无图像幻觉的催眠 (Wú túxiàng huànjué de cuīmián)

无图像幻觉的催眠 (Wú túxiàng huànjué de cuīmián)
Hypnosis with Aphantasia

原始链接: https://aphantasia.com/article/stories/hypnosis-with-aphantasia

## 催眠与失忆症：寻找解决方法作者患有失忆症（无法想象），探讨了引导冥想和催眠的挑战——两者都严重依赖视觉化。就像冥想一样，传统的催眠疗法，旨在抑制强迫症和探索早期创伤，最初的“闭上眼睛并想象”的指示也令人沮丧。最初的尝试没有成功，因为作者无法创造出要求的心理图像。然而，最近的一次催眠疗法采用了不同的方法：不是*看*到图像，而是要求作者*假装*看到它们，调动记忆和感觉——例如回忆从上方看到的铁轨。这种“假装和感知”的方法，加上能够想象漂浮的能力，成功地进行了回归，并揭示了一个相关的童年经历，解释了恐慌症的根源。进一步使用相同技巧进行自我催眠实验也取得了成效。作者得出结论，患有失忆症的人并不受缺乏视觉图像的限制，而是学会适应并利用其他认知能力，展示了无限的想象力，并实现了预期的结果。

## 想象力缺失与催眠：摘要这个Hacker News讨论围绕着想象力缺失——无法自愿创造心理图像——以及它与催眠的交叉点。原始帖子链接到一篇文章，探讨想象力缺失者是否可以通过无图像诱导进行催眠。对话揭示了广泛的体验。一些有想象力缺失的人也难以回忆自传式记忆（SDAM），只能通过相关事实或照片回忆事件。另一些人则报告有生动的梦境和完整的记忆，表明想象力缺失并不一定意味着完全缺乏内在体验。许多评论者分享了“快照”和“记忆流”练习的成功经验，暂时解锁了对记忆的访问。一个关键主题是向拥有心理图像的人传达心理图像（或缺乏图像）的体验的困难。有些人认为将想象力缺失病理化是有害的，而另一些人则认为它是一种认知差异，可能存在潜在的缺点。许多人是在晚年才发现自己有想象力缺失，意识到他们的内在世界与他们被告知的“正常”状态不同。最终，这场讨论强调了人们体验和处理信息的多样方式，以及理解主观体验的挑战。

原文

Close Your Eyes And Visualize…

I recently wrote about meditation with aphantasia. Specifically, how guided meditation can exacerbate the (sometimes subliminal) states of confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy aphantasics feel when asked to visualize, which is how most guided meditations begin. My experience with hypnosis was annoyingly similar. Now... if you will... imagine a wave of relaxation washing over your body, loosening every nerve and muscle, and read on as I lead you through my journey of hypnosis with aphantasia. 😏

Guided Mediation vs Hypnosis

Guided meditation and hypnosis are very similar in that you are attempting to achieve a very deep state of relaxation using voice instruction. Here is an excerpt from a recent article I found on guidedmind.com explaining the difference between guided meditation and hypnosis:

"Guided meditation is when a narrator guides you through a scene in your mind to specifically act upon a desired outcome in your life."
GuidedMind

The American Psychological Association describes hypnosis as:

"a cooperative interaction in which the participant responds to the suggestions of the hypnotist."
American Psychological Association

Unlike meditation, the deeply calm state attained during hypnosis is punctuated by questions from the hypnotherapist, to which the patient/client responds, with a potential for therapeutic suggestion by the hypnotherapist to achieve a goal.

I’ve done practitioner-led (versus self-) hypnosis three times in my life. Once as a therapy to curtail a compulsive habit, and two other times for early-life regression to see if we could learn the cause of my panic attacks.

Learning To Be Hypnotized

As with guided meditation, each of my experiences with hypnosis began with the practitioner instructing me to – close your eyes and visualize… Ugh. Right away, a non-starter. The sessions geared towards my compulsive habit, which I attended in early 2000, were unsuccessful. I was frustrated by the process and only attended a few sessions. I still wrestle with this habit today. For the sessions exploring early-life regression, I had one in the mid-80’s – which is difficult to recall given it was thirty years ago, though I do remember leaving the session before it concluded and not wanting to go back – and another (virtually) this past March 2021, which was more successful.

With my eyes closed and in a deeply calm state, the practitioner started by asking me to visualize myself sitting in my chair from the opposite side of the room. I told her I couldn’t do this because, while I could remember how the room and the chair looked, I had never seen myself in the chair and so, could not even use memory as an aid. She asked me if I could imagine myself floating. Just floating. I said yes. (I recently learned that the ability to do this may be associated with motor imagery, something not everybody can do).

Okay. So now I’m floating.

She asked if I could float very high in the sky and try to imagine a small timeline track on the ground below. This timeline track would represent my life, upon which I would travel back and forth in search of pertinent memories. I was meant to float downwards to essentially zoom in on a chunk of time on the timeline track to explore a memory, with the immediate ability to zoom out and away from any memories that might cause me grief.

No, I couldn’t see the timeline track, which she already knew because right away, she asked if I could “pretend” to see the timeline track based on memories I have of an ordinary train track as seen from the air, from a helicopter or a plane. This surprised me. Previous hypnotherapists hadn’t used this “pretend” approach.

Yes, I could pretend to see a train track.

Using my ability to imagine myself floating, my memory of how a train track looked from the air, and a memory of how it felt actually to ride a train, I could perceive myself moving along the timeline track, floating up and down as the situation required. With this perception approach, versus the traditional visualization approach, she was able to take me backwards in time where I recalled a series of events in my childhood – events that I thought were separate when, in fact, had all happened on the same disturbing night (later corroborated by my siblings and father) – that provided a very plausible explanation for the onset of my panic attacks. This pretend-and-perceive approach, as I call it, was more work but in the end, we achieved my goal.

Hypnosis With Aphantasia

I decided to try a guided, past-life regressionself-hypnosis session on YouTube, which, you guessed it, began with a visualization. Again, suspending whether I believe in hypnosis or not and suspending whether or not I believe in past lives, I first became deeply relaxed. Then, using the pretend-and-perceive method, I achieved my hypnosis goal.

As someone with aphantasia, I have learned to adapt, bending my capabilities in imaginative ways to service the situation at hand – meditation or hypnosis – which I realize I have been doing my entire life. I am a writer, and though I have aphantasia, I can still perceive a wondrous world of possibilities, write them down, and tell fanciful, imaginative tales.

People with aphantasia aren’t limited. We’re limitless.