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I often talk about people being angry or sad or depressed “for the last time.” I like what are known as “semantically dense” predicates, something linguistics spends a lot of time discussing. For instance, one doesn’t lurk up to somebody openly. The verb “lurk” has all kinds of connotations that don’t need to be stated, so when you say that somebody is walking around the edge of a crowd, as opposed to lurking around the edge of a crowd, the semantically denser phrase has greater impact.

Temporal predicates—words like “last,” “first,” “after,” “again”—all have semantic density. Phrases including the word “when” (“when you start to do X, you’ll find something important”) and “next” (“the next time you see him, you’ll feel Y”) really allow you to aim posthypnotic suggestions to maximum effect.

I think of temporal predicates as targeting devices that allow you to place feelings, amplify them or diminish them, with great power and precision.

Temporal predicates, of course, are directly connected to presuppositions. Presuppositions literally “presuppose” or assume that something is present, even though they are not explicitly stated. A question such as, “When you get up, could you close the door?” contains a number of presuppositions: that the listener will get up, that there is a door, that he is capable of closing the door, and so on.

Many syntactic environments for presuppositions are based on temporal predicates. The “when” in the previous example is a temporal predicate that supports the presupposition. I find these to be extremely powerful, especially when you talk about doing something “for the last time,” or about feeling something “never again and again and again.”

There are also wonderful, simple, and effective words like “stop.” Most people don’t think of “stop” as a temporal predicate, but when I see people beginning to go into a behavioral loop that’s going to run ad infinitum, where they start to get a bad feeling or a panic attack, I say to them, “Stop”—and, amazingly, they usually do.

Add to that a phrase such as “back up,” and you have even more effective tools. When someone is sitting down, there’s no way to physically back up, so when you say, “Stop. Back up and feel something else this time,” they know at a deep level what to do.

Another word that is temporal in nature is “new.” “New” implies that you’re going to do something in the future so “this old feeling that’s going past isn’t going to be as satisfying as when you find new feelings coming…now.”

“Now” is one of the most powerful temporal predicates in the hypnotist’s repertoire. People, especially in altered states, can be very passive, so you have to tell them what to do, when to do it, when to start…and now, of course, is a good time. If I tell people to “go deeper,” it doesn’t mean they will. I tell them exactly when to do anything I want them to do: “Your arm will drop…now”; “In exactly two minutes you’ll find these thoughts coming into your head, now, and then you’ll find…”

Ambiguity is a useful pattern when working with somebody who has a suspicious conscious mind and doesn’t trust himself. Then I’ll talk “through” them to their other parts, trying to come in from the back door to the front door, instead of the front door to the back. Of course, if I have the subject’s cooperation, I’ll use it. I’ll get the conscious mind and the unconscious mind doing the same thing. The more you can line up a person’s resources, the better off you are.