At its simplest, conversational hypnosis is the art of dropping hypnotic commands into everyday conversation.

If you've ever watched a Derren Brown show, you'll have seen it at work.

The main technique for conversational hypnosis is to use what are known as embedded commands. Telling or asking someone to do something now is one way of using an embedded command.

Because the mind has problems processing negatives, you can even use these in statements to subversively get people to do what you're asking:

You wouldn't want to do that now, would you?

Which actually is commanding someone to do whatever "that" is. Now.

Because of this, we can use conversational hypnosis even if we don't know it.

When your teacher said you were never going to be any good at a subject, they were actually planting a post hypnotic suggestion to that effect. You may have rebelled and thought "I'm going to prove them wrong" or you may have just rolled over and thought "OK, they're right". The command was there either way.

Of course, conversational hypnosis gets a lot more complicated than this. And it can do much, much more than just tell you that you're rubbish at something.

By just slightly changing the way you express yourself, you can get your way much more often. Whether it's with children, colleagues or customers.

Find out how to use conversational hypnosis here.

Underground hypnosis.

The very name sounds subversive.

Which, of course, it's designed to! You likely wouldn't pay attention if the title was boring.

But exactly what is underground hypnosis? What are the techniques it uses?

By it's very nature, underground hypnosis uses covert techniques. So unless you know what you're looking for, chances are that you'll never spot them being used.

It can use simple techniques like the embedded commands often used in conversational hypnosis.

But often it will go further. You'll also discover techniques that you can use on yourself to change the way you react.

Hypnosis is often used to boost self confidence. Underground hypnosis techniques take this even further, so that you can go into a business meeting and be near enough invincible. That's just one of the techniques revealed in underground hypnosis.

Underground hypnosis also uses NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) techniques. NLP modeled hypnosis and then distilled the techniques used to enable them to be used by anyone, much faster than the original hypnosis worked. It's a great way to build rapport and set up triggers that you know will work on people precisely when you want them to.

Discover more about underground hypnosis here.

Milton Erickson was one of the earliest users of conversational hypnosis. In fact, a lot of NLP is based around Erickson's work.

Milton Erickson used to tell stories. Very specific stories that were designed to address whatever problem the person was suffering from. Often, these stories were indirect but nonetheless very effective.

The metaphors used by Erickson and the people who still practice Ericksonian hypnosis bypass the conscious mind. They go straight to the subconscious, which controls most of the day to day workings of your body. Think about it, you don't have to think every time your heart beats or you breathe in or out. Your subconscious takes care of this and a myriad of other things for you.

By talking directly to your subconscious, all the clutter normally introduced by your conscious mind is bypassed. This makes the power of the stories much more powerful.

Although there are books on Ericksonian hypnosis, including "My Voice Will Go With You", they can be rather dry for our modern taste as writing styles have changed over the years.

Modern programs like conversational hypnosis have translated Erickson's teachings and put them into a format that better fits our modern day life. Kind of like a translation routine, distilling all the best bits and putting them into bite size pieces that anyone can put into practice quickly and easily.