Hypnosis acts, have you ever been involved?

[Reno]

I have been on stage 'hypnotized' twice, along with a friend one time, and the other time my ex-wife (wife at the time) was among the selected volunteers.

On both occasions, for me, I did not feel I was in any kind of trance, or 'under' or anything like that. I felt I could have, at any time, just stopped co-operating and left the stage. But a few things prevented me from doing this:

1 - I was worried that people in the audience might boo me or something for having faked the initial "you can't separate your hands" selection process.

2 - The hypnotist seemed like a nice guy. He was funny and amiable and I didn't really want to ruin his act by walking off the stage in the middle of the show.

3 - it was fun to be able to do stupid things without the responsibility of having to face the consequences of my actions.



Some of the things I did on stage:

Wore a dog lead on my neck and let a woman walk me along like a dog. I barked and even drank water from a bowl.

Performed a ballet dance while wearing a tutu over my trousers while all the time shouting out, "I AM the sugar plum fairy"

Sat on a chair with a few others and acted like the chair was a racehorse and I was a jockey in the Grand National.

Crunched into an onion and ate it like it was an apple.

Had a very fat hypnotist bounce up and down on my stomach while my feet were on one chair and my head was on another.

Had the hypnotist pass a naked flame along my hand and arm without flinching, feeling pain, or being left with any visible marks.

On both occasions, when I discussed with my friend what had happened, and discussed the same with my wife, we agreed that neither of us had been in any trance and could have easily stopped at any time. My friend and my wife continued with the charade for the same reasons I did, as I stated earlier.

All in all it was a fun evening both times. I wouldn't go to watch a hypnotism show because I know it's just acting and it would bore me, but it is quite fun to participate. Also, the attention you get afterwards by people asking all sorts of questions is fun too - especially when they all buy you a drink

 

[Humphreys]

There's little danger you'd ruin anyone's fun, just like a visitor to a psychic does not ruin it for everyone if he does not validate his claims as true.

I had a friend once who actually used the inability of certain people to be hypnotized as proof it was real, saying.

If it was fake it'd work every time, right? Some people think so...

 

[pounce]

i certainly agree that it's a matter of the suggestability of the subjects.

i've seen a LOT of hypnosis shows. i run sound for a living and every year i do a series of gigs that involve hypnosis shows. been doing this for a number of years now. during that stretch of time, i'll see audiences of different people who i am absolutely certain that the hypnotist has no contact with go onstage and do the act. there is a pretty high percentage of people who are suggestable and stay onstage, a small percentage are pulled off. more are always removed during the course of the act. they start with around 20 onstage and finish with about 12 or so.

although i've been at those shows over and over, i've never even remotely been under hypnosis. but i don't doubt that the folks i see are suggestable such that it is a "real" experience for them.

it seems as though this thread covers the idea of a relaxed suggestable mind and willing subject. i suppose the aspect of pleasing the audience factors in. i still got the idea that some of the subjects are fully immersed in this excercise and have no cognitive control of the experience - they seem to be totally at the beck and call of the hypnotist.

i also remember being a kid and my dad getting some stop smoking hypnosis tapes. i listened to them once and "tried" to let the tapes hypnotise me, but no dice. after a while i got tired of laying there listening to the tapes, especially since i don't smoke. so i've never been hypnotised. too bad, i'd be curious to give it a go. but i doubt i am the suggestable type in that way.

if you have any questions that you'd like to have me pass on to a hypnotist who performs these stage shows, i'll be doing them again in a couple of months. i have a very good working rapport with them and could get straight answers from them, although they seem keenly aware that it's just a matter of relaxed suggestion for entertainment purposes. i haven't put them in the fake psychic category.

 

[Mercutio]

I do a hypnosis test in some of my classes, based on the Harvard Group Test of Hypnotic Suggestibility. I do not bring individuals up to hypnotize them; rather, the whole class goes through an induction. About 10% can be expected to really go under; 10-20 % feel absolutely nothing, and the remainder might feel heavy, or light, or relaxed, or some of the other things I suggest to them.

