Hypnosis: had any experience of it?

[Lanzy]

I got into hypnosis in the '80s. The one thing I was taught first and foremost is All hypnosis is self-hypnosis.

What I have learned along the way is hypnosis is real and it doesn't work.

If you go to a hypnotist to quit smoking then you are motivated to quit smoking, the sessions may help give you some things to use as mental re-inforcement aids to avoid the cravings of smoking and eventually you may quit smoking.

If your wife forces you to go, it is pointless and will not work at all.

I can hypnotise people willing to be hypnotised, period. I guarantee if I make suggestions they are uncomfortable with, they will snap out of it.

I have done a lot of past life regressions with people that were really interested in their past lives, they were all successful but the number of past famous people is huge. and this is with me not believing in past lives at all, not one whit.

BTW, I am out of the game now having moved on to make a living as a systems analyst.

 

[xtifr]

Hypnosis has results, so does the placebo effect. I do not personally consider it true that people are being put into some kind of trance that can create another world of perception for them. I think people are simply relinquishing skepticism to the point they refuse to doubt what is happening and comply to the best of their ability.

I was with you till the highlighted bit. Now I may have to side with Skeptic Ginger. Why would you doubt that? My mind puts me into "another world of perception" pretty much every night. If the mind can conjure up such real-seeming worlds when I'm asleep, why shouldn't it be able to when I'm awake? People can sleep-walk, sleep-talk, and even, frighteningly enough, sleep-operate-heavy-machinery.

I'll readily grant that popular ideas of hypnosis contain a lot of woo, stage hypnosis contains a lot of nonsense, and the Hollywood version of hypnosis is outright BS (like Hollywood versions of most things). Post-hypnotic suggestion is almost certainly less of a thing than the media suggest. And if it's analogous to dreaming, then it makes perfect sense that "recovering" false memories is easier than recovering buried or supressed memories. But I don't see how that leads to the conclusion that there is no trance or that the mind doesn't conjure worlds. In fact, the fact that attempts to recover buried memories with hypnosis seem more likely to create false ones suggests to me that conjuring worlds is very much like what's going on.

(And even for the recovering-memories thing, the Mythbusters, in their unscientific-but-skeptical way did seem to show some slight possibility that there's some truth there.)

I agree that a lot of it seems to boil down to people agreeing to go along. I just think that maybe agreeing to go along can go a little further than you seem to. There's enough woo associated with hypnotism that I'm always skeptical of particular claims, but there's also enough that seems perfectly plausible.

ETA: honestly, a lot of the debate here seems like splitting hairs.

 

[quarky]

Damn.

No one is buying my crap, even at half-price.

i guess hypnotism is bogus.

 

[Olowkow]

Empirical testing of hypnotic depth has been an elusive pursuit, it seems.

I built several quite sophisticated skin resistance measurement devices for a friend who was doing hypnosis for weight loss, smoking, etc. as a business. He seemed to think that the rise in skin resistance using finger electrodes was a good indication of depth of trance, but there is research to indicate this is likely not necessarily true.

Another metric that has been tried is the quantification of vagal tone.

Source:

Spectral analysis of beat-to-beat variability in electrocardiography is a simple, noninvasive method to analyze sympatho-vagal interaction. The electrocardiogram is analyzed by means of an automatic, autoregressive modeling algorithm that provides a quantitative estimate of R-R interval variability by the computation of power spectral density. Two major peaks are recognizable in this specter: a low-frequency peak (LF, -0.1 Hz), related to the overall autonomic activity (ortho + parasympathetic) and a high-frequency peak (HF, -0.25 Hz), representative of the vagal activity. The LF/HF ratio is an index of the sympatho-vagal interaction. This technique was applied, using a computer-assisted electrocardiograph, to 10 healthy volunteers (6 high and 4 low hypnotizable subjects as determined by the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form C) in randomized awake and neutral hypnosis conditions. Preliminary results indicated thathypnosis affects heart rate variability, shifting the balance of the sympatho-vagal interaction toward an enhanced parasympathetic activity, concomitant with a reduction of the sympathetic tone. A positive correlation between hypnotic susceptibility and autonomic responsiveness during hypnosis was also found, with high hypnotizable subjects showing a trend toward a greater increase of vagal efferent activity than did low hypnotizables.

