How do you deal with pain?

[donq]

I was asked to write to someone who was in pain. As I knew that she didn't know anything about meditation, mindfulness or any spiritual practice, I had no choice but wrote something I thought and saw that it really worked.

That time I wrote a series of short emails as I knew it was hard for anyone to do anything, even reading, if they are in pain. After that, I thought I should combine them together. And here it is: (I used to post some pert of of it here before, sorry about that):
[my new writing here is within the square bracket]

There was a time when I believed in paranormal. I even could tell what number my friends were thinking (kind of mind-reading; telepathy; thoughts forms; sixth sense; precognition etc.). I was right at least 4 out of 5 (even hit jackpot many times).
And I also did Therapeutic touch (Reiki) to heal myself, my (ex) wife, family and friends. They said it worked, their pain were gone within some minutes. But they always complained that my fingers were hot like hell. Sure, I didn't tell them that it is like placebo effect/response, if you don't believe in it, it will not work for you. (yes, this includes about paranormal, too). Besides, that time I hadn't learn much about placebo response.

Nowadays I only do acupressure for myself. I read a lot about it (even wrote some articles about it). I used to suffered from migraine for 30 years, trying every expensive drug (medicine) on the market. And for the sake of saving money, I finally only took paracetamol. I had to take it at least 5 capsules per day. Finally, I did cold turkey and tried acupressure instead. It really worked! I haven't took any medicine for migraine more than five years now. Yes, sometimes it tempted me to take paracetamol, but I stopped myself in time. As I knew that, it would start vicious cycle again. Pain, then drug, forever. And it's not a cure, just something to dumb my brain on pain..

And as Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet wrote:

"Do not believe that the person who is trying to offer you solace lives his life effortlessly among the simple and quiet words that might occasionally comfort you? (on the contrary) His life is filled with much hardship and sadness, and it remains far behind yours. But if it were otherwise, he could never have found these words."



The average person is unaware of the extent of his capacities of accomplishment which have been learned through the experiential conditionings of this body behavior through his life experiences. To the average person in his thinking, pain is an immediate subjective experience, all-encompassing of his attention, distressing, and to the best of his belief and understanding, an experience uncontrollable by the person himself. Yet as a result of experiential events of his past life, there has been built up within his body, although all unrecognized, certain psychological, physiological, and neuro­logical learning, associations, and conditionings that render it possible for pain to be controlled and even abolished. One need only think of extremely crucial situations of tension and anxiety to realize that the severest of pain vanishes when the focusing of the sufferer's awareness is compelled by other stimuli of a more immediate, intense, or life-threatening nature. From common experience, one can think of a mother suffering extremely severe pain and all absorbed in her pain experience. Yet she forgets it without effort or intention when she sees her infant dangerously threatened or seriously hurt. One can think of men in combat seriously wounded, but who do not discover their injury until later. There are numerous such comparable examples common to medical experience. Such abolition of pain occurs in daily life in situations where pain is taken out of awareness by more compelling stimuli of another character. The simplest example of all is the toothache forgotten on the way to the dentist's office, or the headache lost in the suspenseful drama portrayed at the cinema. By such experiences as these in the course of a lifetime, be they major or minor, the body learns a wealth of unconscious psychological, emotional, neurological and physiological associations and conditionings. These unconscious learning, repeatedly reinforced by additional life experiences, constitute the source of the potentials that can be employed through hypnosis to control pain intentionally without resorting to drugs.
While pain is a subjective experience with certain objective manifestations and accompaniments, it is not necessarily a conscious experience only. It occurs without conscious awareness in states of sleep, in narcosis, and even under certain types of chemo-anaesthesia as evidenced by objective accompaniments and as has been demonstrated by experimental hypnotic exploration of past experiences of patients. But because pain is primarily a conscious subjective experience, with all manner of unpleasant, threatening, even vitally dangerous emotional and psychological significances and meanings, an approach to the problem it represents can be made frequently by hypnosis, sometimes easily, sometimes with great difficulty, and the extent of the pain is not necessarily a factor...
In order to make use of hypnosis to deal with pain, one needs to look upon pain in a most analytical fashion. Pain is not a simple uncomplicated noxious stimulus. It has certain temporal, emotional, psychological, and somatic significances. It is a compelling motivating force in life's experience. I t is a basic reason for seeking medical aid.

Pain is a complex, a construct, composed of past remembered pain, of present pain experience, and of anticipated pain of the future. Thus, immediate pain is augmented by past pain and is enhanced by the future possibilities of pain. The immediate stimuli are only a central third of the entire experience. Nothing so much intensifies pain as the fear that it will be present on the morrow. It is likewise increased by the realization that the same or similar pain was experienced in the past, and this and the immediate pain render the future even more threatening. Conversely, the realization that the present pain is a single event which will come definitely to a pleasant ending serves greatly to diminish pain. Because pain is a complex, a construct, it is more readily vulnerable to hypnosis as a modality of dealing successfully with it than it would be were it simply an experience of the present.

........................



This is very important, let me stress here again:
Thus, immediate pain is augmented by past pain and is enhanced by the future possibilities of pain. The immediate stimuli are only a central third of the entire experience.

His sentence (Erickson's) above sounds really like what the Buddha taught. Don't dwell in the past, don't anticipate the future, only focus on now. And try to distract from your pain now by focusing on something else. You can remember that, in the past , you used to get pain, and you could pass it all, and that's why you are you today, now. The pain now is also like another pain in the past, it will past by itself again. Just wait and be calm.

Try to read what Erickson wrote as many times as you can. Because even only reading it, it will somehow help you fight your pain in unconscious level. Believe me, I've been there, and done that before and found that it's really helpful.

