Results of Suggestibility Tests

Thanks for taking the time to fill out your responses to the suggestibility exercise.
If you've reached this page without doing the exercise, then you can do a suggestibility exercise yourself.

This suggestibility exercise explores the connection between your mind and your body. If you bring an image or an idea to mind, there will be a response in your body. The degree to which you allow yourself to imagine something determines the strength of response. Your mind and body are intimately connected. Imagining the bucket and the balloon is a simple technique used by hypnotherapists to determine how responsive a person is to suggestion. For your purposes though, it’s not as important how much arm movement you had as becoming aware what was easy and what was difficult. We all imagine differently, relying more on one sense and less on another. The purpose of this exercise is to give you more awareness of how your imagination works and what feels comfortable to you.

If, when you opened your eyes, your right hand was higher than your left, then you successfully allowed the suggestions. Your body responded. Congratulate yourself. Imagination may be fairly easy for you. You can use your imagination very effectively as you learn self-hypnosis. Be aware though, if things come too easy for you, you may not discipline yourself. So be sure to keep practicing!

It’s okay if your hands were in the same position at the end as when you started. This response indicates you are in control. You decide what happens in your body. Pay particular attention to what you experienced. Did you feel a lightness or heaviness, but not allow your arms to move? If so, then ask yourself why. You may have had a fear of losing control, or a fear of experiencing something unknown. If you felt some fear, or just a little resistance, remind yourself that allowing the responses and sensations in your body is okay. You aren’t losing control when you allow things to happen. You are shifting control to a different part of your being, to your subconscious, much like when you go to sleep each night. Remember, you can always maintain conscious control when you need to. In fact, I sometimes recommend to people who have an easy response to this exercise to resist the suggestions and keep their arms rigid. By consciously resisting, they build a sense of self-control. In this way, you can also teach yourself how to say “No” in a healthy way. Knowing how to say “No,” allows you to say “Yes” more clearly when you want to.

If your hands didn’t move, you may have been expecting something ‘else’ to come in and take over. You may have felt that by allowing your hands to move you would have interfered with what was supposed to happen. Sometimes you will feel the subconscious actually moving your body without your conscious control, like when you are very tired and you can’t keep your eyes open. More often though, the movements of the subconscious are more subtle. Within the context of this exercise, you can allow the arms to move when they start to feel heavy. Letting go is partly conscious and partly not. Even if you think you are consciously involved in the movement of the arms, you can allow it to happen. You send a message to your subconscious how you are willing to work with it.

If your hands didn’t move and you didn’t feel any difference between the arms, you may have some resistance to using your imagination. Perhaps you thought the exercise was stupid or silly. You may even have heard a voice in your head telling you so. If so, then you might want to reconsider imagination and what value it has for you. Remember how imagining a safe place had a very real effect for patients undergoing surgery. Also, your ability to imagine allows you to try on things in your mind before doing them in reality. We all use our imagination in many, many ways, every single day. Inventors use imagination to come up with new ideas. Athletes use imagination to ‘see’ the right move or action before they do it. You already use your imagination to get a sense of the right food to eat at a meal, to rehearse a conversation you are going to have with a loved one, or to figure out the best route to drive to a store.

In hypnosis, imagination opens a connection to the subconscious. You may not consciously know how to slow your heart rate. There is no dial to turn, but imagining a dial in your imagination, and slowing turning it, can slow your heart rate. Imagining a pleasant scene on a beach can generate the same result. Imagining a safe place can lessen the pain you’re experiencing. If you had difficulty imagining the bucket or the balloon, your beliefs about imagination may be getting in your way. Tell yourself imagination is okay and can have real, tangible results. If you couldn’t see the bucket, the water, or the balloon, you may not be a visual thinker. Focus on the senses that you can easily imagine.
If your arms didn’t move, or moved very little, I’d like you to repeat this exercise. Tell yourself it’s okay to allow the feelings and responses to happen and remind yourself you are always in control. Remember it’s okay to use your imagination and your subconscious will work with you. (No matter what results you had, you may want to repeat this exercise -- you can learn more about yourself!)

If your left hand was higher than the right, you may be resisting the suggestions more actively. You may want to reassess your fears or concerns about control. Reread my comments addressing the common fears about hypnosis on page X. Having a reverse response also indicates you are susceptible to suggestion, but you need to control how it happens. The fact that your hands did move is important. You can control the connection between your mind and your body and create a physical response.

Sometimes people hold their arms rigid because the feeling of the movement is a little scary or startling when it happens. If you are actively imagining and suddenly feel the arm move by itself, you may be surprised. The movement may be your first conscious awareness of an subconscious process happening. Remind yourself that it’s okay, and you’re developing a relationship to your subconscious. Can you remember the feeling of getting hungry? You can feel a very strong sensation in your stomach. This sensation is entirely controlled by subconscious processes. Since you’re used to the feeling, you consider hunger normal. In self-hypnosis, you will cultivate subconscious responses. As with hunger, there will often be meaning to these movements when they happen. It can be a delightful experience when the subconscious ‘guides’ us in unexpected ways.

Patrick Marsolek is available for private hypnotherapy sessions via telephone.

Call 406-443-3439 or e-mail for more information.