My Matrix Revolutions with Hemi-Sync®

by Gustavo S. Strobel, BS
Winter/Spring 2005

Gustavo S. Strobel is a psychologist in private practice in Curitiba, Brazil, S.A. In his practice, relaxation techniques, Jungian psychology, and neurolinguistic programming (NLP) are used. Gus is a consultant for The Coaching International Institute, which provides training in NLP, and he also has an interest in out-of-body experiences in early Christian Gnosticism.He joined the TMI Professional Division in August 2004. This paper describes how he is using Hemi-Sync® to aid NLP techniques and help clients achieve direct access to the unconscious.

The date was January 25, 2004. I woke up in the middle of the night certain that I was dying—I couldn’t move and felt this strong “vibrato” all through my body—there were also purple lights. In a panic, I managed to move my arms and got out of that weird “dream.” It took less than thirty seconds, but I was sure I had gone to a place I had never (consciously) gone to before. I couldn’t label it, since it was quite unlike any dream I’d ever had. Although I’ve been a Jungian psychotherapist for nine years, there were no parallels in my previous experience. In my years of tai chi and yoga practice no mentor had ever mentioned anything resembling this. Okay, maybe there was Chuang Tzu’s butterfly dream:

“Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamed I was a butterfly and was happy as a butterfly. I was conscious that I was quite pleased with myself, but I did not know that I was Tzu. Suddenly I awoke, and there was I, visibly Tzu. I do not know whether it was Tzu dreaming that he was a butterfly or the butterfly dreaming that he was Tzu. Between Tzu and the butterfly there must be some distinction. [But one may be the other.] This is called the transformation of things.”

Then I purchased on eBay an inexpensive but comprehensive book on lucid dreaming, The Ultimate Lucid Dreaming Manual, by Marc Vandekeere. In it, to my astonishment, I found for the very first time a reference to “strong vibrations as a first stage in the out-of-body experience”; I was flummoxed. The authors also mentioned The Monroe Institute as a beacon for transpersonal psychology.

Unable to deny my own experience, I started reading Robert Monroe’s Journeys Out of the Body. Insight followed insight. My whole world (or my belief about what that world meant) went crashing into a tailspin. The last piece of the puzzle was supplied by studying the life of a Christian mystic called Daskalos. His story is told by Kyriacos C. Markides in The Magus of Strovolos. Daskalos may be one of the few mystics to blend out-of-body experiences, Christianity, karma, and reincarnation principles in his teachings. For more information on Daskalos go to www.researchers-of-truth.org

The concept I had had of the universe was more theoretical than practical. From the age of eighteen, I was being introduced to the concepts of reincarnation, evolution of the spirit, ki energy, and such. But I couldn’t really feel these things. In Bob’s terms, it was more of a belief than a Knowing. It is like the character Neo in The Matrix. One day he awakens to the possibility that he may be more than his physical body and starts seeing the matrix, seeing the code. The first Matrix movie was a blockbuster to me as I watched how people unconsciously got semi-entranced by multiple realities.

My entire psychotherapy practice changed as well, not so much directly, but in how I saw what I was doing. I purchased and began to work with the GATEWAY EXPERIENCE® up to Wave IV. My intuition was unfolding in amazing ways. I started feeling the energy of my clients, and my tactile sensitivity increased enormously, even though my fear of seeing spirits—a fear I’ve carried since childhood—had been blocking most visual Rotes.

This new sensitivity greatly affected my practice. Sometimes I would put my hand over a client who was lying down for relaxation and feel pain in a certain part of my body. That was a sign to me that there was something the matter with an organ in that area of my client’s body. I felt the energy fields of my clients more accurately and any heaviness they were feeling at the time—such as anger, sadness, or simply fatigue.

Obviously I could not share these new developments with many colleagues. Even though Brazil is the home of Allan Kardec’s Spiritism and Umbanda (an Afro-Brazilian Macumba sect where participants drink distilled alcohol to aid channeling), transpersonal psychology is not yet recognized officially. The scientific community is still too attached to its scientism, as noted by Dr. Charles Tart.

Meanwhile, I was being trained in deep relaxation by José Torrado Lima, a Spaniard who immigrated to Brazil in the ‘60s looking for closer contact with the then-labeled “parapsychologicalphenomena,” which Brazil has in abundance. In Europe at that time, he would have been ostracized and figuratively burned at the stake for trying to study such phenomena. During his mentoring, he emphasized that a “tool” should be used to accelerate the process of deep relaxation for subjects. Mr. Lima makes use of a vibrational couch to assist in achieving deep relaxation. Since I had already ordered Wave I of the GATEWAY EXPERIENCE, I decided to employ Hemi-Sync to facilitate the process of direct access to the unconscious.