You have to deconstruct the construction of your past pain. You understanding about pain in the past has constructed the vicious cycle of your pain now. You have to (and you can) construct the new construction to get ride of it (past pain construction). Start from now. Because if you start taking just one first step, as it's said "every journey begins with first step,", it will be easier and easier later. On the contrary, if you still let your pain (construction) continue to take another step, and another step, again and again, it will be harder and harder to deconstruct its vicious cycle later. Again, I've been there and done that before. So please believe me as I'm not just talking about it in theory.

Everyday In Every Way I'm Getting Better And Better. ( Emile Coué said it. It's kind of an auto-hypnosis to construct the new way of feeling well).



Erickson was not only a doctor, he also knew about pain so well from his direct experiences. He was not like the other doctors or scholars who teach or talk about pain only in theories without really experience it themselves.
At age 17, he (Erickson) contracted polio which left him with lifelong disabilities. So, he knew so well what he was talking about because he also had to dealing with it all his life.



I used to suffer from migraine for 25 years, trying almost all drugs (medicines). I haven't suffered from it for 5 years now. Here's my secret:

If I sense that he (migraine) is coming, I'll stop from doing anything and prepare to deal with him completely. It might take me many minutes or even an hour doing that, but I have to. Because, if I let him come just one time, he will come forever. And acupressure is really helpful, too, to shoo migraine away.



Three-year-old Robert (Dr. Erickson's son) fell down the back stairs, split his lip, and knocked an upper
tooth back into the maxilla. He was bleeding profusely and screaming loudly with pain and
fright. His mother and I went to his aid. A single glance at him his on the ground screaming,
his month bleeding profusely and blood spattered on the pavement, revealed that this was
an emergency requiring prompt and adequate measures.

No effort was made to pick him up. Instead, as he paused for breath for fresh
screaming, I (Erickson) told him quickly, simply, sympathetically and emphatically, "That hurts awful,
Robert. That hurts terrible."
Right then, without any doubt, my son knew that I knew what I was talking about. He
could agree with me and he knew that I was agreeing completely with him. Therefore he
could listen respectfully to me, because I had demonstrated that I understood the situation
fully...

Then I told Robert, "And it will keep right on hurting" In this simple statement, I named his
own fear, confirmed his own judgment of the situation, demonstrated my good intelligent
grasp of the entire matter and my entire agreement with him, since right then he could
foresee only a lifetime of anguish and pain for himself.
The next step for him and for me was to declare, as he took another breath, "And you
really wish it would atop hurting." Again, we were in full agreement and he was ratified
and even encouraged in this wish. And it was his wish, deriving entirely from within him
and constituting his own urgent need. With the situation so defined, I could then offer a
suggestion with some certainty of its acceptance. This suggestion was, "Maybe it will stop
hurting in a little while, in just a minute or two." This was a suggestion in full accord with
his own needs and wishes, and, because it was qualified by a "maybe it will," it was not
in contradiction to his own understandings of the situation. Thus he could accept the idea
and initiate his responses to it...
The next procedure which Robert was a recognition of the meaning of the injury to
Robert himself - pain, loss of blood, body damage, a loss of the wholeness of his normal
narcissistic self-esteem, of his sense of physical goodness so vital in human living.
Robert knew that he hurt, that he was a damaged person; he could see his blood upon
the pavement, taste it in his mouth, and see it on his hands. And yet, like all other human
beings, he too could desire narcissistic distinction in his misfortune, along with the desire
even more for narcissistic comfort. Nobody wants a picayune headache; if a headache
must be endured, let it be so colossal that only the sufferer could endure it. Human pride is
so curiously good and comforting! Therefore Robert's attention was doubly directed to two
vital issues of comprehensible importance to him by the simple statements, "That's an
awful lot of blood on the pavement. Is it good, red, strong blood? Lack carefully, Mother,
and see. I think it is, but I want you to be sure."
Thus there was an open and unafraid recognition in another way of values important to
Robert. He needed to know that his misfortune was catastrophic in the eyes of others as
well as his own, and he needed tangible proof that he himself could appreciate. By my
declaring it to be "an awful lot of blood," Robert could again recognize the intelligent and
competent appraisal of the situation in accord with his own actually unformulated, but
nevertheless real, needs. The question about the goodness, redness, and strongness of
the blood came into play psychologically in meeting the personal meaningfulness of Me
accident to Robert. In a situation where one feels seriously damaged, there is an
overwhelming need for a compensatory feeling of satisfying goodness. Accordingly, his
mother and I examined the blood upon the pavement, and we both expressed the opinion
that it was good, red, strong blood. In this way we reassured him, but not on an
emotionally comforting basis only; we did so upon the basis of an instructional, to him,
examination of reality.
However, we qualified that favorable opinion by stating that it would be better if we
were to examine the blood by looking at it against the white background of the bathroom
sink. By this time Robert had ceased crying, and his pain and fright were no longer
dominant factors. Instead, he was interested and absorbed in the important problem of the
quality of his blood.
His mother picked him up and carried him to the bathroom, where water was poured
over his face to see if the blood "mixed properly with water" and gave it a "proper pink
color." Then the redness was carefully checked and reconfirmed, following whirls the
"pinkness" was reconfirmed by washing him adequately, to Robert's intense satisfaction,
since his blood was good, red, and strong and made water rightly pink.
Then came the question of whether or not his month was "bleeding right" and 'swelling
right." Close inspection, to Robert's complete satisfaction and relief, again disclosed that all
developments were good and right and indicative of his essential and pleasing soundness
in every way.
Next mine the question of suturing his lip. Since this could easily evoke a negative
response, it was broached in a negative fashion to him, thereby precluding an initial
negation by him, and at the same time raising a new and important issue. This was done
by stating regretfully that, while he would have to have stitches taken in his lip, it was
most doubtful if he could have as many stitches as he could count. In fact, it looked as if
he could not even have ten stitches, and he could count to twenty. Regret was expressed
that he could not have seventeen stitches, like his sister, Betty Alice, or twelve, like his
brother, Allan; but comfort was offered in the statement that he would have more stitches
than his siblings Bert, Lance, or Carol. Thus the entire situation became transformed into
one in which he could share with his older siblings a common experience with a
comforting sense of equality and even superiority. In this way he was enabled to face the
question of surgery without fear or anxiety, but with hope of high accomplishment in
cooperation with the surgeon and imbued with the desire to do well the task assigned him,
namely, to "be sure to count the stitches." In this manner, no reassurances were needed,
nor was there any need to offer further suggestions regarding freedom from pain.
Only seven stitches were required, to Robert's disappointment, but the surgeon pointed
out that the suture material was of a newer and better kind than any that his siblings had
ever had, and that the scar would be an unusual "W" shape, like the letter of his Daddy's
college. Thus the fewness of the stitches was well compensated.

