FROM MEGABRAIN REPORT VOL. 2 NO. 2
Edited by Michael Hutchison


                      MEGABRAIN "SOFTWARE"

              PROGRAMS, APPLICATIONS AND TECHNIQUES

                      by Michael Hutchison


In "Beyond Entertainment: How to Use Mind Machines for Peak
Performance and Self-Transformation," published in MBR #4, I
presented a variety of "Techniques for Making Mind Machines a
Powerful Tool for Attaining Specific Goals and Improving Your
Mind."  The article contained some strategies, systems,
applications and techniques for using mind tools for deep
relaxation, breath awareness, mindfulness, accelerated learning,
self-hypnosis and suggestion, self-regulation and exploration, pain
relief, rescripting, and focusing.  I promised that in future
issues there would be more information about these and other
techniques and applications. The accompanying article is the next
step in what will be a continuing series of techniques,
applications and procedures for the use of mind technology..

As I observed in MBR #4, one key to the mass popularity of PCs was
the development of a huge variety of software--programs that
enabled users to apply the massive computing power of the hardware
toward specific tasks, ranging from word processing to spreadsheets
to publishing to game playing.  Without such software, the hardware
would have remained virtually inaccessible to most users.

Today, the hardware of brain technology exists. What has been
lacking is the software--the programs or systems or techniques or
operating environments that will allow the user of the mind machine
to apply its sophisticated circuitry toward specific tasks and
applications. What follows are some mind machine programs, or what
I'm calling Megabrain Software

In general, and except where otherwise noted, Megabrain Software
programs are effective with virtually all of the mind technologies
now available, including light/sound, binaural beats, cranial
electrostimulation, movement devices, acoustic field generators,
flotation tanks, ganzfelds, biofeedback. What's more, they're also
effective with various combinations of brain technology used
synergistically (i.e. light/sound stimulation while on a motion
system, CES with a ganzfeld, binaural beats and hypno-subliminal
audiotapes while floating, and so on).  For convenience and
brevity, I use the abbreviation MT--for mind technology or
Megabrain tool--and it will refer to all the varieties of MTs
mentioned above.
END SIDEBAR




                           RESCRIPTING

                  FROM YOUR BRAIN TO MEGABRAIN:
                THE USERS' GUIDE TO MIND MACHINES

Most people live . . . in a very restricted circle of
their potential being.  They make use of a very small
portion of their possible consciousness, and of their
soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of
his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of
using and moving only his little finger.
				William James
				Varieties of Religious Experience



In "Beyond Entertainment: How to Use Mind Machines for Peak
Performance and Self-Transformation," MEGABRAIN REPORT #4, I
presented a variety of techniques for using mind tools for personal
growth. That article stated that I would provide more in-depth
treatements and explorations of some of those techniques in future
issues of MRB. Since the process called Rescripting aroused
considerable interest among readers, what follows is more
information about Rescripting.

                      SCRIPTS AND IMPRINTS
All of us have certain chronic or recurrent states and behaviors
that we would like to change. Some of these may be harmful, self-
defeating, self-destructive or habitual states and behavior
patterns. Or, they may simply be states or behaviors that we have
found to be unfulfilling, or unrewarding, or that keep us from
living up to our full human potential.

These unsatisfactory states or behaviors are often the result of
experiences that have been imprinted on our psyches in moments when
we were highly receptive or suggestible--particularly in childhood.
Knowing what we do about mental imagery, and how our mind tends to
work in terms of a progression of mental images, and being raised
as we have been in a world of movies and television shows, it makes
sense to speak of these internally guided behaviors as scripts.

Since rescripting is such a powerful therapeutic tool for changing
harmful or unwanted behaviors, I had initially thought about
presenting it in Part Four of the book, which deals specifically
with therapeutic applications of mind tools.  However, rescripting
is so useful for non-therapeutic uses--such as enhancing athletic
skills, learning abilities, creativity, and helping you attain peak
performance states--that I felt it was important to present the
techniques now.

Let's take for an example the imprints having to do with the
expression of sexual energies. As sex researcher John Money of
Johns Hopkins notes, "Perfectly nice, reasonable mothers and
fathers go berserk when they encounter the first appearance of
normal sexual rehearsal play in their children." The scene might
seem to be innocuous: The infant begins to do something that is
perfectly natural, perhaps playing with its genitals. A parent
notices the child's sex play and immediately threatens or punishes
it in some way, by shouting at it in an angry voice, or by slapping
its hands or shaking it. At that point an imprint is created.
Perhaps the parent shouts, "You're bad!" or "You're naughty!" At
that point a script has been laid down. As a result, the child's
feelings about sex are altered in a way that will influence its
behavior for the rest of its life, and thereafter sex is linked
with feelings of guilt, fear, or being bad or naughty.

