When taking the poly, can I ask a different question in my mind and answer that honestly?
Example: have you ever lied to get out of trouble? Is the question. The answer would be yes but u want to say no. Could you mentally ask yourself "is the sky green?" and then answer no while showing no change in vital signs? (telling the truth) or would they know somehow. I have a poly coming up and I need to lie about a couple things and I'm stressed about it.
Please answer quickly. Thank you.
The technique you describe, disassociation, has not been demonstrated to be effective as a polygraph countermeasure. For better approaches, see The Lie Behind the Lie Detector (https://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf).