The Role-Playing Method

You've practiced diligently for a month or more. You've tried progressive relaxation, eye fixation, the staircase. Nothing seems to work. You feel like you're just sitting with your eyes closed.

Don't despair. Melvin Powers discovered a counterintuitive technique that works when everything else fails: pretend you are hypnotized.

This isn't trickery or self-deception. It's based on a profound insight about how the mind works — and it's backed by real evidence.

One theory of hypnosis is that the subject behaves as they believe a hypnotized person should behave — "role playing." Powers realized this isn't just a theory of hypnosis; it's a technique for achieving it.

If you pretend to be hypnotized and go through the motions as though you were a perfect subject, the pretending itself establishes the conditioned response that genuine hypnosis requires. The acting becomes real.

During World War II, some soldiers wanted to leave the army. They pretended to have physical or mental conditions — hallucinations, paralysis, anxiety. They convinced medical authorities and were discharged for their "incapacitating disorder."

But here's the remarkable part: after discharge, many of these malingerers actually developed the condition they'd been faking. The constant role-playing had transformed into a genuine conditioned response. They had unwittingly hypnotized themselves into having the ailment.

Powers observed: if pretending to be sick can make you genuinely sick, then pretending to be hypnotized can make you genuinely hypnotized. The mechanism is the same.

Powers describes another telling case. During a public hypnosis demonstration, a heckler volunteered — not to be hypnotized, but to poke fun at the hypnotist. He winked at the audience and made faces when the hypnotist wasn't looking.

But to maintain his cover, the heckler had to give himself autosuggestionsto comply with the posthypnotic suggestions. He was effectively role-playing being hypnotized. The inevitable happened: he found himself genuinely hypnotized despite his intention not to be.

The role-playing technique had worked — even on someone who was actively resisting.

Here's how to use the role-playing method:

1. Go back to your induction (from Module 2). Use whichever induction you've been practicing.
2. Pretend you are a perfect subject. Act as though you respond flawlessly to every suggestion. If the induction says "your eyelids are getting heavy," act as if they genuinely are — even if you don't feel it.
3. Go through the depth tests as if you're passing them all. If the test says "your hand will rise," let your hand rise — consciously, at first. The movement doesn't need to be "real" trance movement. You're pretending.
4. Give yourself therapeutic suggestions as though you're deeply hypnotized. Deliver them with full intention, imagery, and emotion.
5. Give the posthypnotic suggestion: "The next time I practice, I will fall into a deeper and sounder state at the count of three."
6. Emerge normally.
7. Repeat daily. The role-playing establishes the conditioned response. Eventually — often within 1-2 weeks — the pretending transitions into genuine trance.

Powers offers a powerful argument for skeptics: the Chevreul's pendulum test (see Module 1). If the pendulum moves without your conscious direction, you are suggestible. The ideomotor response proves your subconscious can influence your body without your conscious will.

If you claim you're "not suggestible," your very lack of response proves you've been influenced by negative suggestions — the idea that "I can't be hypnotized" is itself a hypnotic suggestion you've accepted. Everyone is suggestible; the question is whether your suggestibility is working for you or against you.

Why do people carry four-leaf clovers or wear lucky charms? We know they have no intrinsic power. But they do something for our mental attitude — and that mental attitude affects outcomes.

This is the same principle as role-playing. The charm isn't magic; the belief is. The placebo effect is real and powerful — studies show that about one-third of any medication's effectiveness comes from the patient's faith in the prescribing physician.

Role-playing works because it leverages this same mechanism. By acting as if you're hypnotized, you create the expectation and belief that allows genuine trance to emerge.

Dr. William S. Kroger's formula: faith + hope + belief + expectation, all catalyzed by imagination, leads inevitably to hypnosis.

If you approach with a "prove it to me" attitude, nothing will happen — your expectation is set to "this won't work." But if you adopt the conviction that you will achieve self-hypnosis — even if you've had difficulty so far — you create the conditions for success.

The role-playing method works because it bypasses the skepticism. You're not asking "is this real?" — you're just doing it. And the doing creates the reality.

Powers offers a visual test. Look at the classic Muller-Lyer illusion — two lines with arrow fins pointing in/out. They're the same length, but one looks longer.

• • If you perceived them as the same, you're potentially a good subject — you responded to the conditioning that "they look different."
• • If you correctly identified one as longer (AB), you're normally suggestible.
• • If you picked the shorter one (CD), you're extremely cautious — you respond best to "reverse psychology." Still highly suggestible, just toward the opposite extreme.

Everyone responds to conditioning. The only question is the direction of your response.

If after weeks of role-playing you still see no results, consider:

• • You may be achieving trance without knowing it. The state can be imperceptible — you may just feel relaxed with closed eyes, and that's enough for suggestions to work.
• • De-emphasize tests. Don't worry about passing depth tests. Focus on the therapeutic suggestions and the results in your daily life.
• • Use hypnotic recordings. Powers found that impersonal recordings sometimes work when a live hypnotist doesn't — the impersonal nature reduces resistance.
• • Try the sleep-onset window. Suggestions as you drift to sleep bypass conscious resistance entirely.
• • Consider professional hypnotherapy. A skilled practitioner can find the approach that works for you.

Remember: Powers states that about 99% of people can be hypnotized. If you haven't succeeded yet, it's a matter of method and timing — not capability.