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Bad Intentional Trance Formation

Some kinds of information are neither objectively true nor false, so the trances they evoke are neither valid nor invalid.

Consider Barry, a 31 year-old engineer who views himself as socially awkward. He is at a party with co-workers, when his supervisor makes a joke at his expense. Barry would love to respond with a clever comeback, but he expects to be inarticulate. Will there be a witty exchange or an awkward silence?

The appraisal: “I’m a loser,” or the expectation: “I will perform well” exist only in Barry’s mind not in the objective world, but this subjective experience may have a considerable influence on how he performs. Appreciating Barry’s tendency to freeze up in such situations, his coworkers might bet against him, but this expectation exists only in their minds. Objective reality is determined by Barry’s actual response.

When he is in the right state of mind Barry can be very funny and quick witted. Whether or not he can use this talent in this stressful situation depends to a large extent on his subjective reality at that moment. His retort is more likely to be clever if he is in a confident trance than if he is in his “I’m a nerd” trance. He wants to bring on the clever version of himself and enjoy a social victory for a change, but he expects to be weak and intimidated as usual.

So there is a conflict between Barry’s intentions - to be cool and clever - and his expectations of humiliation. Will his expectations or his intentions be dominant at the critical moment?

His expectations have the advantage - both Barry and his friends believe them to be true. From our dispassionate perspective we can see they are merely creative fictions which are neither true nor false. As his therapist I’d like to free Barry from this artificial limitation so he can utilize his clever wit, and enjoy himself more. There is a method to help people free themselves of subjective limitations so they can fulfill their natural potentials. From the preceding description you may already have an idea of what it is.

There is more than one version of Barry, including the clever Barry and the intimidated Barry. Intentional Intentional Trance Formation is a method to enable Barry to transform one version of himself into a more resourceful version. One of the ambitious objective of this web site is to enable you to influence your motivational state in real time! For a direct experience of intentional Intentional Trance Formation please accept one of the phenomenal invitations by clicking one of the "listen now" or "multimedia" links in the right column.

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