This seems to relate more to "susceptibility" than to depth of trance though. Back in the 80's I was involved in the development and manufacture of an invention by a psychology professor of a device that could do non invasive real time measurements of this phenomenon, vagal tone, using a simple bitrode to pick up heart rate signals. He did some promising research on a few hypnotized subjects, but as I recall never published anything on the subject, concentrating more on various syndromes, SIDS, and ingestion of poisons such as those from crop dusting.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Reply to the multiple doubting Thomases about my hysterical friend: it wasn't contrived. No matter how you choose to explain it, she believed she was on the ceiling and she did freak out. It wasn't fake. And no one faking it would have chosen that reaction. She giggled when she was told she didn't have any clothes on. A person just playing along for whatever reason would have said something like, "get me down" or "how did I get up here" or any number of other reactions. Freaking out was spontaneous. She had to have believed she was on the ceiling.

That doesn't mean I think hypnosis is magical or that you can tell people anything. I don't know the limits of it but I assume there much be some.

I suspect it is something like dreaming. I once had a vivid dream that I could hear something scratching behind a door. I got closer and closer to it. It was as real as dreams get. Then I woke up and my dog was scratching at the door to be let in. I was the last person in the house still in bed and she wanted on the bed.

The point is, to my brain the door and the scratching were real. And I was incorporating sounds from the actual environment into the dream. It's not that hard to imagine a mechanism where people go into a sleep-like state of consciousness. Just because some can't do it doesn't mean no one can. There are many things some individuals can do and not others.

I was surprised how many people are skeptical of hypnosis. No one that saw my friend freak out that day would doubt it for a minute.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You seem to not be aware of how those stage shows work, often. In that situation people are merely pretending for the benefit of the audience through something akin to peer pressure and a desire to let the ego go and be controlled or experience something strange.

Derren Brown has some great shows on this, where he takes people with no history or training in hypnosis, he has them take people up on stage, and people go right along with whatever the person says. Penn and Teller also have a BS episode on the matter which sheds a little light on it. It's not conclusive, but it sure demonstrates how silly those stage shows are.

Hypnosis has results, so does the placebo effect. I do not personally consider it true that people are being put into some kind of trance that can create another world of perception for them. I think people are simply relinquishing skepticism to the point they refuse to doubt what is happening and comply to the best of their ability.

In this sense, hypnotism is real, but it's just another word for things most people would not consider hypnotism in my opinion.

I don't appreciate it being implied I am somehow digging my heels in about this. I am straining to be honestly open to the evidence presented.

You seem to be more a victim of confirmation bias on this to me. You are, at a minimum, ignoring the objective brain research on hypnosis. You see someone under hypnosis and you declare it's fake. I saw someone freak out and "fake" was about as likely as reading the guy cussing you out and flipping you off as being pleased with something.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

Reply to the multiple doubting Thomases about my hysterical friend: it wasn't contrived. No matter how you choose to explain it, she believed she was on the ceiling and she did freak out. It wasn't fake.

To those doubting Thomases about my friend who was possessed, it wasn't contrived. No matter how you choose to explain it, he absolutely believed that he was possessed by Satan and he did speak in tongues, and in an unnaturally loud and harsh tone of voice. It wasn't fake.

 

[John Albert]

I find this situation odd. I would never have turned my back on a subject, ever.

When I said "behind his back," I was speaking metaphorically. As far as I remember, the magician never actually fully turned his back on us. But there were somewhere between 5 and 10 of us up there on the stage at one time, and between issuing commands to us and making side comments to the audience, the dude could hardly keep an eye on all of us every second of the time.

