Mind Control and Distraction: Mind Control Techniques for a Lifetime

Chapter 26 Imagination is the beginning of success (1)
To do something, you must have imagination.You have to see the whole picture of success in a hallucination, in a dream.
-
charles schwab
The magical effect of imagination

In most cases, imagination plays a much more important role in our lives than real facts.Here is a little story to prove my point:

Parker is an unmarried man with a stable job. He shuts himself at home every day after get off work and never goes out.Don't go to any parties on weekends.He's in his 40s and has tried a lot of jobs, but none of them lasted long.He is used to being self-closing, so in his spare time he always feels lonely and empty.The reason for this is that his nostrils look larger than others, and he thinks that he is always ugly and funny in the eyes of others.So he began to imagine that during the day at work, those he talked to might turn around and laugh at him, saying his nose looked ugly and weird.His imagination grew stronger and stronger, as if this was really the case.So he chose to keep a distance from others as much as possible, afraid of being ridiculed by others, afraid of going out, and not interacting with anyone.Even being alone on holidays is full of anxiety, and he even feels ashamed of how he looks.

But in fact, his facial defects are not serious.His nose shape is genetic, and while it looks a bit large, it certainly won't be the center of attention.But having said that, even if people notice it, this is not a shortcoming.But Parker lived in endless melancholy because of this, so he thought of plastic surgery.But I told him it didn't need surgery at all.All these bad moods caused by the nose actually come from my own imagination.His imagination destroys the self-image, so he cannot see the whole of things.In fact, the shape of his eyes and lips is almost perfect, he is not ugly at all, and no one will make fun of him for the slightest blemish in his appearance.The poor chap had put himself in a miserable situation because of his bad imaginations, which had become so powerful that they took over his automatic success mechanism.His failure mechanism starts to work and play out, and life is also plunged into endless misfortune.Later, with the help of his family, he began to gradually understand that he was in the current predicament because of the constraints of his imagination. He tried to restart the automatic success mechanism and use creative imagination to reshape his self-image.See, Parker is such a prime example.What he needs is not to correct his physical defects, but to correct his imagination and thereby change his self-image.I believe that many people have had similar experiences to Parker, not just a small flaw in appearance, sometimes a little stain on the coat will make you fall into endless shame, worrying that others will laugh at you, ridicule yourself, and then Reject people thousands of miles away.But these worries and anxieties are imaginary, and they prevent your automatic success mechanisms from functioning properly.

As we discussed earlier, creative thinking is not something that only poets, writers, inventors, and designers have. It exists in the brains of each of us, and it will come quietly in every little thing.Imagination can paint us a picture of success so that we can hand it over to our automatic success mechanisms.Usually we can or cannot do something, not because of weak will or lack of experience, as people say, but because of whether the picture of success painted by imagination is reasonable and objective.Any attempt, practice, or feeling is carried out according to our own imagination, and we have full confidence in these imaginations.But you cannot avoid or go beyond this imagination for a period of time.For example, we want to analyze it from the beginning, think about it, see that it does not match reality, and then change it, but this kind of imagination is too powerful to do it at all, because we firmly believe that our imagination comes from reality.This is the law of our minds, and that is why we are what we are.When we see this law of thinking vividly verified on a subject under the effect of hypnotism, we often think: there must be some mysterious supernatural power at work, or regard it as some kind of illusion and reject it. admit.In fact, what we witness from time to time in our daily lives is a normal functioning process of the human brain and nervous system.

For example, if the hypnotist tells a hypnotized person that she is at the North Pole at this time.Then she not only shivered from the cold and looked shivering, but her body reacted as if she was really cold, and many goose bumps would appear on her skin.The same phenomenon was demonstrated with waking college students: they were asked to imagine that one of their hands was submerged in ice water, holding a thermometer, and the thermometer readings showed that the temperature of the submerged hand was dropping.For another example, if you tell a hypnotized person that your finger is a red-hot iron rod, then he will not only show a painful expression and distort his facial features when he touches your hand, but his heart The blood vessels and lymphatic system react as if your finger is really a hot and red iron rod, and the skin will also become inflamed and even produce small blisters.In one demonstration, experimenters asked several waking college students to imagine a small patch of their foreheads burning, and recorded thermometer readings showed that their skin temperature had actually risen.

