Creative visualization, also called creative imagination, guided imagery, or seeing with the mind’s eye, is another tool for programming the inner mind. Visualization is planting another seed—and watching it produce— in the garden of your mind. It is a right-brain activity, whereas logical suggestions are the seeds of the left brain.

Hypnotic suggestion and guided imagery are two of the most valuable tools in the workshop of the mind. Creative visualization adds a new dimension to thinking by using the mind’s eye to picture positive actions and positive results; you can point it in the direction in which you want your life to go.

Visual abilities come easily to about 70 percent of all people. The other 30 percent can develop and strengthen their inner vision with practice, such as by using the cycles suggested in this book. Most people have good visualization abilities and, like a muscle, these become stronger with use. Yet not everyone can immediately “see.”

Clients who are able to visualize will find that as they become absorbed in the scene you are describing, they will drift into a natural and pleasant state of hypnosis. Always work with visualizations that suit the client, e.g. ask where they like to spend their holidays or find a favorite place that they associate with relaxation.

Not everyone is able to visualize and those who can't often worry that they are not actually hypnotized. It is important to reassure the subject that visualization is not an essential prerequisite to trance.

Some people find it easier to imagine a sound, a favorite song for example or the sound of the wind rustling through the trees; you can lead people from internally experiencing sounds to visualization.

The olfactory sense is a very powerful trance inducer. Just think about a particular smell from childhood. For me, the lovely smell of bread baking in the oven takes me right back to Sunday afternoons when my father would bake a large batch of bread to feed his hungry children for a week, or the smell of tar on the roads or smoke in the air takes me back to my childhood days in the small mining town where I grew up.

We all have our own personal memories, so use those to your advantage when inducing hypnosis.

Mind Massage: 60 Creative Visualizations

by Marlene Maundril

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Visualization: a Beginner's Guide

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