Hypnosis: had any experience of it?

[xjx388]

So many hand wavers, arguments from incredulity.

There are brain activity studies that show the altered state, it differs from meditation, and can't be reproduced by a person not hypnotized.

Stanford Medicine News: Study identifies brain areas altered during hypnotic trances

If only 10% of the population are “highly hypnotizable,” it's no wonder there are so many naysayers.

Ok, so in a therapeutic setting, there may be something going on. I acknowledged that in my response. However, you shared a story about teenagers copying what they saw in a stage show. Do you really think there was an altered state of consciousness induced there? Or is it more likely that there was a bit of playing along involved more than anything else? I have cousins to this day tell me that they weren’t pushing the planchette of the Ouija board we messed with as kids; does this mean ghosts were pushing it?

Stage hypnosis, like the Ouija board, is a well understood thing. There is no hypnosis/spirituality involved, only people willing to play along and contribute to the illusion.


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[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't care what all these naysayers claim, hypnosis is real and I've seen it first hand.

...But Teri was another story. She went under easily. My brother told her she was naked and the rest of us weren't. She giggled but wasn't that freaked out. But then he told her she was on the ceiling looking down and she literally started screaming and kicking her legs. It was totally unexpected and out of character for anyone who was just faking it or going along like the Peter Popoff forehead push knock over. My brother had to bring her out of it right then.....

Ok, so in a therapeutic setting, there may be something going on. I acknowledged that in my response. However, you shared a story about teenagers copying what they saw in a stage show. Do you really think there was an altered state of consciousness induced there?

Absolutely! Who would scream in a panic kicking their legs, who would even think of doing that? And why when my friend wasn't sophisticated enough to have planned and acted that would she have done that?

Obviously it's my anecdote and this is not the forum to buy into anecdotes. But I was there and she panicked, no faking about it.

And studies of brain changes supports that hypnosis is real.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I imagine some of you think it's hard to hypnotize someone, that you'd have to be taught how to do it, blah blah blah.

It was incredibly easy. As long as you have a susceptible subject, it's easy.

You talk in a monotone, telling the person to imagine themselves floating in a cloud.

It only took a few minutes to talk a person into a trance (if they are susceptible).

 

[Senex]

I imagine some of you think it's hard to hypnotize someone, that you'd have to be taught how to do it, blah blah blah.

It was incredibly easy. As long as you have a susceptible subject, it's easy.

You talk in a monotone, telling the person to imagine themselves floating in a cloud.

It only took a few minutes to talk a person into a trance (if they are susceptible).

Unlike mimicking a magician, mimicking a hypnotist might be a successful method to reproduce their show, except for the hypnotists that use whispers.

I'm going to tell a secret that may save a number of people here several hours of research. You can't get girls through hypnotism. Unfortunately many women are susceptible to getting excited about close up magic (They can't help themselves). I can share my research on this topic for a small fee.

 

[xjx388]

Absolutely! Who would scream in a panic kicking their legs, who would even think of doing that? And why when my friend wasn't sophisticated enough to have planned and acted that would she have done that?

You were teenagers, so I don't see why kicking and screaming is a particularly sophisticated reaction that needed to be planned out.

Obviously it's my anecdote and this is not the forum to buy into anecdotes. But I was there and she panicked, no faking about it.

I don't see how you can rule out faking. It's the explanation that requires the least assumptions: 1)That a hypnotic state exists; 2)That your brother was capable of inducing a hypnotic state; 3)That your friend is among those who can be hypnotized; and 4)That suggestions while in the hypnotic state can cause realistic hallucinations VERSUS 1)She faked it

And studies of brain changes supports that hypnosis is real.

At best, the studies show that hypnosis causes certain changes in fMRIs. There is no support for the idea that it can cause hallucinations, cause people to believe they are chickens, cause them to say "Quack" every time the hypnotist touches their ear, etc.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You were teenagers, so I don't see why kicking and screaming is a particularly sophisticated reaction that needed to be planned out.
....

I'm not surprised you can't figure it out.

