Hemi-Sync® Journal 1990-4 (Fall)

series, with each exercise being used three or four times. During this pilot, Mr. Sornson hopes to identify any “bugs” to be worked out in the series. After appropriate changes are made in the Teen Tapes, a more formal study will be initiated. So far, he explained, most of the feedback he has received from educators participating in the pilot has been very positive but lacking in critical comment. --- PAGE 9 (OCR) --- Fall 1990 A community-based training facility dedicated to teaching work skills to kids with IQs of thirty to fifty has been using the Teen Tapes. The facility's goal is to insure that as many of their students as possible will be employable as adults, Generally, about three or four graduates of the facility per year are ready to move on to voca- tional training programs, After exposing the kids to the tapes three times a week over three months, fifteen children were ready to at- tend vocational training. Two or three children in a day treatment program as an alternative to institutionalization have been intro- duced to the Teen Tapes. Reports indicate that they are progressing academically as a result. A fourteen-year-old blind child is using the tapes to cope successfully with his impairment. Another fourteen- year-old with a history of mental illness and institutional: able, for the first time, to recognize her need for help before reach- ing a crisis point. The tapes have been credited with precipitating this change. Students using them within the athletic department have shown improvement in sports and academic performance. An interesting by-product of the study with children has been the response of educators to the teacher tapes. One previously dys- functional teacher with a negative attitude is now operating a func- tional classroom and seeing progress. Her outlook and performance have improved considerably. The challenges ahead, suggested Mr. Sornson, will be to: 1) manage the bureaucratic obstacles to getting Hemi-Sync into school curricula; and, 2) develop educational products which can have an immediate impact. Approaching the students is easy, he said. “You just lay it out real simply and give kids a choi a @ HYPNOSIS, HEMI-SYNC, AND HOW THE MIND WORKS by Robert Rosenthal, M.D. Bob Rosenthal, a board-certified psychiatrist in private practice in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, subspecializes in the treatment of chronic pain and chronic medical illness. He holds the rank of clinical assistant professor in psychiatry at Hahnemann University, where he teaches a course on hypnosis to psychiatry residents. “What is hypnosis, what are the differences and similarities be- tween hypnosis and Hemi-Syne, and what do they tell us about how the mind works?” These questions posed by Dr. Rosenthal are also frequently asked by Hemi-Syne users. Using clinical and research data, he reviewed basic precepts in the theoretical and practical uses of hypnosis, a variety of physical and psychological conditions associated with hypnosis, and the corresponding contributions of Hemi-Syne. Dr. Rosenthal’s background includes teaching hypnosis, and ve clinical and personal experience with altered states of consciousness. He has specialized in the areas of “affect theory,” and multiple personality and disassociative disorders, and currently focuses on chronic illness, the psychological aspects of pain, and psychosomatics. His spiritual path is the “gel” that holds this all together. “Hypnosis probably has as many definitions as there are re- searchers studying it,” said Dr. Rosenthal. Quotations from two highly respected researchers in the field illustrate the diversity. One says “Hypnosis is] an altered state in which the subject loses will- ingness and initiative to respond independently. Planning functions are turned over to the hypnotist, attention is redistributed, and per- ception is made selective according to the hypnotist’s demands. Fantasy production increases and there may be an increase in suggestibility.” Another expert defines hypnosis as “... the ability to respond to suggestions with distortions of perception, mood, or memory.” Is hypnosis an altered state or a state of suggestibility? According to Dr. Rosenthal, most clinicians would agree that hypnosis involves an altered state of consciousness, called “trance.” Suggestibility is a result of this altered, or trance, state that allows the subject to suspend the usual critical judgments about reality. Researchers have dealt with the trance state by developing hypnotizability scales. Academic studies indicate that about twenty percent of the population is highly hypnotizable, ten percent are unhypnotizable, and the remainder fall between these extremes. Clinical hypnotists, working with highly motivated clients rather than volunteer test subjects, generally see a greater degree of hypnotizability across the population. Considering the question “What is hypnosis from the subject's point of view?," he drew from the work of Charles Tart the description of a subject's trance experience, including feelings of: physical relaxation; blackness; peacefulness; diminished awareness of the immediate environment; diminished sense of identity; an increased potentiality to become anything or anyone; feeling that the experiences are “somehow timeless"; sense of oneness with the universe; diminution of mental activity; and breathing growing deeper and gradually becoming almost imperceptible. “From the subjective point of view,” said Dr. Rosenthal, “I don’t think there’s much question that we're probably talking about a very similar state to [that which] Hemi-Sync induces . . . However,” he continued, “Hemi-Sync is probably more controlled . . . because we know what we're plugging into the system.” Referring to the subjective trance experience described above, ked, “How do we get there in hypnosis as opposed to Hemi- Hypnotic induction, through a variety of techniques, paces and leads a subject from