I mentioned a few ways of determining when a subject was "faking" hypnosis, but I think what needs to be said here is that after going through very subtle tests to determine if he is in fact under hypnosis, the subject may actually be trying to behave in a manner expected of him in order to please the operator (hypnotist). Yes, no question that this is definitely possible...

I'm saying it is not only "possible," but that it is definitely what's going on in at least some number of cases, because I myself was doing that very thing when I was on stage, and so were a few of the other "subjects" I was up there with.

...however I have tried to imagine a situation where I had chosen several potentially good subjects, and discovered any of them actually putting me on, or actively trying to deceive me. This is not something I myself have ever experienced, but I guess it is possible.

The fact that you've been so disinclined to even consider this very obvious possibility seems to indicate to me that your approach to the subject has not been altogether critical.

In all cases where I felt they were not sufficiently deep in the trance, I merely asked them to wake up and moved on to the others.

That's essentially what my hypnotist guy did, once he saw that some of us weren't playing it up to his satisfaction. It actually didn't take him long to notice there was a "fly in the ointment," maybe a few minutes after he had us all up there and was able to pay attention to us as a group.

Perhaps you don't realize how easily fooled you can be.

I'd like to point out that from the time I was called on to take the stage, I was fully willing to along with the show and play-act along with the magician's "suggestions." But when the other guy sitting next to me started "taking the piss" so to speak, I couldn't help but laugh. Suddenly it became more fun to just goof off.

There are just too many details that a person would have to know in order to pull off a deceptive trance state.

What kinds of "details" might these be?

I have not heard any good evidence that hypnosis is BS just yet.

So you're saying you believe in it because it hasn't been disproven?

I think there are excellent subjects, mediocre ones, and those who just never will be hypnotized, like myself for instance.

So you've never been hypnotized, so you can't explain what happens under hypnosis, yet you believe you possess this extraordinary influence over the minds of others?

How is that approach any different from the self-professed psychics who can't explain how they've come to possess extraordinary powers, yet they refuse to consider the notion that they might be wrong about their claims?

The excellent ones can be given a post hypnotic suggestion that a single word can induce the hypnotic state. I have done this many, many times. In fact, on several occasions, I tried the so called "zap" method. The subject, fresh out of an audience, is told to close his/her eyes, and told they cannot open them...try hard to open your eyes, etc. If he cannot, then just touch the shoulder, and say, "You are deeply asleep..." It worked once for me.

I'm sorry, but that just sounds like BS to me.

I read a fair amount about hypnosis many years ago, and lost interest at some point, but as I mentioned, there was a common thread that seemed to me to join all the really excellent subjects. Something like "outgoing, good listener, smiles a lot, not afraid to be touched," all kinds of things in this vein. It became kind of a sixth sense for me when choosing subjects. It was honestly a lot of fun, because people seemed to enjoy being hypnotized.

Did you never stop to consider that all those traits might just as well be indicative of individuals who are especially enthusiastic about willingly playing along with the game, in the manner of religious rituals, tarot card readings, and spiritualist seances?

 

[Olowkow]

What kinds of "details" might these be?

In my experience, I found that generally if I hold a waking person's arm outstretched, and say nothing, then release it, the arm will stay outstretched. If the person is sufficiently deep in a trance for suggestions to work, the arm will likely just fall into his lap.

Suggesting that the outstretched arm is rigid to the hypnotized subject results in a quite rigid arm, which when one presses down on it will not reflexively rise very much, whereas in the "faker", it pops up right away when released.

Some subjects have a sort of quivering of the eyelids when hypnotized. The head generally drops from upright, as if the subject is sleeping. Challenging the subject to try to open his eyes produces a very characteristic pattern in the eyelids in the hypnotized subject. Of course, the pain test, pressing on the cuticle at the base of the fingernail with my thumbnail produces no flinching in the hypnotized subject. ETA: providing I have suggested that the hand was numb.

