Session #176: What if Your Client Falls Asleep?

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This is the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast, session number 176. What if your hypnosis client falls asleep? Welcome to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast with Jason Lynette, Your professional resource for hypnosis training and outs. Standing Business success. Here’s your host, Jason Lynette, and good morning, and I hope you’re well rested.

This is Jason Lynette here with a very interesting podcast session. It’s a solo session this week as actually I’m addressing a question that pops up in nearly every live hypnosis training class that I offer, and it just popped up recently in one of the Facebook groups around hypnosis. So here we are dedicating an entire podcast session to this.

Very important issue about what do you do if your hypnosis client falls asleep. Now, inside of this content, I’m gonna share with you several workable strategies that I’ve personally used over the years. Though for the most part, you are going to discover that the issue is resolved by, let’s call it preventative maintenance.

Sales 1 0 1 satisfy objections before they arise. And this becomes a challenge that in most cases you can hedge off by a few simple adjustments inside of the content I have to highlight here. By the way, you may hear some extraneous sound in this recording, uh, which is not intentional in. Terms of helping you to stay awake during this recording, as it’s not gonna be a very long recording, as it’s a very straightforward topic.

Uh, but we’ve just adopted a kitten, uh, by the name of Lily, and she is trying her best to get here into my home office where I’m currently recording. So this topic of, uh, what do you do if your client falls asleep? Uh, this is a small preview of my live hypnosis trainings, which by the way, joined me and James Hazel r.

Essentials of modern hypnosis. It’s a live six day intensive certification course to get certified as a certified professional hypnotist. This class is happening in September, 2018, here in the Springfield, Virginia area. Very easy to travel to. Get all the details [email protected] and piggybacking off of last week’s hypnosis session.

Be sure to visit osis.com. At the time of this recording, there is a unique offer to get seven free scripts from top hypnosis professionals in the industries osis. It’s all about providing you a 21st century solution. To that, I need a script problem, and the project is not just about giving you free hypnosis scripts, so head over to script hypnosis.com for some free hypnosis script.

Yeah. And with that in mind, jump directly over into this content. This is session number 176. What if your hypnosis client falls asleep?

Did you notice how I started the session by saying good morning? Wasn’t that clever? Anyway, so let’s jump directly into this conversation here. So first things first, Uh, let’s address the topic at hand. Don’t assume immediately that your client is asleep. And I’d highlight this in a rather interesting way that some clients may even snore even though they’re awake and deeply hypnotized.

Uh, and I’d highlight a few categories here. If you’re working with somebody with any history of sleep apnea, sometimes that’s often a bit of a sign. Uh, they may be, uh, somebody who has the body relaxes as if they’re any reclined posture. They may actually begin to snore. So the simplest of checks here would be that you want to give your client some bit of instruction, give them some physical task to complete during the hypnosis session in order to check in.

And basically if you give a piece of instruction and they follow that piece of instruction to say it comfortably. Well, there’s your proof. They’re not asleep. So simple examples here, you can give them the instruction of, Take a nice deep breath in. That’s right. And as you exhale notice, it just takes you even deeper down or some sort of other interactive type thing.

Like if you’re familiar, of course, with a Dave Alman induction, the floppy arm drop. Uh, Some sort of check in, some sort of idiomotor response, a head nod, a finger raise some bit of instruction. That’s really gonna give you that feedback right away, that even though they are sawing logs and snoring away, they might not necessarily be asleep.

So again, don’t immediately assume that they’re asleep. What I’d highlight is that basically the, the dialogue here is that hypnosis is not, Uh, from my perspective, from the state of mind that many of us address this work, sleep is one state of mind. Hypnosis is another state of mind. So really, from my opinions, from my experience, you must awaken them to continue the process.

Now, this can be done very easily. It can be done even covertly. Without scolding the client, uh, you know, don’t be grabbing their shoulder and saying, Hey buddy, wake up. You’re paying for this. No, uh, what I’d highlight and I have to use, uh, inappropriate language used in a very appropriate way. This may be one of the few moments where.

I, uh, I, I phrase it this way in my classes that I may politely hit my client in order to startle them. I should just stop there and let you figure that out on your own. But let me unpack that. So here’s the thing. There are different stages of sleep and understand I am not a sleep specialist, so I am speaking about this from an anecdotal reference point, though I have had clients over the years who were sleep specialists and towards the end of our process I went, Hey, here’s something I say during my classes, and here’s sort of my thinking on something.

Back me up on this in my right and consistently they’ve said yes, absolutely. So there’s different stages of sleep. The most popular model references for verifiable levels of rest and consider for our dialogue. The first one is kind of that dozing off stage, kind of the, your driving. Two o’clock in the morning and you’re doing your best to stay awake and kind of nodding off and you catch yourself before that actually happens.

Uh, you’re watching something on television late at night, you’re watching a movie that really isn’t that great. Um, and here’s the moment where you’re kind of nodding off and you’re catching yourself in most cases. The earlier stages of sleep are gonna be hinting at this level. So consider this idea that if your client is dozing off during the hypnosis session, they may just be dipping into those early levels so we’re not into the full on deep, profound restorative rest like some would would be in if they’ve been asleep now for several hours.

Uh, quick anecdote here. I had one of those fitness trackers at one point that would monitor your sleep levels. And I had to get rid of it. Uh, because in the mor first of all, this was the, uh, let’s call it all, it was the up three fitness tracker made by the Jawbone Company, uh, which I ran a half marathon wearing that one, and it logged 20 miles.

Half marathons, only 13 miles. This thing logged 20 miles. It was the fastest return I ever saw. Best Buy process. Uh, this little device would also track your sleep quality and there’d be middle of the day feeling fantastic and I’d be curious to go, Oh, let me look back and see what my quality of sleep was.

And it said it wasn’t good. Uh, and suddenly I went from feeling wonderful to not feeling good, which meanwhile I’ve done sleep studies over the years and, uh, no, they’ve verified. Yeah, you sleep like a log. You’re doing fine. So, um, yeah, I’m wearing my Apple watch. Now the idea, what I’m getting at here is that again, if they are dozing off, They may not be in a relatively deep level of sleep.

Even that little fitness tracker, uh, to the best of its abilities would tell me that only about an hour or two in was I hitting those profound cycles of sleep. So consider if your client is dozing off, if. For most of us, my longest hypnosis sessions tend to come in in about 55 minutes, and what I’m referring to is the actual time of now the formal close your eyes, let’s actually do hypnosis.

I may be meeting with them upwards of an hour and a half to two hours, but the actual hypnotic content of the session, On its own is probably at most 55 minutes. So shortest would be about 15 minutes. So in that span of time, they’re not necessarily getting to those deep, deep, deep, profound, deep restorative levels of sleep.

So I bring that up here because if your client is dozing off, consider they’re probably only in those lighter states, which means that if you do need to awaken them in some way, It’s not gonna take a lot of effort. You know, again, some bit of instruction is gonna pull them out of it. Raising your voice and talking at a louder volume is not gonna take you out of it.

Uh, my strategy is, uh, again, I, my playful phrasing on this. is that I respectfully hit my client, and what I mean by this is there’s the classic hypnosis deepener of placing your hand on their shoulder and pressing down very lightly, very gently as they’re exhaling. It’s one of the most profound hypnotic deepeners.

Any bit of kinesthetic deepening I found is to be an outstanding technique, so to say it comfortably rather than lightly placing my head on their shoulder, which rewind the session back. Previously gotten permission to physically interact with them during our process together as I placed my hand on their shoulder.

Let’s phrase it this way, it’s more of a polite. Than it is a placing, which is just enough to kind of startle them out of that moment, like they’re falling asleep behind the wheel and immediately I’m there with a fractionation deeper. So you’ll hear the sound effects as I do this, as let those eyes open and let those eyes close and go even deeper down.

That’s right. You’re doing. So it’s that little one two punch of a strategy, which I’ll tell you that consistently, uh, has worked every single time for me. If, if I have the idea that I think they’re falling asleep, I’m gonna give some bit of instruction, take a deep breath in, breathe it on, not go even deeper.

And if that doesn’t work, I’m gonna kind of startle them out of it. Again, with that drop of the hand on the shoulder and let the eyes open. Let the eyes close. You can’t see me because I insist on an audio only podcast cuz it’s more convenient, but my left hand is dropping onto their right shoulder and then my right hand is immediately in place.

