What is trance?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by GIL BOYNE on November 17, 2009 at 7:07am

Hugh Cole said. Hypnosis is a process ... the process by which we establish trance. Trance is the establishment of a state of effective selective mental focus. (When you add the bypass of the critcal faculty you have somnambulism.

Hugh, I agree. I used to believe that hypnosis was a STATE of mind. But input and experience led to the realization that it is a PROCESS>

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Permalink Reply by GIL BOYNE on November 17, 2009 at 7:32am

[The Discovery of Hypnosis (Amazon UK)]

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Some people have asked for more information on the content,
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Detailed prefatory essays and annotations are included to make these
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GIL BOYNE said:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
] The Original Meaning of Hypnotism
What Braid Really Said:
The Original Meaning of Hypnotism
Copyright (c) Donald Robertson 2009 www.UKhypnosis.com

James Braid was the Scottish physician and surgeon who coined the term
"hypnotism" and essentially founded hypnotherapy as we know it today, in
opposition to the "animal magnetism" of the Mesmerists. Fourteen years
after discovering hypnotism, Braid wrote his last book on the subject,
The Physiology of Fascination (1855), the text of a lecture to be read
before the prestigious British Association. By this time, Braid had come
to define hypnotism as "the study of the reciprocal actions and
reactions of mind and matter upon each other", the key term here being
"reciprocal" because hypnotism originally involved not only the power of
the mind over the body but also the power of the body over the mind.

Braid carried out many ingenious experiments to test the claims of the
mesmerists and convinced himself that their perceived effects were not
due to animal magnetism or any special force or subtle energy
transmitted by the mesmerist. Instead, he found that "the condition
arose from influences existing within the patient's own body, viz.,
the influence of concentrated attention, or dominant ideas, in modifying
physical action, and these dynamic changes re-acting on the mind of the
subject." Hence, although the terms "mesmerism" and "hypnotism" are
often confused today, Braid was clear that he introduced the term
"hypnotism" to distinguish his psychological and physiological theory
from the supernatural theory of Mesmer and his many followers. However,
after over a decade of experimentation and clinical practice in
hypnotism, Braid now proposed to modify his terminology.