I was there, you weren't. You don't need to accept the anecdote, the evidence is the research I posted.

 

[xjx388]

I'm not surprised you can't figure it out.

I was there, you weren't. You don't need to accept the anecdote, the evidence is the research I posted.

The evidence does not support your anecdote, though. The evidence shows that there is something happening in the brain. Do you think we should make the leap from <changes in the brain shown on fMRI> to <my hypnotized friend believed she was stuck to the ceiling and panicked>?

 

[Senex]

The evidence does not support your anecdote, though. The evidence shows that there is something happening in the brain. Do you think we should make the leap from <changes in the brain shown on fMRI> to <my hypnotized friend believed she was stuck to the ceiling and panicked>?

Hypnosis has been discredited as a method of anesthesia. It's discredited pretty much completely except for entertainment. MRI's only confirm there is no difference between hypnotized and nonhypnotized people. Some intelligent people cling to beliefs that aren't true. I can link to the research if asked. I will ask those that disagree to show their prohypnosis links first.

 

[xjx388]

So many hand wavers, arguments from incredulity.

There are brain activity studies that show the altered state, it differs from meditation, and can't be reproduced by a person not hypnotized.

Stanford Medicine News: Study identifies brain areas altered during hypnotic trances

If only 10% of the population are “highly hypnotizable,” it's no wonder there are so many naysayers.

Hypnosis has been discredited as a method of anesthesia. It's discredited pretty much completely except for entertainment. MRI's only confirm there is no difference between hypnotized and nonhypnotized people. Some intelligent people cling to beliefs that aren't true. I can link to the research if asked. I will ask those that disagree to show their prohypnosis links first.

This is the link SG shared earlier in support of hypnosis. All it really says is that there were certain changes on an fMRI that were only observed in "highly hypnotizable subjects," while being hypnotized. I'd be interested in what you have.

 

[Butter!]

I tried therapeutic hypnosis for intrusive thoughts when I was in my early twenties. It did absolutely nothing. Like, nothing. I felt like I was just sitting there talking to someone, same as before I was "hypnotized." In fact, I was a bit irritated by the obvious "authoritative but soothing" tone the therapist was trying to affect.

After a few sessions, I quit wasting his time and my money. He suggested that I am someone who cannot be hypnotized. He might be right. Guided meditations have produced a similar effect in me when I tried them (regular consciousness except for some mild irritation at feeling pandered to).

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The evidence does not support your anecdote, though. The evidence shows that there is something happening in the brain. Do you think we should make the leap from <changes in the brain shown on fMRI> to <my hypnotized friend believed she was stuck to the ceiling and panicked>?

I don't care what you believe.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Hypnosis has been discredited as a method of anesthesia. It's discredited pretty much completely except for entertainment. MRI's only confirm there is no difference between hypnotized and nonhypnotized people. Some intelligent people cling to beliefs that aren't true. I can link to the research if asked. I will ask those that disagree to show their prohypnosis links first.

That's not what the functional MRI showed.

It's no surprise it won't work for anesthesia, the trance is not that deep.

As for discredited, there's plenty of research that confirms it. I did post pro-hypnosis links. Most of the discrediting I've seen comes from incredulity and failure to use highly susceptible people.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I tried therapeutic hypnosis for intrusive thoughts when I was in my early twenties. It did absolutely nothing. Like, nothing. I felt like I was just sitting there talking to someone, same as before I was "hypnotized." In fact, I was a bit irritated by the obvious "authoritative but soothing" tone the therapist was trying to affect.

After a few sessions, I quit wasting his time and my money. He suggested that I am someone who cannot be hypnotized. He might be right. Guided meditations have produced a similar effect in me when I tried them (regular consciousness except for some mild irritation).

I can't be hypnotized either. Research on what one can do with hypnosis such as therapy is different from demonstrating the hypnotic trance does occur in some people. Like saying it doesn't work for anesthesia ergo there is no trance.

We've all been exposed to movie hypnosis where it supposedly works like mind control. It doesn't work like that. But you can cause a person to hallucinate if they are in that 10% (or whatever the actual %).

 

[xjx388]

I don't care what you believe.

Lol, you sound like my very Catholic aunt when we argue about religion...

You are making a claim, if you don’t want the claim challenged, perhaps you shouldn’t make it on a skeptics forum.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Sometimes one has to look at new evidence and re-evaluate old conclusions.

Science Daily: A hypnotic suggestion can generate true and automatic hallucinations

A multidisciplinary group of researchers from Finland (University of Turku and University of Helsinki) and Sweden (University of Skövde) has now found evidence that hypnotic suggestion can modify processing of a targeted stimulus before it reaches consciousness. The experiments show that it is possible to hypnotically modulate even highly automatic features of perception, such as color experience. The results are presented in two articles published in PLoS ONE and International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis....

... This result indicates that all hypnotic responding can no longer be regarded merely as goal directed mental imagery. It shows that in hypnosis it is possible to create a memory trace that influences early and preconscious stages of visual processing already about 1/10 second after the appearance of a visual target.

Here's one of the studies: PLOS one: A Preconscious Neural Mechanism of Hypnotically Altered Colors: A Double Case Study

Abstract
Hypnotic suggestions may change the perceived color of objects. Given that chromatic stimulus information is processed rapidly and automatically by the visual system, how can hypnotic suggestions affect perceived colors in a seemingly immediate fashion? We studied the mechanisms of such color alterations by measuring electroencephalography in two highly suggestible participants as they perceived briefly presented visual shapes under posthypnotic color alternation suggestions such as “all the squares are blue”. One participant consistently reported seeing the suggested colors. Her reports correlated with enhanced evoked upper beta-band activity (22 Hz) 70–120 ms after stimulus in response to the shapes mentioned in the suggestion. This effect was not observed in a control condition where the participants merely tried to simulate the effects of the suggestion on behavior. The second participant neither reported color alterations nor showed the evoked beta activity, although her subjective experience and event-related potentials were changed by the suggestions. The results indicate a preconscious mechanism that first compares early visual input with a memory representation of the suggestion and consequently triggers the color alteration process in response to the objects specified by the suggestion. Conscious color experience is not purely the result of bottom-up processing but it can be modulated, at least in some individuals, by top-down factors such as hypnotic suggestions.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Lol, you sound like my very Catholic aunt when we argue about religion...

You are making a claim, if you don’t want the claim challenged, perhaps you shouldn’t make it on a skeptics forum.

It would be a mistake to conflate yourself with the whole forum.

 

[xjx388]

That's not what the functional MRI showed.



It's no surprise it won't work for anesthesia, the trance is not that deep.

But it’s deep enough to cause hallucinations in vision and proprioception?








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[Skeptic Ginger]

But it’s deep enough to cause hallucinations in vision and proprioception?

Yes.

Any reason you have a hard time with that?

You should read the study I posted above. It might make more sense to you then.

 

[Cat Not Included]

Absolutely! Who would scream in a panic kicking their legs, who would even think of doing that? And why when my friend wasn't sophisticated enough to have planned and acted that would she have done that?

Obviously it's my anecdote and this is not the forum to buy into anecdotes. But I was there and she panicked, no faking about it.

And studies of brain changes supports that hypnosis is real.

So do you think actors cannot reasonably portray panic without actually panicking? Is every scene of panic in a movie unconvincing? How often have you seen people panicking and screaming in terror in real life?

 

[xjx388]

Yes.

Any reason you have a hard time with that?

You should read the study I posted above. It might make more sense to you then.

First of all, that study is way too small to prove anything. Even so, they tested a very minor kind of hallucination: color perception. You are describing a much more detailed hallucination than that: not just visual, but perceptual and emotional as well. The study you cited does not support that kind of hallucination.

Now, I am not a scientist and I don’t understand all the jibber jabber about EEG readings and such, but i do have to wonder how they can eliminate the possibility of fakery. Did they do runs with people who were faking to compare readings? Like if they ran it with me, no hypnosis/hallucination and I called every square blue, would my EEG readings be somehow different?