Speech of the hypnotized subject is very sluggish, compared to the waking person with eyes closed.
ETA: The subject in a trance will not move his arms or legs to get into a more comfortable position, generally. He can be practically falling off the chair and still not move to get upright.

I certainly may have been fooled, but that would be sort of pointless since almost every subject came to me out of some curiosity. It's sort of like someone asking me to help them find their keys, then later telling me it was just a joke, their keys are not really lost.

What I have written is the best of my recollection, and I have no need to achieve the acceptance of anyone. I understand that the straw man that seems to be at issue is whether hypnosis is "magic" or "paranormal". It's kind of frustrating to wind up in a discussion like that. I would recommend that those who think there is nothing to hypnosis actually do some reading on the subject.

 

[John Albert]

I certainly may have been fooled, but that would be sort of pointless since almost every subject came to me out of some curiosity.

You mean like a person who attends a seance out of curiosity about hearing ghosts?

It's sort of like someone asking me to help them find their keys, then later telling me it was just a joke, their keys are not really lost.

I'd say it's more like a person with an esoteric belief, who's seeking reinforcement that their belief is true.

I understand that the straw man that seems to be at issue is whether hypnosis is "magic" or "paranormal". It's kind of frustrating to wind up in a discussion like that. I would recommend that those who think there is nothing to hypnosis actually do some reading on the subject.

I never said that hypnosis was "magic" or "paranormal."

Please don't use that old ad hominem that anyone who disagrees with you doesn't know what they're talking about. I've read quite a bit about hypnosis. I've performed hypnosis (in group hypnosis sessions where people paired up and hypnotized each other). And unlike yourself, who (by your own admission) have never been hypnotized, I've been hypnotized numerous times and used to practice self-hypnosis on a daily basis.

From my own firsthand experience, I'm entirely convinced that the majority of stage hypnosis techniques are no more than a consensual role-playing act, and the rest consists of stage magic trickery. I'm also firmly convinced that the "instant induction" stuff is total and complete BS.

However, I'd definitely be willing to collaborate on devising a test, if you'd like to work out an objective, controlled, double-blind experiment to examine the validity of those kinds of practices. I've made the same offer to another self-described hypnotist here on this forum, and he eagerly agreed to collaborate on putting together a test. Then he suddenly performed a disappearing act from the thread, before we'd even started getting down to discussing the actual procedure. That was several months ago and I haven't seen or heard a thing from him ever since.

 

[Olowkow]

From my own firsthand experience, I'm entirely convinced that the majority of stage hypnosis techniques are no more than a consensual role-playing act, and the rest consists of stage magic trickery. I'm also firmly convinced that the "instant induction" stuff is just BS.

Could be I guess. I can't quite get why you seem so upset.

 

[John Albert]

I can't quite get why you seem so upset.

I can't quite get why you'd seem to think I'm upset.

No worries.

 

[Olowkow]

I can't quite get why you'd seem to think I'm upset.

No worries.

Well good. I'm glad to find another hypnotist here. I have not done it in many years, and really never did stage stuff except a few times with a friend who was into that.

I was not referring to you when I spoke of the straw man stuff, just some others here who keep calling it magic or something, I get bored with such posts.

I'd like to hear more about your experiences with hypnosis.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

To those doubting Thomases about my friend who was possessed, it wasn't contrived. No matter how you choose to explain it, he absolutely believed that he was possessed by Satan and he did speak in tongues, and in an unnaturally loud and harsh tone of voice. It wasn't fake.

If he was a schizophrenic, he very well did believe that. You are confusing a couple things here.

The cause of what the person believed, whether they actually believed it or were pulling your leg, and the actual factual nature of the belief are not the same thing. Teri was not on the ceiling. I'm certainly not saying that. But her reaction was not faked.

You friend could have been pulling your leg, I don't know him but I'm guessing you know whether he was truly believed the delusion or whether he was faking it.