For the fractionation deepener, when I do a Dave development induction, the three trips to Bernheim office routine of let the eyes open, let the eyes close, go even deeper. I’m using my right hand to block the vision of their eyes. So it’s that little one two punch of a strategy here. That’s what jolts them out of that light rest state.

So this has been so far, the whole concept of what do you do, which really the core of what I wanted to address here is that one, you’ve got to wake them up. Hypnosis is not sleep, Sleep is not hypnosis. As I was trained and as I firmly still believe, You have to emerge them from sleep to then transition them into hypnosis.

Uh, there was dialogue in the Facebook group of, uh, let them sleep and then simply comment on, Wow, you were really deep. Um, I think that’s slightly dishonest, and I may have been told that by several people over the years. Again, I want to keep the interactive nature of the process. Uh, I am a firm believer in the magic and the power of the hypnotic experience.

Yet you still, it’s not the bi, it’s not the deletion of the critical faculty of the mind. It’s the bypassing of the critical faculty of mind, and if that critical faculty is deep asleep and way off doing something else. I’m gonna phrase it this way. I’m not gonna say it’s not gonna work. I’m gonna say it’s gonna be more reliable, uh, inside of the process.

So, that being said, story time. Um, I’ll generalize the story in the most specific way I possibly can. Uh, that from the doctor’s, uh, description when my wife was pregnant with our daughter, uh, the doctor’s terminology later on was that she had every possible side effect from an epidural, which was not death.

So, What basically happened with the birth of our daughter and before everyone jumps on me to say, Oh, you should have used hypno birthing. Well, we did with the birth of our son. After this experience. You’ll see where I’m going with this. Uh, there was the experience that if they do the epidural in a slightly wrong angle, it creates a imbalance of spinal fluids.

So basically, here is my wife with a newborn baby. And if she was laying on her back, she was perfectly comfortable if she was at any bit of an upright position or even an incline, perhaps a symptom, like the most intense migraine headaches you can imagine, which quick trip to the hospital. It’s a strategy called a blood patch.

They resolved this right away. No issues ever since. Mom and baby and Claire’s now seven years old. Everyone’s doing fine. But I bring up this story because it goes back to an experience of, even with natural childbirth, the medical community has introduced a terminology, and I learned this thanks to Mickey Mongan with the hypnobirthing community.

They call this active management of labor, which is basically medical code speak in my language of they’re gonna come in and annoy the mother somehow every 20 minutes. They’re gonna come in, they’re gonna get a measurement, they’re gonna take a temperature, they’re gonna look at a reading. And I’ve modeled this language to now deem a title that I now call, and I teach this of Active Management of Hypnosis, which is that basically we’re going to be interacting with our client the entire time.

So this is the main content I want to get to here, that through the active management of the hypnotic experience. Good luck falling asleep because I’m gonna be interacting with them the entire. So the phrasing is you’re gonna have an exponentially smaller risk of your clients falling asleep by not doing a process, let’s call it in a more classically minded, uh, landscape, which would be that you hypnotize the client, you deepen them, and then you just assume that hopefully they’re just laying in the chair absorbing everything you say.

This is how most people do hypnosis. Uh, and again, I think there’s a better way to do it. Perhaps just by folding in moments of hypnotic phenomenon, we’re into the actual hypnotic experience. . And then once we’re dipping into the process, now I’m into some sort of eye lock testing, condensor, and I continue with my positive suggestion.

And then later on, perhaps I’m getting into an arm lock testing condensor. So notice that I’m mixing up the process with bits of interaction. Which are serving to one, deepen the client more profoundly. Two, provide more hypnotic conviction that they’re actually hypnotized. And three, because of that interaction, they’re not gonna be falling asleep because you’re keeping them actively engaged in the process.

I have to sidebar here for a moment that when I first got started as a hypnotist, we didn’t have children yet, and my wife was working a job in DC so it required longer hours. And at that time I was thinking, Hey, I’m young, I could burn out now. And I was doing evening appointments cuz she wasn’t getting back from the city till about nine o’clock at night.