[donq]

Apr 30, 2021 4:01:02 GMT donq said:

I was asked to write to someone who was in pain. As I knew that she didn't know anything about meditation, mindfulness or any spiritual practice, I had no choice but wrote something I thought and saw that it really worked.

That time I wrote a series of short emails as I knew it was hard for anyone to do anything, even reading, if they are in pain. After that, I thought I should combine them together. And here it is: (I used to post some part of of it here before, sorry about that):
[my new writing here is within the square bracket]

There was a time when I believed in paranormal. I even could tell what number my friends were thinking (kind of mind-reading; telepathy; thoughts forms; sixth sense; precognition etc.). I was right at least 4 out of 5 (even hit jackpot many times).
And I also did Therapeutic touch (Reiki) to heal myself, my (ex) wife, family and friends. They said it worked, their pain were gone within some minutes. But they always complained that my fingers were hot like hell. Sure, I didn't tell them that it is like placebo effect/response, if you don't believe in it, it will not work for you. (yes, this includes about paranormal, too). Besides, that time I hadn't learn much about placebo response.

Nowadays I only do acupressure for myself. I read a lot about it (even wrote some articles about it). I used to suffered from migraine for 30 years, trying every expensive drug (medicine) on the market. And for the sake of saving money, I finally only took paracetamol. I had to take it at least 5 capsules per day. Finally, I did cold turkey and tried acupressure instead. It really worked! I haven't took any medicine for migraine more than five years now. Yes, sometimes it tempted me to take paracetamol, but I stopped myself in time. As I knew that, it would start vicious cycle again. Pain, then drug, forever. And it's not a cure, just something to dumb my brain on pain..

And as Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet wrote:

"Do not believe that the person who is trying to offer you solace lives his life effortlessly among the simple and quiet words that might occasionally comfort you? (on the contrary) His life is filled with much hardship and sadness, and it remains far behind yours. But if it were otherwise, he could never have found these words."



The average person is unaware of the extent of his capacities of accomplishment which have been learned through the experiential conditionings of this body behavior through his life experiences. To the average person in his thinking, pain is an immediate subjective experience, all-encompassing of his attention, distressing, and to the best of his belief and understanding, an experience uncontrollable by the person himself. Yet as a result of experiential events of his past life, there has been built up within his body, although all unrecognized, certain psychological, physiological, and neuro­logical learning, associations, and conditionings that render it possible for pain to be controlled and even abolished. One need only think of extremely crucial situations of tension and anxiety to realize that the severest of pain vanishes when the focusing of the sufferer's awareness is compelled by other stimuli of a more immediate, intense, or life-threatening nature. From common experience, one can think of a mother suffering extremely severe pain and all absorbed in her pain experience. Yet she forgets it without effort or intention when she sees her infant dangerously threatened or seriously hurt. One can think of men in combat seriously wounded, but who do not discover their injury until later. There are numerous such comparable examples common to medical experience. Such abolition of pain occurs in daily life in situations where pain is taken out of awareness by more compelling stimuli of another character. The simplest example of all is the toothache forgotten on the way to the dentist's office, or the headache lost in the suspenseful drama portrayed at the cinema. By such experiences as these in the course of a lifetime, be they major or minor, the body learns a wealth of unconscious psychological, emotional, neurological and physiological associations and conditionings. These unconscious learning, repeatedly reinforced by additional life experiences, constitute the source of the potentials that can be employed through hypnosis to control pain intentionally without resorting to drugs.
While pain is a subjective experience with certain objective manifestations and accompaniments, it is not necessarily a conscious experience only. It occurs without conscious awareness in states of sleep, in narcosis, and even under certain types of chemo-anaesthesia as evidenced by objective accompaniments and as has been demonstrated by experimental hypnotic exploration of past experiences of patients. But because pain is primarily a conscious subjective experience, with all manner of unpleasant, threatening, even vitally dangerous emotional and psychological significances and meanings, an approach to the problem it represents can be made frequently by hypnosis, sometimes easily, sometimes with great difficulty, and the extent of the pain is not necessarily a factor...
In order to make use of hypnosis to deal with pain, one needs to look upon pain in a most analytical fashion. Pain is not a simple uncomplicated noxious stimulus. It has certain temporal, emotional, psychological, and somatic significances. It is a compelling motivating force in life's experience. I t is a basic reason for seeking medical aid.

