By Hakeem Alexander

(Exercising Your Mind) A motion picture was released not too long ago with the title “Inception”.

Being a lucid dreamer I found the film quite fascinating and reminiscent of my own dream adventures.

The movie gave me the feeling that it was very well researched and the team involved in communicating the ideas, were well informed about the dream environment and what a lucid dreamer could potentially experience.

I watched the movie at the theatre and even purchased a copy which I have viewed repeatedly.

I certainly understand that it is a work of fiction meant to entertain, and I was very entertained indeed.

I enjoy my ability to suspend disbelief and totally become involved with the cinematic experience.

Because of my understanding and desire to enjoy myself, I do not expect that many aspects of the films I watch will be too much like reality.

But with all the similarities that Inception has with my personal oneironautic adventures, and the apparently extensive research that went into its creation, one aspect of the story really bothered me very much.

One of the points that the film made clear to me about the plot was how much more difficult an “inception” would be to execute than an “extraction”.

That is, it was put forward that it is much more difficult to plant an idea in another person’s mind and have them believe it to be their own, than it would be to get information from within a person’s mind.

All this was proposed in the context of the dream world.

If we take this idea from the realm of dreams and apply it to our waking world of psychology, the levels of difficulty would be reversed.

In this context of being awake, if one were to say that it is more difficult to execute an inception than an extraction, in my understanding this is ridiculously false, and would definitely fit the idea of fiction.

But even in the dream-world, from what I know as an experienced lucid dreamer and hypnotist, it is still easier to incept than it s to extract.

One example of this, is that people often dream about their day’s events and variations of this, but find it difficult to remember their dreams in order to tell them to someone else.

Because of the way the plot of the movie was presented, I have used it as a foundation for me to take the opportunity to make a few points clear about the concepts of INCEPTION and EXTRACTION and their realistic application with regard to the human mind.

I am doing this not only because I greatly enjoy recording my ideas, but also because I feel it is important for people to be clear about these concepts.

As a professional belief system enhancer and clinical hypnotist, I am more than prepared to present this analysis.

INCEPTION.

Despite what the movie Inception proposed as part of its plot, the inception of an idea into a person’s thoughts and which they believes is their own is very easy to do.

In fact, it is done every day through the seemingly innocent media of advertising.

Inception or planting of ideas happens every day in classrooms of all kinds from pre-school through graduate-school. Inception is successfully applied by parents, siblings, friends, books, music, television and… MOVIES!

Indeed, every single day, you, me, and practically everyone else accepts information through our multiple senses that we then believe are our very own original cognitions.

Inception is in all ways just another form of suggestion or hypnosis. Just as all hypnosis is really self-hypnosis, the ideas must first be accepted by us on some level in order for us to act it out behaviorally.

All of the decisions that we make and the resulting behaviors we act out are all based on ideas that we find acceptable.

And because we are thinking certain thoughts and have a personality made up of our overall belief systems, we certainly are operating from a foundation of ideas that we have once accepted and have integrated into who we are.

Additional evidence that inception is continually part of our psychology and often against our best judgement, is the fact that we choose behaviors on a regular basis that oppose our good health.

Almost every single idea that we act upon was once before NOT part of our psychology. This means that we had to accept the idea at some point and allow it to be readily accessible.

If you accept the idea that it is difficult to plant ideas in your mind that you will believe are your own, you have been fooled.

Indeed most of us have been fooled about this idea and are never taught about these concepts.

One pandemic inception about hypnosis is the idea that it is some sort of circus act, or that only sinister villain types and vampires use to seduce people in harmful ways.

We are led to believe that hypnosis is some secret science that can not be understood, is incredibly dangerous and has no usefulness except perhaps to have people make fools of themselves on stage.

The reality is that hypnosis is simply a name given to a model of how human beings make use of suggestions and act on them behaviorally.

EXTRACTION.

Accessing information from a person’s mind, or an extraction, is as simple as observing their behavior.

There is emotional behavior, verbal behavior and physical behavior.

The degree of control one has of their emotions or how they respond to stress is one way of extracting information.

The way a person expresses themselves and how they use language is another way to read the thoughts of another person.

And of course their movements and gestures a person make the state of their physical body and health are also very revealing ways to extract information from another person’s mind.

There are very effective ways to understand how different people are acting out the various instructions they have been exposed to.

In hypnosis, if you want to know how effective a post-hypnotic suggestion is operating, you may apply specific methods to determine this.

The first step is to deliver the suggestion along with the appropriate associations used for stimulating the suggestion.

Shortly after this, in the same session or event, you test the suggestion by applying the associated stimulus.

After testing a few times you would be able to asses how well the suggestion has taken effect.

Following up regularly you can reenforce the suggestion and make sure it is still operating.

Inception is basically implanting a suggestion, while extraction is basically interpreting a behavior or set of actions. Both inception and extraction can be used to help or hinder a person.

The most useful form of inception in my opinion is to make people aware of the models describing the theorized mechanisms of these concepts.

The most useful form of extraction is to me only that which allows you to make use of the information in a loving way.

On the other hand, the worst kind of inception to me is that which is done without the knowledge of others and only for personal gain without regard to others well being.

Accordingly, the worst kind of extraction is that which is used to take advantage of others by taking their self-determinism.

It is not difficult for humans to have information installed into us as if we were hard drives accepting software programs.

The real problem is of not supplying people with the instruction manual of how to operate their systems.

When we are left without knowing how to make use of our subconscious minds and thoughts constructively, we are left at the mercy of those who do.

One of the first steps to taking control of your mind is knowing that you learn information easily.

It is up to each of us to individually decide what information we will fully accept and operate from as behavior.

This is the ultimate form of personal responsibility.

What we feed our minds drives our speech.

What we speak not only feeds back to our thoughts but spreads ideas to the minds of others.

And ideas are what drive the actions and behaviors of the people of this world and ultimately our collective reality.