So, Maybe if I had, let’s call it out, an older client, and we were meeting at 8:00 PM in the evening. That might have been a time where the, uh, issue of falling asleep was there. So there was a select group of clients that did not know that the chair in my office reclined. Uh, so if I had a hint that I was maybe of some concern that they may be falling asleep during the process, you know, it may be some sort of element that I just did not recline them in the chair.

Uh, there also is another strategy of resolving this, which is that I can change their posture. Great. And for this next segment, notice I can sit you up right slowly, even with those eyes closed, it takes you even deeper into this process. And again, when all else fails, apply hypnotic suggestion. And as I sit you up, right, you’ll find that your body begins to feel that sensation.

Uh, of becoming more physically alert as your mind now begins to wrap itself around every single word that I say. So again, take note. These are hypnotic suggestions that serve to awaken the client out of the sleep state and bring them more into that. Engaging mentally process. So again, the main thing I wanna stress here is that this is a issue that’s primarily of preventative maintenance.

So by doing more of an interactive process, the more over the years that I’ve had clients interacting verbally, physically, it, it’s where too, this is a phrase that is a little bit esoteric, that especially if you’re brand new to hyp, You know, you’ll be able to eventually figure out those times where the client is just kind of passively laying there thinking, Oh, this magic person is gonna say this words and they’re gonna stick.

Versus the times where they are physically, mentally, emotionally, truly engaging in the process. You know, there’s a classic bit of dialogue working with the stop smoking client of removing the control that the cigarettes once had over them, and you’re kind of personifying the cigarettes for a moment. As, as if the pack of cigarettes was this giant thing with arms and leggings and ugly face, and it’s now shrinking down and you’re now squashing it with your foot.

And the times where I do that and the client is just kinda laying there versus the times where I see an expression on their. Face and then they’re not quite stomping their leg, but they’re truly moving their foot in some way as if they’re processing it. You know, you can tell those moments where the client is truly engaging in the experience.

And if I see the client as more passively going through the experience, that may be a time where a simple posture shift is all it takes. And as I sit you upright, notice that this happens. Even. I’ve been known to even stand clients up in the middle of the session. I’ve been known to completely change their posture, move them to another chair, move them to another room, even, you know, which of course they’re alert, they’re awake, they’re not asleep.

That’s kind of the purpose of this week session here. Uh, but times have completely. Sh as you shift the physiology, you shift the neurology being a classic phrase here, but engage them in some sort of interactive way, which sidebar to this dialogue too. This is why I don’t record every single session that I do and send my client home with it.

Not that I have any secrets of the process. No. Um, it, it’s that if it’s an interactive experience, the action of listening to the session over and over, and over. Doesn’t really serve as a reinforcement. Here I am doing some sort of verbal, interactive nlp six step reframe, which it may be cool to have some sort of conscious recollection of the process, which they’re gonna have no matter what the way that I do it.

But you know, for the sake of an audio reinforcement, it doesn’t quite serve the purpose. But if you’re interacting with me, becoming aware of that part of you that’s been holding you back now, becoming aware of its positive intent. And you can speak out loud. As you respond out loud, it carries you even deeper into this hypnotic state.

Allow yourself to let all levels of your mind now generate a new behavior or strategy that better serves that positive intent. As you respond out loud, it solidifies this reality. What’s that? First of new strategies? Oh, I can go for walks. Good. And imagine watching yourself now going through walks and now step inside of that experience.

See it through your own eyes, ears, and body. Be there in your body. What do you notice now? Respond out loud. It takes you even deeper. You can see the amount of interaction that’s going on here on the surface structure. . It’s as if we’re carrying on a full dialogue. We’re just having a conversation. Yet you and I know we’re both running a hypnotic experience, which this style of work, you know it.

It’s where I’d say that one of my catch phrases is that it doesn’t matter how clever you think I am or how clever you think you are as a hypnotist, some of the most. Profound dialogue that’s gonna come outta your hypnotic session is gonna come from your client. So by way of this verbal interaction, by way of this physical interaction, You’re one, preventing your client from falling asleep.

And two, making use of a much more client centered experience that has them engaging and bringing their own models into the change process. So it kind of becomes that double solution here that because I work in this style so frequently, they’re not falling. Second of all, it’s providing a much better quality change experience, in my honest opinion, which really helps to satisfy this challenge.