First, Braid rejects the notion that hypnotism refers to a single state
of mind. "This term has met with most favourable consideration from many
able writers on the subject; still it is liable to this grave objection
– that it has been used to comprise not a single state, but rather a
series of stages or conditions, varying in every conceivable degree,
from the slightest reverie, with high exaltation of the functions called
into action, on the one hand, to intense nervous coma, with entire
abolition of consciousness and voluntary power, on the other." The word
"hypnotism" was originally an abbreviation for the term
"neuro-hypnotism" meaning "nervous sleep", as Braid puts it, or
neurological inhibition, as we might put it today. Braid never intended
the term to imply that subjects were asleep in the ordinary sense of the
word, and this turn of phrase caused much confusion among his patients.
I am well aware that, in correct phraseology, the term hypnotism ought
to be restricted to the phenomena manifested in patients who actually
pass into a state of sleep, and who remember nothing on awakening of
what transpired during their sleep. All short of this is mere reverie,
or dreaming, however provoked, and it, therefore, seems highly desirable
to fix upon a terminology capable of accurately characterising these
latter modifications which result from hypnotic processes. This is the
more requisite from the fact that, of those who may be relieved and
cured by hypnotic processes of diseases which obstinately resist
ordinary medical treatment, perhaps not more than one in ten ever passes
into the state of oblivious sleep, during the processes which they are
subjected to. The term hypnotism, therefore, is apt to confuse them, and
lead them to suspect that, at all events, they cannot be benefited by
processes which fail to produce the most obvious indication which the
name imports. So, according to Braid here, as elsewhere, only 10% of his
patients experienced complete amnesia during hypnotism, or anything
which could be compared to a sleep-like state. It may surprise many
people to realise that this observation agrees with that of Bernheim and
most other Victorian hypnotists. Only a small minority of their patients
entered the sleep-like state called "somnambulism" and it was not
generally considered particularly important to the practice of
hypnotherapy. Braid apparently intended to continue using the
established term "hypnotism" to refer to the subject of mind-body
interaction in general, when speaking loosely, but to clarify that,
strictly speaking, the term "hypnotism" should only be taken to describe
a minority of subjects who experience profound amnesia during the
process. Let the term hypnotism be restricted to those cases alone in
which, by certain artificial processes, oblivious sleep takes place, in
which the subject has no remembrance on awaking of what occurred during
his sleep, but of which he shall have the most perfect recollection on
passing into a similar stage of hypnotism thereafter. In this mode,
hypnotism will comprise those cases only in which what has hitherto been
called the double-conscious state ["somnambulism"] occurs; and let the
term hypnotic coma denote that still deeper stage of the sleep in which
the patient seems to be quite unconscious at the time of all external
impressions, and devoid of voluntary power, and in whom no idea of what
had been said or done by others during the said state of hypnotic coma
can be remembered by the patient on awaking, or at any stage of
subsequent hypnotic operations. Far from sleep, the essence of hypnotism
was awareness. Braid now defined hypnotism as a state of mental focus or
concentration upon a dominant conscious idea. Then, inasmuch as I feel
satisfied that the mental and physical phenomena which flow from said
processes result entirely from the mental impressions, or dominant
ideas, excited thereby in the minds of the subjects, changing or
modifying the previously existing physical action, and the peculiar
physical action thus superinduced re-acting on their minds – and
that, whether these dominant, expectant ideas existed in the minds of
the subjects previously, or were suggested to them, after passing into
the impressible condition, by audible suggestions or sensible
impressions excited by manipulations of a second party – under these
circumstances, I consider the following terms calculated to realise all
the precision which we need desire on this point...Braid proposed to use
the term "monoideism", and various cognate expressions, instead, meaning
the concentration of the mind upon a single dominant idea or train of
thought. Braid borrowed the terms "ideo-motor reflex" and "ideo-motor
reflex" from his friend Prof. W.B. Carpenter who proposed a theory of
unconscious muscular action caused in a semi-reflex manner by certain
ideas or images. Braid added the concept of expectation and focused
attention to this simple model of suggestion, to form the basis of his
theory of hypnotism. In order that I may do full justice to two
esteemed friends, I beg to state, in connection with this term
monoideo-dynamics, that, several years ago, Dr. W. B. Carpenter
introduced the term ideo-motor to characterise the reflex or automatic
muscular motions which arise merely from ideas associated with motion
existing in the mind, without any conscious effort of volition. In 1853,
in referring to this term, Dr. [Daniel] Noble said, "Ideo-dynamic
would probably constitute a phraseology more appropriate, as applicable
to a wider range of phenomena." In this opinion I quite concurred,
because I was well aware that an idea could arrest as well as excite
motion automatically, not only in the muscles of voluntary motion, but
also as regards the condition of every other function of the body.
[Braid had long recognised that hypnosis could either stimulate or
depress nervous functioning in general.] I have, therefore, adopted the
term monoideo-dynamics, as still more comprehensive and characteristic
as regards the true mental relations which subsist during all dynamic
changes which take place, in every other function of the body, as well
as in the muscles of voluntary motion.To this he adds, "as a generic
term, comprising the whole of these phenomena which result from the
reciprocal actions of mind and matter upon each other, I think no term
could be more appropriate than psycho-physiology." Of course,
"psycho-physiology" means something like "mind-body" and Braid prefers
it as an umbrella term for the many respects in which the mind and body
inter-act reciprocally upon each other. He concludes, It must be
obvious that these terms would comprehend every conceivable variety of
phenomenon, according to the function of the part on which the dominant
idea of the subject might be concentrated, and the liveliness of his
faith. Thus, let the mind of the subject be engrossed with the notion
that he is to be irresistibly drawn, repelled, paralysed, or catalepsed,
and the monoideo-dynamic or ideational condition of the muscles
corresponding with this idea will take place, without any conscious
effort of volition of the subject to that effect. In brief, contrary to
popular misconception,
1. Braid opposed hypnotism to mesmerism, they are not the same thing.
2. Only 10% of Braid's subjects felt as if they were asleep or
unconscious, and this was not essential to hypnotism.
3. Far from being a passive state like sleep, hypnotism was defined
as a variety of states revolving around focused conscious attention and
heightened expectation.
4. Hypnotism was not simply a theory of the power of suggestion but
of the reciprocal power of psycho-physiology, of the mind and body
inter-acting in both directions.
5. In addition to verbal suggestion, therefore, Braid emphasised what
he termed "muscular suggestion", in which subjects changed their body
posture or facial expression to evoke mental states.
I hope these brief comments will encourage some hypnotists to read
Braid's work more closely and rediscover the true nature of the original
hypnotism, because many of the misconceptions about hypnotherapy which
abound today are the result of confusing hypnotism and mesmerism, and a
"return to Braid" would allow us to set the record straight in a way
that can only benefit our clients

