So, how does a pattern interrupt work and whats the psychology behind it? Better than me explaining it I’ll use a few videos found through youtube including a few by the british ‘mentalist’ Derren Brown.

Heres ‘The Russian Scam’, it demonstrates how easily a pattern interrupt can be applied in casual conversation, and it also demonstrates one of the most powerful hypnotic interrupts, namely to start a handshake and break it leading the subject into confusion and heightened suggestability.

Watch the video:

The logic behind this is quite simple, you want to ‘interrupt’ someones pattern, something that is preprogrammed into a person that doesn’t contain any other options but the pattern..

Watch this video by another author explain how the Russian Scam is performed:

For example in a handshake have you ever seen someone stop before their hands connect? The brain does not expect this, instant confusion and trance state waiting to be lead into something else.

Watch the video below to say how Richard Bandler, cofounder of NLP masterfully demonstrates this:

And here to see derren brown use a pattern interrupt together with embeded commands to change someone memory, powerful stuff

Apart from handshakes you can do it with anything that the person doesnt expect, for example Milton Erikson once asked a person to come up on stage and as the person came up on the stage Milton started tieing his shoelasses.. and just at the right moment he told him to just sit down on the couch and right as the person was in the act of sitting down Milton told him to ’sit down all the way unconsciously now and go into trance’..

I’ve heard of people asking someone “hey, is your shoelase undone?” and using that brief opening to fire off a couple of suggestions and give them a command.. if they even remember what you asked then just go ahead and say something along the lines of “oh NEVER MIND, it just looked like it from this angle.. you know.. when you see something, it looks like something from one way but then things change (change where your pointing your hands, anchor this ), and suddenly it appears different..hmm.. its like how you thought (whatever you wanted to change, fire old anchor) and now you can see this (what you want them to believe, fire new anchor) can’t you”

The same could also be done when someone is about to put a tooth brush in their mouth, done elegantly if you were in the same place you could probably tap them on the shoulder, gently hold their arm and tell them to ‘CLOSE YOUR EYES AND SLEEP NOW“, enough to perform a rapid hypnotic induction on someone ;).. just remember congruence is what makes this work, if you don’t project confidence your subjects will feel awkward.

Lastly, heres an example that could be used for seduction, its one that I’ve been thinking about using and I just haven’t gotten around to testing.. Say your meeting a girl (or guy for that matter) and you’ve got decent rapport, for example your either just meeting them or one of you is leaving.. where a handshake might have been appropiate heres what you could do..

Reach out your hand, before your hands connect pull your hand back and gently hold on to their hand with your other hand, look into their eyes and say “I bet YOU LIKE ME think its a bit awkward shaking hands like this, come here and give me a hug”, open up both hands, inviting them to come forward and hug you, do this with warmth and empathy and its highly unlikely they won’t come forward.

So now you’ve just gotten more physical contact and an opportunity to tell them to ‘LIKE YOU’ when they were in a highly suggestible state.. not too shabby huh? you could easily lead it further by whatever pattern you want to use, maybe something like “You know (Name), I can tell you like me (smile).., and its one of the things I like about you; you’ve got good standards.. infact you seem pretty cool, if nothing else I reckon you’d make a good friend..” if they respond positively, you could AT LEAST number close them like follows.. pull out your mobile, hand it to them, but before their hand touches it pull it back and touch their hand with your other han like the classic hypnotic handshake pattern interrupt just with a phone… smile and maybe say something like “but before you give me your number, I’m not going to call you if your not the type of person that I can depend on, if your one of those flakey women its not worth my time and its not worth your time to exchange numbers.. so I’m telling you to put your number in my phone because I want to see you again.. ” now smile and put your phone in her open hand and smile again. Have fun, she/he is probably going to want to hang around a bit after this though

Well? Think about it; What is it you are not thinking about right now?… Isn’t this just the best damn pattern interrupt?

Go back and read the previous statement again… because… The more you read it the more you will realize that the more you think about whatever it is you are not the more it is you won’t be able to not go in a loop.

Now does reading this confuse you? Good, because imagine doing this with the proper spacing of words, good tonality and a couple of embedded commands like ‘your unconscious’ thrown in for good measure. That’s right, this is a powerful pattern interrupt.

Give it a shot, use the above question “what is it you are not thinking about” and anchor the response, you might be surprised just how powerful this little bit of anchoring is when you use it again.

For example, I had a friend who was very emotionally distressed because things didn’t work out between him and a girl and after using some DHE techniques (if theres interest I’ll write more, absolutely fantastic stuff by Richard Bandler here!)  he was ‘almost’ comfortable with the memory of her so I asked the ‘what are you not thinking about question’ and anchored it by putting pressure on one of his knuckles and asked him what her name was (note the passed tense) and fired the anchor, I then proceeded to ask him how bad he felt (note the negative presumption) while firing the anchor again.

End result, including DHE the total time was ~2 minutes and he reports tthat there is no feeling towards her or asociated with her anymore. So play around with this, its powerful, and don’t even think about telling someone to “SLEEP NOW” with enough authority as they do the trans derivational search because that would just be way too easy a rapid induction.. Infact anchoring it and firering the anchor just before a nice little embedded “LIKE ME” command wouldn’t be fair either so DON’T DO IT.

Or at least, if you do, make sure you let me know how it works so I can continue to post about more effective things you shouldn’t be not doing.

I challenge everyone, myself included, to get caught using embedded commands and rapport techniques.

Seriously, we all start of thinking ‘what if I get caught’ mirroring the other person when we’re first learning NLP and I can tell you now, it just doesnt happen when you just allow yourself to synchronize your movements with the other person. They simply don’t notice anything at all, yet you will feel a stronger connection, or if your not yet attuned to feeling rapport you will notice them being friendlier to you within a few minutes because (depends on the person) they will tend to begin asking you questions and showing more interest in you.

And its the same with embedded commands, you think people will catch you? Go ahead, TRY and get caught.. Like I have, it just doesnt work.. And its the same with embedded commands because I now mark of ‘your unconscious’, ‘your mine-d’ and ‘like me’ rather overtly with a decent pause and people dont even react, it goes straight in and I notice them just following along.

So, if anyone gets caught, email me! Seriously, if it were to happen I will write a post about it, and if you want, I will help you out personally via email if you want so that it doesnt happen ever again.