Hypnosis: had any experience of it?

[Pup]

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 don't have any hypnotism anecdotes, but I do have one that illustrates how complicated it is. May even have posted this a long time ago, but...

I hate the taste of beer. Yuck. Ugh. Horrible. But I had to portray a role of someone who liked beer, so I was sitting at a table, with a glass of near-beer in front of me, working up courage to drink it as if I actually enjoyed it, while waiting for the other couple to arrive and the performance to get underway. I was determined not to show the least sign that I hated the taste of what I was going to be drinking.

The other couple walked up, sat down, and during the usual distractions of remembering what to say and do, I picked up the glass and drank. To my complete surprise, it actually tasted good. I couldn't spend much attention on the flavor because so much else was going on, but the change from what I expected was so vivid and startling that I noticed, and can still remember it to this day.

After everything was over, there was another can of the same beer, from the same six-pack, sitting where we were packing up, and I thought, wow, apparently that's one kind of beer I do like. So I opened it, took a drink, and yuck! Ugh! Horrible.

I was shocked.

My first thought was that it was a bad can, so I opened another. Same thing. I couldn't believe it.

Apparently, I had imagined I was a person who liked beer well enough, that for a moment, I'd actually liked beer, but the moment was gone.

So during the performance, was I fooling myself that I liked beer, or did I actually like beer? If someone knew I hated beer, and saw me drink it as if I liked it, they would assume I was just a good actor, and wouldn't realize that I actually liked it at that moment. If they didn't know I hated beer, they would assume I wasn't even acting. And I actually wasn't acting, because it really did taste good. Temporarily. Because I was acting so well that I'd even fooled myself, apparently.

It's complicated.

 

[Olowkow]

....

After everything was over, there was another can of the same beer, from the same six-pack, sitting where we were packing up, and I thought, wow, apparently that's one kind of beer I do like. So I opened it, took a drink, and yuck! Ugh! Horrible.

I was shocked.

My first thought was that it was a bad can, so I opened another. Same thing. I couldn't believe it.

You drank the first beer from a glass, and the rest from cans. Any chance the can was responsible for your impression of the horrible taste?

 

[epepke]

I only have experience with self-hypnosis/guided imagery. It is useful.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

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

My friend believed she was on the ceiling. Mark's friend believed his delusions.

The reason my friend believed she was on the ceiling was because she was hypnotized.
(While I don't have enough facts on the deluded friend), schizophrenia was possibly the cause of Mark's friend's delusions.

There are similarities but the issue he seemed to be contesting was whether Teri's belief was evidence the hallucination real, (a straw man), not whether the hallucinations were real to the person experiencing the hallucination.

I can't quite parse the contortion that by believing one is hypnotized a person actually believes they are on the ceiling therefore a hypnotized person is faking it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Are dreams real to the person dreaming? Pretty much. It's hardly a stretch then to hypothesize hypnosis, when successful, can put a person into a dream-like state that is real enough one actually experiences the dream.

While we are all familiar with the process of falling asleep, why couldn't there be alternate mechanisms by which people reach that state? Certainly narcolepsy is an example it is possible.

In narcolepsy the person can experience:

Dream-like hallucinations between sleep and wakefulness. They involve seeing or hearing, and possibly other senses.

They may also have sleep paralysis but that doesn't mean a hypnotized person would have all symptoms that accompany sleep. Sleep walkers don't have sleep paralysis during dreaming.

 

[quarky]

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.

Dang it, no. i had to burn it all, due to the cost analysis of storing it and attempting a re-hypnotic effort.

Hypnotism doesn't grow on trees, as they say.

 

[abaddon]

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.

LOL, This always amuses me, no-one ever has a past life as an uneventful transylvanian turnip farmer, born, raised, farmed, possibly married and had kids, died.

Oh no, Everyone is the reincarnation of Rasputin, or Gandhi, or whatever.

 

[xtifr]

Oh no, Everyone is the reincarnation of Rasputin, or Gandhi, or whatever.

I used to claim that I was an igneous rock in my last incarnation.

