Title Tricks of the Mind
Author Derren Brown
Year Published 2006
Kind of Book Psychology/Rationality/Communication
How strongly I recommend it 5/10
My Impressions This is a good intro to several subjects I'm interested in; hypnosis, magic, rationality, body language, memory techniques, and NLP, however, those already familiar with these subjects may be disappointed by the lack of depth on any one subject. I did enjoy the peak behind the curtain of some of his seemingly magical and supernatural gimmicks.
Date Read April 2022
Practical Takeaways
Sometimes is it good to take an action, even if the action doesn't have any evidence of working, because a person can benefit from placebo or feeling in control of their fate
(performing/speeches) if the audience starts coughing, get quieter to get their attention back
Let people naturally discover how interesting/smart you are. Don't try to show them
(To through off an aggressor) Lie on the floor in the fetal position, sob, and kiss the toe of your aggressor's shoe- Wing Chun technique
(To through off an aggressor) Ask them a nonsensical question that will short circuit their brain. Do this with a cheery tone of voice and attitude that they should understand exactly what you are talking about (eg. "The wall outside my house isn't four foot high?)
Body language
(for reading body language) first establish a baseline of what is normal for the person
When a person gestures that they're weighing options, notice which hand seems heavier
When a person is talking vaguely about someone, but not saying who, see if their fingers are pointing at someone (often they'll be pointing at the person they're talking about)
Notice if the person crosses or uncrosses their legs or feet when certain subjects are brought up
(spotting a lie) listen for less use of the word 'I' "Me" 'My" in their story and more uses to "everyone" or "no-one" or what "always happens"
(spotting a lie) listen for a change in pitch of voice (not necessarily higher or lower)
(spotting a lie) liars are unlikely to quote a person directly when telling a story.
(spotting a lie) liars are unlikely to admit that they don't remember a detail from the story. (eg. "I can't remember why we were all ____")
Self image
See what mental images come to mind when you picture yourself
What image comes to mind when you see yourself at work, at home, meeting people..etc. ?
Decide on a self-image that you would like to see for each situation. See this new you interacting in new ways that delight you
Emotionally engage on these images every day
(sales) pay attention to the representation style of the customer (visual, auditory, feeling) use their representation style to sell them the product. eg. Customer “I don’t see how we could go tonight” Salesman “Picture yourself having a great time”
(sales) overload the prospect with information to enhance how open they will be to a direction you give them
Figure out your loved one's representation style ie. Love language, so you can communicate with them better
If person says "sounds good" "sounds like a plan" their representation system is likely auditory
If person uses phrases like "looks good" "I see what you mean" their representation system in likely visual
If person uses phrases like "That feels right" their representation system in likely kinesthetic
To find out a person's representation style ask them how they want to be remembered when they die
(to gain rapport with a stranger)
watch them out of the corner of your eye *preferably while you're seated
Copy their movements eg. If they take a sip, you take a sip. If they lean back in your chair, you learn back in your chair
After a while, take the lead, do a movement (eg. Take a sip) and see if they follow
**do it with a feeling of warmth and naturalness
**if you introduce yourself to them later on their reception of you will be very warm
If something is bothering you, shrink your mental image of it, make it black and white, and see if from a third person perspective (eg. The thing is happening to you in the image but you are up above looking down on it)
If you want to feel more excited about something, make your mental image of it bigger, brighter, and more colorful.
(for parents) "You've been really good today, so you can decide whether to go to bed at eight of eight-thirty"
(for turning someone's bad suggestion into a good idea in a delicate way which might make them think it was their idea) 'Yes, that's a great idea, and I think where that really works is ____(picking out a positive aspect of the bad idea). I think also that ____(now shifting across to a better idea, as if it had grown out of the bad suggestion)" Pacing
(Mnemonic Markers) Make the image vivid
(Mnemonic Markers) Take a moment to see the picture in your head once you have decided on it
(Mnemonic Markers) Let yourself emotionally engage with the picture
(Mnemonic Markers) If the image is funny, look at it and find it funny
(Mnemonic Markers) If the image is disgusting, look at it and find it disgusting
(for linking system) make image A has some effect on image B, not just next to each other
(for personal reminder) create an image somewhere where you'll see it. Eg. If you want to remember to call your friend when you get home. Place an image of him on your walkway so that when you reach your house you will "see" him and be reminded
(memory palace) always move around your rooms in a clockwise fashion
(memory palace) don’t use a location for a memory palace in which you have good or bad associations
(memory palace) when you're in a new place that would make for a good memory palace. Walk around it, take pictures, and return to it a few times
(memory palace) use whole floors from museums as a memory palace *ignoring the exhibits
(memory palace) link memory palaces with grand stairwells and marble hallways
(memory palace) add a marker every 5 loci on your journey (so that you can quickly get to station 10, 20, 30 etc.
