You're getting very sleepy...

Those who know me know I have a hard time making decisions. (Even if you don't know me but you just read this blog, you know I have a hard time making decisions.) In high school, I had hard time deciding whether I wanted to take journalism or video class (journalism). In college I had a hard time deciding which field to major in (history). In DC I had a hard time deciding whether to break up with my boyfriend (very, very sadly: yes). In Korea I had a hard time deciding whether to go to law school, and then which law school to go to (yes, and Crimson). In law school I had a hard deciding whether to stay in law school (yes). In law school again, I had a hard time deciding whether to go work for the summer in Cambodia or Alaska (Alaska). And now I am having a hard time deciding which firm to go work for next summer.

I have made charts (usually unfinished). I have made matrices (another word for charts). I have made lists (but then denied their logic). I have made index cards which I then sorted by group in a large pool on the floor (fun). I have meditated (calming but efficacy in doubt). I have asked lots of people (which makes me more confused). I have begged people to tell me what to do (but they have this damn principle about not living my life for me). I have gathered information (useful -- up to a point). I have flipped coins (multiple times -- never quite works). I have asked Magic 8 balls (inconsistent buggers). I have gone to saju jengis (Korean fortunetellers). I have thought (but you can rationalize anything), I have cried (usually after thinking too much), I have prayed (but the good lord helps those who helps themselves!). I have taken long walks and smoked cigarettes (clears the head but causes cancer).

And now: I have seen a hypnotist.

It's thanks to the Neener, who is writing a profile on one of her housemates, a professional hypnotist, and to the first person she lined up as a test subject, who opted out. Thus came hk, the understudy.

Neener told me to think of a habit I'd like to break, but I couldn't think of anything. What I really wanted was to be more decisive, but I didn't think it could be done in a single, one-hour session. So I just told the hypnotist: "I couldn't think of any habits I want to break."

"How about smoking?" suggested the Neener.

"Oh, yeah, I guess so," I said.

"You have to really want to do it," the hypnotist advised.

"Oh. I don't really want to quit," I confessed.

It came out that I really did want to figure out which firm to go to, though, and to my surprise, the hypnotist said that was fine. He then asked if I was on any medication, or was seeing a psychotherapist, or if there was anything I needed him to know.

"No," I said, "I'm pretty sane and healthy."

"Do you have any questions before we begin?"

"Well, you're not going to make me go around the room jumping like a rabbit, are you?" I asked half jokingly, half nervously.

"No," he said with a smile, "we usually go for larger animals."

The first 15 minutes or so, the hypnotist did a kind of intake, to clarify my goals. He had me talk about the firms, past times where I'd been decisive or indecisive, times when I felt I'd made a good decision, how I made decisions, why I was unsatisfied with my decisionmaking process. He asked me how I felt about each firm, and observed that I didn't really respond with feelings, only more logical reasons to go or not go with each firm.

"Do you want to be more decisive, or do you want an answer from your unconscious?" he asked.

"Both, I guess." I thought about it for a second. "I mean, I think they're connected."

"I don't think you're indecisive," he said. "I think you're giving life changing decisions careful thought. And it doesn't matter if other people make their decisions faster, or what they think."

"That's true, but I also want to be less stressed about making decisions."

Having clarified my goals, he then told me to sit back in the papa-san I was sitting in, and to stretch out my arms, lace my fingers, and then place them in my lap. "Now," he said, "I want you to look up at the ceiling without raising your head, and fix your eyes on a spot in the ceiling. Look at it in a kind of dreamy way. When I count to three, you're going to close your eyes, and when you close your eyes, I want you to envision a beach. You're walking on this beach, and it stretches out in front of you for miles. The sun is warm on your cheeks and your nose and your forehead. You're walking on the sand, and you hear the sound of the waves and the water.

"Now I'm going to count to three again, and when I reach three, I want you to open your eyes and look at that spot in the ceiling again. When you've fixed your eyes on the that spot, I want you to imagine lying in a soft bed. You're sinking back into the bed, falling back. Your feet are relaxed, your legs are relaxed, your shoulders are relaxed. You're lying back and sinking back into the bed.

"I'm going to count to three again, and I want you to close your eyes again. You're lying in a soft bed, completely relaxed, and the area around your eyes is getting very heavy. Your eyelids are closed and they are very heavy, and once I count to three again, you're going to find that you can't open your eyes, even if you try."

"One. Two. Three. You can try to open your eyes now, but you won't be able to open them."

I struggled a little bit, but in the end, opened my eyes with a sheepish smile. The hypnotist waved his hand in a downward motion. "That's okay, you can close your eyes again. I'm going to count backwards from fifty now, and I want you to continue imagining relaxing, relaxing, sinking into that bed. Fifty. Forty-nine."

My cell phone chimed.

"There's going to be other sounds in the room," he said, unperturbed, "but I don't want you to worry about that. Just concentrate on my voice and see those numbers on your forehead as I count. Forty-five. Forty-four."

