Patent No. 4717343 Method of changing a person's behavior
Patent No. 4717343 Method of changing a person's behavior (Densky, Jan 5, 1988)
Abstract
A method of conditioning a person's unconscious mind in order to effect a desired change in the person's behavior which does not require the services of a trained therapist. Instead the person to be treated views a program of video pictures appearing on a screen. The program as viewed by the person's unconscious mind acts to condition the person's thought patterns in a manner which alters that person's behavior in a positive way.
Notes:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to methods for conditioning a person's unconscious
thought patterns by having the person view a program of video pictures projected
upon a screen in order to alter that person's behavior.
It is well established in medicine and science that the human mind operates
on two planes, the conscious and the unconscious. That part of the human mind
used for reasoning and communicating with full awareness by the individual and
which also controls voluntary behavior such as talking and walking is called
the conscious mind. The unconscious mind, sometimes referred to as the subconscious,
controls those functions which take place without the person's awareness such
as heartbeat, breathing, glandular action, and such involuntary reactions as
appetite, tension and pain.
Hypnosis was one of the first techniques used to reach a person's unconscious
mind. In the late 1800's hypnosis was used to trigger the release of the endorphins,
an opiate-like substance manufactured and stored within the brain, to serve
as anesthesia during surgery. More recently, hypnosis has been used to effect
appetite control, smoking abatement, reduction of stress and depression, and
painless childbirth. During the first half of the 1900's Dr. Milton Erickson
introduced the use of structured linguistic patterns in hypnotic therapy.
In the early 1970's Richard Bandler and John Grindler pioneered neuro-linguistic
programming in which the therapist auditorially (by voice) tells the patient
to complete a certain mental exercise in his mind's eye in order to bring about
behavioral change at the unconscious and conscious levels of the patient's mind.
Both hypnosis and neuro-linguistic programming are methods of conditioning a
person's thought processes through sounds transmitted by voice.
Another method of affecting an individual's unconscious thought processes is
subliminal suggestion. Audio subliminals consist of a human voice repeating
auditory suggestions over and over, and the voice is "covered over" by a sound
such as ocean waves which is the only sound the conscious mind hears. But the
unconscious hears the voiced suggestions. Video subliminals inject written messages
(such as "buy popcorn") at a rate of about one frame per second into a moving
picture film. There are 24 frames per second in the standard movie or video
and thus the subliminal message registers only on the unconscious mind. One
suggested use of video subliminal suggestion is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 3,278,676
granted Oct. 11, 1966.
Suggestions have also been made to use visual displays projected upon a screen
as an addition to audio signals, electric shock signals or other sensory messages
to assist a person to build up an aversion to an undesirable habit. One such
suggestion is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 3,782,006 granted Jan. 1, 1974.
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display times listed above may be varied and the exact number of times the scenes
are repeated may also be varied without departing from the scope of my method
for conditioning a person's unconscious mind. Those psychologists, hypnotists
and other therapists skilled in the art will be able to make changes in the
Flash and Chop scenes for use in fields other than smoking abatement without
departing from my method of programing a person's mind. It is to be understood
that despite the foregoing description of the preferred embodiment of my invention
called Neuro-Vision.TM., the scope of my invention is defined only by the appended
claims.
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