 

[Jontg]

I've been practicing since I was a kid, and yes, it's a thing that happens. It's also purely suggestion--messing with your head is the whole point, and the head is a pretty powerful thing.

 

[AdMan]

...yes, it's a thing that happens.

Undoubtedly.

 

[Halfcentaur]

My friend believed she was on the ceiling. Mark's friend believed his delusions.

The reason my friend believed she was on the ceiling was because she was hypnotized.
(While I don't have enough facts on the deluded friend), schizophrenia was possibly the cause of Mark's friend's delusions.

There are similarities but the issue he seemed to be contesting was whether Teri's belief was evidence the hallucination real, (a straw man), not whether the hallucinations were real to the person experiencing the hallucination.

I can't quite parse the contortion that by believing one is hypnotized a person actually believes they are on the ceiling therefore a hypnotized person is faking it.

If you're talking about the basis of my doubts being a strawman, that assumes I was formally arguing with you over what was happening. I was expressing my doubts and explaining why I doubted it and further describing what I believed to be happening. I was not trying to prove you wrong with counter points to your points. How you construe my skepticism as a straw man confuses me.

The largest indication to me in your anecdote that this is all nothing more than self induced coercion is that the girl was hysterical over being on the ceiling. Why get hysterical over something like that instead of just agitated or frightened? Hysterics suggest to me she was a victim of an imagination that lacked subtlety. I don't think I'd go into hysterical convulsions and mindless terror from thinking I was upside down 6-8 feet in the air, and because of this I am suspicious.

I am intrigued by physiological claims about blood coagulation being altered, but when it comes to hallucinations I do not consider the evidence compelling. I'm actually strongly biased when it comes to people talking about hallucinations, because I have a lot of experience with them, both induced and natural. They don't tend to happen at all like people portray them in media or like many people suppose they seem to be like. Perhaps this bias is making me over skeptical to your anecdote, but I don't think it is.

I remain open to the idea there is more to hypnosis than self delusion, but so far I doubt it in the majority of cases.

I apologize for doubting your acquaintance was literally hallucinating that she was on the ceiling in vivid realistic detail, but I don't think her being an innocent and honest person is enough to suggest such a thing can be achieved through the suggestion of another person using unexplained mechanisms within hypnosis.

That you are stating the experience of your friend as unwavering and unquestionable fact seems out of character for you.

Are dreams real to the person dreaming? Pretty much. It's hardly a stretch then to hypothesize hypnosis, when successful, can put a person into a dream-like state that is real enough one actually experiences the dream.

While we are all familiar with the process of falling asleep, why couldn't there be alternate mechanisms by which people reach that state? Certainly narcolepsy is an example it is possible.

In narcolepsy the person can experience:They may also have sleep paralysis but that doesn't mean a hypnotized person would have all symptoms that accompany sleep. Sleep walkers don't have sleep paralysis during dreaming.

I am open to this. Sleep paralysis and hypnagogic dreams are the closest thing I've experienced that could come close to such a vivid altered state of perception, indistinguishable from reality.

But I would think such an induced state would be simple to demonstrate analyzing brain waves. Perhaps they have been and I am ignorant of the matter.

I'm not for a second suggesting I am doing anything but guessing here.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

If you're talking about the basis of my doubts being a strawman, that assumes I was formally arguing with you over what was happening. I was expressing my doubts and explaining why I doubted it and further describing what I believed to be happening. I was not trying to prove you wrong with counter points to your points. How you construe my skepticism as a straw man confuses me.

Whatever you were trying to get at, your analogy made no sense to me. Were you arguing your friend believed something that wasn't true or your friend was faking it and just made up a lie they believed [x]?

What does any of that have to do with my assessment that my friend's reaction was extremely unlikely to have been faked for the reasons I've given.

The largest indication to me in your anecdote that this is all nothing more than self induced coercion is that the girl was hysterical over being on the ceiling. Why get hysterical over something like that instead of just agitated or frightened? Hysterics suggest to me she was a victim of an imagination that lacked subtlety. I don't think I'd go into hysterical convulsions and mindless terror from thinking I was upside down 6-8 feet in the air, and because of this I am suspicious.