I have had students who claimed not to believe in hypnosis "go under" enough to respond to a post-hypnotic suggestion (a fairly deep level of hypnosis is required for this). I have had people, after I told them their right arm was so light it would lift of its own accord, report that after the exercise their arm was tingling. I have had one student approach me after the class insisting that I "take the post-hypnotic suggestion out of [her]". (She was incredibly hypnotizable, and used to avoid the guy who gets hired for hypnosis shows here, because he would stop her on the street, snap his fingers, and she would be out. Bastage.) I have had students, told they were on a tropical beach with the sun shining down on them, whose faces became flushed and warm only on the "sunny" side. (Some were so happy to be on their tropical beach they thanked me afterward, saying they really felt like they were there.)

Could all this be fake? Certainly. With some of the students, I would not be surprised. But with most of these examples, I know them well enough, and observed them well enough while it was happening, to be convinced that they were not faking, nor just going along to help me (although I certainly have had people who have said this is what they are doing; there is no reason that all individuals should be expected to have the same experience).

 

[dissonance]

I've been hypnotized - one of my grad classes was taught by a psychology professor who studies hypnosis as one of his interests, and as a fun activity at the end of term he ran the class through the Harvard Hypnotizability Scale. IIRC, you close your eyes and the hypnotist goes through a series of suggestions, starting with simple ones and becoming progressively more complicated (so, things like 'your hand rises from you lap' through 'you clasp your hands together and can't seperate them' up to the final one, which was a post-hypnotic suggestion to do...something...when the professor said a particular word, although I don't recall exactly what it was).

At the end of the session you fill out a questionnaire covering basically how many of the suggestions you followed. I scored extremely high - the only suggestion that didn't work on me was the post-hypnotic suggestion. So, when he said 'your right hand floats from your lap as if weightless', my hand floated up from my lap, and so forth.

I didn't feel odd or different, I was in control even though I was obeying the hypnotist.

This sums it up exactly. It felt very dissociative - my body was obeying the commands, and on the one hand it felt like I wasn't the one controlling the response; however, I also felt that if I really wanted to, say, seperate my hands, I would have been able to. But I didn't want to.

It was interesting. I actually had the highest hypnotizability score in the class - about a third of the class scored essentially 0, most people were in the mid range. The professor asked me to keep in touch in case he decided to do a study looking at high hypnotizables, although he hasn't contacted me since.

The professor was very clear that hypnotizability is not the same thing as suggestability. He's a personality psychologist, and IIRC he said the strongest correlate with high scores on hypnotizability are scores on the Openness to Experience scale of the Big Five personality test, and something called the 'fantasy prone personality'.

It's been a few years since I took that class, though, so there's a good chance I'm misremembering the details.

 

[Fnord]

Kage, I did not mean that the events were faked, but that ... well ... hypnosis is fake. That is, not real to me. I've never believed in it, and I've never been hypnotised.

Silly Green Monkey put it best, I think:

"Being hypnotized is a freely made choice, it's not something that someone can do to another. It's something we do to ourselves." -- SGM.

I might add that it's something people allow to be done to them; sorta like a cold reading. It takes the mutual cooperation of both parties to make it happen.

Now I know why I was taken off stage so quickly. When he dropped the money, I'd have picked it right up. The other volunteers weren't able to. Another clue of wooish manipulation -- the practitioners quickly get rid of those who could take advantage of them! Now I wish I had played along.

 

[Brown]

I've hypnotized people. One of my best friends is highly suggestible. He really "gets into it," and, according to him, can do some things better when he is hypnotized. He can read faster and remember better, he says.

He and I also went to see a stage hypnotist. We both thought that he would be a great subject because of his suggestibility, and he was. I was asked to go up on stage, too, as an assistant.

At one point, the performer had the subjects imagine that they were fishing, casting their lines out into the audience and reeling them in. After a few casts, the performer said, "You've got a strike! You've hooked a big one! It's starting to pull you out of your chair!!"

Most hypnotised subjects reacted by miming a struggle with a fish, but my friend was miming a struggle with a really big fish. He looked as though he was about to leap off the stage as if pulled by an imaginary fish. (This would almost certainly have caused him serious injury.) The hypnotist looked at me, and in a voice lower in register than his performing voice, said "I'd grab him right now!"

I swung my arms around my friend to keep him in his chair, while he struggled with an imaginary fish that was trying to pull him off the stage. I really had to wrestle with him to keep him from flying off the stage. The hypnotist was making it difficult by suggesting that the fish was pulling harder and harder, and with each suggestion, my friend tried harder and harder to leap forward from his chair. I was pulling backward on my friend with a great deal of force.

Then the hypnotist said "The line broke!"