Pain is a complex, a construct, composed of past remembered pain, of present pain experience, and of anticipated pain of the future. Thus, immediate pain is augmented by past pain and is enhanced by the future possibilities of pain. The immediate stimuli are only a central third of the entire experience. Nothing so much intensifies pain as the fear that it will be present on the morrow. It is likewise increased by the realization that the same or similar pain was experienced in the past, and this and the immediate pain render the future even more threatening. Conversely, the realization that the present pain is a single event which will come definitely to a pleasant ending serves greatly to diminish pain. Because pain is a complex, a construct, it is more readily vulnerable to hypnosis as a modality of dealing successfully with it than it would be were it simply an experience of the present.

........................



This is very important, let me stress here again:
Thus, immediate pain is augmented by past pain and is enhanced by the future possibilities of pain. The immediate stimuli are only a central third of the entire experience.

His sentence (Erickson's) above sounds really like what the Buddha taught. Don't dwell in the past, don't anticipate the future, only focus on now. And try to distract from your pain now by focusing on something else. You can remember that, in the past , you used to get pain, and you could pass it all, and that's why you are you today, now. The pain now is also like another pain in the past, it will past by itself again. Just wait and be calm.

Try to read what Erickson wrote as many times as you can. Because even only reading it, it will somehow help you fight your pain in unconscious level. Believe me, I've been there, and done that before and found that it's really helpful.

You have to deconstruct the construction of your past pain. You understanding about pain in the past has constructed the vicious cycle of your pain now. You have to (and you can) construct the new construction to get ride of it (past pain construction). Start from now. Because if you start taking just one first step, as it's said "every journey begins with first step,", it will be easier and easier later. On the contrary, if you still let your pain (construction) continue to take another step, and another step, again and again, it will be harder and harder to deconstruct its vicious cycle later. Again, I've been there and done that before. So please believe me as I'm not just talking about it in theory.

Everyday In Every Way I'm Getting Better And Better. ( Emile Coué said it. It's kind of an auto-hypnosis to construct the new way of feeling well).



Erickson was not only a doctor, he also knew about pain so well from his direct experiences. He was not like the other doctors or scholars who teach or talk about pain only in theories without really experience it themselves.
At age 17, he (Erickson) contracted polio which left him with lifelong disabilities. So, he knew so well what he was talking about because he also had to dealing with it all his life.



I used to suffer from migraine for 25 years, trying almost all drugs (medicines). I haven't suffered from it for 5 years now. Here's my secret:

If I sense that he (migraine) is coming, I'll stop from doing anything and prepare to deal with him completely. It might take me many minutes or even an hour doing that, but I have to. Because, if I let him come just one time, he will come forever. And acupressure is really helpful, too, to shoo migraine away.



Three-year-old Robert (Dr. Erickson's son) fell down the back stairs, split his lip, and knocked an upper
tooth back into the maxilla. He was bleeding profusely and screaming loudly with pain and
fright. His mother and I went to his aid. A single glance at him his on the ground screaming,
his month bleeding profusely and blood spattered on the pavement, revealed that this was
an emergency requiring prompt and adequate measures.

No effort was made to pick him up. Instead, as he paused for breath for fresh
screaming, I (Erickson) told him quickly, simply, sympathetically and emphatically, "That hurts awful,
Robert. That hurts terrible."
Right then, without any doubt, my son knew that I knew what I was talking about. He
could agree with me and he knew that I was agreeing completely with him. Therefore he
could listen respectfully to me, because I had demonstrated that I understood the situation
fully...