One of the first clinical cases where I used Hemi-Sync was that of a twenty-eight-year-old woman who was suffering from chronic depression. Listening to Free Flow 10 and slipping quickly into relaxation, the client started seeing the image of a smiling woman. Then she started to feel strong hatred. In the next session the same woman showed up again, but now she was in a field. A group of horsemen appeared, and the woman was shot in the heart with an arrow. In this instant I reminded my client to use the dissociation technique and see the image as if in a cinema in her mind. She suddenly felt strong pain in her heart region. I made use of Reiki while we worked through the images and helped her reframe the event and let go of the hatred toward those men. It was as if a part of her Self was still in anguish, desperately wanting some explanation for that murder. I am really not concerned about whether this was a “past life” or a figment of her imagination. What concerns me is the improvement of the patient. And indeed, in the following week she became more active—she even got a job and started feeling much better.

I use Hemi-Sync primarily to insure that my client is deeply relaxed before using neurolinguistic programming (NLP) techniques such as anchoring, metaphors, and reframing. [See sidebar.] A focused mind relaxed by Hemi-Sync is more open to absorbing the new resources generated by NLP. Many claim that NLP is often used by unethical professionalsto manipulate people, especially in sales and marketing. And they are right. NLP can be misused. I use NLP to improve the belief system of my patients. NLP is a tool that can be employed for better or for worse, depending on each user’s consciousness.

A female client in her midforties sought my assistance due to a “performance anxiety” problem.Whenever she took a test, her anxiety prevented her from getting good grades. She had actually failed the test she’d be retaking within a week on three separate occasions. The test was a requirement for receiving her master of arts degree.

Lacking the time to try conventional therapy, I lent the client my METAMUSIC® Into the Deep tape, which is nonverbal, because she was not fluent in English. The client was instructed to listen to it every night that week before going to sleep. Then I used the Free Flow 10 tape to induce a light trance/relaxation. This was followed by NLP anchoring to help the client visualize her prior successes while associating that feeling with the future event of taking the test.

One week later the client came to my office to thank me. Her sleep habits had improved and she had felt calm throughout the test. Later on when she got her score she learned that she was approved in the final test. I am not claiming here that Hemi-Sync and NLP “cured” the woman of performance anxiety for good. This was simply an emergency procedure, and the performance anxiety might return, especially if its roots are deeper within the client’s psyche. But Hemi-Sync was a powerful tool that brought results quickly and efficiently in that instance.

A male in his midthirties came seeking help for “trouble with relationships.” In psychotherapy it is common to assume that the symptom is just the facade for what is behind the scenes, the unconscious mind. In NLP this is called the difference between surface structure and deep structure. If one asks a client the cause of a problem, he will not have an answer—the answer is buried in his subconscious or unconscious mind. And that is why he is looking for help in the first place! He can’t become conscious of the problem’s source on his own, due to the famous Freudian resistance.

So to assist the conscious mind to relax and let fragments from his unconscious mind float up, I once again used Free Flow 10 to induce a light trance.When physiological changes indicated that he had entered a relaxed state, I started some mental visualization exercises.With this client in particular, I asked him to see a mirror in front of him with his mind’s eye. Once he could picture it, I suggested that he describe whom he was seeing. He started to talk about this man (yes, in the third person!) who he knew was very intelligent. People made fun of him frequently in childhood, and he felt like an outcast. Using reframing techniques, I asked him whether those kids might not have been envious of his mental skills. The purpose of reframing is to change one’s perspective on a certain event, thus balancing a negative outlook with a positive “frame” that is also true. In the following session my client told me that the relaxation/visualization exercise had been “a trip,” for he had said things he did not remember very well and felt different about himself afterward.

Another variation is the use of metaphors. The unconscious minds of my clients are more open to positive suggestions and learning possibilities. When using metaphors, the idea is to avoid a direct reference to the conscious problem, even though the metaphor is a bridge from the problem to a better frame. The more indirect your approach (the Milton Erickson hypnotherapy model in NLP), the better the results will be. The more the conscious mind is brought into play—like trying to “teach” the person a lesson—the smaller the effect, because there can be resistance from the ego.

The other day I had a client who claimed he was “emotionally blocked” and said that he lived repressed by a wall that “prevented him from feeling.” He said he had been waging war against this wall for a long time, and it was his duty to bring it down. Of course, in the deep structure, that wall represented a part of himself that was a shield against suffering. He had suffered a great deal in the past from feelings of rejection by his parents. This client, who had already tried suicide after rejection by a girl, was a very clever individual, and as often as not, very clever individuals have strong resistance to change. So I put him into a state of light relaxation with Free Flow 10, and he started telling me about his wall. Immediately I thought of The Shawshank Redemption, because it is a beautiful movie where Tim Robbins’s character (Dufresne) is trying to find life inside the walls of a prison. I asked the client if he had ever seen a movie about prison life and to my astonishment he replied, “Oh, yes! The Shawshank Redemption!” Then we started to debate how the main characters related to the image of a prison wall—how Dufresne had patience with the wall, digging a hole slowly but effectively, while trying to find life inside the walls as best he could.

