I wonder if you can imagine, just a for a moment or two, that you're walking along next to a park on a warm Autumn evening... the edge of the footpath is lined with those old-fashioned green railings, stretching away in front of you in a gentle curve, so that you can't see where they finish... but you know that they lead all the way down to the park gate... inside the railings there's a tall hedge... too tall for you to see over... but from the other side of it you can hear the sounds of a funfair... and you can hear the sounds of people, too, carefree people, having fun and enjoying themselves.

This grabs attention straight away because of its pleasant connotations of warmth and light-heartedness. It also creates some easy imagery which will work with just about everybody and anybody, since it is not purely visual. Park railings are familiar objects to focus on and the fact that they stretch away from you down to the park gate creates anticipation.

The sun is just on the point of setting, leaving a golden glow in the sky as dusk begins to fall... and by the time you reach the entrance gate, the fairground is a blaze of coloured lights, twinkling, flashing, sparkling, some of them seeming to chase each other around animated displays... the hum of the generators mingles with the music from the rides and the shouted patter of stall holders... and you smile in anticipation as you hand over your entrance fee at the gate and move inside...

More scene setting to capture and entrain thought, as well as a suggestion to happily put the cares of the real world on hold for the time being, to temporarily shelve problems. This obviously allows us a better chance of working effectively.

You stroll between tents and side-shows... stepping over the occasional heavy cable snaking across the grass... just gazing around you... for the moment, quite happy to simply observe other people enjoying themselves... a smiling stallholder thrusts a handful of darts towards you, and gestures towards the many unwon prizes... he says something you don't quite catch and you smile and shake your head... then turn your attention to an individual trussed up in chains and huge padlocks... you watch his contortions in fascination, then applaud with the other spectators when he throws his bonds to the ground and raises his arms above his head in a gesture of triumphant freedom...

The main thing here is the metaphor of someone escaping his problems and being applauded for doing so; we are reminding the client how good this feels when we say: 'raises his arms above his head in triumphant freedom.'

You notice a small crowd a little way ahead and you stroll idly towards them, wondering what it is that's attracted their attention... as you approach, you catch the savoury smell of hot dogs and onions and you can see a large and jolly lady serving the crowd from a sizzling hotplate... there's a man roasting chestnuts nearby, on an old-fashioned barrow... and just beyond him, someone with a candyfloss stall... you stand and take in this scene for a moment or two, realising that you must be in the very heart of the fairground, surrounded by sights and smells that transport your mind back through the years....

Now we are starting to bring other senses, besides visual, to bear - taste, smell, sounds - in order to deepen the state further

You find yourself gazing at the entrance to the helter-skelter and a long-forgotten urge assails you suddenly... you hurry to the door at the base of what now seems like the tallest tower you have ever seen... and then you're moving up the wooden spiral staircase... your feet sounding hollow on the boards... your hand sliding easily along the handrail that's been so well polished by the hands of thousands of people before you as you go on up and up... round and round... until you're out in the open again, clutching a small mat at the top of the slide spiralling away in front of you....

Bringing the sense of touch into play now, while still stimulating the visual and auditory senses. The spiral staircase leading upwards creates a feeling of upliftedness, and the exit at the top of the slide is another stimulus to the anticipatory sense which will strengthen concentration.

It's cooler up here and the sounds of the fairground seem to have faded almost completely away... it seems to you, just for a moment, that you're almost alone here, poised silently above the crowd below you... you place the mat on the slide and sit on it, legs sticking out straight in front of you, your hands tucked under your knees as you begin to move, slowly at first... then faster and faster so that the painted walls next to you are just a blur as you race down and down, round and round, your breath being almost snatched away from you, until you come to an abrupt halt as you skid into the grass at the bottom... parting company from your mat and feeling distinctly disorientated.

Disorientation and more expectation - what happens now? Also, here, we have begun to stimulate body awareness. By now, the clients concentration should be almost total.

As you get to your feet, you notice that everything seems quieter than it was before and it dawns on you that you might have been sliding down this spiral for far longer than you thought... so long, in fact, that... just for a moment.... it seems to you that by some weird trick of fate, you've been transported to another time, another place... but then all the fairground sounds seem to return at once and you realise that it was just your imagination....

The slightly surreal feel to this helps to lower the conscious critical faculty - an essential state for hypnosis. It is also a metaphor for the fact that your imagination can play strange tricks, that things are not always as they seem..

You're still pondering on this realisation, when you find yourself outside a small tent which bears the sign: 'Palmist and Fortune Teller'... you duck inside the half-open flap and look around you in the dim light... there's a table with a white cloth spread on it and a chair in front of it... on the table, there's a large crystal ball on a black plinth... the dim light seems to be coming from deep inside it so that it seems to glow... and you stare at it in fascination as you sit down to wait for the fortune teller to arrive....

