Hypnotic Language Pattern
Conversational Postulate

A conversational postulate is a question that normally would be answered literally by a yes or no, but is understood to be asking for a more informative answer.

The best example is ‘Can you tell me the time please?’ The literal answer is ‘Yes’ but most people would actually tell you the time as this is understood.

In hypnotherapy conversational postulates are used to disguise a direct command. Instead of saying ’Close your eyes…’, you could say ‘Can you close your eyes..’ which is much less abrupt and the implicit instruction far more likely to be followed.

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