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Reverse Speech
Voices from the Unconscious
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
— Carl Jung
The Unconscious Mind is that mysterious part of the psyche that lies below the level of consciousness. Even though more than 90% of the mind is unconscious very little is known about its functions or what it actually does. What we know about the unconscious mind is buried in dreams, heard in whispers using hypnosis, and studied by body language, hand writing analysis and other such disciplines. But what if there was a more reliable way to access the unconscious? What if you could actually hear it speak in an audible voice? Ask questions and get answers? Sound impossible. Not anymore. Now we have Reverse Speech.
Reverse Speech is the name given to an unusual phenomenon of language where hidden backward messages are buried in the sounds of human speech. If human speech is recorded and played backward, mixed in amongst the sounds of gibberish can be heard clear and precise intelligent phrases. These phrases are the voice of the unconscious mind speaking. Reverse Speech theory states that the process of spoken communication is two fold, and that embedded into the sounds of speech there exists another form of covert communication. This other form of communication is a natural part of our speech process and communicates information from deep within.
I first stumbled across this phenomenon in 1984 while I was running a halfway house for street kids in Australia. Some of them had been playing their records backward and getting quite scared by what they were finding. They asked me for my opinion. My initial reaction was this is nonsense — the product of some over active teenagers’ imagination. But being an electronics enthusiast I rewired a tape player to play backward and checked out some of their tapes. Much to my surprise I could hear the phrases they were talking about. A couple of months later I accidentally stumbled across the phenomenon in regular human speech.
The first example I found was on Neil Armstrong taking his first steps onto the lunar surface. As he says forward “That’s one small step for man,” in reverse he says quite clearly “Man will space walk.” I was stunned. I checked out more recordings of speech and found backward messages everywhere. These messages were quite clear, could be heard by others and usually related directly to the forward speech. In other words what was spoken in reverse usually had a direct complementary relationship to what was spoken forward.
I began experimenting with this new tool I had found wondering what it could reveal. I recorded my family and friends and was amazed by the discoveries I made. I found personal information about my friends, information I could not have consciously known, I found instructions for their lives and the reasons for certain behavioral patterns. In 1988 I was recording a murder suspect on TV and I found both a confession to the murder and the location of a murder weapon. I contacted the police. They gave me more tapes of the suspect to analyze and I found information that astounded the police. They found the murder weapon right where the Reverse Speech said it would be. They found an accomplice to the crime that they had already suspected but the reversals gave them more information. The suspect was subsequently found guilty.
In the early ’90s I worked on several cases for the Dallas police, finding significant information. Subsequently to this, Reverse Speech Practitioner Jack Johnston, one of my students, has worked with private attorneys in Oregon on their cases and has found information that had led to the exoneration of some clients wrongly accused.
Reverse Speech, at one level, will reveal whatever is on the mind of the speaker. If a lie is spoken forward, the truth may be communicated in reverse. If pertinent facts are left out of the forward speech, these likewise may be communicated in reverse. These observations alone make Reverse Speech an awesome tool in the field of forensics and investigations. However, its real power and uses, according to my mind, lie in the area of therapy and the studies of consciousness.
In the 27 years that I have been doing Reverse Speech I have discovered that many of our behaviors and actions are formulated in the unconscious mind sometimes long before they become conscious. In other words, the unconscious is the orchestrator and designer of our actions, behaviors and even our very lives.
One client who was talking to me about her desire to be successful and wealthy, had a speech reversal that said, “I am wanting new grief.” On further questioning I found out that her life was full of grief and she did not know why. The reverse message gave the clue. At some stage in her life she had learned that grief was something no one could avoid. She believed this so much that she had manufactured her life around it. Changing this pattern is not as simple as giving her affirmations to be happy and at peace. The unconscious mind itself must be changed. I achieve this change through the use of hypnosis and a specific therapeutic technique I have developed over my many years of working with Reverse Speech. This technique is called Metaphor Restructuring. More information about this technique can be found on my website, reversespeech.com.
In another case when I was working with a businessman who was having financial difficulties, I found a reversal that said “I have no money. I am an idiot.” This reversal showed us that the belief of having no money was buried deep in the unconscious mind along with a pattern of beating himself up. Using regular therapy this unconscious belief may not have been uncovered. This is one of the greatest gifts that Reverse Speech can give us. That is, a means of tapping into the unconscious mind and bringing to consciousness that which is unconscious. In this regard, it opens to doors of possibilities and allows us to achieve a state of congruity that is extremely empowering.
In my work with Reverse Speech I have also uncovered some amazing facts about the unconscious mind. For a start it is primarily responsible for our creation and manifestation processes. In many cases I have found reversals on a client that talk about future events and these events have subsequently come to pass. In one married couple that I worked with I found a reversal on the wife that said “I will shift the bedroom.” A few weeks later she had rearranged the bedroom of her house and had a new partner. Her future actions were seen in the reversals.
In another case a client talked about a future car accident that he was going to have with a reversal that said “I will have a wreck.” He drove very carefully for the next two weeks but the accident was fated to occur and he was hit in the rear while sitting at traffic lights. When I say the accident was fated to occur, I really mean that for whatever reason, it was planned and mapped out in the unconscious mind before it became conscious. Because we did no work to change the unconscious pattern, the “fate” transpired as the reversals said it would.
So, are we a slave to the unconscious? Are we doomed to follow its edicts? Sadly, in many cases this is true. If the unconscious patterns are not addressed and dealt with, we are destined to follow its commands.
This is one of the most powerful uses for Reverse Speech. It allows us to see inside the unconscious mind – to make conscious what was once only unconscious. For the first time in history, it gives us a means to look inside the mysterious mental process that lie deep within and gain some measure of control.
True manifestation according to our conscious desires can happen only when we embrace the unconscious mind, and become congruent with it, for it is the unconscious that creates our reality.
Reverse Speech, and the subsequent therapeutic techniques that have been developed as a result of Reverse Speech research, is currently the only way I know of tapping into the deeper thought patterns that lie within. Using Reverse Speech therapy you can release yourself from the chains that bind you and experience the power that only true conscious and unconscious congruity can create.
Welcome to the world of Reverse Speech.
David Oates will be in San Diego in October doing a lecture and workshop. Visit www.reversespeech.com