Then I told Robert, "And it will keep right on hurting" In this simple statement, I named his
own fear, confirmed his own judgment of the situation, demonstrated my good intelligent
grasp of the entire matter and my entire agreement with him, since right then he could
foresee only a lifetime of anguish and pain for himself.
The next step for him and for me was to declare, as he took another breath, "And you
really wish it would atop hurting." Again, we were in full agreement and he was ratified
and even encouraged in this wish. And it was his wish, deriving entirely from within him
and constituting his own urgent need. With the situation so defined, I could then offer a
suggestion with some certainty of its acceptance. This suggestion was, "Maybe it will stop
hurting in a little while, in just a minute or two." This was a suggestion in full accord with
his own needs and wishes, and, because it was qualified by a "maybe it will," it was not
in contradiction to his own understandings of the situation. Thus he could accept the idea
and initiate his responses to it...
The next procedure which Robert was a recognition of the meaning of the injury to
Robert himself - pain, loss of blood, body damage, a loss of the wholeness of his normal
narcissistic self-esteem, of his sense of physical goodness so vital in human living.
Robert knew that he hurt, that he was a damaged person; he could see his blood upon
the pavement, taste it in his mouth, and see it on his hands. And yet, like all other human
beings, he too could desire narcissistic distinction in his misfortune, along with the desire
even more for narcissistic comfort. Nobody wants a picayune headache; if a headache
must be endured, let it be so colossal that only the sufferer could endure it. Human pride is
so curiously good and comforting! Therefore Robert's attention was doubly directed to two
vital issues of comprehensible importance to him by the simple statements, "That's an
awful lot of blood on the pavement. Is it good, red, strong blood? Lack carefully, Mother,
and see. I think it is, but I want you to be sure."
Thus there was an open and unafraid recognition in another way of values important to
Robert. He needed to know that his misfortune was catastrophic in the eyes of others as
well as his own, and he needed tangible proof that he himself could appreciate. By my
declaring it to be "an awful lot of blood," Robert could again recognize the intelligent and
competent appraisal of the situation in accord with his own actually unformulated, but
nevertheless real, needs. The question about the goodness, redness, and strongness of
the blood came into play psychologically in meeting the personal meaningfulness of Me
accident to Robert. In a situation where one feels seriously damaged, there is an
overwhelming need for a compensatory feeling of satisfying goodness. Accordingly, his
mother and I examined the blood upon the pavement, and we both expressed the opinion
that it was good, red, strong blood. In this way we reassured him, but not on an
emotionally comforting basis only; we did so upon the basis of an instructional, to him,
examination of reality.
However, we qualified that favorable opinion by stating that it would be better if we
were to examine the blood by looking at it against the white background of the bathroom
sink. By this time Robert had ceased crying, and his pain and fright were no longer
dominant factors. Instead, he was interested and absorbed in the important problem of the
quality of his blood.
His mother picked him up and carried him to the bathroom, where water was poured
over his face to see if the blood "mixed properly with water" and gave it a "proper pink
color." Then the redness was carefully checked and reconfirmed, following whirls the
"pinkness" was reconfirmed by washing him adequately, to Robert's intense satisfaction,
since his blood was good, red, and strong and made water rightly pink.
Then came the question of whether or not his month was "bleeding right" and 'swelling
right." Close inspection, to Robert's complete satisfaction and relief, again disclosed that all
developments were good and right and indicative of his essential and pleasing soundness
in every way.
Next mine the question of suturing his lip. Since this could easily evoke a negative
response, it was broached in a negative fashion to him, thereby precluding an initial
negation by him, and at the same time raising a new and important issue. This was done
by stating regretfully that, while he would have to have stitches taken in his lip, it was
most doubtful if he could have as many stitches as he could count. In fact, it looked as if
he could not even have ten stitches, and he could count to twenty. Regret was expressed
that he could not have seventeen stitches, like his sister, Betty Alice, or twelve, like his
brother, Allan; but comfort was offered in the statement that he would have more stitches
than his siblings Bert, Lance, or Carol. Thus the entire situation became transformed into
one in which he could share with his older siblings a common experience with a
comforting sense of equality and even superiority. In this way he was enabled to face the
question of surgery without fear or anxiety, but with hope of high accomplishment in
cooperation with the surgeon and imbued with the desire to do well the task assigned him,
namely, to "be sure to count the stitches." In this manner, no reassurances were needed,
nor was there any need to offer further suggestions regarding freedom from pain.
Only seven stitches were required, to Robert's disappointment, but the surgeon pointed
out that the suture material was of a newer and better kind than any that his siblings had
ever had, and that the scar would be an unusual "W" shape, like the letter of his Daddy's
college. Thus the fewness of the stitches was well compensated.

[donq]

Apology. Just ignore the first one. A bit rusty.

[donq]

(for serious readers, just skip this post and go to the next one below)

I found that sometimes, some readers only interested in some part of what I wrote. If that's the case, here something you might be interested.

If you are interested in the paranormal, this will be a good start to exercise your psychic ability. I don't like to use the word, "ability" because everyone has this and can do this, with some exercises/practice.
Anyway, this is not the real deal of spirituality. But at least, it's a good start, more or less.

You need a partner to do this exercise.
1. Tell your partner to think of the number 1-5, one at a time, then wrote them all down on the paper without letting you see it.
2. Tell you partner to concentrate and think seriously about those number (thinking while looking at it will make the better result) one number at the time.
3. Each time you write down what you see in your mind. Then, compare notes with your partner.
The key for you, as a mind receptor/reader is don't try too hard or too little. The problem always you fall into guessing. Just relax (and if you can do some meditation, that's even better), close your eyes, then wait. Just wait. Until some flash of lines happen in the dark space of your mind. Again, just relax and wait to see more clearly (don't push too hard) what those lines form. Finally when you can see clearer what the number it is, then open your eyes and write it down.
I cannot take credit for this exercise because I didn't create it. I read about it somewhere more than 40 years ago and tried it. And it worked for me. Hope it works for you as well.
Again, this is not the real deal of spirituality. Suffice to say that it's just a toy. But at least, it's a good start for your curiosity to step to more and more real.

[donq]

I've just realized that some messages on my post above just missing (where I used square blankets). It will be duplicate and redundant if I correct or post it again. Sorry.

Anyway, anyone who might be interested to read the full article of Dr. Milton H. Erickson, here it is:

An Introduction to the Study and Application of Hypnosis for Pain Control, M. H. Erickson, Phoenix, published in "Hypnosis and Psychosomatic Medicine: Proceedings of the International Congress for Hypnosis and Psychosomatic Medicine", Dr. Jean Lassner (eds.) 1967

(note-I copy and paste from my pdf ebook, it might appear to be some weird words)