Or, a young girl is scolded and spanked by her father for
disobeying him. He shouts at her that she must learn to obey him.
A script is laid down. Years later in her adult life, the woman
finds herself acting out that script, in which pain, fear,
humiliation, rebellion and anger are automatically activated any
time a male says something to her in a disapproving tone of voice,
or from a position of authority, and she responds with
inappropriate rage.

That is to say, many of our unwanted, harmful or negative states
and behaviors are the result of conditioning. If we could remember
those childhood experiences when the scripts were created, we could
rationally go back and expose the script as the false creation it
is. "Oh yes, I remember it well, I was three months old and I was
just touching my penis. Well, Mommy was simply tired and became
angry; that doesn't mean I'm really bad; that doesn't mean it's
really naughty to experience sexual pleasure."  However, it's
extremely difficult to remember those childhood experiences. They
usually remain unconscious, because they are state dependent--or,
even more resistant to memory, what the scientists call state
bound.

                 Why Scripts Remain Unconscious
They are state bound because, to begin with, as children, we spend
much of our time in a dominant theta brain wave state, while as
adults we spend most of our time in a dominant beta brain wave
state, and pass through theta only fleetingly, usually as we nod
off to sleep.  That means that very little of anything that really
happened to us in childhood is accessible to our conscious adult
minds: we're simply not in the same state.  We might think we
remember what happened to us in childhood, but it is like trying
to remember the true reality of a dream  while you're wide awake.

In addition, most of the childhood experiences that create our
harmful or unwanted states and behaviors happen when we, as
children, are in an even more dramatically altered state of
consciousness--fear, shock or trauma. This, as biofeedback
therapist Dr. Thomas Budzynski points out, tends to put a child
into a trance-like state by shifting hemispheric dominance to the
right hemisphere, which functions in a highly emotional, largely
non-verbal way. In this theta, right-hemisphere dominant,
trance-like state, the child's mind is totally exposed, open,
receptive, suggestible. What is "learned" during that state is
learned in the most direct and intense way possible.  Says
Budzynski, "If you slap a child, or in any way get it into an
altered state . . . and then say something to the child, you're
going to be laying down a script in the right hemisphere, which
may not have access later on to consciousness in the left
hemisphere, but nevertheless will alter the behavior and attitudes
of that child as an adult."

The script remains unconscious for several other reasons. Since
the infant is often still in a preverbal state when the script is
laid down, when it grows up it cannot approach or remember this
experience or imprint verbally--it is only a feeling.

It is also inaccessible to the conscious mind because, as recent
discoveries in neuroscience have revealed, it has been coded into
memory via the limbic system, and thus can only be approached not
through logical, verbal or intellectual analysis, or the other
"higher" mental faculties of the neo-cortex, but through the
preverbal, emotional, primitive awareness of the limbic brain (this
provides one explanation for the inability of the various types of
"talk therapy" to deal with such early experiences--how can one
talk about something for which one has no words?)

The script is also unconscious because it is not simply a memory,
but a state of being--something that happens all over the body
simultaneously: it is imprinted not just as certain words, images,
emotions or ideas, but as a whole-body state of muscular tightness
and rigidity, and respiratory tension.

Most importantly, the script is unconscious because it has been
intentionally forgotten. The experiences that create these
inappropriate scripts are traumatic experiences, and thus, like
victims of war, disasters, car or plane crashes or other traumas,
victims of childhood traumatic experiences tend to have amnesia
about those experiences. It is as if the mind, having had such
powerful and painful information pierced into its deepest, most
sensitive areas, attempts to heal itself, burying the memories
away, in an attempt to spare the victim further pain. The script
or imprint becomes hidden, or, as psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich would
say, it becomes armored.

But while the experience and the script are hidden and forgotten,
they continue to operate in the individual's life.  Budzynski
points as examples to scripts such as "You're no good!" and "You'll
never learn!" as particularly powerful and insidious. The parent
rages; the child is terrified and goes into a trance-like
hypersuggestible state; the angry parent shouts "You'll never
amount to anything!" And like an actor unconsciously but dutifully
following the script under the watchful eye of a tyrannical movie
director, the child grows into an adult, and wonders why he or she
continues to engage in self-destructive or self-sabotaging
behavior, when in fact he or she is simply obediently following the
script that has been laid down in the unconscious, proving over and
over to Mommy or Daddy that "I'll never amount to anything."