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Permalink Reply by Ricky Strode on November 17, 2009 at 8:16am

No offense, but alpha, beta and theta are just measurements of brain wave activity set up into catagories and nothing else.
My definition of trance is the following- Learned processes and actions where none, or just some of it is in our conscious awareness like the abilitiy to activate the automatic process, or terminate and adjust. Hypnosis I think is the process of where we either create a new trance, or change an existing one by the process that we call hypnosis. Anyway that bypasses the conscious awareness is a form of hypnosis. Our five senses affect all of our thinking processes whether we like it, or not. The Critical factor however (which is just my opinion) is nothing more than just your belief system.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Ellner on November 17, 2009 at 9:10am

Hi Susan-

New York is a state. As is Florida and California-

I believe that we human beings process all of our every day sensory experiences in a wide range of mild to extreme trances...

I think of trance in all of its many forms as a function of our minds and brains involving selective attention or selective inattention. Hypnosis on the other hand is an activation of belief or a deactivation of dis-belief-- in order to change one's perceptions which changes our brains, physiology and behaviors according to the degree of perceptual change--

Susan French said:

Hi Michael, Perhaps I'm mis-using the word "state." but now that you've brought it up, I wonder what we would define as a "state." Do you have some ideas?

Thanks much,

Susan

Michael Ellner said:

Hi Susan-

Although, the relatively newly discovered fast moving gamma brain waves have been linked to perception, meditation and focused attention, one challenge all hypnosis professional face is that modern technology has been unable to find a signature brain wave state that is unique to hypnosis. In that sense there is no such "thing" as a "hypnotic state"

Michael E.

Susan French said:

If I'm not mistaken, the state we recognize as trance is when the brain wave frequencies slow down to Alpha frequency and a little bit of Theta frequency. The Alpha frequency is 8 to 13 cycles per second (or hertz). You can only go a few cycles per seconds of frequency into Theta before you go into the state we recognize as sleep.

I believe I also read that we go into alpha state every 90 minutes or so for about 15 minutes. I have a hunch (but have not read this anywhere) that the cognitive function (probably prefrontal cortex) disengages or relaxes and is less dominant. I think that what we metaphorically refer to as 'conscious mind' is the prefrontal cortex, the logical, reasoning part of the brain.

I have no clue what parts of the brain/body we mean when we say the 'subconscious mind',' I'd love to learn it if anyone knows.

I also believe that each brain wave frequency is present all the time at different levels of consciousness but one frequency becomes more dominant. I'm not sure about this though.

I'm always more comfortable when I take take something metaphorical (trance) and identify it in the physical and tangible, but that's me.

In my always present determination to take metaphors and make them tangible and concrete, I think of hypnosis as being the brain wave state that exists between a waking state and a sleeping state.

Susan
.

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Permalink Reply by Connor Wyatt on November 17, 2009 at 9:28am

All well and good but I do believe that trance is a state, and by that I mean a "state of mind" so therefore how is it not an altered state guys?

If we take it apart then the definitions are:

"Alter - change: become different in some particular way, without permanently losing one's or its former characteristics or essence"

and

"State of Mind - a temporary psychological state"

So I believe this is a perfectly acceptable definition because; when you are in trance your psychological state does become different but you do not permanently lose your former characteristics e.g. you do not lose the ability to go into the waking state.

Conca

Michael Ellner said:

Hi Susan-
New York is a state. As is Florida and California-
I believe that we human beings process all of our every day sensory experiences in a wide range of mild to extreme trances...

I think of trance in all of its many forms as a function of our minds and brains involving selective attention or selective inattention. Hypnosis on the other hand is an activation of belief or a deactivation of dis-belief-- in order to change one's perceptions which changes our brains, physiology and behaviors according to the degree of perceptual change--

Susan French said:

Hi Michael, Perhaps I'm mis-using the word "state." but now that you've brought it up, I wonder what we would define as a "state." Do you have some ideas? Thanks much,

Susan

Michael Ellner said:

Hi Susan-

Although, the relatively newly discovered fast moving gamma brain waves have been linked to perception, meditation and focused attention, one challenge all hypnosis professional face is that modern technology has been unable to find a signature brain wave state that is unique to hypnosis. In that sense there is no such "thing" as a "hypnotic state"

Michael E.

