Once your subjects are in the hypnotic state you can perform almost any routine you desire. The options are endless. There are six different trance phenomena that you need to be aware of, for this will help you to plan your routines to ensure a greater variety. The phenomena are listed below with a brief explanation of how you might use each one of them.

Regression

To regress is to remember or relive a past experience. Regression is often used on the stage, usually in the form of the subject being regressed to childhood and being naughty at school, or perhaps an early birthday. Regression is not limited to your lifetime and people are often regressed, during hypnotherapy, to cure psychosomatic illnesses.

Progression

This is the opposite of regression. People are progressed in hypnotherapy to help them see how their life will turn out, and, if necessary, make changes to make their future a better one. On the stage progression is used for such routine as a one hundredth birthday party.

Post hypnotic suggestion

Post hypnotic suggestion is essential for the stage hypnotist. It is exactly as its name suggests, a hypnotic suggestion that is to be carried out after the termination of the trance state. It is used in almost every routine that you will come across and, more importantly, it is used to keep the subject in trance. An example of a post hypnotic suggestion that you will use more than any other is, “When I click my fingers and say the word ’sleep’ you will instantly go back into trance.” Post hypnotic suggestions are also widely used in the field of hypnotherapy. Suggestions such as, “From this moment onwards, whenever somebody offers you a cigarette you will instantly reply, ‘no thank you, I am a non-smoker’” It is worth noting at this point that a post hypnotic suggestion will stay inside someone´s mind forever. So, let´s, for example, imagine that you are performing a show and you turn to a subject and tell them that when they hear the music they will instantly jump to their feet and start performing for the audience. Unless you later delete this suggestion, whenever that person hears music playing and wherever they are they will instantly jump to their feet and start performing to the crowd. It is for this reason that you are advised to prefix any post hypnotic suggestion that you give with the sentence, “For the rest of the evening…”.

Amnesia

Amnesia is simply forgetting. Most people suffer from spontaneous amnesia on awakening from the hypnotic state. You will see this as at the end of your hypnosis sessions when your volunteers or subjects leave and run to their friends to ask them what they were doing. You can use amnesia in a routine by making somebody forget a number and try to count, or perhaps forget their name and try to introduce themselves.

Positive hallucination

This is simply seeing, hearing or feeling something that is not really there. This can be very amusing on the stage if, for example, you were to tell a subject that their hair was growing at a rate of ten centimeters per second and under no circumstances are they to let it touch the floor. I’m sure you can imagine the pantomime as the subject tries to hold armfuls of sprouting hair desperately trying to keep it off the floor.

Negative hallucination

This is the opposite of the above and a godsend to a stage hypnotist. Imagine the look on the subjects´ faces as things start to float around the stage, seemingly on their own, but with the help of the invisible hypnotist.