     THE MIND-MOLECULE CONNECTION: BODY AS A WEB OF THOUGHT
These scripts are so insidious and deeply imbedded that they become
"wired" not only into our brains, but into our very cells, where
they manifest themselves as chronic or recurrent physical
conditions.  In this way state dependent learning becomes a
mechanism for transmitting and creating chronic mental and physical
illness.

Psychologist Ernest Rossi explores this "mind-molecule connection"
in The Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing, where he describes how
"languages of the mind," such as words, ideas, sensations, are
communicated to and integrated in the limbic system of the brain,
where they are translated into the "languages of the body," in the
form of neurochemical messenger molecules, which flow throughout
the entire body, communicating directly with the organs and cells.

These neuropeptides or "communicator molecules," we now know, carry
messages that are the physiological equivalents of mental
experiences.  That is, they are like molecular emotions and
thoughts, or pieces of intelligence, circulating and carrying
mental experiences throughout the body. The body, then, must be
seen as a field of intelligence. Mind is not located in the brain,
but circulates throughout the body: the body is a web of thought,
a network of mind.

And in turn, each part of the body communicates its own
information, thoughts, emotions in neurochemical form to other
parts of the body, and to the limbic system, where the language of
the body is translated into the words, ideas, emotions and
sensations that are the language of the mind. Mind is a network of
molecules, a web of body.

Purely "mental" traumas or events, that is, are translated into
neurochemical molecules that shape our health and behavior by
brain-body influences that go clear down to the level of the cell
and the gene. And purely "physical" traumas or events, such as
illnesses or injuries, can be translated into molecular information
that becomes mental events stored away in our memory.

This vision of the our mind and body as "a web of self-interacting
impulses of intelligence" provides us with a neurobiological
explanation of how traumatic events, imprints and scripts can
become embodied as chronic physical conditions. What we see and
experience can enter us via our limbic brain and become a physical
part of us, circulating through our physical web of intelligence,
and transforming our field of intelligence, or being, permanently.


In the sample scripts we've been exploring above, negative scripts
or imprints enter the limbic system and become molecular emotions
that change the body on a cellular level while the child is in a
right-hemisphere dominant theta state. This is a state in which the
mind is extraordinarily receptive to new information, in which it
learns and incorporates behaviors that continue to operate
throughout life. That is, the response to the script or imprint is
"learned," i.e. becomes a habitual pattern, by entering our field
of intelligence as molecular information that transforms our body
on cellular and even sub-cellular, genetic (and most of all
unconscious) level.

Theoretically, we could detect our own unwanted habitual scripts
and patterns, and intentionally try to alter them. However, the
"learning" that has created the patterns is very much state
dependent.  It takes place in the highly charged, theta frequency,
limbic-dominant state. The only way to correct or undo the negative
pattern, then, is to enter a mind-body state (field of
intelligence, network of mind) like that in which the original
learning (or mislearning) took place.

This explains how and why many body-centered psychotherapeutic
techniques (such as Rolfing, rebirthing, Holotropic breathing,
Bioenergetics) work: they encourage the subject to become deeply
relaxed, or highly charged emotionally, so that theta waves, right
hemisphere and limbic system activity all increase, allowing the
subject to reenter or reaccess the original bodymind state, where
the trauma, imprint or script can be experienced, articulated, and
replaced by new learning, imprints or scripts.

Another effective technique for reaching these buried scripts and
imprints is hypnosis. Like the body-centered therapies, it, too,
moves beyond the limitations of logical, verbal or intellectual
analysis, or the other "higher" neo-cortex faculties, to work
through the preverbal, emotional, primitive awareness of the limbic
brain, activate the mind-molecule connection, and provide access
to the self-interacting field of intelligence, the bodymind.