an awake and alert state into a trance state. Pacing focuses the subject on something in his/her immediate e: perience that is probably below the threshold of conscious aware- ness, such as the feeling present in the left foot. Then, the hypnotist leads the subject to notice something which was probably not in his/her immediate experience, such as “how comfortable and re- laxed” the feeling is. Thus, pairing the pacing with leading and us- ing “deepening” procedures, the subject moves into a trance state, A state of consciousness may be defined as “a distinct context for processing, encoding, organizing, and retrieving events from memory.” Studies show that memory is state dependent. That information stored in the memory while one is in a particular state can only be accessed when one reenters that same state. This is the basis for state-dependent learning. Further, “ . any powerful emotion will define, induce, and create a state of its own.” Stimulation of the same emotion can therefore trigger a re-creation of the associated state, sometimes causing a “flashback.” One may not even be aware that s/he has changed states. Studies of multiple personality disorder, for instance, indicate that the individual changes state, or personality, instantly and without awareness of the change. Hypnotic induction, as a transition, draws attention to the state change. Relative to states and state-dependent learning is the concept of “conditioning.” Conditioning, also called “anchoring” in Neuro- linguistic Programming, uses techniques, or cues, to activate a he --- PAGE 10 (OCR) --- HEMI-SYNC JOURNAL state, or retrieve stored information instantly. Hemi-Syne tape “encodings” and affirmations are examples of conditioning. Pacing and leading can be viewed as correlates to the Hemi-Sync entrainment process. Hypnosis operates prim: t the behavioral level, and Hemi-Syne operates at a neurochemical level. “You can already see,” said Dr. Rosenthal, “that Hemi-Syne would most likely be highly useful in working with hypnosis and in enhancing hypnotizability.” Hypnotic induction, he summarized, “is a gradual transition, paced externally (by the hypnotist), that leads to a state change that the subject can perceive as such . and, because it can be perceived, is capable of being brought under conscious control.” Enhancements to hypnotizability also include: all drugs, sensory deprivation, and biofeedback, which help one learn to break through barriers between consciousness states more easily. Similarities between Hemi-Sync and hypnosis continue with the experience of “clicking out.” This term is at TMI to de- scribe a period of time during a Hemi-Syne exercise of which the subject has no conscious memory. “The boundary between states is so significant,” explained Dr. Rosenthal, “that on returning to wak- ing consciousness you cannot retrieve that memory.” The memory is state dependent. However, after repeatedly moving between states, familiarity is gained and the boundary is more easily breached, allowing memories to be “brought across” and in- corporated into one’s sense of self. Other similarities include falling asleep, time distortion, enhanced imagery, access to affect (or emo- tion), and enhanced concentration and learning. Why is Hemi-Sync-induced or a hypnosis-induced trance use- ful? For one thing, it feels good. Dr. Rosenthal suggested, at the bedrock level, the utility of these states lies in their aid to spiritual growth and consciousness development. Another tremendous area of usefulness in identifying information locked in the un- ... the utility of these states lies in their aid to spiritual growth and consciousness development. conscious and resulting in inappropriate state-dependent behaviors. Phobias and stress disorders are examples of such behaviors. They are very difficult to deal with at the conscious level because of the fear accompanying the initial trauma. Hemi-Sync and hypnosis al- low individuals to access the states, without fear, in which the memory of the primary trauma is stored. Once accessed, both the conscious and unconscious can reorganize the information, freeing the individual from the automatic behavior. Physical symptoms, especially chronic symptoms, are frequent- ly related to statebound trauma. State-dependent symptoms can be seen in cases of multiple personality disorder where subjects are medically diagnosed as having a condition which is exclusive to only one particular subpersonality. Also, somatic memory, in which the body responds to the memory of a traumatic event by re- creating the physical reaction, is exemplified by phenomena such as stigmata. These data stimulate a way of thinking about physical symptoms and their connection to psychological processes, said Dr. Rosenthal, “that I like to think will change the shape of medicine within the next ten or fifteen years.” Hemi-Sync trance becomes a neutral state from which one can gain access to an experience locked in a physical symptom. With chronic pain, one can use trance to put the pain into an unconscious state and effectively block it from the consciousness, providing the pain does not have some deeper psychological mean- ing associated with it. he ability to move comfortably, fluidly, between these differ- ent states that we've been gifted with to experience human con- sciousness,” Dr. Rosenthal concluded, “becomes optimal health.” _, iC) STUDYING HEMI-SYNC EFFECTS ON ANIMALS by Helene N. Guttman, Ph.D. Now employed as the animal care c Agricultural Research Service with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and active in various metaphysical pur- suits, Helene Guttman has a diverse education, with each advanced degree in a different scientific field. She has pub- lished extensively in various biomedical areas. Her publica- ions include several on brain peptides that influence be- havior. Does Hemi-Syne affect animal behavior? Can nonhumans benefit psychoemotionally from it? There is a long anecdotal history