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Hi everybody, and welcome to "NLP: The Secret Science of Self- Empowerment." This Ezine is designed to bring to you techniques, theories and exercises from the fascinating field of Neurolinguistic Programming.
NLP offers fascinating concepts that can help you to develop better relationships with others and yourself - and focuses on bringing forth the unlimited powers of genius that lie withing each one of us.
About This Issue
Last week we took a look at eye movements and how they relate to internal thought processes. This week's issue will give you some ideas on how to experiment with this interesting subject by observing some of your friends' eye movements and how to interpret the results you are getting.
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This Issue's Article: Eye Movements - Indicators of Thought Processes, Part 2
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All Human eye movements are related in one way or another to our mental processes. When we focus our eyes on the external world, we gather information about our surroundings, focus on objects or people of interest, or engage in eye contact with others. We can easily observe this kind of eye movement in others and often even interpret its meaning.
When we focus our attention inwards on thoughts and accessing memories, different kinds of eye movements take place. As we access visual, auditory and kinesthetic (VAK) information internally, our eyes wander all over the place. However, they do so systematically, and not randomly (see eye movement chart), as each eye movement is related to a sensory class (VAK) of thought process. Eye movements based on internal processes are harder to observe and interpret than the ones based on an external focus.
Now that you have seen the eye movement chart you might think it is easy to see which representational system (VAK) a person is accessing. That is not necessarily true. In fact, there are a number of reasons, why some people's eye movements do not fit the chart at all.
Exercise:
Ask a friend to do an exercise with you, where you ask them questions and monitor their eye movements. Make sure to keep your questions "clean." What do I mean by clean? I mean, make sure that your question uses the right words. For example:
"What color is your car?" is a clean question that should produce a visual memory response (eyes move to upper left).
"Could you tell me, what color is your car?" on the other hand, is not a clean question, because it starts with "Could you.." Your friend might have to start an internal dialogue (eyes down and left) to answer the question "Can I?" first.
Questions can be "contaminated" in more ways than I can explain here, but the basic rule is, ask a straight and simple question that is unlikely to trigger any unwanted thought processes that will result in unexpected eye movements.
Even when you ask clean questions, you will find that in many cases people's eye's do not exactly do what you expected. Here are some possible explanations for deviations from the eye movement chart:
Opposite Eye Movement: You asked your friend "What was the color of your first bicycle?" and expect them to look to the upper left of their visual field (visual memory). However, they look to their upper right (visual imagination).
Possible Explanations: They never had a bike and are imagining one. Or, they are left-handed, in which case there is a chance all their eye movements are horizontally opposite.
Atypical Eye Movement: You ask your friend: "What does this situation look like to you?" and they move their eyes to their lower right (kinesthetic, feelings) instead of upward (visual).
Possible Explanation: This could mean that two representational systems are overlapping in a particular instance and accessing a visual stimulus actually leads to a feeling. This phenomenon is called synesthesia and has attracted some attention from researchers. Some more extreme examples of synesthesia are people who can "taste sounds" or "see feelings." A type of synesthesia most people are familiar with is "feeling sounds", as in feeling emotions when listening to music.
Consistent Starting Position: No matter what kind of question you ask, your friend's eyes always go to the same position first, before going anywhere else.
Possible Explanation: Your friend has a "Lead System" (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic) that they have to access in order to get to any other thought process. Most people have a lead system, but are unaware of it.
Eyes Remain Motionless: Upon hearing your question, your friends eyes remain motionless.
Possible Explanations: This could be an indication of immediate access to the needed information. In other words, no search for information is necessary, because the answer is already available. Like someone being called their name does not have to think about the question if that is his or her name. Another possibility is that your friend has been absentminded or deeply engrossed in thoughts and did not pay attention to your question.
Eyes Move Back And Forth Between Two Positions: Let's say you asked "What kind of car would you like to drive?" and your friends starts looking from her upper left to her upper right, back and forth, back and forth.
Possible Explanation: Your friend is comparing two cars, one that she has seen before (visual memory, upper left) and one that she imagines (visual imagination, upper right).
Eyes Completely Avoid Some Position: No matter what question you ask, your friend does not look to one or more positions.
Possible Explanation: Your friend is avoiding that position, either because he has little use for that representational system (e.g. kinesthetic) or because he has memories stored in that position he does not want to access.
More on eye movements in our next issue...
References:
Roots of NLP, Dilts, R., 1983.
NLP Vol I., Dilts, R., Grinder, J., Bandler, R. and DeLozier, J., 1980.
All the best,
Christoph Schertler
NLP Trainer/Coach - Founder PEC, LLC
Christoph Schertler has published an ebook on how to use NLP to build confidence. The NLP Confidence Builder
contains over 100 pages of powerful NLP techniques and concepts that can help you overcome limiting beliefs and bring forth the life-transforming power of confidence from deep within you.
Christoph Schertler was recently published in "101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Vol. 2" alongside John Gray, Jack Canfield, Richard Carlson, Bob Proctor, Alan Cohen and many other leading Self Improvement experts.
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About the Author
Christoph Schertler is a certified NLP Trainer and NLP Coach with a passion for helping others to empower themselves and bring forth their power and genius from within. He has trained with some of the biggest names in the field and is a firm believer in the transformational powers of NLP.
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