                           RESCRIPTING

Seen in this light, the new mind technologies clearly provide the
most effective tools yet developed for counteracting these deeply
imbedded scripts. Like the body-centered therapies, mind tech works
directly on the bodymind to slow brain wave activity, activate the
right hemisphere, and alter limbic activity such as breathing
patterns.  But new mind tools go far beyond the body-centered
therapies by directly entraining and slowing brain wave activity
into the appropriate theta frequency range, effectively blocking
out the distractions of normal life and the reminders of adult
consensus reality, and (in the certain cases, such as LS, acoustic
field generators, flotation, ganzfeld) by actively disrupting
logical and customary adult thought patterns and injecting the user
into a whole-body non-linear unpredictable experience that triggers
the emotional limbic brain to resonate and activate the mind-
molecule web of information, and permit access to state dependent
and even state-bound childhood experiences.

In addition, brain technology permits the user or an associate to
make use of the powers of hypnosis to, in Rossi's words, "access
and reframe state-dependent memory."  It is a process that is
called "rescripting."  Thomas Budzynski, who uses LS for
rescripting in his own practice as a therapist, describes the
process: "The technique involves, first, the uncovering of the
scripts, second, the creation of counter-scripts which present a
more positive outcome, and third, the repeated presentation of the
counter-script, preferably while in a deeply relaxed or hypnotic
state. The L/S is used both to facilitate the uncovering and the
rescripting itself."

Budzynski notes that "the L/S, during the uncovering, can help
produce this deeply relaxed state and, possibly, entrain the EEG
pattern that was dominant at the time of the trauma [i.e. theta].
. . . During the rescription phase," Budzynski continues, "the L/S
again helps produce the deep relaxation (or facilitates the
hypnosis) as the positive outcome scene is repeatedly imagined."
It's important to point out that while Budzynski refers
specifically to LS, the rescripting techniques he describes can be
just as effectively applied using other types of brain technology.

                      Step One: Uncovering
The first step toward rescripting, after using your mind tool to
relax and access State Zero, is uncovering.  As the word implies,
the process is something like taking the cover off of a boiling
pot and watching what bubbles to the surface.  Though not
essential, you may find it facilitates the process to have a
specific question you wish to deal with during that session: some
particular state or behavior that causes you problems, perhaps.
You may want to state clearly to yourself, I want to use this
session to investigate my anger (my smoking, my back pain, my
mother).  In this way your unconscious mind has a context in which
to work and reveal itself.

On the other hand, some of the most powerful and life-transforming
uncovering experiences have happened spontaneously, and in
unpredictable ways, when users simply took the attitude that they
simply wanted to let go and find out what was going on in their
unconscious.  Whichever approach you take, the most important thing
is that you enter the session with a conscious commitment to
release, let go, give up control, and let yourself be carried along
on the currents of your unconscious.

Making notes.  During the session you may find suppressed or long-
forgotten memories surfacing spontaneously in the form of visual
flashbacks or images.  If you have a friend, your friend can
facilitate the uncovering process by gently and unobtrusively
asking you what you are seeing and feeling.  Many users have found
that an inexpensive tape recorder (voice-activated is preferable
though not necessary) is the most effective way of recording
spontaneously arising material.  Simply place the recorder beside
you, and whenever possible--without disrupting the flow of imagery
and without becoming so conscious of speaking that you cause
yourself to "pop out" of state--describe your experiences.  You'll
find that a sort of verbal shorthand is the most effective way of
doing this.  Just a few words (e.g. "summer nights . . . seven
years old . . . boys in trees . . . great sadness. . . ." etc.) can
act as touchstones later, bringing to consciousness complex and
detailed scenes and ideas. Whether speaking to a recorder, a friend
or therapist, or simply using your memory, the intention, of
course, is to observe what is happening, note what is being
revealed, yet permit it to continue without disrupting the whole
process by pulling yourself out of state.

Ideomotor Finger Signals. You may want to expedite the process of
uncovering by using ideomotor finger signals. Once you are in a
deep trance, you may ask, for example, if the problems you want to
deal with are the result of a single traumatic experience.  If so,
you may continue using your ideomotor signals to narrow in on the
date (how old were you when the experience occurred?), the
location, etc.  You may combine this with suggestions that you can
visualize the experience.  Again, a friend or a therapist can
facilitate this process by asking questions and observing your
ideomotor finger signals.

Dealing with Emotions. No matter what technique you use, you can
be sure you are getting close to the original scripting experience
when you begin to experience intense emotions, such as grief, rage,
fear. Dr. Budzynski points out that "Uncovering is a very sensitive
and potentially anxiety-evoking process" and recommends it be
attempted only by trained mental health professionals.  However,
you may feel confident that you can confront these past
experiences. If you are working with a friend, that may give you
the confidence that you will not be alone in confronting these past
events. You will also find it extremely useful to know and use the
Release Technique.