Susan French said:

If I'm not mistaken, the state we recognize as trance is when the brain wave frequencies slow down to Alpha frequency and a little bit of Theta frequency. The Alpha frequency is 8 to 13 cycles per second (or hertz). You can only go a few cycles per seconds of frequency into Theta before you go into the state we recognize as sleep.

I believe I also read that we go into alpha state every 90 minutes or so for about 15 minutes. I have a hunch (but have not read this anywhere) that the cognitive function (probably prefrontal cortex) disengages or relaxes and is less dominant. I think that what we metaphorically refer to as 'conscious mind' is the prefrontal cortex, the logical, reasoning part of the brain.

I have no clue what parts of the brain/body we mean when we say the 'subconscious mind',' I'd love to learn it if anyone knows.

I also believe that each brain wave frequency is present all the time at different levels of consciousness but one frequency becomes more dominant. I'm not sure about this though.

I'm always more comfortable when I take take something metaphorical (trance) and identify it in the physical and tangible, but that's me.

In my always present determination to take metaphors and make them tangible and concrete, I think of hypnosis as being the brain wave state that exists between a waking state and a sleeping state.

Susan
.

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Permalink Reply by VelvetMallet on November 17, 2009 at 9:34am

What works for me is the understanding that the state of trance is suspended imagination. Whether that is triggered by the self as in deep thought or "museum fatigue", meditation or driving an automobile, or it is externally manufactured by confusion, shock (from an injury or trauma) or the manipulations of a skilled hypnotist or NLP practitoner or a boring lecturer, it's a state of mind that is a kind of neutral gear, ready for whatever comes up next. What is done with that state, can be a number of things. Things such as accepting hypnotic suggestion, NLP change work, accelerated learning, a con game, absorbing a sales pitch are but only a few things that a mind in this receptive 'neutral gear' can accept.

As I said on another conversation on this site, if you're observant, you can see trance happen all around you. Walk into a jewelry store or an expensive shoe store or even a large food market and you can sort out the people who are intently focused on searching for and selecting a specific item from those who have drifted to a standstill, with an odd expression and a blank or far-away look in their eye as they imagine what it would taste like, look like, feel like to purchase something. You see it on public transportation, lifts (elevators), and any queue in a government office or bank.

Now that is an observable phenomenon. Defining or evaluating the utility of that phenomenon and getting consensus on it is what is difficult. But it is an undeniable and observable phenomenon that we can see almost as easily as seeing someone yawn or sneeze and I believe it is just as common and ordinary.

Cheers.
VM

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Permalink Reply by Connor Wyatt on November 17, 2009 at 9:48am

I agree about the suspended imagination.

Conca

VelvetMallet said:

What works for me is the understanding that the state of trance is suspended imagination. Whether that is triggered by the self as in deep thought or "museum fatigue", meditation or driving an automobile, or it is externally manufactured by confusion, shock (from an injury or trauma) or the manipulations of a skilled hypnotist or NLP practitoner or a boring lecturer, it's a state of mind that is a kind of neutral gear, ready for whatever comes up next. What is done with that state, can be a number of things. Things such as accepting hypnotic suggestion, NLP change work, accelerated learning, a con game, absorbing a sales pitch are but only a few things that a mind in this receptive 'neutral gear' can accept.

As I said on another conversation on this site, if you're observant, you can see trance happen all around you. Walk into a jewelry store or an expensive shoe store or even a large food market and you can sort out the people who are intently focused on searching for and selecting a specific item from those who have drifted to a standstill, with an odd expression and a blank or far-away look in their eye as they imagine what it would taste like, look like, feel like to purchase something. You see it on public transportation, lifts (elevators), and any queue in a government office or bank.

Now that is an observable phenomenon. Defining or evaluating the utility of that phenomenon and getting consensus on it is what is difficult. But it is an undeniable and observable phenomenon that we can see almost as easily as seeing someone yawn or sneeze and I believe it is just as common and ordinary.

Cheers.
VM

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Permalink Reply by Hugh Cole on November 17, 2009 at 10:09am

Suspended Imagination...? I don't undrstand That. Trance happens when the mind enters an imaginative process such as going internal on a cross derivational search. A Good Hypnotist will deepen by intensifying imaginative involvment. The process of imagining what something would taste like, or, feel like when you bought it, is a totally imaginative (internalized)process. So rather than saying suspended imagination might you not feel more comfortable in thinking in terms of augmented imagination. One process model I have often thought about was the point where neural processing switched from being "sensory directed" to being "imaginatively directed." You can think of that switch as a simply on-off switch, but a better representation might be a "fadder" switch, where one song simply rolls smoothly into another before the listener is even completely aware of it.