(remembering names) when you are meeting someone pay attention to their name and tell yourself that you are going to remember their name
Be that charming person who remembers and calls everyone by their name
(remembering names) if the person you meet has the same name as someone you know, see the new person dressed up or made up like the person you know
(remembering names) put the person in a location which is in alignment with his or her career or interests. Eg. Mike the lawyer would be in a courtroom singing into a microphone
(remembering names) keep a notebook or filing system of the people you met, what their interests are etc.
(remembering names) go through all the common names and come up with premade markers that you can quickly use. Eg. Mike=microphone John=on portajohn etc.
Say 'Suggestive Techniques' rather than 'hypnosis'
Muscle-Reading:
Place two (or a few) objects on a table
Tell the other person to secretly choose one object
Tell the other person to guide you with their mind only towards one of the objects they're thinking of
Hold their left of right wrist
Tell them it is for telepathic reasons, but do it so that you can pay attention to their subtle unconscious movements
Provide some slight pressure to their hand in one direction. If you notice no resistance, the object is likely in that direction. If you notice some resistance, the object is likely in the opposite direction.
Cold Reading
Make the person you are cold reading feel that they are really interesting to be, so complex
(for 20 year old) guest that they are self-involved and are very aware of conflicts in their personalities and spend a lot of time wondering who their real self is
Say 'they keep people at arms length until you've really gotten to know them'
Take a general statement which applies to everyone. Change some words to make it sound like it's unique to them (eg. 'You are introverted but can be extroverted sometimes)
Hypnosis
Don't hypnotize anyone who is clearly disturbed
Don't hypnotize anyone with epilepsy
Always make sure at the end that the person is completely free from any belief that they might still be hypnotized
Take your time to thoroughly bring people out of the trance
Treat hypnosis first as a relaxation tool, and slowly move into administering behavioral suggestions
Pace and lead. Ie. Connect what they are doing/experiencing to what you want them to do/experience "as you ___, so you ____"
Talk with a gentle, relaxed tone
Repeat yourself
Allow yourself to fully relax as you talk
Appeal to all the senses of you subject by referring to things you'd like them to see, hear, feel, smell or even taste in their hypnotic state.
Have the subject see, feel, smell, taste what you are having them imagine
Tell him "You will count from one to ten as you walk down the stairs, and when you reach 'ten' you will be at the bottom of the stairs in a profound state of relaxation"
Fully awaken the subject after the hypnosis
Have them imagine walking through the door and back up the stairs as you count back from ten to zero. Explain that as he walks up the stairs he will feel all the drowsiness and heaviness leave him. Have him open his eyes at 'zero' and be fully awake
Have your subject sitting comfortably
Avoid bright lighting
Avoid noisy surroundings
Turn off all cellphones
Talk as if you are inducing a special state
Be confident, unflustered and act as if you've done it a hundred times before
Tell the subject "As you find yourself going deeper and deeper into the trance, you will still hear and understand everything I say"
Have him try to lift his arm in a way that presupposes failure "Try as hard as you can to unstick your arm" *emphasize the word stick
(to make subject unable to remember his name) "When you wake up, you won't be able to remember your name. The more you try to remember it, the more you will forget. Just like all of those things that you try to remember but find impossible; all of those things that are right on the tip of your tongue buy just get further and further away the more you try to remember them. In the same way that you forget a tune or a name, you will have no recollection of your name when you awake. When I ask you what it is, you won't be able to remember, will you? The more you try, the more you'll forget. All memory of your name will be gone the moment you open your eyes."