There is also a way you can provide an additional safeguard against
being confronted with material you are not ready to deal with. This
is by providing yourself with a third ideomotor finger signal in
addition to the "yes" and the "no" signals--perhaps the movement
of a thumb. This third signal indicates to you, "I don't want to
deal with this material at this time." When you are in the midst
of uncovering and receive this third signal, back off, and wait to
delve more deeply until a later time.

                     Step Two: Rescripting
Once the harmful script has been uncovered, the next step is to
develop a counter-script.  Budzynski mentions several types of
rescription: "The client can change the way he or she was thinking
in the situation (cognition), or the external behavior (behavior),
or the words that were said (verbal), or any combination of the
three.  Usually, a change in external or verbal behavior will
produce a change in the other person's behavior and therefore, a
different, hopefully more adaptive, outcome."

While in your deeply relaxed state, you should recreate the
original traumatic experience or unwanted scripting experience,
using as much concrete detail and as many sensory modalities as
possible.  However, as the scene is recreated, you should alter it
in such a way that it produces a positive outcome.  Budzynski
describes a case of a woman who had an inexplicable pain in her
arm who, upon going into hypnosis and using ideomotor signals,
revealed that while she had been hospitalized and unconscious after
a fall from a horse, and while a nurse was inserting an IV needle
in her arm, a visiting relative remarked, "Gee, that looks like it
would sting!" The woman's unconscious mind, in an altered state,
apparently took this as a command. "The rescription was simple,"
says Budzynski, "an old but wise 'Dr. Welby' type physician was
introduced to the scene.  When the triggering remark was made, the
wise physician said, 'Oh sure it stings for a few seconds, but then
it feels as good as new.' When the client awakened, the pain was
gone!"

                 Rescripting with Submodalities
It's clear the mental images we use influence how we feel.  One
way to change the mental images is to do a whole-scene rewrite,
changing the content of the mental image.  But another powerful
way to alter the meaning and influence of our mental images is to
change the submodalities of the image. Submodalities, according to
NLP creator Richard Bandler, are "universal elements that can be
used to change any visual image, no matter what the content is."
There are visual, kinesthetic and auditory submodalities, but I
will focus on visual submodalities here.

For example, suppose you have a very unpleasant memory you would
like to rescript.  As you look at that unpleasant memory, see it
as a black and white movie, and make it get dimmer and dimmer, so
that it almost fades away. Turn it down entirely. . . . now see
how that scene makes you feel.  You may find that much of the
emotional content of the scene--your unpleasant feelings--have
faded away with the image.  Think of a very pleasant scene.  Now
turn up the brightness and the colors on that scene, and see how
that makes you feel.  Usually, increasing the brightness and color
of an image will increase the intensity of the feelings it causes.

As Bandler points out, we're all aware of this link between mental
imagery and behavior: ""People talk about a 'dim future' or 'bright
prospects.'  'Everything looks black.'  'My mind went blank.' 'It's
a small thing, but she blows it all our of proportion.'  When
someone says something like that, it's not metaphorical; it's
usually a literal and precise description of what that person is
experiencing inside.  If someone is 'blowing something out of
proportion,' you can tell her to shrink that picture down.  If she
sees a 'dim future,' have her brighten it up.  It sounds simple .
. . and it is."

The best way to find out what changing submodalities can do to
change your experience and help you in your rescripting process is
by experimentation.  Take an image and go through each of the
following submodalities and see how it changes your experience.
At first, just change one submodality at a time, so you can learn
what its effect is, without mingling it with the effects of other
submodalities.  Here are some of the visual submodalities, as
suggested by Richard Bandler. Try them out on a pleasant experience
before unleashing them on unpleasant ones.

Color.  Change color intensity from vivid brightness to black and
	white.
Distance. Move the image from very close to very far off.
Depth. Vary your image from three-dimensional to a flat two-
	dimensional surface.
Duration. See the difference between a quick flicker of an image
	to a longlasting one.
Clarity. What's the difference in experience between a fuzzy, soft-
focus image and a hard-edged crystal clear one?
Scope. Explore the difference between an image on a screen in front
of your eyes to an expanded image, to a fully encompassing image
that surrounds you, so that if you turn your head to either side
you can see more.
Movement. Vary the mental image from a still photo or slide to a
	slow motion movie to lickety-split fast time.
Forwards/backwards. What happens when you take a scene and run it
	backwards, from the end to the beginning?  Many of us find it
     funny.  That's a great way to deal with unpleasant
     experiences--run them backwards and make them ridiculous and
     laughable. Or, run the unpleasant scene backwards to its
     beginning, then run it forwards again, but this time with the
     content changed to make it very pleasant.  You can also put
     the scene into the "erase" mode, so that as it runs backwards
     it's being erased.  A good way to get rid of unpleasant
     scenes.