I thought "Oh, s***!!"

I couldn't relax as fast as my friend could respond to the suggestion. He instantly stopped urging forward, but I was still pulling him backward, hard. The two of us flew backward, his chair upset, and we fell to the floor near the rear of the stage. In retrospect, we were probably lucky we weren't hurt.

The audience howled.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I do a hypnosis test in some of my classes, based on the Harvard Group Test of Hypnotic Suggestibility. I do not bring individuals up to hypnotize them; rather, the whole class goes through an induction. About 10% can be expected to really go under; 10-20 % feel absolutely nothing, and the remainder might feel heavy, or light, or relaxed, or some of the other things I suggest to them.

I have had students who claimed not to believe in hypnosis "go under" enough to respond to a post-hypnotic suggestion (a fairly deep level of hypnosis is required for this). I have had people, after I told them their right arm was so light it would lift of its own accord, report that after the exercise their arm was tingling. I have had one student approach me after the class insisting that I "take the post-hypnotic suggestion out of [her]". (She was incredibly hypnotizable, and used to avoid the guy who gets hired for hypnosis shows here, because he would stop her on the street, snap his fingers, and she would be out. Bastage.) I have had students, told they were on a tropical beach with the sun shining down on them, whose faces became flushed and warm only on the "sunny" side. (Some were so happy to be on their tropical beach they thanked me afterward, saying they really felt like they were there.)

Could all this be fake? Certainly. With some of the students, I would not be surprised. But with most of these examples, I know them well enough, and observed them well enough while it was happening, to be convinced that they were not faking, nor just going along to help me (although I certainly have had people who have said this is what they are doing; there is no reason that all individuals should be expected to have the same experience).

So how does hypnotism fit into the behavioral model of psychology?

 

[porch]

I'm finding it frustrating that people continue to call hypnosis fake. I think we're getting bogged down in definitions. Placebos are fake. The placebo effect is quite real. "Yeah, but...placebos are fake!"

Maybe we should do away with the word "hypnosis"? I recall, years ago, the Amazing One...the Amazing Kreskin, of course ...had his own Challenge (was that also for a million?) that he could manipulate people in any way that a hypnotist could, without putting them "under hypnosis." He argued that there is no special state of hypnosis, with which I agree. But then, his own stage act was essentially a stage hypnotist act, he just wouldn't have the same induction techniques. There was no closing of the eyes, you are getting sleepy, drill. Yet, he did have some induction process...the group dynamic the subjects were placed in, his (perceived) position of authority...the way that he carried himself was a suggestion. Not sure whatever happened to that challenge. I don't think it was ever taken, but I don't think the offer stands any more? In any event, he stripped the event of the facade of the "special state", but the power of suggestion remained.

While I argue against a definitive, demarcated trance state, some people can become very dissociated. Probably usefull for therapy in some instances, or in sports psychology. Very dangerous when used incorrectly in a therapeutic setting. The suggestion increases the dissociation, the dissociation increases the suggestibility - these things reinforce one another until what started off as cooperative becomes less so. Bad hypnotherapists can aggravate or even cause Multiple Personality Disorder. In some ways, I would have to say MPD is "fake". It is a trick of the mind. However, mindtricks can be powerful. People are truly damaged by MPD. They are pretending so hard that they really do not recall their "demon self", or whatever, having burned themselves with cigarettes a few hours ago. They're living a nightmare.

 

[MondoAtheist]

Wow, all of these responses are pretty amazing. Not having been hypnotized myself, I have nothing to base it off of except the words of others. And even after reading so many responses I still am unsure how I would respond. I also cannot even say how I would respond if I were one of the audience member's picked and I wasn't 'hypnotized' and I realized this. I'm pretty sure I would go along, because as someone else said, "It's fun being able to do things without having to take so much responsibility over your actions." That and even if I may not ruin the guy's show, or get heckled. I still think it would be fun to put on an act, and see how well of an actor I may have been.

I'm still curious if you guys would be devious and say; "Wow, this is fake!" or even pretend to hypnotize the hypnotist while onstage. You say to him; "At the count of three you will be put into a hypnosis state and I will be in control -- 1, 2, 3 *snaps fingers* sleep." I think I would try to do the latter honestly if I were going to dick around with anything. And start saying; "Now I'm going to have him get angry at me, and toss me off the stage."