Introduction
Hypnosis is essentially a communication of ideas and understandings to a patient in such a fashion that he will be most receptive to the presented ideas and thereby motivated to explore his own body potentials for the control of his psychological and physiological responses and behavior. The average person is unaware of the extent of his capacities of accomplishment which have been learned through the experiential conditionings of this body behavior through his life experiences. To the average person in his thinking, pain is an immediate subjective experience, all-encompassing of his attention, distressing, and to the best of his belief and understanding, an experience uncontrollable by the person himself. Yet as a result of experiential events of his past life, there has been built up within his body, although all unrecognized, certain psychological, physiological, and neuro­logical learning, associations, and conditionings that render it possible for pain to be controlled and even abolished. One need only think of extremely crucial situations of tension and anxiety to realize that the severest of pain vanishes when the focusing of the sufferer's awareness is compelled by other stimuli of a more immediate, intense, or life-threatening nature. From common experience, one can think of a mother suffering extremely severe pain and all absorbed in her pain experience. Yet she forgets it without effort or intention when she sees her infant dangerously threatened or seriously hurt. One can think of men in combat seriously wounded, but who do not discover their injury until later. There are numerous such com­ parable examples common to medical experience. Such abolition of pain occurs in daily life in situations where pain is taken out of awareness by more compelling stimuli of another character. The simplest example of all is the toothache forgotten on the way to the dentist's office, or the headache lost in the suspenseful drama portrayed at the cinema. By such experiences as these in the course of a lifetime, be they major or minor, the body learns a wealth of unconscious psychological, emotional, neurological and physiological associations and conditionings. These unconscious learning, repeatedly reinforced by additional life experiences, constitute the source of the potentials that can be employed through hypnosis to control pain intentionally without resorting to drugs.
Considerations concerning pain
While pain is a subjective experience with certain objective manifestations and accompaniments, it is not necessarily a conscious experience only. It occurs without conscious awareness in states of sleep, in narcosis, and even under certain types of chemo-anaesthesia as evidenced by objective accompaniments and as has been demonstrated by experimental hypnotic exploration of past experiences of patients. But because pain is primarily a conscious subjective experience, with all manner of unpleasant, threatening, even vitally dangerous emotional and psychological significances and meanings, an approach to the problem it represents can be made frequently by hypnosis, sometimes easily, sometimes with great difficulty, and the extent of the pain is not necessarily a factor.
In order to make use of hypnosis to deal with pain, one needs to look upon pain in a most analytical fashion. Pain is not a simple uncomplicated noxious stimulus. It has certain temporal, emotional, psychological, and somatic significances. It is a compelling motivating force in life's experience. I t is a basic reason for seeking medical aid.
Pain is a complex, a construct, composed of past remembered pain, of present pain experience, and of anticipated pain of the future. Thus, immediate pain is augmented by past pain and is enhanced by the future possibilities of pain. The immediate stimuli are only a central third of the entire experience. Nothing so much intensifies pain as the fear that it will be present on the morrow. It is likewise increased by the realization that the same or similar pain was experienced in the past, and this and the immediate pain render the future even more threatening. Conversely, the realization that the present pain is a single event which will come definitely to a pleasant ending serves greatly to diminish pain. Because pain is a complex, a construct, it is more readily vulnerable to hypnosis as a modality of dealing successfully with it than it would be were it simply an experience of the present.
Pain as an experience is also rendered more susceptible to hypnosis because it varies in its nature and intensity, and hence, through life experiences, it acquires secondary meanings resulting in varying interpretations of the pain. Thus the patient may regard his pain in temporal terms, such as transient, recurrent, persistent, acute, or chronic. These special qualities each offer varying possibilities of hypnotic approaches.
Pain also has certain emotional attributes. It may be irritating, all­compelling of attention, troublesome, incapacitating, threatening, intractable, or vitally dangerous. Bach of these aspects leads to certain psychological frames of mind with varying ideas and associations, each offering special opportunities for hypnotic intervention.
One must also bear in mind certain other very special considerations. Long-continued pain in an area of the body may result in a habit of interpreting all sensations in that area as pain in themselves. The original pain may be long since gone, but the recurrence of that pain experience has been conducive to a habit formation that may in turn lead to actual somatic dis orders painful in character.
Of a somewhat similar character are iatrogenic disorders and disease arising from a physician's poorly concealed concern and distress over his patient. Iatrogenic illness has a most tremendous significance because in emphasizing that if there can be psychosomatic disease of iatrogenic origin, it should not be overlooked that conversely iatrogenic health is fully as possible and of far greater importance to the patient. And as iatrogenic pain can be produced by fear, tension, and anxiety, so can freedom from it be produced by the iatrogenic health that may be suggested hypnotically.
Pain as a protective somatic mechanism should not be disregarded as such. It motivates the patient to protect the painful areas, to avoid noxious stimuli and to seek aid. But because of the subjective character of the pain, there develop psychological and emotional reactions to the pain experience that eventually result in psychosomatic disturbances from unduly prolonged protective mechanisms. These psychological and emotional reactions are amenable to modification and treatment through hypnosis in such psychosomatic disturbances.
To understand pain further, one must think of it as a neuro-psycho­ physiological complex characterized by various understandings of tremendous significance to the sufferer. One need only ask the patient to describe his pain to hear it variously described as dull, heavy, dragging, sharp, cutting, twisting, burning, nagging, stabbing, lancinating, biting, cold, hard, grinding, throbbing, gnawing, and a wealth of other such adjectival terms.
These various descriptive interpretations of the pain experience are of marked importance in the hypnotic approach to the patient. The patient who interprets his subjective pain experience in terms of various qualities of differing sensations is thereby offering a multitude of opportunities to the hypnotherapist to deal with the pain. To consider a total approach is possible, but more feasible is the utilization of hypnosis in relation first to minor aspects of the total pain complex and then to increasingly more severely distressing qualities. Thus, minor successes will lay a foundation for major successes in relation to the more distressing attributes of the neuro­psycho-physiological complex of pain, and understanding and cooperation of the patient for hypnotic intervention are more readily elicited. Additionally, any hypnotic alteration of any single interpretive quality of the pain sensations serves to effect an alteration of the total pain complex.