You will also find it valuable to perform similar experiments with
taking a mental image and seeing what happens when you change one
at a time a kinesthetic submodality (weight, size, pressure, shape,
temperature, movement, balance, texture, rhythm, etc.) or an
auditory submodality (pitch, tone, timbre, tempo, volume, duration
of sounds, distance, voice, words, etc.)

Once you've discovered the effects of these various submodalities
one at a time, you can combine them and apply them to rescripting
past experiences. It can prove to be a life transforming power.
As Richard Bandler remarks, "What's amazing to me is that some
people do it exactly backwards.  Think what your life would be like
if you remembered all your good experiences as dim, distant, fuzzy,
black and white snapshots, but recalled all your bad experiences
in vividly colorful, close, panoramic, 3-D movies.  That's a great
way to get depressed and think that life isn't worth living.  All
of us have good and bad experiences; how we recall them is often
what makes the difference."

                   Changing Your Point of View
Another powerful technique for changing the impact of past events
is to change the perspective you choose to experience them. Film-
makers pay extremely careful attention to what they call POV, or
point of view, because they know that the POV of a scene can
determine its entire impact and significance to the audience. Do
we view a scene from the POV of one of the actors in the scene, or
do we see the scene from a distance, with a frame around it?
Imagine how different the shower scene from "Psycho" would feel if
it had been filmed from the POV of some objective observer.

POV has the same powerful determining influence in the mind movies
that make up your memories.  Remember some horrible thing that
happened to you--really experience it as it happened.  Now try to
fully experience an extremely pleasant memory.  Is there a
difference in the point of view?  Perhaps you see one of the
memories exactly as you did when it happened, as if you are
actually inside your body looking out through the eyes that are
seeing the events happen. This is called being associated.  Perhaps
you see one of the memories from a different point of view than
through your own eyes--maybe you see the scene from above, as if
you're perched in a corner of the room by the ceiling; perhaps you
see it as if you're watching a movie.  This is called being
dissociated.

Now, take--the good one and the bad one--and whichever way you
experienced them, go back and experience them from a different
point of view.  If you were associated in your happy memory, now
do it in a dissociated way, seeing yourself from a distance, or as
if in a movie.  If you were dissociated, step into your body,
experience the scene in the same multi-sensory way you did when
you were truly in it.  How does it change your memories?

For most people, recalling an event in an associated way causes
them to reexperience the feeling response they originally had.
Recalling an event in a dissociated way, for most people,  permits
them to observe themselves having the original feelings without
actually reexperiencing them.  This can be immensely valuable. You
can choose to recall your happy memories in an associated way,
feeling all the pleasurable emotions and feelings that accompany
them, and recall all the unpleasant memories in a dissociated way,
with all the information about what happened, but without the
negative feelings.  As Richard Bandler points out, "Why feel bad
again?  Wasn't it enough to feel bad once?"

But many people go about it in exactly the opposite way, and
associate with all their unpleasant memories, while storing their
pleasant memories as distant, dissociated images.  Then they feel
all hurt and angry about unpleasant events that are long past,
while not feeling any of the pleasure out of what should be their
best memories.

Since mind tech can increase enormously your powers of memory and
visualization, you will find it useful to go back through your most
strongly unpleasant memories and run through them from a
dissociated POV. As you experience them, explore the effects of
dissociation--what's the best dissociated viewpoint for being able
to see the memories clear enough to learn from them but keeping
them far away enough (or dim enough, or small enough) so that they
don't stir up your feelings.  Experience a variety of good memories
by being fully associated, soaking in the pleasure and good
feelings of each one.  In essence, you're teaching yourself to
associate with good memories and dissociate from bad ones.  Richard
Bandler points out that learning how and when to associate or
dissociate is "one of the most profound and pervasive ways to
change the quality of a person's experience, and the behavior that
results from it.  Dissociation is particularly useful for intensely
unpleasant memories."  Dissociation can be extremely valuable for
victims of rape, child abuse, and experiences of war or other
traumatic experiences such as post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Running the Movie Backwards. Here's a powerful technique Bandler
developed for using association and dissociation to rescript
intensely unpleasant memories or to change current unwanted
behavior patterns, such as phobias.  First, imagine you're sitting
in a movie theater.  As you watch the screen, you see a black and
white slide or still image of yourself just before the unpleasant
past event or before the phobia or other unwanted behavior pattern
begins.