Ask him his name, but frown and use a tone of voice to suggest that he can't recall it. Look puzzled yourself. Shake your head as you ask him to try to remember
Big Ideas
Some Magicians and Hypnotists get into the field because they want to control people
Many kids initially learn magic to impress people
Because they the don't feel impressive themselves
People who believe in the paranormal suffer from Confirmation bias
Much of the magic happens after the trick is over
After the magic trick the magician will often plant ideas in the audiences mind about what happened
The moment people are bewildered, they are highly suggestible (and therefore easily manipulatable)
People who were fooled by a magic trick often exaggerate the details of it when they are telling other people about it
Because
They don’t want to seem like an idiot aka easy target
The longer the amount of time passes after a magic trick is performed the more the details of the event will change in the audiences mind
The more attentive a spectator is, the easier he is to fool.
Because
People can only concentrate intensely for short periods of time
When people concentrate intensely on something they eventually burn themselves out and lose concentration
People who are only half engaged in a magic trick are more likely to spot how the trick is being performed
Speed-reading is just learning to skim
The subject must believe the hypnosis will work in order for it to work
Everything the hypnotizer does during hypnosis contributes to the hypnosis
The hypnotist connects what the subject is currently doing/experiencing (pacing) to what they want to them to do/experience (leading) using language like 'as you ___, so you ____'
Subjects often conflate and don't differentiate the hypnotists pacing with their leading. This causes them to do the thing the hypnotist wants them to do, because they think they're already doing it.
By highlighting one positive aspect of a bad suggestion and then adding onto it a better suggestion/your suggestion the person with the bad idea will feel heard and might think the good idea was theirs
By giving someone two options (in which they both meet your goals) is often met with less resistance than just telling someone they have to do something (ie. Giving them no option)
Some slogans or manipulative people will hide an assertion in a question (ie. Suppressed premise)
Subjects are more likely to be hypnotizable if they believe the Hypnotist believes they will be
The language that we use has a powerful effect on our unconscious thoughts
When we talk about something we are either
See a picture of it in our mind
Hearing how it sounds in our head
Feeling what it feels like in our body
Some NLPers believe each person has a preferred representational system (visual, auditory, or feeling)
Some NLPers believe that each person has a preferred representation system for certain activities
If you can identify someone's representation system then you can have better rapport with them
The customer often communicates to the salesman how to sell him the product
People tend to unconsciously mirror each other's body language when they are getting along well with another person
People tend to unconsciously use the same vocabulary when they are getting along well with another person
People tend to unconsciously breathe at the same rate when they are getting along well with another person
Strangers who we have mirrored are likely to initiate a conversation with us, or be very receptive if you initiate a conversation with them
In order to feel strongly about something, a person must be able to see it in their mind's eye
We tend to generalize from ONE encounter with a famous person what kind of a person they REALLY are
We all have many sides to ourselves that come out around different people, none of which is more or less REAL
People cannot be confident in isolation
Confidence is a state of being which only occurs (or doesn't occur) in the company of other people
There's no difference between a person who is acting confident in a situation and the person who is 'really' confident
How confident a person is determines how tall or short they feel in relation to the people around them
A short person who is confident will feel that they are taller than the people around them
A tall person who is not confident will feel that they are shorter than the people around them
When an aggressor receives a non-sensical response to his threat he is temporally confused and therefore destabilized and will often experience an adrenalin dump
We unconsciously look for nonverbal communication which is congruent with what we already think about the person
The most common emotions experienced by a liar are guilt, fear, and excitement
When people lie, they often try to act naturally, which is oftentimes unnatural and incongruent with their baseline behavior
People are generally good at controlling/masking their authentic facial expressions
We think about people all of the time
It would be extraoridinary if we never received a call from a person after we were thinking about them
We don't think about all of the times we have thought about a person and the DIDN't Call (we only notice the times it DOES happen)
We have a bias to think to much of anecdotes and personal experience compared to scientific data
When 'alternative' medicine is shown to work repeatedly, then it stops being 'alternative medicine' and just becomes 'medicine'
The placebo effect is great for reducing pain
The placebo effect is terrible for getting rid of cancer
An audience coughing is a sign that they have detached from the show and are getting fidgety
Trying to show people how interesting you are annoys them and makes you seem uninteresting
Letting people find out for themselves how interesting you are makes them intrigued and interested
Surprising Facts
The stories of the New Testament were written a couple hundred years after the historical Jesus died
The stories of the New Testament were edited and revised for social and political purposes for most of the first millennium
Jesus was one of many spiritual teachers during his time
During the 1800s seances were held where people
You cannot find a wrongly labelled item on the shelf and then insist on buying it at that price. The law is that price tags are mere invitations unbinding precursors to the making of an offer. The offer is made later by the customer, when he approaches the shop assistant and indicates what he wants to buy. When the assistant accepts his offer and a price is agreed, the contract is made.