 

[John Albert]

For me, hypnosis has always required a large degree of concentration, but once I was in the right frame of mind I'd be able to experience strange sensations and visualizations with great clarity. But at no time did I ever feel willing or able to completely give myself over to another person's suggestions, nor did I ever lose control of my own thoughts or feel unable to emerge from that state at any moment of my choosing. If somebody asked me a question while I was under hypnosis, I would be able to hear them just fine and would respond normally unless I was decidedly trying to block them out.

Sometimes while doing self-hypnosis I would explore some darker areas of my feelings, like imagining myself in some arbitrary hopeless or perilous situation. For example, I visualized myself standing in the middle of a long, high bridge across a deep mountain crevasse, and suddenly noticing that the bridge was beginning to collapse. I saw the supports disintegrate and felt the roadway rumble beneath my feet as the collapse progressed towards me, and actually felt a bit of an adrenaline rush in the knowledge that my own death was immediately at hand. But I never felt any genuine fear; it was really more of just a thrilling imaginary situation I was playing out in my own mind. Usually, I would do that kind of thing right at the end of my meditation session, because it would leave me feeling somewhat invigorated instead of sluggish and sleepy.

 

[Howie Felterbush]

Sample size of one, I'd keep that in mind.

How big was your sample, again?

By sample I mean your sister.

ETA: quarky, do you have any more crap for sale? I'm all out.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

How big was your sample, again?

By sample I mean your sister.

ETA: quarky, do you have any more crap for sale? I'm all out.

It was a friend, not sister. My brother was the hypnotist. But I digress.

In some cases like ruling something in, it only takes one. We don't need to find life in more than one ET planet or moon to prove we are not alone.

In other cases such as drawing broad generalizations, or ruling something out, then a sample size of one will not do.

 

[Halfcentaur]

You seem to be more a victim of confirmation bias on this to me. You are, at a minimum, ignoring the objective brain research on hypnosis. You see someone under hypnosis and you declare it's fake. I saw someone freak out and "fake" was about as likely as reading the guy cussing you out and flipping you off as being pleased with something.

I'm not sure why, but there seems to be a massive disconnection between what I am saying to you and what you are hearing. In what way have I ignored brain research? I have admitted there are tangible results I've seen suggested, and have admitted I am not decided on the matter.

And for you to think I am saying someone is "faking" something demonstrates you are not actually thinking about the process I am describing. When a person has a heart attack from being scared of something they imagined, they aren't faking anything. They are under the impression something is happening and reacting to what they think is happening.

I am not proposing the girl you keep referencing in your anecdote was attempting to deceive anyone. I am proposing that she was acting like what she thought a person would act like in her situation based on her expectations.

Self delusion is not "faking" something in the sense you are paraphrasing. It's fake to you and me because we know it is fake. That you continually demonstrate an inability to recognize any of the distinctions I am proposing suggests to me that you are not willing to apply skepticism to the process we're discussing.

What are you proposing hypnosis is? I think I have a good theory on what it is, but I am not sure.

Do you think there is a correlation between the success rate of hypnosis and the amount of skepticism a subject demonstrates? Why are you defending this girl based on her innocence and honesty and not her lack of skepticism or cynicism?

 

[NeilC]

Seems to me that anyone claiming "hypnotism is just..." isn't being skeptical because there is an ongoing scientific debate as to its nature. So we're not sure exactly what it is yet.

 

[Orphia Nay]

If he was a schizophrenic, he very well did believe that. You are confusing a couple things here.

The cause of what the person believed, whether they actually believed it or were pulling your leg, and the actual factual nature of the belief are not the same thing. Teri was not on the ceiling. I'm certainly not saying that. But her reaction was not faked.

You friend could have been pulling your leg, I don't know him but I'm guessing you know whether he was truly believed the delusion or whether he was faking it.

Read Mark's post again. Your friend believed she was hypnotized; his friend believed he was possessed. The similarities are apt.