Now, see yourself in the projection booth of the movie theater.
You can see yourself sitting below you in the theater, but you can
also see the image of yourself on screen.  That is, you can watch
yourself watching yourself.  It is, in other words, a way of doubly
dissociating yourself from the behavior or memory.

From this point of view, allow the black and white slide on screen
turn into a black and white movie, and let it show you going
through the unpleasant experience or phobic response or other
unwanted behavior from beginning to end. Then, when it reaches the
end, stop the image as a black and white slide, and then jump
inside the movie and run it backwards.  Except as it runs
backwards, you're inside the movie and it's in full color. Run it
backwards quickly--it should take only two or three seconds. If it
seems hard to believe that rapid change can take place so fast,
Bandler points out that "The brain learns by having patterns go by
rapidly.  Imagine if I gave you one frame of a movie every day for
five years.  Would you get the plot?  Of course not.  You only get
the meaning of the movie if all those pictures go by really fast.
Trying to change slowly is like having a conversation one word a
day."

          Rescripting for Increasing Life Satisfaction
These techniques for rescripting and changing memories by changing
point of view need not be limited to dealing with clearly traumatic
childhood experiences.  Even the most healthy and well-adjusted
individuals have areas in which their lives are unsatisfying, their
life strategies are unproductive, or in which they feel they are
not living up to their fullest potential.  One friend of mine I'll
call Ed, for example, is a successful businessman with a rewarding
and fulfilling personal and family life.  However, he found that
he had a nagging dissatisfaction with his own inability to loosen
up, let go and express himself in front of an audience.  As he
explored this in a series of sessions on an LS machine, he found
that there was part of him that would have liked to have been an
entertainer.  He began recalling experiences from his own childhood
that had to do with performing. He had vivid memories in which he
had tried out or wanted to try out comedy acts and song-and-dance
routines in front of his father.  His father had been a hard-
driving business executive, who had little time to sit down and let
himself be entertained by his six year old son.  Ed remembered one
time when he did a slapstick comedy routine for his father,  who
sat watching impatiently without laughing.   The result was that
Ed, receiving no encouragement or praise from his father, had early
on felt that he was not particularly skilled as an entertainer,
and soon stifled this aspect of his personality.

Ed began a rescripting process by going back to those childhood
experiences in which he tried out his act on his father. Now,
however, Ed created a counter-script in which his father explained
to Ed that he was sorry he was too busy to pay attention, that it
was his fault, not Ed's fault, and had nothing to do with Ed's
intrinsic talents or worth. In the counter-script, Ed was once
again his six year old self, and his father now sat down and Ed did
his magic tricks, his slapstick gags, his soft-shoe and tap dance
routines, and his father laughed uproariously, applauded often, and
ended by giving Ed a bearhug, telling him how much he loved him and
what a talented boy he was.

Ed also found that while his memories of performing for his father
were vivid associative experiences, his memories of some of his
experiences of performing in school plays or singing in a school
vocal group were dim and dissociative--he saw himself as if from
the back of the auditorium.  He began reexperiencing those memories
in an associative way, fully enjoying them.

Predictably, Ed felt a sense of release and change in his own adult
life. He became more self-confident, and found he had a great
desire to perform.  He sat down at the piano, which he had not
played seriously for over 20 years, and began playing again.  Soon
he had joined a small band and had tremendous fun playing gigs
around town. He is now considering trying out for a part at the
local playhouse.

Like anchoring, rescripting gains in power with repetition, and
the more vivid the rescripted experience (engaging several senses
and with concrete details) the more power it has to counter the
old script. Rescripting requires sensitivity and imagination. As
the name implies, you must become a scriptwriter, taking old
scripts that don't work, looking at them with a creative eye, and
like a skillful screenwriter, turning them into scripts that work.
In this, as in all the techniques in this book, practice makes
better.

