Mental narrator
✦ Before you continue: This space is for observation, not operation. We are studying the architecture of the mind✦
✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦
Most people (though some don’t, which is already suspicious) have a mental narrator.
What is that?
The voice some of us hear when we think. An internal dialogue. A kind of commentator nobody asked for but that showed up anyway.
It can be detailed and constant, or more visual and quiet. It organizes thoughts, acts as working memory, might sound like your own voice… or a much more annoying one.
So what does hypnosis do?
In most cases, it tries to silence that mental narrator. The idea is that only silence remains. And the hypnotist’s words.
But sometimes your mental narrator doesn’t cooperate.
— Should you obey? No. I don’t want to. I don’t like you.
— Stop thinking. I want to think. Right now I’m thinking about how I’m listening to you.
— Let go of control. I am in control. Of being in control.
— This is safe. I don’t know. When someone says “this is safe,” it usually isn’t.
And there’s the problem.
It’s not that hypnosis fails. It’s that your mental narrator figured out the trick and decided to troll the process by live-commenting the whole thing.
and while you’re reading this… who’s talking now?
✦ᛉumeᛋᛇ✦