Hugh Cole
The Pretty Goodest Hypnotist on the Planet

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Permalink Reply by VelvetMallet on November 17, 2009 at 10:41am

Hi Hugh

I believe we're both basically agreeing but on slightly different aspects. An elephant is much like a rope. No, it's more like a tree trunk, etc. All true depending on which part you grab onto. ;-)

What I'm saying is that "suspended imagination" can be as brief as a moment and can be skillfully extended much longer. What I understand from reading your post is that you also acknowledge the link to the imaginary process. Your description is very hypnosis-centric; tied closely to the process of hypnotizing people. And that's what this forum is mostly about. But my comment was an attempt to step back from the frame of hypnosis and hypnotherapy, merely to acknowledge trance, momentary or otherwise, as commonly occurring phenomena, of which we, as hypnotists skillfully create and utilize.

Yes, it can be augmented and deliberately manipulated to act as a fader switch to transition from one clear state to another. But in the absence of an engineer to fade that switch, and as an imaginative process, it's something we all experience, often unassisted and on our own. It is also the moment that a hypnotist looks for as a cue of readiness before further suggestions or deepening takes place.

VM

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Permalink Reply by John Cleesattel on November 17, 2009 at 10:41am

I'm with Hugh. When in trance, the imagination starts providing/replacing input normally recieved from the outside world, so being "suspended" would not be an accurate term. Imagination engagement might be a better description.



Hugh Cole said:

Suspended Imagination...? I don't undrstand That. Trance happens when the mind enters an imaginative process such as going internal on a cross derivational search. A Good Hypnotist will deepen by intensifying imaginative involvment. The process of imagining what something would taste like, or, feel like when you bought it, is a totally imaginative (internalized)process. So rather than saying suspended imagination might you not feel more comfortable in thinking in terms of augmented imagination. One process model I have often thought about was the point where neural processing switched from being "sensory directed" to being "imaginatively directed." You can think of that switch as a simply on-off switch, but a better representation might be a "fadder" switch, where one song simply rolls smoothly into another before the listener is even completely aware of it.

Hugh Cole
The Pretty Goodest Hypnotist on the Planet

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by GIL BOYNE on November 20, 2009 at 8:10am

GIL BOYNE said:

Hypnosis has 'real' brain effect


Hypnosis has a "very real" effect that can be picked up on brain scans, say Hull University researchers.

An imaging study of hypnotised participants showed decreased activity in the parts of the brain linked with daydreaming or letting the mind wander.

The same brain patterns were absent in people who had the tests but who were not susceptible to being hypnotised.

One psychologist said the study backed the theory that hypnosis "primes" the brain to be open to suggestion.

Hypnosis is increasingly being used to help people stop smoking or lose weight and advisers recently recommended its use on the NHS to treat irritable bowel syndrome.


This shows that the changes were due to hypnosis and not just simple relaxation

Dr William McGeown, study leader
It is not the first time researchers have tried to use imaging studies to monitor brain activity in people under hypnosis.

But the Hull team said these had been done while people had been asked to carry out tasks, so it was not clear whether the changes in the brain were due to the act of doing the task or an effect of hypnosis.

In the latest study, the team first tested how people responded to hypnosis and selected 10 individuals who were "highly suggestible" and seven people who did not really respond to the technique other than becoming more relaxed.

The participants were asked to do a task under hypnosis, such as listening to non-existent music, but unknown to them the brain activity was being monitored in the rest periods in between tasks, the team reported in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.


In the "highly suggestible" group there was decreased activity in the part of the brain involved in daydreaming or letting the mind wander - also known as the "default mode" network.

One suggestion of how hypnosis works, supported by the results, is that shutting off this activity leaves the brain free to concentrate on other tasks.

Study leader Dr William McGeown, a lecturer in the department of psychology, said the results were unequivocal because they only occurred in the highly suggestible subjects.

"This shows that the changes were due to hypnosis and not just simple relaxation. "Our study shows hypnosis is real."

Dr Michael Heap, a clinical forensic psychologist based in Sheffield, said the experiment was unique in showing brain patterns supporting the theory that hypnosis works by "priming" the subject to respond more effectively to suggestions.

