The First Time with Caere Dunn
They say you never forget your first time, but sometimes it’s hard to say just when that time was. Did I hypnotize someone for the first time in those years when I would invent fascinating mind games to lull my adolescent, insomniac self to sleep? Or might I say that my first time was the essence of the practical joke when my husband and I “hypnotized” several chickens to lay still on their backs on the stools of the ranch bunkhouse just before breakfast? (There are at least two “inductions” for chickens, by the way.)
I guess not – although those were events symptomatic of my lifelong fascination with consciousness and the way we can intentionally shift it.
The first time really, shortly after my certification and advanced training, was on a camping road trip with my children. We were in Yellowstone National Park, and my seven-year-old daughter Carson Rose was eager to see just about every waterfall we could get to. Unlike Morgan, her Wyoming-born, twelve-year-old brother, Carson had never before experienced high altitudes. After the half-mile, steep hike down to a lovely waterfall, she went totally limp after the first several steps back up the switchbacks and began to whine.
Now this trail was steep. I could huff and puff my way up on my own, but no way could I carry a tall 2nd grader. We stopped, and I considered our options. Carson sat on a stone wall looking like a wilted flower ready to collapse.
Suddenly I realized I had tools I’d not tried out in practical reality before. I did a quick, child-oriented verbal induction with my tired daughter, and reminded her of the feeling of being strong and energetic. I suggested that her muscles could recall being powerful and capable, and her mind remember being enthusiastic and determined. In about ten minutes I wrapped it up, wondering if it would really work.
Voila, Carson opened her eyes with a big smile and hopped down from the wall, ready to lead the way back up the trail. She made it all the way back without a lag or a complaint, but the bigger change, I know, was in me. For the first time, I truly appreciated the practical power of the techniques I had learned and would continue to use professionally, long after the kids were grown.