You are welcome to your assessment.

I am intrigued by physiological claims about blood coagulation being altered, but when it comes to hallucinations I do not consider the evidence compelling. I'm actually strongly biased when it comes to people talking about hallucinations, because I have a lot of experience with them, both induced and natural. They don't tend to happen at all like people portray them in media or like many people suppose they seem to be like. Perhaps this bias is making me over skeptical to your anecdote, but I don't think it is.

Do you recall any dreams that seemed real to you?

What do you mean by don't occur like people think they do?

I apologize for doubting your acquaintance was literally hallucinating that she was on the ceiling in vivid realistic detail, but I don't think her being an innocent and honest person is enough to suggest such a thing can be achieved through the suggestion of another person using unexplained mechanisms within hypnosis.

That you are stating the experience of your friend as unwavering and unquestionable fact seems out of character for you.

The reaction to being on the ceiling was instantaneous, severe, and nothing anyone would have ever expected Teri to come up with if she was faking it or just going along. If you think you cannot judge a genuine reaction in a person to anything ever, how do you get through the day?

I am open to this. Sleep paralysis and hypnagogic dreams are the closest thing I've experienced that could come close to such a vivid altered state of perception, indistinguishable from reality.

But I would think such an induced state would be simple to demonstrate analyzing brain waves. Perhaps they have been and I am ignorant of the matter. ...

They have been and some of the research is documented in the thread.

 

[dlorde]

... I remain open to the idea there is more to hypnosis than self delusion, but so far I doubt it in the majority of cases.

I'm not sure it's necessarily a question of a difference between hypnosis and self-delusion, but the level of that self-delusion (as good a description as any). The model that seems most plausible to me is that the subject is induced to allow simple suggestions to bypass higher level critical analysis and influence the 'deeper' levels more directly than is usual. There is already good evidence that priming below conscious awareness can affect subsequent behaviour, and it seems to me that hypnosis is a crude but explicit and direct means of priming the subconscious with suggestion, more effective in people who can surrender or subdue their critical faculties, or perhaps, who believe it can be effective.

Of the people I know who've been involved, the more thoughtful introspective types seem less susceptible, and the more spontaneous, communicative types seem more susceptible - although it's a very small sample (7 or 8).

 

[tuoni]

My friend believed she was on the ceiling. Mark's friend believed his delusions

*facedesk*

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

*facedesk*

What's is your point? I'm sorry but I totally don't get it. We are talking about hallucinations, not people floating on ceilings.

 

[tuoni]

What's is your point? I'm sorry but I totally don't get it. We are talking about hallucinations, not people floating on ceilings.

I thought we were talking about hypnotism?

 

[quarky]

I've watched people get hypnotized during Amway recruiting events.
Shouldn't pick on Amway; any mlm scheme will do.
Some people walk away from those shows with a new sense of purpose and hope.
They gloss over all the questionable parts and hone in on the up-beat, positive change that's about to come to them.

Crazy part is, for the hypnotist (i.e., the insider junk bond trader, etc) they really are pretty up-beat, and they really are raking in some dough.

We can all be above average, if we just put our minds to it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I thought we were talking about hypnotism?

Are you trolling? You are the one who put your face on the desk. I repeat, what do you mean?

 

[Orphia Nay]

My friend believed she was on the ceiling. Mark's friend believed his delusions.

Exactly. You're nearly getting it.

The reason my friend believed she was on the ceiling was because she [believed she] was hypnotized.

Agreed, with an edit in red.

I can't quite parse the contortion that by believing one is hypnotized a person actually believes they are on the ceiling therefore a hypnotized person is faking it.

Straw Man. No-one's saying she's faking it. If she believes it, she believes it.

What mechanism makes hypnosis different from "consensual role-play that your brain convinces you is real"?

 

[Skwinty]

What fascinates me about hypnosis is:

I witnessed a friend under hypnosis develop blisters on his skin from a piece of cork. The hypnotist suggested the cork was a glowing ember and placed it on his arm.

The explanation for this neural mechanism is what I would like to hear.