By Jim Stutt
What is Reverse Speech,and why do we (humans) utilize it at all? I tend to think of it this way; when humans first existed, their form of communication was telepathic. As huankind evolved, they started forning sounds and associating them with meanings. In time, all communication was accomplished through the new medium – speech. Why? Because it was easier to listen to sounds and not have to concentrate on trying to tune to another’s thoughts. Once it was found that people were no longer communicating telepathically, deceit found its way into communication. Since people at first would naturally treat speech in the same way as telepathic communication, they would not think of not taking the speeoh at face value.
However, the mind (soul, etc.) knew that it had to communicate the.truth in some manner. Since humankind no longer practiced the ability to communicate telepathically, another way had to be found. And that way is Reverse Speech.
This may account for the reason that Reverse Speech occurs in children before normal or forward speech. The soul of the child entity is reaching out and trying to communicate in a manner that it knows will be heard and understood.
As the children age, they learn the normal speech patterns that are utilized in the current times. As they learn more and more about the way the world works, they too are drawn into the practiced speech patterns that exist as the norm. This may account for the single word reversals children first start with, which then expand to whole sentences as they get older. The single word communicates their want or need effectively. However, upon getting older and learning forward speech patterns, the right brain of the child now has to work harder to effectively communicate ideas and feelings to others.
As far as reversal content being higher in casual or emotional conversation, I’m not sure that is an accurate statement. I have noticed in my own tapings that there seems to be a greater number of reversals as the persons involved in the conversation get comfortable with each other. I think this is called rapport between the individuals. This would account for the fact that prepared speeches, monologues, etc. have low reversal content. There is no rapport between speaker and listener. I have listened to tapes of people crying, angry, frustrated and generally in a high emotional state, without hearing high quantities of reversals. I have checked these same tapes over a period of 3 to 4 weeks with no change in the number af reversals found. I have also noticed that in any given tape, the number of reversals increases towards the end of the conversation than at the beginning. This may be do to the fact that the individual is putting forth a large amount of concentration, hence control, of what is being said. With rapport, words come forth more freely with less concentrated thought behind the choosing and speaking of the words. As to whether the person being taped is aware of the machine and therefore not at ease, I’m not sure.
Which brings me to another point. I have noticed that the sooner I listen to a tape after it is made, the clearer I hear the reversals. If I wait several days between making the tape and listening, I hear the same reversals, but with far more effort on my part to discern them from the gibberish. I wonder if this is because the forward (and unconscious hearing of reversals) is fresh in my mind if I listen immediately, and forgotten or filed away if I wait a few days. Maybe an interesting experiment would be to record a tape, and then immediately listen to it for reversals, documenting only the reversal without the forward speech, and then listening again in two or three days and documenting the tape in normal fashion. It might be enlightening to see how many of the “original” reversals heard are documented.
Of course, after the reversal is documented, it must be classified. And in classifying them I would create what I would call CLASS. Class would be either Internal or External. Once the reversal is put in a class, I think it would then be much easier to categorize it into one of the existing categories. The existing categories seem to be adequate to cover all possibilities, however, it. seems to me that more, if not all, of the forward conversation needs to be documented. Since a lot of reversals that are normally hard to categorize in context to one or two sentences, might be more recognizable as a lead/trail reversal with more forward dialogue present. Of course, this requirement then makes some sort of transcription service a necessity.
But then, I tend to feel that reversal structure and tense are more important when analyzing a tape than categories are. Yes, categories are important. But content and structure are what defines how to categorize something.
And in thinking about structure, and how people communicate, I wonder if maybe greater importance should be given to the Semi-Formed reversal. It seems to me that people in general have a hard time saying what they feel or want to say. And since the active speech center is located in the left brain control section, would it not stand to reason the right brain, in forming a reversal, has a lot of left brain control to overcome to produce the reversal. Therefore, in overcoming this control, the reversal might not be perfectly formed due to the stress this creates in the indivduals left-right brain hemispheres. And also, this is such an important issue to the individual that its just as hard to say in reverse as forward.
So, with everything taken into account that I know at this time, I feel that Reverse Speech is probably one of the most important discoveries to be made in the area of interpersonal communications ever. The need for people to communicate concisely and effectly has never been greater. And maybe this will awaken people to the fact that they are saying it in reverse anyhow, so why not say it forwards!