"Importantly the data confirm that relaxation is not a critical factor.

"The limited data from this experiment suggest that this pattern of activity then dissipates (at least to some extent) once the subjects start to engage in the suggestions that follow."

But he said the small study, which needed repeating in other populations, did not prove that people being hypnotised were in an actual "trance".



Robert Shanks said:

Hi there.
I have to half-agree with Bob Burns near the beginning of this thread.

I believe that we enter TRANCE all the time, but to be honest, there are many types of this (drug-induced, meditative, watching TV), but there is only ONE trance that is hypnotic. And that is when you are externally hypnotized. In my view hypnosis HAS to be carried out by one person on another. That is the original definition, and I will not be swayed...

Hypnosis can exist seperately from trance. I've seen many cases of people being under hypnosis without being in trance. Any of you who has seen a stage show has seen that too. I have also seen people in a hypnotic trance, which is far more profound than anything besides the drug-induced ones.

In my experience, the critical factor isn't so much "bypassed" as "ignored". As Emile Coue said, in a conflict between intellect and imagination, the imagination will always win. When you have hypnosis, you are communicating with the imagination (subc), so it simply doesn't bother worrying about the critical factor's "opinion"

Here's an example: Lucy and Paul. As you can see, the guy is wide awake, but hypnotised. You can see the struggle when he he tries to use his intellect for his name.

Think of it this way, if we really had a critical factor that truly prevented us harming ourselves, would it be possible for smokers to exist? Or drinkers? Or fast drivers? Or suicide bombers?

Robert

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by GIL BOYNE on November 20, 2009 at 8:14am

The Mesmerized Mind
Scientists are unveiling how the brain works when hypnotized

THE MESMERIZED MIND
. For years, psychologists have used hypnosis to help patients calm preflight jitters, get a good night’s sleep or chuck a cigarette habit. Hypnosis even has uses in mainstream medicine for reducing the side effects of cancer treatments and helping patients cope with pain. Some physicians routinely employ hypnosis as an adjunct to mainstream anesthesia to help block pain during surgery or childbirth.
Most recently, hypnosis has advanced from into the laboratory. It is now used as a research tool to temporarily create hallucinations, compulsions, delusions and certain types of seizures in the lab so that these phenomena can be investigated in detail.
Such studies may lead to more effective treatments for a number of psychiatric and neurological disorders, assert psychologists Peter W. Halligan and David Oakley in the June issue of Trends in Cognitive Sciences.
Other scientists, intrigued by the many practical uses of hypnosis, are striving to figure out how it works. Using the latest neuroimaging tools, these scientists are getting a look at what goes on in the hypnotized brain. The findings are mesmerizing.
When hypnotized people act on a hypnotic suggestion, they really do see, hear and feel differently, such research shows. When they’re told to see colors, for example, the color-processing parts of their brains light up—despite the absence of any real color in view. When they are told to envision color objects in black and white, these color-processing areas are less active. Other imaging studies show that hypnotically induced pain activates the same brain areas as “real” pain.
Still, questions remain, says Halligan, of Cardiff University in Wales, who has studied hypnosis for more than a decade. Scientists have yet to discover how hypnosis produces physiological changes. And some scientists question whether such changes are confined to hypnosis. Perhaps the patterns of brain activity seen during hypnosis can occur during everyday experiences when people are fully absorbed in an activity, some researchers say.
The real question, says Halligan, is whether hypnosis is a specific brain state that differs from any other.
“In other words, is there some sort of neural correlate, or biological marker, within the brain during a hypnotic trance?” he asks.
The answer so far, emerging from studies done during the past few years, is maybe. New research at the University of Geneva suggests that hypnosis alters neural activity by rerouting some of the usual connections between brain regions. Such neurological detours don’t happen when subjects merely imagine a scenario.
Changing your mind
In this mysterious state of mind, the brain is “quiet,” focused and superattentive. People sometimes report feeling disconnected from their surroundings and lost in thought. During hypnosis, subjects are more open than usual to suggestions and have the ability to focus intensely on a specific thought, feeling or sensation.
Most adults, about two-thirds, are hypnotizable to some degree, though some people experience the effects of hypnosis more intensely than others do, says David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford University School of Medicine who uses hypnosis in his medical practice. Ten to 15 percent of adults are “highly hypnotizable,” he says, meaning they can experience dramatic changes in perception with hypnosis.
A person’s ability to become hypnotized is unrelated to intelligence, compliancy or gullibility, but may be linked to an ability to become deeply absorbed in activities such as reading, listening to music or daydreaming. People who find themselves engrossed in a best seller even while the television is blaring, or swept away by a movie and losing track of time, are likely to be quite hypnotizable.
During hypnosis, the hypnotherapist tries to direct thoughts, feelings and behavior by instructing a person to concentrate on particular images or ideas. A typical session starts with some sort of induction procedure that helps the subject relax—say, counting down from 20 to one or mentally descending a set of stairs.
To produce a specific behavior or thought, the hypnotherapist will make suggestions targeted toward the goal. To reduce the pain of a medical procedure, for example, a hypnotherapist might invoke an image of pain being turned down like the volume on a radio.

