Inner-Workings of Hypnosis? How Do You Think Does Hypnosis Work?

[lamp]

Are there any books which describe the inner workings of Hypnosis? I'm not speaking about applying it myself, I'm rather interested in the functioning of Hypnosis.

 

I'm wondering how is it possible that somebody can take control of another humans mind and command this person and even control the brain as if that somebody was the brain himself? This scenario also can take place when the hypnotized person is far more superior than the Hypnotist.

 

It is said that people with a vivid fantasy are highly hypnotizable, thus Albert Einstein must have accounted to one of the most hypnotizable people, since his imagination was his strength. The pitfall of highly hypnotizable people is that they have a harder time of waking up out of Hypnosis, this accounts even to highly intelligent people.

 

From a neuroscience perspective how can it be possible to induce a person with the right timing an audible command through the voice into the ear and to the auditory system of the person, which will then shut the person's conscious off and bring him into a deep state of relaxation (which is similar to the state of being half asleep)?

 

I'm very clear about the fact that there is barely any information available on the inner-workings of Hypnosis, thus I'd simply like to hear your own theories on this topic from your own perspective.

[Marat]

It is not possible to hypnotize a person without the subject's active cooperation; it is not a passive process. Rather, the subject has to play along with the hypnotist in relaxing himself into adopting the voice of the hypnotist as his own for the period of the hypnotic session and giving it the authority the subject's own voice or thoughts normally have, which is why having a better imagination makes people more hypnotizable. This voluntary transferring of authority to another voice is very clear in self-hypnosis, in which the hypnotic subject is also the hypnotist, and he simply transfers authority to an internal voice constructed in his own head which he then uses to convince himself of what he already wants to do (e.g., stop smoking, lose weight, etc.).

 

People 'go under' to varying degrees when hypnotized, and experiments have shown that people don't go so far under the control they have given to the hypnotic voice that they will accept and act on commands which are utterly contrary to what they are willing to do. This indicates that the subject is still ultimately in control of the situation.

[lamp]

Marat, I've heard the theories you wrote before and I have to say I disagree with them, I think they are only to a degree correct. I find the idea that a person can not be hypnotized against his will a misconception, because it is possible to hypnotize a person within 3 seconds. I'm suspecting that this so called "willingness" describes the internal openness of the person to the outside world, e.g. "all people believe in the good" - thus, a person who is critical, analytic, considered as unfriendly, and even mis-trusting to others will be harder to hypnotize.

 

I also disagree with the theory that people will only execute the commands which they want to do. There a documented cases where Hypnosis has been used to commit a murder by simply inducing the hypnotized person to take a gun, walk into a building and commit a massacre, in this specific case I'm thinking of the person was living a honest life and had a status and achievements, though he had a high suggestibility and that was his pitfall.

 

Sometimes the hypnoitzed person will not realize what is going on so he will follow commands which he would find degrading under normal conditions for example yapping like a dog.

[PhDwannabe]

There a documented cases where Hypnosis has been used to commit a murder by simply inducing the hypnotized person to take a gun, walk into a building and commit a massacre, in this specific case I'm thinking of the person was living a honest life and had a status and achievements, though he had a high suggestibility and that was his pitfall.

Do you have any information about this anecdote which might independently verify it?

 

Sometimes the hypnoitzed person will not realize what is going on so he will follow commands which he would find degrading under normal conditions for example yapping like a dog.

People are often willing to embarrass themselves if you ask them nicely. Subjects in "control groups" asked to merely simulate the behavior of hypnotized people will readily display these sorts of things. That's not evidence for a hypnotic state that overrides an individual's free will, or even for a hypnotic state at all.

 

Marat's characterization:

It is not possible to hypnotize a person without the subject's active cooperation; it is not a passive process.

Represents a good summary of the current best understanding of the phenomenon. This can be--and has been--demonstrated empirically in a number of ways. Sorry, chaseman, your statement,

I'm very clear about the fact that there is barely any information available on the inner-workings of Hypnosis

Is not really a fair representation of the state of knowledge about hypnosis. The knowledge is substantially there. It supports Marat's response to you.

[lamp]

 

Is not really a fair representation of the state of knowledge about hypnosis. The knowledge is substantially there. It supports Marat's response to you.

 

As written in my first response I'd appreciate if you have any resource recommendations like books for example which I could read about. I've read the article about the murder case when surfing the web through Google, I think it may be easy to find, but I don't have a link for it.

[PhDwannabe]

As written in my first response I'd appreciate if you have any resource recommendations like books for example which I could read about.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have any books to recommend to you. Although it's a real and interesting--albeit nonmagical--phenomenon with some (possibly) minor clinical use, hypnosis is an area that has always seen its most enthusiastic reception in the quack community. Nearly any book you'll see on it is written by somebody extolling its great power and unassailable virtues.

[StringJunky]

If you Google "the nature of hypnosis" you should see more scholarly articles.

 

http://www.psych.upenn.edu/history/orne/orne1959jasp277299.html

 

http://academyll.org/files/The%20Nature%20of%20Hypnosis_0.pdf