Hypnosis can only be used on people undergoing surgery who are hypnotically responsive enough
The skin is the most sensitive area of the body
The internal organs and tissues tend to be insensitive to pain. We can be cut almost anywhere inside and feel little or nothing.
Modern surgeons usually administer a general anesthetic over a local anesthetic only to alleviate fear and anxiety rather than because it is necessary.
The NLP theory that you can tell if someone is remembering vs. constructing something based on their eye movements has not be backed up by science
Scientific tests have failed to show that we feel more trust/rapport/fondness towards people who mirror our representation systems
The most specific verifiable facts, like whether the writer is male or female have not been shown to be gleaned from handwriting analysis (ie. No scientific evidence)
A person who unnaturally holds eye-contact is far more likely to be lying. For some people, where they are lying is the only time they hold eye contact
Lie detectors are unreliable because nervous or frustrated suspects can produce higher rates of pulse and blood-pressure than normal
We are able to suppress an authentic facial expression that we don't want to show within 1/25th of second after it appears
The frequency of our blinking shows the speed with which we are processing information //why people just staring are perceived as "duuuh"
Police men are just as bad at detecting lies as college students 55%...
Secret Service people are better at detecting lies than the average person
No tests have ever been replicated to show that DDT is damaging to humans health
DDT prevents the spread of malaria
Echinacea hasn't been scientifically shown to prevent colds
Unknown Terms
Mentalism
Sucker Trick: a magic trick which exposes the spectator or volunteer as a fool
Ideomotor movement: A phenomenon whereby If you focus on the idea of making a movement, you will likely end up making a similar tiny movement without realizing it. For example: If, undistracted you concentrate on the idea of your hand becoming light, you'll eventually find that you make tiny unconscious movements to lift it.
Table-Tipping: a precursor to the Ouija board. At seances in the 1800s people would stand around a table with their fingertips on it and wait for spirits to communicate. The tables would eventually begin to move. The scientific explanation is that due to the ideomotor effect "If a few people are convinced that the table will move, they will after a while begin unconsciously to push it." This was confirmed by a scientist in the late 19th century.
Muscle-Reading:
Place two (or a few) objects on a table
Tell the other person to secretly choose one object
Tell the other person to guide you with their mind only towards one of the objects they're thinking of
Hold their left of right wrist
Tell them it is for telepathic reasons, but do it so that you can pay attention to their subtle unconscious movements
Provide some slight pressure to their hand in one direction. If you notice no resistance, the object is likely in that direction. If you notice some resistance, the object is likely in the opposite direction.
'Special State' school of thought in hypnosis: the idea that the hypnotized person is able to achieve things a non-hypnotized person cannot.
'Non-state' school of thought in hypnosis: the idea that various phenomena of hypnosis can be explained quite happily without thinking of 'trances' or 'hypnosis' as meaning anything special or peculiar or akin to a special state of mind. *this theory is becoming most accepted
Negative Hypnosis: where a subject is instructed not to see seething that is there, instead of vice versa.
Hypnotic analgesia: the control of pain through hypnosis
Pacing (hypnotism): when the hypnotist is feeding back the subject's experience to him
Leading (hypnotism): when a hypnotist leads the subject to a new desired behavior
Neuro-Linguistic Programming: the study of the structure of subjective experience and what can be calculated from that and is predicted upon the belief that all behavior has structure
Representation System (NLP): The system a person uses to represent what is being said (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic)
Duping Delight: The pleasure and excitement a person might feel when telling a lie, especially when there are other people around who know the truth
Controlling Processes: Behaviors we carry out to hides signs which we think might give away our lie