Also, I shouldn't have said, "I know it is fake" at the beginning. I realize, there is no possible for me to actually know it is fake, at this moment in time. Especially with my limited experience with it. So I apologize for that, for anyone it may have offended or angered.

 

[Dogdoctor]

It would be nearly impossible to hypnotize an uncooperative subject. I have been on both sides of the hypnosis coin. My father dabbled a little in it and he tried to hypnotize me which the result was similar to meditation (which is probably self hypnosis). He had a friend who was a magician and hypnotist and I volunteered to be a subject for his show. He was unable to hypnotize me although I did get really relaxed in front of a crowd of people which was fairly amazing for me. He asked me to leave the group he was working on since it was obvious I was not hypnotized. Then I dabbled a bit in it the first time to help someone quit smoking and then just to test what I could get someone to do. I made someone do things he would never do if not hypnotized or at least not in front of a bunch of people. I thought he was faking it so I kept asking him to do things which were more and more embarrassing. I had to stop once I was convinced he was hypnotized. I felt guilty as heck for years after that . I am not sure if I caused any psychological problems but I can see it can be used for manipulating people to do things you want them to. All you have to do is find a way to convince them they want to do it. But they need to trust you.

 

[The Atheist]

Interesting thread, Mondo.think stage.

I'm pretty sure stage hypnotists rely on picking a few genuinely auto-suggestive types and getting a person or two like Reno, who they know are going to play along for the fun involved.

I'd be interested to know whether the "ability" to be hypnotised is at all linked to lucid dreaming. I've done the stage bit twice as well, the second time exactly as Reno described - playing along for the fun of it - but the first time was more akin to a lucid dream than being fully awake; going along for the ride and having fun, but letting his voice control my actions.

 

[Mercutio]

So how does hypnotism fit into the behavioral model of psychology?

"Stimulus control" would be the technical term, although it encompasses much more than hypnosis.

Just for fun, I did a literature search for "hypnotism" and "behaviorism" together. I found a 1947 paper titled "A behavioristic explanation of the mechanism of suggestion and hypnosis". Fascinating, mostly because this is old, Pavlovian, stimulus-response stuff.

More recent articles in, say, the Australian Journal of Clinical Hypnotherapy and Hypnosis (1997) (I only saw the abstract) combine a behavioral view of [in this case, smoking] with hypnotic treatment. That would indeed be a Stimulus Control procedure.

Basicall, stimulus control describes a situation wherein environmental stimuli make specific behaviors more or less likely. (The classic example--your behavior at a traffic intersection is under the stimulus control of the traffic light. It does not reflexively elicit your behavior; rather, it signals what the likely reinforcers and punishers are. It tells you how to behave.) The process of hypnosis provides potent stimuli, telling the person how to behave.

It is an empirical question, what the various learning histories might be that influence whether one person or another to be more controlled by the stimuli in hypnosis. There may be physiological differences, learning differences, interactions between specific inductions and learning histories... but anything I could attempt to say about it would be speculation. It appears that hypnosis and experimental psychology have long been distant acquaintances rather than close friends.

 

[Reno]

He and I also went to see a stage hypnotist. We both thought that he would be a great subject because of his suggestibility, and he was. I was asked to go up on stage, too, as an assistant.

Interesting how you think you were on stage as 'an assistant', Brown. Sounds to me, reading your entertaining depiction of the fishing event, that you were just as hypnotized as your friend. The hypnotist told you to grab your friend, then much hilarity ensued

 

[Reno]

Hey Mondo, you know what I suggest? (waves arms and wiggly fingers in front of Mondo's eyes - you are feeling sleeepee) - find out where your nearest stage hypnotist show is next playing, and get yourself a ticket. When the hypnotist asks for volunteers, run to the stage (as best you can) and get up there. Do everything suggested and just go along with it all. You'll have a blast and can come back and post here to tell us all about it

 

[Expression_man]

There's a lot of ignorance here, especially when I see things like...

"I don't believe these people have the powers they claim to".

It's not about having power over someone, it's about how suggestible the subject is. That's not to say that being suggestible means being impressionable or gullible. In fact, some research shows that the more intelligent you are, the more successful the hypnosis will be as you are better able to comprehend what is being asked of you.

Hypnosis is not a state of mind in the typical sense. It certainly involves bypassing the critical faculty but that can't be done, interestingly enough, without ones permission. You don't have to be relaxed in order to be hypnotised either, although it can certainly enhance the effect, it depends on the environment and the person involved.

