Like many things in hypnosis, there can be a certain fake-it-till-your-make-it element to improvement. But what’s important is *how* you fake it. The trick is to imagine ‘what thoughts would be in my head right now if I actually couldn’t remember?’ and conjure those thoughts or visions up. Fill your mind with them. Notice what it feels like the next time you actually can’t remember something you are trying to, and remember that feeling. You can use it later to your advantage.

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NLP suggests a bunch of other things that you can try, involving playing around with your internal representation of a memory, which can be unique to individuals. For example, if you think of your own name, then another name that is not yours, how are they different in your mind? Is there a different feel or look or placement or sound? What if you imagined ‘moving’ your name far away or behind you where you can’t see it, or inside a box that says “I CAN’T REMEMBER” on it in big letters?

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So how do you activate this ability on demand? How do you Not Think of a White Elephant? From conversations I’ve had with my subjects, I think most importantly, you need to not care about forgetting the things you are asked to forget. And second, you have to think about other things. That is, fill your mind with something else, unrelated. If you are worried about whether or not it will “work”, the anxiety itself will draw your attention back, and guarantee you remember.

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Despondent subjects will complain to me that they never forget, even when they want to. But we all have the capacity to forget selectively – it’s an everyday thing. Like when you wake from a vivid dream, but 30 minutes later you can’t recall it. Or when you walk into a room to get something and can’t remember what it is when you arrive. Or when you drive home while thinking about something else, and get there without remembering the drive.

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There are also people who dissociate completely under hypnosis. These people will generally, without instruction, not remember anything of their sessions, even the first time they are hypnotized. Their hypnotized self will maintain its own memories, though, that are just not available to their conscious mind. It’s like they’ve been partitioned. There is an unproven theory (which I hope is wrong) that this ability comes from experiencing deep trauma, such as childhood abuse or war.

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What I find interesting is what happens the day after a subject is told to forget something. Post-hypnotic suggestions fade over time, so the question is – after the instruction to forget fades, does the person remember? This would suggest the memory was suppressed or avoided. Or, is the memory gone for good? This would suggest that the memory was never transferred from short-term memory to long-term storage. I’ve seen both, which tells me different subjects use different strategies.

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In fact, I’d say that there are multiple paths to selective amnesia, that show up really differently in hypnosis sessions when subjects are asked to forget something like their name or a number. For some people the forgotten item is there, on the tip of their tongue, but just out of reach. For others, it exists inside their mind, but they can’t say it out loud. (Stage hypnotist will often give instructions telling people explicitly that they can’t name the item to reinforce this.)

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