Understanding the Lemon Test and Its Role in Hypnotherapy

I am a hypnotherapist and a teacher. I have been working with children for several decades and one of the ways I understand how children learn is to focus on the modalities of learning such as visual or kinesthetic modalities. As a teacher, if I tell a story and do not include visuals, students who need visuals to learn will struggle to remember my story. However, there are other modalities, other than visual ways of learning, that are used while teaching to help work with your mind and memory. Hypnotherapy relies on many different types of modalities when working to create change and understanding. The lemon test below will help you discover the modalities that you strongly connect to.

Our long-term memory is in our subconscious mind. The conscious mind, which has roughly 5-10% of the power of the subconscious mind, will listen for a short while and send information into long-term memory if it can relate to what is being shared. In other words, there needs to be an interest, perhaps an emotional connection, and the subconscious mind will hold onto the information if it can relate to 'how' the information is presented to you.

For example, imagine someone is telling you a story about ordering a teen burger at A&W. The story becomes interesting when this person sinks their teeth into it. They describe tasting the savory sauce and share that they simply love the flavor of teen burgers. Then they go on to talk about how sloppy the burger became in their hands.

You are genuinely interested in this story because you also love teen burgers; your conscious mind is engaged. If your subconscious mind remembers taste and really speaks to you in this modality, you will remember this information and perhaps even link it to a time you ate a teen burger and had the same experience. Perhaps your mind almost 'tastes' the flavor and can 'feel' the sloppiness of the burger as well. However, not everyone's mind can connect to smell, taste, and kinaesthetically feeling the burger.

Why is it important to know how your subconscious mind speaks to you?

• You can let people know how you learn best. By making learning 'meaningful,' you will pay attention. When they use modalities your subconscious mind likes, the information has the opportunity to be remembered.

• You can be more successful in achieving your goals in hypnotherapy. To begin, you simply relax and be curious. While relaxed, you will feel like you are between being fully awake and starting to drift off to sleep. The hypnotherapist can embed stories and visuals that describe a scene, and you may 'feel the floor under your feet.' As you do, your subconscious mind becomes engaged. During a session, this part of your mind will speak to you through the use of symbols, metaphors, perhaps 'knowings,' etc. This is the part of your mind that you engage to make the changes you desire, to work on the goal you came to hypnotherapy to achieve.

  
  

I have included an audio of the lemon test. I invite you to listen to it, seated in a comfortable chair, with no distractions, and see what 'comes up for you.' Note the modalities that you are able to experience.

The Lemon Test: Notice what you notice while listening to this audio. What do you hear, smell, taste, see or feel? These are all modalities and ways we can communicate with our subconscious mind.

The Lemon Test is a test hypnotherapists often use to help clients determine how their 'subconscious mind speaks' to them while in trance. Trance is the state of consciousness whereby your brain waves are in an alpha-theta state. Wide awake, your brain waves move faster and are in a beta state. Once they slow down, the brain waves move into an alpha state, then a theta state. When the brain waves slow even further, the brain waves have entered a delta 'sleep' state. It is during trance that you can access your subconscious mind to make the changes and attain your goal during hypnotherapy.

Pat Barker provides hypnotherapy, life coaching and EFT (emotional freedom technique) to children, youth and adults. She is the sole proprietor of Mother Tree coaching & hypnotherapy providing in-person and on-line sessions. She is based out of Winnipeg, Canada.