCEPTION”s overwhelmingly abundant information, actions and suspicions, its intensely creative plots, it was the most breathtaking film I have ever seen. I am impressed by the message of the film delivered without any confusion:

For some people, Dream is reality and reality is dream (like in Chinese: life is a dream.) So they treat their dream more seriously. Ironic!

The film reveals a fact that in our subconscious world, reality and fantasy, imagination and hallucination are the same thing. One cannot distinguish reality from dreams. To manipulate this phenomenon positively, one can hypnotize positive ideas into subconscious mind which is similar to a child with age around 7 or 8 in terms of thinking. This will affect one’s behavior and emotions profoundly and beneficially. Conversely, negative ideas can ruin a person’s life. An example is Mal, Cobb’s wife who jumps from a height to find her destiny, an idea implanted by her husband Cobb. Chilling and horrid!

We learn from NLP that the human thinking system is full of self perceptions and imagination, thus, it can be changed if perception and imagination are changed, and so can personality. This can be done through self hypnosis or external hypnosis, in which a human’s conscious and subconsciously mind are both active, except the critical faculty. In the film, the change takes place during deep dreams when the conscious mind is sleeping. I have to say that this is exaggerating, but the idea is in alignment with NLP.

This film challenges a viewer’s boundary to extremes again and again. While I don’t believe anyone can invade into one’s dream, I like the most honest and wildest imagination in the film. That’s the core fantasy of the movie.

Why do I say so? I was shocked to find that many scenes in the film coincidently appear in my recurring dreams - a bridge or a road or a mountain trail is break into two pieces or pieces out of blue, leaving me trapped or stuck in an unknown darkness or on the edge of a cliff; flying in a free gravity system and a magnificent city emerging from the ground or floating in the sky; a dream within a dream and within another dream …

I believe this is not only the case with me. The film has received exceptional high box-office globally, showing that dream scenes in INCEPTION may have become a collective memory in a human’s twisting dreaming world during sleep.

Beliefs and ideas are like a strong parasite. Once it is implanted into our subconscious mind, it will grow and eventually rule our conscious mind, determining our life and destiny. Thoughts become things. So be careful when you are absorbing any thoughts or ‘being invaded’ by ideas from any sources…

That is why critical thinking is crucial.

Here the director Christopher Nolan talks about his film:

The crucial breakthrough to completing his “Inception” script was considering what could happen if multiple people could share the same dream. “Once you remove the privacy,” Mr. Nolan said, “you’ve created an infinite number of alternative universes in which people can meaningfully interact, with validity, with weight, with dramatic consequences.”

“The potential of the human mind is infinite. It has to feel like you could go absolutely anywhere by the end of the film…”

Inception is a film that I want to see again for its constantly challenging audience’s boundary of imagination, for its ingenuousness and provoking element, and more…

DONNA

Types of Hypnosis practice in our NLP course

Reflection on NLP courses by Christ Howard Team


Date: 10-8-2010

Part 5: Types of Hypnosis practice in our NLP course

During hypnotic stage, the hypnotized person is returned to their imprint period with age 7 to 9 without critical faculty. However, both conscious and unconscious minds are still active. The person can hear what the hypnotist is saying to them and follow instructions during a trance if firstly they trust the hypnotist and their own intention and learn how to fall into trance. This can be built up only until a good rapport is established between the two parties.

Purposes and application of hypnosis have extended from relaxation and gaining a calm, peaceful mind to healing pains both physically and psychologically. In addition, in management and self development, old mindsets will be erased and new attitudes, beliefs or values will be installed. And then one can deeply embed suggestions for performance enhancement.

How to create a good rapport?

According to Mr Dave Elman, “pre-talk” is the first step to release many people’s fears or misconceptions about what hypnosis is. In the pre-talk, your client will be assured that they are controlling themselves all the times. You can get them trusted to what you will instruct them to do later then. The subject must be agreed with the hypnotized person’s intention and a safety feeling should be secured by both.

In the test of opening eyes during trance, the client’s will find it is hard to open their eyes even trying and struggling to, during this moment, the critical faculty is removed if the trance is continue to going deeper.

We have tried Ericksdonian Hypnotic communication, his patterns of hypnotic language in part 1 of the NLP courses.

We will soon practice Hypnosis induction by Dave Elman, Induction with Convincers by George Estabrooks and rapid induction together with pain relief skill.

I can’t wait for the new course to start. It is a magic but it can be learnt and mastered by anyone to help them to build up their dreams. Dreams with reality not fantasy. That is the mystery I want to know soon.

Further reading:

1. ^ a b "Explorations in Hypnosis. By Dave Elman". Google book search. http://books.google.co.za/books?id=jKISAAAACAAJ. Retrieved 2008-11-14.

2. ^ a b "Hypnotherapy by Dave Elman". WorldCat. http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=isbn%3A0930298047
3. ^ Dave Elman. Westwood Publishing[specify][unreliable source?]

4. ^ Elman, Dave. "Findings in Hypnosis"[page needed]

5. Ericksonian Hypnotherapy ISBN 978-184590121-9