Dreamstates: Lynch and hypnotic induction

"Wild at Heart", "Blue Velvet", "Mulloholland Drive". "Inland Empire"
I have studied hypnotic induction, and each film makes use of trance induction techniques. I think Lynch is the only mainstream movie director openly using the techniques, most rely on subliminal suggestion, but not outright hypnotic induction. The entire opening sequence of "Inland Empire" is a classic induction by the the visiting stranger. Notice the shaky camera, trance like music score, nonsensical conversation, the hynotist suggesting Laura Dern was seeing things and people not there, continuing the suggestions until her character "saw" what she was told?
Notice the strange lighting of the film, so dark(almost dreamlike?), the music score, the fantasy logic, the implied sexuality? Again, much of hypnosis is convincing the suggestible to enter a dream like state, where they are open to direction, almost between dreaming and being awake...think of this, and watch a Lynch film...yes, right after Laura Dern had her fight and was giving an interview with a stranger, I "saw" a rabbit interviewing her character...of course, there was no rabbit giving the interview...but Lynch kept showing the rabbit skit comedy and laugh soundtrack so much I began to expect to see a rabbit at sometime...suggestibility grows with repetition, another trick of hypnotic suggestion....

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Permalink Reply by Alan on August 26, 2008 at 8:00pm: Advertising suceeds in this everyday...expensive cars with bikini babes draped across the hood, sugar water(Coke) and a smile has made billions, and dead fossillized plankton(Oil) bought from unstable, mediveal governments(Middle East), or chaotic ethnic villages(Nigeria/Africa), or nuclear armed enclaves of totatilarianism(Russia), and our old friends, the Europeans:with their World Wars, massively armed borders, and permanent enclaves of racially and ethnically divided groups eager to kill each other, we here in the Americas, with our long non-military borders(which well intentioned folks who don't like illegal immigration are mistakenly erecting a fence), our history of no major conflict in the Americas between major American powers in this century, unbroken peace with Canada since the United States began, and peace with Mexico throughout this entire century, have somehow been convinced we should buy this stuff from all these unstable partners, instead of working everyday with our peaceful, co-existing partners(well, mostly friendly: we can work on making Venezeula and Cuba our business associates). A clear example of the subliminal message "Cheap oil is good, even if you have to bargain with knuckleheads to get it" and thus we continue to pay for bullets in the middle east that are killing American soldiers, let Europe pull us still again into one of it's crazy wars based on treaties, or deal with the despotism of China or Russia.
We've got all of Canada, Mexico, the Carribean, and Latin America, mostly unarmed and waiting to cut deals with us, and we go hang with the yahoos, instead.
Sorry for the rant, yes, subliminal hyponotism is a reality.But only for real desires of the id. LIke cheap oil, cheap food, and lots of babes.
I think most sane people, the order to simply "kill" it too foreign to their normal mind sets: i can get hot babes by 1)buying this car 2) buying this pair of $200 sneakers 3) drinking this really expensive spoiled grape juice(Champagne's and Wines) is so effective because men who like women are trying to think of ways on their own to get more orgasms...thus advertising plays on what we already want, and has such a powerful subliminal effect that we buy ourselves into debt.
Most normal folks just aren't that interested in killing: we(the "purest" animal part) want to eat, sleep, get drunk/high, and have lots of orgasms(in various orders of importance depending on the person). Thus i think the subliminal message to kill indiscriminately would be a hard sell to the subconscious...my id seems to be a hedonist, and i think most people i know, their id is hedonist...so killing is just not a great normal desire, this the militaries all over the world need boot camps and guns and hollering drill sergeants to force the young to learn to kill.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Guy on August 27, 2008 at 7:52pm: Re the Rant on Advertising: Don't worry about it. I've been watching Mad Men and in one of the extra short subjects, they basically say the same thing, in a more subdued manner of course.
I've done some reading and some of the research techniques they use are pretty terrifying. Brain EEGs on test subjects. Hypnotic age regression to find out why people have blocks against certain brands. And that's the stuff that gets out.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by joeoftexas on August 27, 2008 at 8:08pm: I heard Wilson Bryan Key speak on "Subliminal Seduction"
back in the late 1970's.
He had some interesting & disturbing ideas.

"Subliminal Seduction"
by Wilson Bryan Key
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Permalink Reply by Guy on August 27, 2008 at 8:44pm: I've read most of his books and they definitely got me looking very carefully at media images and the psychology behind them. On the other hand, I feel certain that if there was an organized practice of planting subliminal images, someone would have blabbed by now. These are ad agencies, not the NSA or CIA.
In one book, Keyes talks about The Exorcist and supposed subliminal material in the sound track. A couple of years ago I met the guy who designed the Exorcist sound track and he was pretty amused when I told him about what I read.
Keyes' reputation took a real hit when he testified a few years back on the Judas Priest trial. You may remember they were sued for allegedly driving two teens to attempt suicide. Keyes played backwards a section of a song about suicide that supposedly contained the phrase, "Do it." The judge and jury were not convinced.
Still I give Keyes credit for getting people to examine ad images in a critical way. Certainly Kool cigarette ads over the years have had some extremely vivid S and M messages coded into them. And in years passed even the Jehovah's Witnesses' Watch Tower Magazine has had some images that could be said to have subliminal material in them.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Alan on August 28, 2008 at 6:24pm: In my opinion Keyes has good ideas, but he allows himself to be side-tracked, like testifying in Judas Priest trials.
I know from watching the media, normal people are doing crazy things, against their own interest, and that's because they discount how suggestible the average person really is. Do i think the Manchurian candidate can happen? Possible, but not probable, it's just not that easy to change a person fundamentally. Even the best brainwashing can't really force a true patriot to become a commie stooge...it contradicts too much with his core belief system...but suggestibility co-ops what we desire and believe...i want hot babes, i want to get drunk...and subverts them just enough so we start to say...i need this 30k car to get hot babes...i need to drink this over-priced vodka to get high...; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Guy on August 29, 2008 at 1:31pm: In terms of trance cinema, Kenneth Anger is some one who definitely tries to induce something like a trance in his viewers, although I believe he sees his films as rituals for achieving specific ends. I'm not sure how well this translates into video, but when I watched his DVD compilation I definitely felt something had altered my consciousness.
Now that I think about it, there's a whole style/genre of experimental movies called trance cinema...; ▶ Reply to This