Another important consideration in the matter of the understanding of the pain complex is the recognition of the experiential significances of various attributes or qualities of subjective sensation, and their differing relationships in such matters as remembered pain, past pain, immediate pain, enduring pain, transient pain, recurrent pain, enduring persistent pain, intractable pain, unbearable pain, threatening pain, etc. In applying these considerations to various of the subjective elements of the pain complex, hypnotic intervention is greatly accelerated. Such analysis offers greater opportunity for hypnotic intervention at a more understanding and comprehensive level. It becomes more easy to communicate ideas and under­ standings through hypnosis and to elicit the receptiveness and responsiveness so vital in securing good response to hypnotic intervention. It is also important to recognize adequately the unrecognized force of the human emotional need to demand the immediate abolition of pain, both by the patient himself and by those in attendance on him. In hypnotic intervention there is a need to be aware of this, and not to allow it to dominate a scientific hypnotic approach to the problem of pain.
Hypnotic procedures in pain control
The hypnotic procedures in handling pain are numerous in character. The first of these, most commonly practiced but frequently not genuinely applicable, is the use of direct hypnotic suggestion for total abolition of pain.
With a certain limited number of patients, this is a most effective procedure. But too often it fails, serving to dis courage the patient and to prevent further use of hypnosis in his treatment. Also, its effects, while they may be good, are sometimes too limited in duration and this may limit the effectiveness of the permissive indirect 1Ypnotic abolition of pain. This is often much more effective, and although essentially similar in character to direct suggestion, it is worded and offered in a fashion much more conducive of patient receptiveness and responsiveness.
A third procedure for hypnotic control of pain is the utilization of amnesia. In everyday life we see the forgetting of pain whenever more threatening or absorbing experiences secure the attention of the sufferer. An example is the instance already cited of the mother enduring extreme pain, seeing her infant seriously injured, forgetting her own pain in the anxious fear about her child. Then, of quite opposite psychological character is the forgetting of painful arthritis, headache or toothache while watching an all-absorbing suspenseful drama on a cinema screen.
But amnesia in relations hip to pain can be applied hypnotically in a great variety of ways. Thus one may employ partial, selective, or complete amnesias in relationship to selected subjective qualities and attributes of sensation in the pain complex as described by the patient as well as to the total pain experience.
A fourth hypnotic procedure is the employment of hypnotic analgesia,
which may be partial, complete, or selective. Thus, one may add to the patient's pain experience a certain feeling of numbness without a loss of tactile or pressure sensations. The entire pain experience then becomes modified and different and gives the patient a sense of relief and satisfaction, even if the analgesia is not complete. The sensory modifications introduced into the patient's subjective experience by such sensations as numbness, an increase of warmth and heaviness, relaxation, etc., serve to intensify the hypnotic analgesia to an increasingly more complete degree.
Hypnotic anaesthesia is a fifth method of treating pain. This is often difficult and may sometimes be accomplished directly, but is more often best accomplished indirectly by the building of psychological and emotional situations that are contradictory to the experience of the pain and which serve to establish an anesthetic reaction to be continued by posthypnotic suggestion.
A sixth hypnotic procedure useful in handling pain concerns the matter of suggestion to effect the hypnotic 1'eplacement 01' substitution 01 sensations. For example, one cancer patient suffering intolerable intractable pain responded most remarkably to the suggestion of an intolerable incredibly annoying itch on the sole of her foot. Her body weakness occasioned by the carcinomatosis and hence inability to scratch the itch rendered this psycho­ genic pruritis aIl-absorbing of her attention. Then hypnotically, there were systematically induced feelings of warmth, of coolness, of heaviness and of numbness for various parts of her body where she suffered pain. And the final measure was the suggestion of an endurable but highly unpleasant and annoying minor burning-itching sensation at the site of her mastectomy. This procedure of replacement substitution sufficed for the patient's last six months of her life. The itch of the sole of her foot gradually disappeared but the annoying burning-itching at the site of her mastectomy persisted.
Hypnotic displacement of pain is a seventh procedure. This is the employment of a suggested displacement of the pain from one area of the body to another. This can be well illustrated by the instance of a man dying from prostatic metastatic carcinomatosis and suffering with intractable pain in both the states of drug narcosis and deep hypnosis, particularly abdominal pain. He was medically trained, understood the concept of referred and displaced pain and in the hypnotic trance readily accepted the idea that, while the intractable pain in his abdomen was the pain that would actually destroy him, he could readily understand that equal pain in his left hand could be entirely endurable, since in that location it would not have its threatening significances. He accepted the idea of referral of his abdominal pain to his left hand, and thus remained free of body pain and became accustomed to the severe pain in his left hand, which he protected carefully. This hand pain did not interfere in any way with his full contact with his family during the remaining three months of his life. It was disclosed that the displaced pain to the left hand often gradually diminished, but the pain would become greatly increased upon incautious inquiry.
This possibility of displacement of pain also permits a displacement of various attributes of the pain that cannot otherwise be controlled. By this measure these otherwise uncontrollable attributes become greatly diminished. Thus the total complex of pain becomes greatly modified and made more amenable to hypnotic intervention.
Hypnotic dissociation can be employed for pain control, and the usual most effective methods are those of time and body disorientation. The patient with pain intractable to both drugs and hypnosis can be hypnotically reoriented in time to the earlier stages of his illness when the pain was of minor consideration. And the disorientation of that time characteristic of the pain can be allowed to remain as a posthypnotic continuation through the waking state. Thus the patient still has his intractable pain, but it has been rendered into a minor consideration as it had been in its original stages.