More anticipation and deepening of concentration, as well as leading to further suspension of the conscious critical faculty.

You gradually become aware that you can see movement in the crystal ball and you just don't seem to be able to resist leaning forward to see more closely... the scene becomes sharper, more focused, and you find yourself looking at a familiar figure, though, at first, you can't quite place who it is... then you realise that it's you!

Concentration, again.

[FOR ANALYSIS/REGRESSION] It's you, in a scene from your childhood, a scene from your childhood being enacted in front of your eyes, just as it happened so many years ago...

Preliminary regression to childhood times.

[FOR SUGGESTION WORK] It's you, looking just as you would like to look... [etc.]

Preliminary suggestion work goes here, to create an expectation of change.

The scene fades, and you wait for a moment or two, hoping against hope that it'll return... but the crystal ball remains dark and since there seems to be no sign of the fortune teller, you leave the tent and wander on your way...

Another 'What happens now?' effect to work on continued concentration.

You're lost in your thoughts as you stroll lazily along... and almost without realising how you got there, you find yourself astride a horse on a carousel... the carousel is a dazzle of red and yellow, green and gilt, and you clutch a golden-painted support as the music starts and the horses begin to move... gradually gaining speed... silver manes flowing and seeming almost to give them life as the ride goes faster and faster... the horses seem to leap and gallop and you cling tightly to the pole as they whirl you around and around...

Another scene to help suspend the conscious critical faculty, also more sensory stimulation with a suggestion of inevitability of events and vividness of recall.

When the ride finally stops... you can't quite get your bearings for a moment or two... it feels to you as if you've got off the carousel at a totally different place to where you got on... but for some reason or another, you simply couldn't care less, especially when you see the entrance to the hall of mirrors... you hurry inside and stand grinning at the distorted images you see there... one moment, you're long and wavy... the next quite squat, shorter than you can ever remember being... then, in the very next instant, having a small body but with an enormous head...

Triggering exploration of self, looking at different images and aspects, and contemplating the fact that you might have once been different to how you can remember.

[FOR ANALYSIS/REGRESSION] Then suddenly, you find yourself gazing at a reflection that seems to make you look just as you did when you were a child... and just for a fleeting instant, you see other people in that reflection, too, other people and maybe another place from you childhood years... and you realise that at this very moment you could simply decide to see more of that image, recall more of that memory... you can simply choose to do it... or not... and you decide not, just for the moment...

This, obviously, suggests the ability to recall when the time is right to do so.

[FOR SUGGESTION WORK] Then suddenly, you find yourself gazing at an image of you that is just as you want to be, the you that you begin to realise you will be, when... [etc.]

Any suggestions for ultimate success can be given here.

And then you move on through this mirror maze... thoughtful at first but then grinning at what seems to be a hundred images of you as you try to find the exit route...

'Grinning at a hundred images of you' is a reinforcement to feelings of well-being.

When you do, the first thing you see is a huge semi-circular sign around what looks like a dark tunnel... the sign is fluorescent, glowing, the letters continually changing colour... but you can see that it says: 'Time Tunnel... travellers enter here'... you pause for just the briefest of moments before doing just that... there seems to be nobody in here but you and you feel yourself being drawn along the tunnel by an invisible force... drawn along the tunnel and fascinated by a spiralling effect that you can't quite define... a trick of the light, maybe... or simply a trick of the mind....

More conscious critical faculty work here, by making a side-step away from all reality seem quite logical, plus a suggestion that you are being inexorably drawn along through time and fascinated by the process.

A mist starts to form around you and soon you can't seen anything at all except a silver glow that you find somehow relaxing and comforting for some unknown reason... and you realise that you seem to have lost all sense of time and space...

Isolation from the real world and suggestion that time and space, which of course, equals 'time and place' is no longer specifically relevant... you are allowed to be anywhere.

[FOR ANALYSIS/REGRESSION] but it feels as though you are moving back through time... back through time as if there were no such thing as time... all the way back... back to those early days of childhood... or even beyond if that's what seems right to you... and you decide... [etc.]

[FOR SUGGESTION WORK] And you become aware that now, your mind is prepared and receptive to everything I'm going to say to you... [etc.]

Ending, if required:

You decide that it's time to finish your trip through time and space now... time, too, to finish your visit to this magical fairground... and at that very moment you find yourself in front of a control panel... the controls are already set... set to (time, date)... and you know that all you have to do is push the large red button in the centre of the panel to return to the here and now, to this time, this place, back to the here and now... and in your in time, I want you to do just that, then count up to five in your thoughts... and when you get to five just open your eyes and be awake and aware... and feeling good.