If these basic experiments are further extended, it is a very cruel game popular among children.Students like to pull similar jokes at school, and sometimes even adults pull on the same pranks at work.In this type of prank, a group of people will surround someone in private, and one by one, they will press forward and talk to the target, asking "Tom, you are not feeling well, are you?" Very pale, really." "Tom, are you feeling better now?" It didn't take long for poor "Target" Tom to run to the public restroom and look in the mirror to see if there was really something wrong with him.It won't be long before Tom will feel chest tightness, shortness of breath, and fatigue. He may even be so sick that he has to lie in bed or take leave to go home to recuperate.

Your brain and nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a "real" experience, but only a modest, necessary response to what you "think" or "imagine" as real.This phenomenon, which can be used as a joke in reality or performed by hypnotists on TV programs, is actually exactly the same as the process that dominates the behavior of most people, or it is an example of the latter.Thus, we can control this fundamental process and use them wisely.

The hypnotic effect of negative imagery can lead to serious consequences

I've done research on the effects of plastic surgery on personality, and when I was writing "New Faces, New Futures," I took an article from a St. Louis newspaper and included it in the book.The headline of the article read: This article reports on the suicide of a 24-year-old University of Washington student named Theodore Hoffman.Interestingly, the article mentioned that those who knew the suicide found him to be a very popular person.Here are the young man's last words, "To this world," before committing suicide:
Since I was a child, other kids around me bullied and abused me because my body was not as strong as theirs and I was also ugly.I was a sensitive and shy boy who was always teased for being ugly and having a long nose.The more they satirize and tease me, the more they think they are teasing me.From then on, I started to be afraid of interacting with people.I knew that many of them hated me for something wrong with me (though I couldn't be blamed for it)—my emotionally vulnerable nature and my unusual looks.I have a stomach full of bitterness, but I can't find a friend to pour out.My self-confidence was gone.Even though my name has only one "F" in it, one teacher always spelled it with two "F", but because I was too timid to muster up the courage to tell her and correct her, I just had to To let her keep misspelling my name with two "F's" all through my school days.I think anyone who encounters my situation should be forgiven by God.I am terribly afraid of the world, but I am not at all afraid of death.

At the time, a professor at the university called the case the most serious case of "inferiority" in history.I think it's just nonsense.Believe me, this young man's desperation (a desperation that first destroyed his self-image and then led him to death) mirrors the same desperation that is affecting countless others whose meaning in life is And the value is completely greatly underestimated by the people around them and themselves.In fact, although reports of teenage suicides appear infrequently in various media, they have intensified in recent years, just like a terrible plague is spreading.Anorexia is yet another harrowing example of the hypnotic power of negative imagery.

In "Fighting the Inner Puppet: The Madness of the Outsider," authors David Weiner and Dr. Gilbert Heft write that they appeared on CBS's "1998" in 48. Hours" program as a guest, once said that he met a 15-year-old girl.The girl named Allen weighs only 82 pounds, her face is sallow due to emaciation, and she looks sick, but she firmly believes that she is currently too fat.As a result, she avoided eating all kinds of meat and even refused to eat, and defecated every time she ate something.Sitting on the child's hospital bed, the TV reporter who interviewed her asked her to stand in front of a full-length mirror and asked her if she could see how haggard her face was and how weak her body was. "I think I look a little fat." Allen still stubbornly told reporters.The reporter then tried to convince her with the facts: "But you only weigh 82 pounds now. Do you think you are fat if you are so light?" Allen replied cleverly, "No".But then immediately said that she was indeed a little fat, and she would get fatter if she ate more.And so, as long as no one was closely watching, Alan, determined not to eat, would pull out the needle that gave him nutrients through his IV.

For parents, teachers, life counselors, and health coaches, this is a cautionary tale that serves as a vivid reminder that we should always be on the lookout for those whose self-image is eroding so strongly that it may even lead to suicide. young people.At the same time, the story is a vivid testimony to the incomparable power of the imagination.A person can use negative imagination to infinitely magnify the importance of a particular flaw in himself, or the external reaction to that flaw.Even he will go to the road of suicide!In the same way, a person can use his own positive imagination to "modify" his understanding of his own strength and opportunity, so as to achieve the most remarkable career.

the power of hypnosis

As early as the 20s, Dr. Theodore Xenophon Baber conducted in-depth research on the phenomenon of hypnosis.He did not abandon his research while working in the Department of Psychology at American University in Washington, D.C., and while collaborating with Harvard's Social Relations Laboratory.He once published an article in the "Science Digest" magazine and wrote: We found that only when the hypnotist believes that the words of the hypnotist are true can he do amazing things... When the hypnotist guides the subject to a certain When the latter believes that the words of the hypnotist are completely correct, the subject will show abnormal behavior due to changes in thoughts and beliefs.Hypnosis has always seemed a kind of miraculous thing to the common man, because it has always been difficult for people to understand how belief can cause such abnormal behavior.There always seemed to be something greater, some unfathomable force or power at work.