                            THE SWISH
One powerful rescripting technique developed by Richard Bandler
and widely used by practitioners of NLP is called the Swish
pattern. NLP teaches you how to do a Swish pattern while in
ordinary waking consciousness.  However, I've found that using this
(and other NLP techniques) in the midst of the deep relaxation and
State Zero brain tech experience boosts it to a higher order of
effectiveness.  I have used this technique in many of my Megabrain
Workshops, and have found that it can produce rapid and dramatic
effects.

In essence, a swish pattern takes something unpleasant or
undesired--a memory, an image, a behavior or habit, a state--and
causes it to automatically trigger something pleasant or desired.
Or, as Richard Bandler says, it "directionalizes the brain," by
making use of the human tendency to avoid unpleasantness and move
towards pleasantness. Here's how it's done.

Identify Cue Image. Let's say you want to change bad habit X
(smoking, biting your fingernails, overeating, etc.). Once you have
used your mind tool to get into a deeply relaxed, trance state, or
State Zero, the next step is to identify the cue image, that is,
what you actually see as you begin to engage in habit X. For
smokers, it may be your hand moving toward your pack of cigarettes,
or the pocket or purse where you keep them; for nail biters, it may
be the image of your hand moving toward your mouth.  Since this is
the cue for a habit you don't like, you should make something about
this image unpleasant--the more unpleasant the better.

Create Desired Outcome Image. The next step is to create a second
picture--an image of yourself as you would be if you had already
made the desired change in your behavior. This image should be
really attractive and pleasant. You may have to try several images,
or make several adjustments in your image, until you get something
that you really like.

Swish. Now switch the two images by "swishing" them.  Start with
the first cue picture big and bright.  Then, put a small, dim and
dark version of your desired outcome image in the bottom right-hand
corner of your visual field.  Then, in a flash, actually see the
small, dim image growing larger and brighter and covering up the
first image, which is simultaneously getting smaller and dimmer.
As this happens, say to yourself "swish!" with excitement and
enthusiasm.  Having done this, blank your image screen for a
second, then do it again.  Repeat the swish. Do it several times.

Test. One way of testing is to try to call to mind that first
image.  If the swish has been effective, it will be hard to create
this first picture--as soon as it comes into your mind it should
fade out and be replaced by your desired outcome image.

The key to the swish is speed, vividness and repetition.  Once
you're in your theta state, or your trance, perform the swish
pattern over and over, taking only a second or so for each
repetition.  If you experience this swish pattern intensely enough,
you should find that whenever you begin to act out your old,
harmful habit, you will immediately find yourself switching to your
new behavior. In a very real sense, you will feel compelled by your
old behavior to act in a different way.  As Bandler observes, "You
could call this pattern 'trade compulsions.'"

External Cues. At the end of last chapter we explored ways of
externally generating cues, and discussed how to use a signal to
anchor a peak state or a behavior changing reminder.  In the same
way, you can program yourself to automatically activate a Swish
pattern.  If the behavior you want to alter has to do with eating,
you may want to suggest to yourself during your mind tech session
that opening the refrigerator door will be a cue for you to
activate a Swish pattern.

During the initial stages of rescripting behavior, frequent
repetition of the Swish increases its power.  Use your onboard cue
generator. Set your timer or MotivAider to activate a Swish every
five or ten minutes, for example, and the power of the rescripting
mental images will be greatly increased.


                            RESOURCES

One way to experience first-hand a variety of rescripting and other
mind-altering techniques is to listen to the six-tape series called
NEUROSONICS: THE PERSONAL ENHANCEMENT SERIES.   Written and
narrated by NLP co-founder Richard Bandler, it is a compendium of
some of his most effective NLP techniques, and enormous fun.  These
tapes work very well in combination with LS machines, floating and
other mind tech.

I also highly recommend Richard Bandler's Using Your Brain for a
Change (1985), and the books he did in combination with NLP co-
founder John Grinder, Frogs into Princes (1979), Reframing (1981),
and Trance-formations (1981), all from Real People Press and
available in most bookstores.

For more on Rescripting, see Thomas Budzynski's excellent articles,
particularly "Brain lateralization and rescripting," Somatics, 3,
1-10 (1981), and "Clinical applications of no-drug-induced states."
In B. Wolman and M. Ullman (Eds.) Handbook of States of
Consciousness (Van Nostrand-Reinhold, 1986). Also valuable is
Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer by John
C. Lilly (Julian, 1972). See also Software for the Mind: How to
Program Your Mind for Optimum Health and Performance by Emmett
Miller (Celestial Arts, 1987).