| Studies show hypnosis reroutes brain signals. Hypnotized people who are told that their left hand is paralyzed show brain patterns (yellow) that differ from those who aren't hypnotized (red) and from those who aren't hypnotized but are told to pretend their left hand is paralyzed (green).Y. Cojan Et al./Neuron 2009
Over the years, rigorously controlled studies have shown that hypnosis can also control blood pressure and even make warts go away. But because very few studies have attempted to find out how it works, some scientists are still skeptical of its power.
Critics suggest hypnosis is nothing more than playacting, with subjects trying to please the hypnotist. That skepticism has driven some researchers to take a hard look at what happens in the brain during hypnosis. Over the past few years, scientists have begun gathering evidence that hypnosis can indeed measurably change how the brain works.
In 2005, scientists at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City used functional MRI to show how hypnotic suggestions can override “automatic” processes in the brain. When shown the names of colors printed in different colors of ink—for example, the word red printed in blue—subjects were instructed to name the ink color while ignoring the word.
Though this task may sound easy, it’s often difficult for people who can read because the tendency is to automatically read the word instead of naming the color. When told under hypnosis that the words would appear as gibberish, highly hypnotizable subjects were able to perform the task faster, and with fewer errors, than subjects who were less hypnotizable and therefore less likely to respond to suggestion.
The fMRI results were also striking. Highly hypnotizable participants showed less activity in a brain area called the anterior cingulate cortex, which is active when people are trying to sort out conflicting information from different sources, such as contradictory word names and colors. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Going deeper
Scientists agree that there is a pattern or “orchestra” of brain activity during hypnosis. Halligan and his colleagues are working to figure out what this particular pattern might be, and which—if any—brain region serves as conductor. As part of a collaboration with psychiatrist Quinton Deeley of King’s College London, the researchers are looking at how patterns of brain activity in the induction phase—the countdown—prepare the brain for suggestions.
Preliminary findings suggest that hypnosis boosts activity in the brain’s prefrontal cortex—a region responsible for various executive functions such as decision making and regulating attention—while suppressing activity in other brain regions.
Still, researchers are stumped to explain how these changes in brain patterns work to make hypnotized people feel and see things differently. Recent theories, discussed in the article in Trends by Halligan and Oakley, of University College London, propose that hypnotic suggestions may inhibit or disconnect certain mental processes from the brain’s executive control systems.
Until recently, such hypotheses had remained untested. But in the June 25 issue of Neuron, Yann Cojan of the University of Geneva and colleagues report a direct test.
The researchers put 18 subjects in a brain scanner, instructing them to push a button using one hand or the other. Each trial began with a cue indicating which hand to prepare for movement. After a brief interval, an image of a hand would turn green—signaling to press the button—or red, a command to inhibit any motion. Twelve subjects did half of the trials while hypnotized, with the suggestion that their left hand was “paralyzed,” and the other half in a normal, unhypnotized state. Six subjects did trials without hypnosis under instructions to pretend their left hand was paralyzed.
When volunteers used their right hands, the motor cortex linked up with brain regions that control body movement to carry out the task.
But fMRI scans showed changes in several brain areas when hypnotic paralysis prevented subjects from responding to the “go” signal with their left hands. Under hypnosis, neurons in the brain’s motor cortex fired up as usual to prepare for the task. But when instructed to use the left, or “paralyzed” hand, the motor cortex failed to send signals to motor execution regions. Instead, it directed its signals to another brain region, the precuneus.
The precuneus is a sort of center for self-consciousness. If you’ve ever pictured yourself falling flat on your face in the middle of an important event, that’s your precuneus working overtime. Its function is to help retrieve memories and images of yourself from the brain’s archives and help to visualize movements.
By rerouting motor signals to the precuneus, hypnosis appeared to decouple the typical relationship between brain areas that generate the signals for hand movement and the areas that carry out such movements. Subjects who were not hypnotized and were asked to fake paralysis showed no such disconnect between these regions.
