Most so-called hypnotic or "confusion techniques" are designed to compel a listener to pay close, intense attention to someone who is speaking or presenting them information. In many situations, these techniques are designed to brainwash a subject, or at least make strong suggestions to them that will linger in their mind afterwards.

On the most basic level, using confusion and confusing language to get someone to pay attention to you is obvious. When you're listening to someone speak, and they appear to be making sense, but you are unable to follow the logic of their statements, you will pay closer attention. The "Alice in Wonderland" confusion technique merely takes this same principle to a more extreme level.

Essentially, the Alice in Wonderland technique uses confusion to replace a subject's accepted ideas about the world with false or nonsensical ones, much as the character of Alice is confronted by surreal or illogical goings-on once she makes the trip to Wonderland.

Typically, the technique involves two interrogators. The first poses a question to a subject that appears to be straightforward, but is on some level nonsensical and impossible to answer correctly. The second interrogator then interrupts with an unrelated and also impossible-to-answer question.

Questions continue to be asked in this manner, overlapping one another, for hours, days or even weeks...as long as it takes to thoroughly convince the subject that their situation has become illogical and to break down his or her resistance.

At this point, a person who previously was unwilling to accept a thesis that contradicted his or her worldview will become more open to suggestions or new ideas. They will accept that they will not be able to escape their situation through rational means, and will embrace irrationality as a means of escape.

Obviously, this technique is primarily useful for something like an interrogation, when the interviewers want to get information out of a subject, or with brainwashing, as one would find in a cult atmosphere. It has been suggested that the technique is employed in the Church of Scientology, but I could find no evidence online that this was actually true or false.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0
Source(s):
http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/kubark.htm


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