| Drill Name: | The Verb Drill |
| Paired/Group (or Solo): | Group |
| Goal: | For subjects: State Change Exercise | For Hypnotists: Exposure to the bredth of divergent thinking across even a small population |
| Description: |
The facilitator collects verbs from the group. Verbs may be any type (dynamic, stative, modal, linking, auxilary). In fact, the greater the diversity in terms of types of verbs, the better. Ideally, collect your list of verbs onto a white board at the beginning of the exercise. I typically gather five or six verbs. It can take 45 minutes to an hour to get through that many. Once the verbs have been collected, give the initial prompt. The facilitator should do the exercise, too. When they think about 60 seconds has passed, they ask everyone to open their eyes. Offer the follow-up prompt and lead the discussion. The discussion can go long. People love this part so it's the facilitator's job to manage the length of time this part takes.
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| Initial Prompt: |
"Our verb is [whichever verb is next]. Everyone close your eyes and fully inhabit and fully experience all aspects of that verb. You may open your eyes when you feel you've gotten everything, within reason, you can from this verb. In any case, after about 60 seconds or so, I'll ask you all to open your eyes and then we'll discuss our experiences with that verb." |
| Follow-up Prompt(s) |
"What were your experiences of [this verb]? Was there a sort of logic to the evolution of your experiences? How did you transition from one experience of the verb to the next?" |
| Conclusion: | At the end, it's a good idea to take a photo of the whiteboard, particularly if you have a place to post it where your attendees can find it. We have a Discord server for that. |