However, it is an undeniable fact that when a subject believes that he cannot hear, he behaves as if he is really deaf: when he believes that he cannot feel pain, he also does without anesthesia. Can successfully undergo surgery.But in reality, magical power or power does not exist.It is worth noting that this article was published in 1958.Today, hypnosis has become a generally accepted and widely used medical treatment.For many obese individuals trying to lose weight, hypnosis and self-hypnosis for weight loss can save them from the need for immediate surgical liposuction.This is similar to my example of some patients who were cured by "mental surgery" rather than actual surgery.In these instances, hypnosis becomes the scalpel.In dentistry, hypnosis is used to help patients with phobias (indeed, they cannot control their anxiety) to treat dental problems.Hypnosis is a very successful alternative in many cases (and it has been proven by a large number of facts), and can replace and complete the anesthesia process when the effect of anesthesia is not obvious enough.

On the relationship between childhood memories, past experiences, and companions' feelings and imaginations, self-images, and servomechanisms, my conclusion is that people are actually hypnotized by self-images all the time.Many people have been "sleepwalking" almost all their lives under the control of some unidentifiable hypnotic suggestion.In Quentin Reno's book "Intuition: Your Secret Power", the author quotes a hypnotist: "Customers who come to visit hope that I can help them enter a state of trance, where arrange their lives. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true, and many of them are already living in a half-dream, and they need reality as a prescription to heal themselves." If you were in a dark elevator or a confined space as a child The experience of staying in fear for a few hours, then maybe 40 years later, you will still feel scared when you take the elevator, and you will not be able to muster up the courage to step into the elevator, regardless of the statistical safety figures, real conditions and Regardless of the verification and observation of countless elevator passengers, even the simple task of climbing a dozen stairs will make you cringe and worry.Because right now you are still in the same post-hypnotic trance you were in 40 years ago!While this is the case, it only takes a little reflection to see why it is sometimes a good thing for us to feel and act according to a picture we believe to be true or "imagined to be true."All of this does not mean that your nervous system itself is "bad", you just need to learn how to use this "system" better.

Human behavior is determined by facts

The human brain and nervous system can automatically and appropriately respond to problems and challenges in the environment.For example, if someone has the unlucky encounter with a grizzly bear on a wild trail, he doesn't need to stop and think about whether he should run to save himself, or whether he should be afraid.The fear response is both automatic and expected.First of all, when encountering such a scene, he would want to run away.This fear then triggers the body's mechanisms to "pick up" his muscles so that he can run faster than ever before.His heartbeat will automatically speed up accordingly, and adrenaline, a powerful muscle power stimulating substance, will rush into his blood vessels in large quantities.All "don't have to escape" functions in the body will be correspondingly stopped.The stomach and esophagus shut down, all available blood flows to the muscles, breathing quickens, the heart beats faster, and the supply of oxygen molecules to the muscles doubles to supply the muscles to contract.

Of course, these examples are nothing new to many people, most of whom learned about them in high school.But there is one thing we may not realize quickly - the brain and nervous system, will tell us what the real environment is like.It is generally believed that when a person encounters a bear suddenly, the occurrence of various escape reactions comes more from "feelings" rather than thoughts.However, what can arouse the so-called "emotional response" is exactly a kind of "thought information" received from the outside world and identified by the brain's thinking.Therefore, we can say that it is thoughts and beliefs, not emotions, that really mediate the results of behavior.Emotions follow thoughts and beliefs.In short, a person who encounters a bear suddenly on the road reacts according to what he thinks, believes, or imagines to be the pre-existing environment.The signals brought to him by the environment consist of "nerve impulses" from the various senses.These nerve impulses are translated, interpreted and analyzed in the brain and inform us in the form of thoughts or "mental images".New research shows that it is these "mental images" that make us respond.Note that in the above I have used the words "think," "believe," and "imagine" as synonyms.They are indeed the same in their effect on the whole system of the body.

(End of this chapter)