So to give you some action strategies? Yes. A, As much as I can say that there may be some moments that as a result of the side effect of relaxation in the hypnotic experience, some of them may begin to doze off. So what do you do? Give them some bit of physical interaction and that brings them out of it if they are falling asleep.

Then the strategy I’ve consistently used over the years, which I have to say it always has worked for me, is a little bit of the free fall, the hand on the shoulder, let the eyes open, let the eyes close and go much deeper, relaxed. And then from there, I’m gonna give some sort of adjustment. And as I sit your chair a little bit more upright, notice it helps the mind to wrap itself around every single word that I say.

There it is. There’s my little bit of phrasing to bring that conscious awareness in. Uh, I was trained in another strategy at one point that I haven’t used in this dialogue at all. Uh, but I’ll share it for completeness, which is you can do a half emergence. In a moment, I’m gonna count from one to five.

And at the can of five you’ll be fully refreshed. Alert, feeling good. One. Energy rising. Noticing that breathing, returning to a normal everyday pace. Two. Focus increasing. Becoming aware of things you’ll do today, things you’ll do tomorrow. And three. And notice we can actually pause at this level and at this state of the mind.

Consider these ideas. And I’ve basically done half an emergence to then continue my hypnotic process. It’s a beautiful strategy that I’ve used that in other contexts, but now that I think about it, that would be an excellent strategy. If you do have the idea that they’re dozing off, though the real message to you.

Is as I call it, and I believe future guest on the podcast session, uh, just cringed wonderfully when I said this. He was an attendee at the master hypnotist course, uh, back in, uh, Vegas in March, 2017, uh, program, which is now a digital, uh, training master hypnotist course.com. Uh, he just cringed so beautifully when I kept using the phrase of so many hypnotists work with their clients and assume that they’re just yogurt splattered in the.

I just love that metaphor and maybe I’ll bring it up later on when I get Steven on the program. Uh, but what I’m getting at is again, that sort of hope they’re absorbing it. Model the wait and see model of hypnosis where you’ve deeply relaxed them and now you’re just talking at them for 45 minutes. Uh, no.

So that interaction in the process. That interaction is really gonna serve a much better change protocol in my honest opinion and experience. And on top of that, you’re really preventing that issue. It’s where. You know, here’s a client who comes in and they may say, Well, I hope I don’t fall asleep today.

And in a very short version of the process, well, I’ll give you my exact phrasing. I’ll say to them, Well, in the old methods of hypnosis, the entire technique would be based in deep relaxation. And then I would just talk at you for an hour. Which people would fall asleep given that style of work. However, you’re gonna see that we’re gonna be interacting the entire way through.

There’s little bits of instruction, there’s hypnotic profound moments of phenomenon, and you’re gonna see that even in the change strategies. You’re gonna be interacting with me and then I smile and say, So good luck trying to fall. So, and they get the idea that this is gonna be a very, very different experience.

So change their posture, interact with them, give them an instruction, or use interactive change strategies and, uh, to kind of tie it all together with one of the bits of advice from the group. Don’t be boring. Uh, yeah. I think that’s an important thing as you keep them actively engaged during the process.

As you keep the process at a crisp pace, remember that the proper tonality for hypnotic suggestion is not deep relaxation and slow tone. No. It’s whatever is appropriate for the suggestions being given. So become animated, become interesting, engage their emotional. And that’s gonna help prevent your client from falling asleep.

Hey there, Jason Ette here once again. And as always, thank you so much for interacting with this program, for leaving your reviews online, sharing it on your social medias. Dreams, and it’s cool hanging out in this digital format, but let’s hang out together live and in person, and I’ll bring along a buddy because James Hazelrigg and I are doing a live training September, 2018, Essentials of Modern Hypnosis.

It’s a one part certification course. You get certified as a certified professional hypnotist with the IC B C H. Though it’s also a class that’s appropriate for all levels of hypnosis experience, as we’re gonna be deep diving into advanced change strategies, storytelling, hypnosis, get all the [email protected].

In addition to that, uh, OSIS is a project which is launching soon. It’s not just about giving you free scripts. So head over to script.com for some script free scripts. Uh, we look forward to seeing you there. See you soon. Thanks for listening to the Work Smart Hypnosis Podcast and work smart hypnosis.com.