What is the Alice in Wonderland confusion technique?
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M$2 Answers
On the most basic level, using confusion and confusing language to get someone to pay attention to you is obvious. When you're listening to someone speak, and they appear to be making sense, but you are unable to follow the logic of their statements, you will pay closer attention. The "Alice in Wonderland" confusion technique merely takes this same principle to a more extreme level.
Essentially, the Alice in Wonderland technique uses confusion to replace a subject's accepted ideas about the world with false or nonsensical ones, much as the character of Alice is confronted by surreal or illogical goings-on once she makes the trip to Wonderland.
Typically, the technique involves two interrogators. The first poses a question to a subject that appears to be straightforward, but is on some level nonsensical and impossible to answer correctly. The second interrogator then interrupts with an unrelated and also impossible-to-answer question.
Questions continue to be asked in this manner, overlapping one another, for hours, days or even weeks...as long as it takes to thoroughly convince the subject that their situation has become illogical and to break down his or her resistance.
At this point, a person who previously was unwilling to accept a thesis that contradicted his or her worldview will become more open to suggestions or new ideas. They will accept that they will not be able to escape their situation through rational means, and will embrace irrationality as a means of escape.
Obviously, this technique is primarily useful for something like an interrogation, when the interviewers want to get information out of a subject, or with brainwashing, as one would find in a cult atmosphere. It has been suggested that the technique is employed in the Church of Scientology, but I could find no evidence online that this was actually true or false.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0
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M$
My research tells me that the Alice In Wonderland Confusion Technique is an indirect form of hypnotic manipulation using redirection and confusion to "open ones mind" to suggestion and direct perception.
Here is an aged, but relevant video:
http://www.lermanet.com/exit/hypnosis-index.htm
This technique was created by psychiatrist Milton Erickson.
Specific to Scientology, it is used in TRs 1 and 2 stages of training:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Secrets/TR/critique.html
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/s/scientology/pignotti/
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I've seen it used to manipulate susceptible people into doing things they normally wouldn't do because their conscious mind is being distracted trying to figure out what the person is actually saying.
I've seen it used to (successfully) pass blank pieces of paper that is received as cash and to repeatedly convince a person to give the asker their keys and wallet by distracting their conscious mind with the passing back and forth of a water bottle. Even an entire mall of shoppers raising their hand at the same time in response to such a technique used by Criss Angel (Mindfreak) over the loudspeaker system.
There are people that are more susceptible to hypnotic suggestion and hypnosis than others but in the ideal situation anyone can be affected to a certain degree.
I am so intrigued about your links that I spent all morning reading them and now I want to make my own indoctrination cult. :)
Regarding links to Scientology's use of this technique (@robbrown has more examples in his answer to this question):
http://www.lermanet.com/exit/confusion-technique.htm
More links can be found http://www.lermanet.com/exit/hypnosis-index.htm
Kudos on this answer, Lon.
Are you trained in psychology?
I'm not sure the Alice in Wonderland technique, as I'd seen it described, actually counts as "hypnosis." It sounds more like they're just trying to break someone's defenses down through intimidation, isolation and harassment. That's where the "brainwashing" part comes into play.
As someone who has been hypnotized, I can verify that it isn't like movies, where someone just waves a watch in front of your eyes and then commands you to do something. You are conscious of what you're doing, and I had a feeling of "just playing along" with the hypnotist, though I'll grant I felt a bit more suggestible and open-minded in terms of my behavior than I would have been normally.
But as far as combining hypnotic and confusion techniques into a single discussion, you make a good point...this may be a bit inaccurate.
I disagree that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. Never doing something against my will when my will has been compromised with false conditions is an inaccurate assessment of free will in my opinion.
Willpower is a muscle, it must be exercised to grow stronger. My personal experience with hypnosis reveals that it relaxes a persons will - it doesn't strengthen it.
A person in a relaxed or distracted state can be "tricked" or convinced to behave in ways that wouldn't occur to them without specific manipulation. Otherwise all you'd have to do is ask me to do it without couching your request inside a special technique.
Won't refute... but...
Confusion techniques are really used to get someone to pay attention. They are used to get the conscious/logical mind to let go.
I also have an issue relating hypnosis with "brainwashing". ALL hypnosis is self-hypnosis. You'll NEVER do anything against your will...
Very interesting answer.
But it also sounds rather like Zen doesn't it?
The trouble is that as they say "all sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". Or equivalently: All thinking that is outside the paradigm you know sounds like gobbledygook.
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