Because the precuneus is involved in mental imagery and self-awareness, Cojan says, hypnosis appeared to enhance the brain’s self-monitoring processes to allow images generated by suggestion—“your hand is heavy and cannot move”—to guide behavior.
By linking to the precuneus, “the motor cortex is connected to the idea that it cannot move the left hand,” Cojan says. “So even if you try to move, it will neglect to send signals to the motor execution areas.”
Because the motor cortex fired up as usual to prepare for the task, the findings suggest that mental images created through hypnotic suggestions work by redirecting normal brain functions rather than actively suppressing them, he adds.
Generating piece of mind
Using insights gleaned from the brain scans of subjects paralyzed under hypnosis, Cojan conducted a follow-up study to see whether something like hypnosis happens in the brains of patients during hysterical paralysis. In such instances, patients become paralyzed even though the condition can’t be traced to any physical or neurological brain damage.
An fMRI study of patients with hysterical hand paralysis did not find the heightened precuneus activity that is seen in hypnosis, Cojan’s group reported in the September NeuroImage.
Previously, it had been suggested that hysterical paralysis was “a kind of self-hypnosis,” Cojan says. “Our findings show that’s not the case.”
Halligan points to the recent paralysis studies as examples of how hypnosis can be used to further studies on the nature of hypnosis and to provide insights on a variety of real-life syndromes and disorders.
In 2000, he and Oakley began looking at ways to use hypnosis to simulate psychosomatic conditions, such as hysterical paralysis or hysterical blindness, in the lab. By creating virtual patients through hypnosis, scientists might be able to better understand the basis for such disorders by comparing patients’ brains with hypnotized brains, the researchers reckoned.
Deeley, who treats psychiatric patients at his private practice in London, says using hypnosis also allows him to track brain processes involved in other kinds of disorders that would not ordinarily be possible to study with brain imaging.
In an ongoing series of experiments, he and his colleagues are using hypnosis to study conditions in which patients sense a “lack of control” over their movements or behavior. Such perceptual experiences may be reported by people who experience nonepileptic seizures or who suffer delusions caused by schizophrenia.
By making some targeted suggestions—“Your left hand is now shaking at your side” or “Your right leg is twitching”—the scientists can model a particular symptom in a consistent and controlled way, Deeley says.
“You can’t have somebody having a full-blown seizure within an MRI scanner,” he says. “It’s not safe because they’re moving fast, and you wouldn’t get any useful information. But if you actually restrict an involuntary movement to a particular limb or a hand, it is possible to create a partial model of these involuntary movements.”
Another advantage of hypnosis is that it allows researchers to untangle the many components that make up a complex disorder, such as schizophrenia. In such cases, patients may feel not only that they’re losing control, but also that their actions or behavior are guided by an outside force or agent, such as the CIA.
Scientists then have the problem of sorting out whether a change in brain activity is associated with the physical experience of a movement or whether it is tied to the delusional beliefs behind the movement.
“In such cases, you’ve got two processes going on associated with complex change in brain activity, and you just can’t unpack them in terms of working out what’s associated with what,” Deeley says.
Experimental manipulations using hypnosis could provide a window into a wide range of disorders, he says, and could help explain other types of altered states, such as meditation.
Halligan agrees, noting that hypnosis could be used to simulate various disorders commonly associated with brain injury, such as visual impairment. In a recent study, he used hypnotic suggestions to replicate conditions described by injured soldiers who are still capable of detecting motion in certain visual fields but are unable to make out any distinguishing features of the moving object.
“That’s not to say that the same psychological consequences of pathology seen in patients are somehow replicated in hypnosis,” Halligan says. “But using hypnosis to simulate a specific condition for imaging may tell us which brain systems are involved.” This information may then feed back into the development of new treatments and rehabilitation tools, he says.
Such advancements, however, hinge on learning more about the underlying processes involved in hypnosis itself. Current efforts may help scientists differentiate between the brain structures that play a role in hypnosis and those that are involved in the tasks subjects are asked to perform.
“These are still early days,” Halligan says, noting that it has yet to be seen how well hypnotically simulated disorders will actually match the conditions they’re intended to mimic. Still, he says, hypnosis provides a way to “test and probe.”
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