If you have any curiosity about mind control and how it works, consider the four distinct ways the human mind drops into subconscious states:  Shock, Overload, Deception and Anticipatory (or SODA for short)

The processes noted of Scrypnosis fall under Anticipatory, as they are intentionally anticipated, though parts of the basic induction use Intellectual overload, which is explained below.  

Shock relates to that moment when one says to oneself, "I can't believe this is happening to me."  Reality is a belief system of values.  If one is rendered to be outside of one's belief system, the perception of time often shifts to seeming to slow down.  This commonly happens during auto accidents or in extreme cases of fear or pain.  When one disbelieves reality, they are more easily able to disbelieve pain, and thus, escape reality for the sake of survival.

Overload happens one of two ways:  Physically and Intellectually:  

1. Physical overload happens when too many synapses fire at the same time.  This causes the mind to overwork, and thus allow itself to drop into a suggestible or subconscious state.  Faith healers which use physical techniques often employ this process.
2. Intellectual overload happens when too much information is being processed.  College students often suffer from intellectual overload and thus find themselves subject to a suggestible state.  However, the way to induce this process comes from giving a person too many separate tasks at the same time.  The basic ten count is a simple version of this as it has seven distinct tasks:

• There is the actual counting from ten to one, but as there is so much time between each count, there's stress to remember which number is next.
• There is the task of tensing all the muscles.
• There is the task of concentrating on relaxing.
• There is the task of realizing the more relaxed you get, the better you feel.
• There is the task of implementing breathing exercises.
  
• There is the task of having a wonderful wave of relaxing pleasure flow out of the system.
• There is the task of floating down on a cloud.

Around six in the ten-count, the mind is maximally taxed with things to accomplish.  Thus, it overloads, and at such time, more than readily accepts the suggestion to just deepen into the process.  As these tasks are thus completed and ended, the mind gets to rest, which further deepens the experience.

Deception can create a subconscious state by lying to a person too many times and thus creating a panic which then numbs the person from reality and makes that person pliable and susceptible to suggestion.  I believe this is what likely happened to Elizabeth Smart as well as Patricia Hearst.

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©2003 David Ian Brager