The point of the metaphor was to create a positive outlook in my client’s dealings with the wall. If he broke through too fast, he could easily end up like the character Brooks, who had become institutionalized and could not live outside the walls. Also, by trying to “destroy” the wall, he was in a constant tension within himself, trying to force a part of his nature to be something else. The wall was a part of him with the good intention of protecting his fragile heart. It is an NLP principle that every part has a good intention. This man had to be patient in his process of breaking through the wall. This constant fight within one’s self is also depicted as a shadow archetype in Jungian psychology, and the idea is to come to terms with all our parts (complexes), instead of battling our own nature. “Only what we accept as part of us can be changed,” said Jung.

Now I can offer my clients a tool that relates to their energy fields. I always wanted them to start taking yoga or tai chi classes so there would be an energetic aspect to their therapy. Of course now I know that in the therapeutic arena there is an exchange of energy as well. But when people are so depressed they can barely leave their homes, it is hard for them to start practicing anything with the limited amount of healthy energy they generate. So Hemi-Sync comes in handy. All they have to do is lie down and enjoy the ride. It is, of course, not enough to be dependent on tapes to experience relaxation, but they are at least a guidepost to what a relaxed mind can be. And with this jump start clients can even start changing their unhealthy habits into more positive ones!

There is no longer a distinction between the importance of what I learned with Hemi-Sync in my professional and personal life. Only the future will tell what other uses and discoveries Hemi-Sync will bring to psychotherapy and consciousness development. I am grateful to have this amazing tool to share with my clients.

Sidebar

Neurolinguistic programming terminology from the TheCoaching International Institute NLP Practitioner Manual

Reframing

“Human beliefs are also determined in terms of words. Fixing one’s words closes off a number of other possibilities. This leads to an experience of ‘no choice.’ This, however, is only one of many possible framings. A frame of reference is the set of views, concepts, presuppositions, values, and habits that form an outline of a cognitive system to perceive and evaluate data. A frame of reference determines from what standpoint a person perceives data, such as sensory input, and experiences a given situation. A frame assigns meaning to experience. “These powerful one word Reframes are just different perspectives on the same event, which are also true:
Spontaneous – Unpredictable
Funny – Childish
Confident – Arrogant
Imaginative – Undisciplined
Generous – Spendthrift
Outgoing – Show off.”

The power of Reframing/Surface Structure/Deep Structure is best demonstrated with an example from practice. A young engineer came to see me, mostly because of pressure from his family. He said that he did not need “therapy” but his family was very concerned about his health. He presented his problem: once every six months, at night, he experienced physical spasms. He did not wake up, but his mother would witness his body becoming rigid as if in great inner tension, and the next morning he felt pain all over. Neurological exams found nothing wrong, so he was referred to me for his emotional trouble.

He began a thirty-minute rant about how could a guy as normal as him have a problem. He had been so successful in high school, he was popular at university, he was good looking, etc. After listening, I asked him, “Have you ever calculated what percent of your life is ‘sick’ and what percent is ‘healthy’?” He whipped out a calculator and punched in some numbers. He was a “sick” man 6 percent of the time. Then I asked him, “So, are you gonna spend 94 percent of your life worrying about the other 6 percent?” He went silent for a moment and blushed. He got a far-off look in his eyes and did not talk much for the rest of the session.

The following week he showed up for his session and said, “Man, you turned my life around 180 degrees!” He did not want to talk about his spasms anymore. He said he simply felt “redemption,” paid double my usual fee, and left. In his Surface Structure, he had a problem because he had spasms. In the Deep Structure, the real root of dissatisfaction was his fear of not being normal.

The Milton Model and Metaphors

The Milton model is a structure of language named after Milton Erickson, who is often cited as the father of modern hypnotherapy. The Milton model is vague and lacking in any specific content. Its structure is based on the way we process our subjective experience, so that questions seem vague, yet are highly meaningful to the client. The questions are usually directed at the unconscious mind. I believe that a more correct term for what NLP calls “metaphor” would be “parable.” The original NLP group learned about the power of metaphor or parable by observing Milton Erickson, who would often tell the client some long, involved, apparently irrelevant story rather than overtly discuss the problem. In NLP, it is usually taught that metaphors address the unconscious mind rather than the conscious mind, and in fact, the client is usually not intended to consciously figure them out. (Rather than “mulling them over,” the intention is for the client to not even consciously think of the metaphors at all.) As indicated above, the effect of the metaphor generally manifests over time, which makes it different from most NLP techniques. Anchoring is an application of mind conditioning using the principle of Pavlov’s Reflex, a conditioned reflex first explored and described by the Nobel prize–winning Russian physiologist Ivan P. Pavlov.Anchoring is the process by which a memory, a feeling, or some other response is associated with (anchored to) something else. It is a natural process that usually occurs without our awareness.When you were young, you undoubtedly participated in family activities that gave you great pleasure. The pleasure was associated with the activity itself, so when you think of the activity or are reminded of it, you tend to reexperience some pleasurable feeling. In this way anchors are reactivated, or triggered. They can be naturally occurring or set up deliberately in a therapeutic context.

[For more information on how to apply Hemi-Sync and NLP techniques, contact info@coachinginternational.org]