If you go on stage and say "no", that doesn't prove that you're "smart" or that you have "great willpower". No, no no, that's jus being silly and egotistical or uninformed/ignorant.

Some hospitals in Belgium (the Liege hospital for instance) use hypnosis to induce hypnoanaesthesia (over 5000 times since 1992 in the case of the Liege hospital) and there are even dental surgeons around the world who are taking it seriously enough to implement it into their practice.

The keys words here are "stage" and "hypnosis" that's not the same as if you were to say "hypnosis" on it's own or in the context of "hypnotherapy".

Stage hypnosis certainly makes use of hypnotic induction but the results are "questionable" due to the lack of verification of what's actually going on. I'm sure that a lot of stage hypnosis is fake and at the same time I know enough about it to realise it's perfectly possible given the involvement of a skilled practitioner.

No one would dare say that hypnosis is paranormal or fake, no one is that stupid. Stage hypnosis however, that's different. It certainly gives a bad impression of the subject and the fact that it's called "hypnosis" (hypno = "sleep") doesn't help either. It was once called mesmerism but no one took it seriously due to a lack of understanding. Now, decades later, we're still recovering from the sheer ignorance people exhibited at that time. It may have to undergo another name change, James Braid (deceased) wanted to call it "Ideism" aka "Idiomotor Response" for instance.

 

[thomps1d]

I'm finding it frustrating that people continue to call hypnosis fake. I think we're getting bogged down in definitions. Placebos are fake. The placebo effect is quite real. "Yeah, but...placebos are fake!"

Interesting that you bring up placebos - that's what I've generally compared hypnosis to. I've done some amateur hypnosis with friends before, and been reasonably successful, but even without all the jumping through hoops with inductions, I found that it's easy to replicate many of the basic effects of hypnosis on people.

I had a friend over once while I was cooking supper. I'm notoriously absent-minded, and my friends are all too aware of this. One of the elements on my stove was unused, and hadn't been turned on all day - thus, it was perfectly cool to the touch, and no danger to anybody. While this friend and I were talking, his hand brushed up against this element (he's one of those people who likes to talk with his hands) - just for grins, I told him (with a perfectly straight face, of course) that the element was on, and very hot. He recoiled in horror and began clutching at his hand, wincing in pain. He rushed to the sink and immediately began pouring cold water over the "burn" he had just received.

It wasn't until I placed my palm directly over the element that he was finally convinced that he hadn't just given himself a minor burn.

Granted, it's not quite the same as having someone eat a full onion as if it were an apple, but it's the same basic idea. Most people trust others implicitly, and if given a firm suggestion will react as if that suggestion were reality - even if it is not. Add in a few dozen people in a crowd, especially after you've had a few drinks (most of the professional hypnosis shows I've seen have been at bars), and you can get almost anyone to do almost anything.

In other words, like a placebo, despite the utter lack of any real effect on the person's mind or body, the trust they have in the hypnotist convinces them that something really *is* happening to them. Some people are more conscious than others that they're just going along with the hypnotist for fun, but ultimately that's what it seems to boil down to.

 

[Jeff Corey]

..It is an empirical question, what the various learning histories might be that influence whether one person or another to be more controlled by the stimuli in hypnosis. There may be physiological differences, learning differences, interactions between specific inductions and learning histories...

Some friends from Japan expressed skepticism about the whole concept of hypnosis. Apparently their culture doesn't share the Euro-American belief in this, dating back to Mesmer.

 

[Mercutio]

Some friends from Japan expressed skepticism about the whole concept of hypnosis. Apparently their culture doesn't share the Euro-American belief in this, dating back to Mesmer.

Interesting, given that there is a Japanese Journal of Hypnosis. Too bad we don't carry it here; looks like some interesting stuff.

ETA: it appears to have been around for a while--unless it shut down within the past couple of years, it ought to be on Volume 50+ by now.

 

[Overman]

I was chosen with my friend Liz, and 12 or so other people my freshman year of college (way back).

He started by trancing us, allowing our bodies to become suggestive...I don't remember what it was, something with my arms, but I know did nothing to me except make me feel like a jackass in front of 300 or so people...I walked off the stage, along with like 3 others...My friend Liz stayed...she danced around and did all kinds of kooky stuff, and afterward she said she was really under and it was 'amazing' but she is a thespian...and you know thespians....