I heard another person walking down the stairs of the house, going into the kitchen, and making what smelled like a microwave pizza. And I was getting cold. But I kept my eyes closed.

"Okay. Now I want you to imagine you're in an elevator. You see a bank of lights indicating the floors on the side. I want you to imagine that you're on the 10th floor, and you're moving down. When you reach the basement, you've reached your unconscious. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

"You've reached the basement now, hk. The door is going to open now, and you're going to see things in front of you that weren't there before. I want you to describe them to me. What do you see?"

I briefly saw a bright light, and an ocean view, where I'd been walking before. I couldn't tell if it was just my imagery from before, though, and I forced my mind to think, "Basement." Basement. Basement. Boxes.

"Boxes," I said. "I see boxes."

"Describe them to me."

"They're just brown cardboard packing boxes."

"How many are there?"

I was silent for a minute as I struggled to see. "There's a lot, I think. But I can see 2 clearly."

"Okay, I want you to go to those boxes and open one."

"They're big," I said, nonsensically.

"That's okay. What do you see inside?"

I tried envisioning the box, and opening it. "I don't see anything."

"That's okay. Try the next box. What's inside?"

I again tried envisioning the box, taking the first one down and peering into the second one. I couldn't envision it. "I don't know."

"Okay. That's all right. Now I want you to imagine a door at the end of the basement. Do you see the door?"

"Yes."

"What does it look like?"

"It's just a cheap, thin wooden door, the kind you buy at ... at Home Depot. It has a round handle."

"I want you to open this door. What do you see?"

"I see the basement storage room of my old dorm."

"And what do you see there?"

"Boxes. They're in two compartments, both of them blocked off by wire."

"Go inside the compartments and tell me what you see."

"It's locked."

I felt the hypnotist press my hand. "I've given you the key. You have the key now. You can go in."

"Okay, I'm in."

"What do you see?"

"There's an old refridgerator on the floor."

"What else?"

"Boxes. Cardboard boxes."

"How many?"

The number 7 popped unbidden into my mind. "Seven."

"What do they look like?"

"They look like the boxes I put in storage last year. One of them is a plastic container, like you buy at the Container Store. One of them has Korean writing on it."

"What does the writing say?"

"I can't remember." At that point I realized I was remembering what I had actually put away, not seeing with my mind, and wondered if that was bad. "Oh, it's like children's books."

"Okay. I want you to imagine something else now. I want you to remember a time when you made a good decision. When you describe that decision to me, your left index finger is going to rise, on its own. Tell me about that decision."

I wondered which decision I could talk about. My major in college? Going to Korea? I settled for my choice of undergraduate colleges, how I'd gone to sleep exhausted in someone's bed and woken up and listened to the students in the common room talking about their studies. But my finger didn't rise.

"Now I want you to imagine you're in an office chair." I amused myself by sitting first in a Herman Miller mesh chair, then a padded chair, then back to the Herman Miller.

"There's an office desk in front of you. And on that desk there is an envelope. In that envelope, there's a single sheet of paper. And on that paper, there's going to be a name of a firm." The name of the Magic Circle firm floated through my mind. But what about the passive aggressive firm, I thought frantically. That's the firm I should go to. My finger twitched involuntarily.

"Now I want you to open that envelope and tell me what it says, but I want you to do it without thinking, without giving yourself the chance to think. Now. You can open the envelope now. What does it say?"

I envisioned wielding a metal letter opener and slicing through the top of the envelope, which was a heavy cream stock. I opened the folded paper. "I think it says [name of Magic Circle firm]," I said, with a half smile of recognition.

"Which firm is that?"

"The small one, the UK firm."

"Okay. Now when I count back from 10, you're going to slowly come back to this room. You're going to start feeling the chair against your back. You're going to become aware of being in this room. You're going to wake up refreshed and relaxed. From now on, when you make decisions, you're going to make them more easily, because they are decisions being made intelligently, thoughtfully, and from an insightful person. They are good decisions. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. You can open your eyes now."

I opened my eyes slowly. They felt crusty, as if I'd been asleep for a while. I felt relaxed, but not refreshed. Drained, actually.

The whole experience took about an hour. In many respects, it felt like the time I had, on my father's advice, meditated about going to law school. I sat in my room with a candle and tried to wipe my mind blank. It wouldn't stay blank, but I'd just sweep the images away and come back to a blank, white space again. Finally, an image came to mind. It was of me sealing up an envelope, addressing it to Crimson, and mailing it. And that was that.

I'm not sure if I was really under hypnosis, or whether I was in a meditative state, or if I was just trying to fulfill someone's suggestions about relaxing. Maybe I do unconsciously want to go to the UK firm. Maybe I was leaning that way today. Neener said that when I was talking about the firms, she thought I'd choose #1 or #3. Maybe it's all a crock of BS. But I do feel calm about it.

The hypnotist told me how to self-hypnotize. Maybe I'll try it again tomorrow.