Virtual Hypnotist 101

I understand that some of you out there are tempted to try Virtual Hypnotist for yourselves (even if only to experience the upcoming Silver Robot sessions), but are still a little nervous about it, while others have downloaded the program but aren't sure yet how all the pieces fit together. So I figured it would be a good idea for me to do a series of entries about VH: what it does and doesn't do, and how.

So, then, you might want to consider this post to be Virtual Hypnotist 99. If you missed last Sunday's entry, the gist of it was that hypnosis can't make you do anything you don't want to do, and VH is very much an "in the privacy of your own home" kind of thing that should give you no worries whatsoever about embarrassing yourself in public - or even in private. In fact, you can peek inside every pre-loaded script before running it, just to see if there's anything you'd object to. And if you do find something you don't like, you can just edit it out before you ever run the program.

Today, I'm going to start the series by telling you how to take that peek. But first, a quick explanation of the essential elements of a standard VH session:

1. Every session begins with an induction. This is 5-10 minutes of breathing and/or visualization exercises or something similar, something designed to lead you down into a state of relaxation and light trance.
2. After the induction, there's normally a deepener. This can involve a countdown from ten to one and/or the repetition of your trigger, if you supplied a trigger when you installed the program (Note that you'll have to practice your trigger for awhile before it has much effect on you. But more on that another time.).
3. Next come the suggestions. These are the meat of the session. By the time you hit this stage, you should be nicely hypnotized and open to all kinds of fun visualizations and, um, other stuff. ;-)
4. A session normally concludes with a wakener to bring you back to full awareness, unless you design something like my Bedtime session that's meant to send you off to sleep at the end. The wakener is pretty short and sweet, maybe a few suggestions for how you'll feel once you wake up, possibly some post-hypnotics, and then a count-up from one to five.
5. Virtual Hypnotist also comes with two different kinds of subliminal messages that run all through the session. The first is a collection of words and/or phrases that pop up randomly around the screen for only a few milliseconds each, long enough that your subconscious mind registers them but your conscious mind only knows it's seen something. The second set of subliminals is a pair of "flasher phrases" that run continuously along the top and bottom of your screen. The image grab at left above shows an example of both kinds of subliminals. At the top and bottom you see "Relax your body" and "perfect silver robot." Those are phrase flashers. The only subliminal pop-up I could catch (They're just so damn quick, even when you intentionally slow them down) was the one you see at middle-right saying "just drop."

Now I've just given you the five elements that the Session Wizard asks you to choose from if you go that route in running a session - but don't go that route. ;-) Really. If you're just starting out with the program, do yourself a favor and try one of the presets first. Just click that button and select whichever session sounds most appealing to you based on its title, load it, and click the "Start Session" button. Voila. Oh, and if you're still nervous about the whole hypnosis deal, I'd suggest trying one of the two "Hypnotherapist" presets; they're strictly vanilla. The two "Brainwash" scripts, on the other hand, are a bit more exciting - and don't really brainwash you, just in case anyone was seriously worried about that. ;-P They just let you play around with the idea for a little while, have some fun with or without a partner.

But I promised to tell you how to preview the scripts, didn't I? Okay, there are a couple of ways to do that.

Let's say you want to see whether or not Brainwash II is too scary for you before actually committing yourself. Load the preset; and then instead of hitting the "Start Session" button, hit "Advanced Configuration," then go to the "Components" tab. There you'll see a breakdown of which induction, which deepener, and so on - right down to the audio and video files - the session uses. You can double-click on any one of those elements to get a preview of it. If it's a script, it'll pop up in a text window for reading - and editing, if you see anything you don't like. If it's a video (which might actually turn out to be a GIF and not an actual video, FWIW), it'll pop up in your media player. Audio files do the same.

The other way to view any of the various scripts and other elements separately, rather than as parts of a session, is to open the VH folder on your computer and just poke around in the subdirectories. There's one for all the inductions, another one for all the deepeners, and so on. This is a good way to explore all the different possibilities at once and, somewhere further down the line, to piece together a session of your own with all your favorite elements.

But more on that later. I've said enough to get you started, and I'll be glad to answer any specific questions anyone has via comment or e-mail before I post Virtual Hypnotist 102 - either over the weekend or perhaps earlier, if time permits.

Cheerio.