Chapter 10: Sliding the Controls of Your Experience................................................
So now you know that you can control your memories simply by changing
the submodalities of the pictures, sounds, and feelings. And just as you know
that modalities can be broken down into submodalities, similarly you should
be aware that the submodalities can have further distinctions. For example,
a picture can be in colour and have different shades of colours, or it can be
in black and white and have variations of grey. It can have a frame around it
or can be panoramic. Not clear about panoramic? Imagine standing on the
top of a mountain and looking at the scenery in front of you as you turn your
head, slowly, through 180 degrees. What you see is in panorama. In addition,
in the next section, you discover how being associated with or dissociated
from a picture can have an effect on your emotions. For example, sounds can
be in your head or to the side, and feelings can take on a texture.
Because you can change each of your submodalities, we provide you with a
list of them in the later section ‘Submodalities Worksheet’, to help you record
the changes. We recommend that you fill out the form before you begin to
make changes so that you can always revert to the original structure of a sub-
modality if your change raises any anxieties.
Associating or dissociating...............................................................
This section helps you to understand how you can move in and out of your
memories, to get more options over how you heighten or reduce the intensity
of your feelings. In our experience, this aspect is a very important submodal-
ity and one that needs a little extra clarification.
When you visualise yourself in a picture, the experience is like watching your-
self in a home-made film, and we call this experience dissociated. If, however,
you’re in the picture, seeing out of your own eyes, we call this experience
associated. Being associated or dissociated into a picture can be an extremely
important submodality when experiencing emotions as a result of the pictures
you make.
Usually the emotions are heightened if you associate into the picture.
Sometimes, people find associating or dissociating difficult. For instance,
someone who has experienced a severe personal loss or been traumatised
may find that associating hard and may need to work on it.
To get the feel of being associated or dissociated, create a picture of yourself
sitting in the front seat of a car. When you’re dissociated, you perhaps see a
picture of yourself in the car, a little bit like watching yourself on television or
looking at yourself in a photograph. If you want to associate into the picture,
imagine opening the car door and sitting down. Now look out of your own
eyes. The dashboard is in front of you. Can you see the texture and colour of
the dashboard? Now look up at the windscreen. Is it splattered with the rem-
nants of suicidal insects (or aliens, if you’ve seen the film Men in Black)?
