Corrections to the FAQ and to other parts of the web site.

Correction as to the discovery of eye patterns (by Robert Dilts):

Tad James' reference to eye movements coming from Sybervision’s booklets of 1979 is silly, since it was three years after they were already coded in NLP. I know a number of the Sybervision people. They definitely got eye movements from NLP. As one of the key people involved in the development of the NLP eye movement patterns I can say this with certainty. As far as eye movements go, here is part of the entry on eye movements from the Encyclopedia.

“Eye movements as indicators of specific cognitive processes is one of the most well known, if controversial, discoveries of NLP, and potentially one of the most valuable. According to NLP, automatic, unconscious eye movements often accompany particular thought processes, and indicate the access and use of particular representational systems. The notion that eye movements might be related to internal represenations was first suggested by American psychologist William James in his book Principles of Psychology (1890, pp. 193-195). Observing that some forms of micromovement always accompany thought, James wrote:

In attending to either an idea or a sensation belonging to a particular sense-sphere, the movement is the adjustment of the sense-organ, felt as it occurs. I cannot think in visual terms, or example, without feeling a fluctuating play of pressures, convergences, divergences, and accommodations in my eyeballs...When I try to remember or reflect, the movements in question. . .feel like a sort of withdrawal from the outer world. As far as I can detect, these feelings are due to an actual rolling outwards and upwards of the eyeballs.

What James is describing is well known in NLP as a visual eye-accessing cue [eyes moving up and to the left or right for visualization]. James’ observation lay dormant, however, until the early 1970’s when psychologists such as Kinsbourne (1972), Kocel et al (1972) and Galin & Ornstein (1974), began to equate lateral eye movements to processes related to the different hemispheres of the brain. They observed that right-handed people tended to shift their heads and eyes to the left during “right hemisphere” (logical and verbally oriented) tasks, and to move their heads and eyes to the right during “left hemisphere” (artistic and spatially oriented) tasks. That is, people tended to look in the opposite direction of the part of the brain they were using to complete a cognitive task. In early 1976, Richard Bandler, John Grinder and their students began to explore the relationship between eye movements and the different senses as well as the different cognitive processes associated with the brain hemispheres. As a result of extensive studies and observations, the NLP eye movement patterns of today were identitfied (Dilts, 1976, 1977; Grinder, DeLozier and Bandler, 1977; Bandler and Grinder, 1979; Dilts, Grinder, Bandler and DeLozier, 1980).”

• Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. Vol. II, Grinder, J., DeLozier, J. and Bandler, R., 1976.
• NLP Vol. I, Dilts, R., et al, Meta Publications, Capitola, CA, 1980.
• Roots of NLP, Dilts, R., Meta Publications, Capitola, CA, 1983.

• Kinsbourne, M.; Eye and Head Turning Indicates Cerebral Lateralization, Science, 179, pp. 539–541, 1972.
• Kocel, K., et al.; Lateral Eye Movement and Cognitive Mode, Psychon Sci. 27: pp. 223–224, 1972.
• Galin, D. and Ornstein, R.; Individual Differences in Cognitive Style—Reflective Eye Movements, Neuropsychologia, 12, pp. 376–397, 1974.