One may sometimes successfully reorient the patient with intractable pain to a previous time predating his illness and, by posthypnotic suggestion, effect a restoring of the normal sensations existing before his illness. However, although intractable pain often prevents this as a total result, pleasant feelings predating his illness may be projected into the present to nullify some of the subjective qualities of his pain complex. Sometimes this effects a major reduction in pain.
In the matter of body disorientation, the patient is hypnotically dissociated and induced to experience himself as apart from his body. Thus one woman with the onset of unendurable pain, in response to posthypnotic suggestions, would develop a trance state and experience herself as being in another room while her suffering body remained in her sickbed. This patient explained to the author when he made a bedside call, "Just before you arrived, I developed another horrible attack of pain. So I went into a trance, got into my wheel chair, came out into the living room to watch a television program, and I left my suffering body in the bedroom." And she pleasantly and happily told about the fantasied television program she was watching. Another such patient remarked to her surgeon, "You know very well, Doctor, that I always faint when you start changing my dressings because I can't endure the pain, so if you don't mind I will go into a hypnotic trance and take my head and feet and go into the solarium and leave my body here for you to work on." The patient further explained, "I took a position in the solarium where I could see him (the surgeon) bending over my body but I could not see what he was doing. Then I looked out the window and when I looked back he was gone, so I took my head and feet and went back and joined my body and felt very comfortable." This particular patient had been trained in hypnosis by the author many years previously, had subsequently learned autohypnosis, and thereafter induced her own auto hypnotic trance by the phrase, "You know very well, Doctor." This was a phrase that she could employ verbally or mentally at any time and immediately go into a trance for the psychological-emotional experience of being elsewhere, away from her painful body, there to enjoy herself and remain until it was safe to return to her body. In this trance state, which she protected very well from the awareness of others, she would visit with her relatives, but experience them as with her in this new setting while not betraying that personal orientation.
A ninth hypnotic procedure in controlling of body pain, which is very similar to replacement or substitution of sensations, is hypnotic reinterpretation 01 pain experience. By this is meant reinterpreting for the patient in hypnosis of a dragging, gnawing, heavy pain as a feeling of weakness, of profound inertia, and then as relaxation with the warmth and comfort that accompanies muscular relaxation. Stabbing, lancinating and biting pains may sometimes be reinterpreted as a sudden startle reaction, disturbing in character but momentary and not painful. Throbbing, nagging, grinding pain has been successfully reinterpreted as the unpleasant but not distressing experience of the rolling sensations of a boat during the storm, or even as the throbbing that one so often experiences from a minor cut on the finger tip and of a no greater distressing character. Full awareness of how the patient experiences his pain is requisite for an adequate hypnotic reinterpretation of his pain sensation.
Hypnotic time distortion, first described by COOPER and then later developed by COOPER and ERICKSON (COOPER, L., and M. H. ERICKSON: Time Distortion in Hypnosis. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins 1959), is often a most useful hypnotic measure in pain control. An excellent example is that of the patient with intractable attacks of lancinating pain which occurred approximately every twenty to thirty minutes, night and day, and which lasted from five to ten minutes. Between the attacks the patient's frame of mind was essentially one of fearful dread of the next attack. By employing hypnosis and teaching him time distortion, it was possible to employ, as is usually the case in every pain patient, a combination of several of the measures being described here. In the trance state, the patient was taught to develop an amnesia for all past attacks of pain. He was then taught to have an un­ awareness of possible future attacks of pain. He was then taught time distortion so that he could experience the five- to ten-minute pain episodes in ten to twenty seconds. He was given posthypnotic suggestions to the effect that each attack would co me as a complete surprise to him, that when the attack occurred he would develop a trance state of ten to twenty seconds duration, experience all of the pain attack and then come out of the trance with no awareness that he had been in a trance or that he had experienced pain. Thus the patient, in talking to this family, would suddenly and obviously go into the trance state with a scream of pain, and perhaps ten seconds later come out of the trance state, look confused for a moment, and then continue his interrupted sentence.
An eleventh hypnotic procedure is that of offering hypnotic suggestions effecting a diminution 01 pain, but not a removal, when it has become apparent that the patient is not going to be fully responsive. This diminution is usually brought about best by suggesting to the hypnotized patient that his pain is going to diminish imperceptibly hour after hour without his awareness that it is diminished until perhaps several days have passed. He will then become aware of a definite diminution either of all pain or of special pain qualities. By suggesting that the diminution occur imperceptibly, the patient cannot refuse the suggestion. His state of emotional hopeful­ ness, despite his emotional despair, leads him to anticipate that in a few days there may be some diminution; particularly that there may be even a marked diminution of certain of the special attributes of his pain experience. This, in itself, serves as an autosuggestion to the patient. In certain instances, however, he is told that the diminution will be to a very minor degree. One can emphasize this by utilizing the ploy that a one per cent diminution of his pain would not be noticeable, nor would a 2 per cent, nor a 3 per cent, nor a 4 per cent, nor a 5 per cent diminution, but that such an amount would nevertheless be a diminution. One can continue the ploy by stating that a 5 per cent diminution the first day and an additional 2 per cent the next day still would not be perceptible. And if on the third day there occured a 3 per cent diminution, this, too, would be imperceptible. But it would total a 10 per cent diminution of the original pain. This same series of suggestions can be continued to a reduction of pain to 80 per cent of its original intensity, then to 70 per cent, 50 per cent, 40 per cent, and sometimes even down to 10 per cent. In this way the patient may be led progressively into an ever greater control of his pain.
However, in all hypnotic procedures for the control of pain one bears in mind the greater feasibility and acceptability to the patient of indirect as compared with direct hypnotic suggestions and the need to approach the problem by indirect and permissive measures and by the employment of a combination of various of the methodological procedures described above.

[asya]

If it is physical pain,i think,that with the time it will stop.But if it is pain in the heart-it will not vanish and dissapear.It will stay there to the day you die and you just get used to it and live with it.But you can't never forget.