I was hypnotized as part of a demo for a Psychology class in high school. The hypnotist led us through a session where we were supposed to go back to the elementary school. He then asked us to write our names on kindergarten writing paper. Mine didn’t look any different than I would have written it, but some of my classmates wrote their names just like a small child would.
What are your experiences?
Best results: I quit smoking in 1983, after nine years of half-a-pack/day and about four prior unsuccessful attempts.
One hypnotism session. Came home. Took the remaining portion of my carton and the current open pack, also four or five tobacco pipes (I had tried at one point to switch to pipe smoking; kept smoking cigs too and also I was inhaling the pipe tobacco smoke, so no gain) and bags of pipe tobacco. Walked into back yard, placed all these items in the back driveway, doused them with gasoline, lit them on fire. Absolute confidence that I was never going to smoke again. Haven’t.
Not-very-successful hypnotism: I had written a nine-page term paper, using the school’s Mac lab (an array of Mac Plusses running System 3 from floppies) and the power went out. Hadn’t saved my work since approx page 2. Could not get back into it, then or the next day or the day following, finally book an appt with hypnotist to see if I could conjure back the paper I’d written. I was subsequently able to churn out a paper but it wasn’t really what I’d written the first go-around, wasn’t as good.
In-betweenish level of success: I’m a fingernail biter. It bothers some people including my main squeeze partner. I don’t want to stop biting my fingernails, I want to stop doing it in front of other people and grossing them out! First hypnotist had me for three sessions and still no significant result, and I compared this with the stop-smoking experience and decided I was being milked and not helped. About half a year later, tried again with a different hypnotist. Virtual / online sessions only due to COVID. It has mostly worked but not on autopilot. I’m still inclined to bite an errant fingernail when she’s right there but I’m a lot more aware that I’m about to do it and can postpone it until I’m elsewhere or she’s elsewhere. Would prefer that it just never occur to me to bite them except when I have privacy.
I was at least partially hypnotized once by my therapist, I don’t even remember why he wanted to try it, but I was amenable to try. We got pretty far into it, but I do remember that I was not able to speak even when he asked me to speak and gave me permission to speak. At some level I was still aware, and I thought if I spoke it would “break the spell” and bring me out of whatever degree of hypnosis I was under. We didn’t try it again. Maybe he just wasn’t very good at it, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t willing to give up control to the level required to be fully hypnotized.
I was supposedly hypnotized a few times by my therapist to unlock some childhood trauma he thought I had. I played along with it the first two times, but the last time I sat up halfway through and said this doesn’t work on me, does it, and he agreed it was pointless to continue doing it.
I think you have to believe it will work, and skeptics like me have a hard time being hypnotized. I’ve been to a few live comedy shows where people are hypnotized, but they hand pick people they know are susceptible versus just random people from the audience.
Not legally referred to as “hypnotism” but during frosh week the hypnotist Mike Mandel came to my uni to entertain the freshmen. I was well familiar with his act, as my high school brought him in once a year during winter festival. At university, I finally got up the nerve to volunteer, public humiliation be damned. The first warmup was the bit where he has everyone onstage clasp their hands, and then try to pull them apart. I remember thinking “Oh wow, this is working, my hands are stuck…oh, but if I just spread my fingers…” and my fingers released from each other, and I was the first person he sent back to the audience. Oh well.
That’s similar to my experience. I really wanted it to work, so the therapist could help me with my problem (habit of biting my lips and cheeks), but instead I just sat there pretending to be hypnotized so the therapist wouldn’t feel silly.
Yeah, I played along as well. But am I the only person here to have been hypnotized by a dentist? Dental hypnosis is (or at least was) a thing. Four decades ago one of my housemates was a dentist trained in hypnosis, and one night after a few drinks I thought… well, might be interesting. Most I can say of the experience was that it was quite relaxing. There was nothing about the experience to convince me that hypnosis exists.
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I read somewhere that it was also tried for surgery at one point, but I don’t remember if it worked well enough to eliminate anesthesia or just reduce the amount needed, but I doubt it would work for most people…
I wasn’t, but I was close to the stage at a hypnotist show once, and decided to play along. It’s hard to explain what happened, but I think I was at least partially hypnotized. I focused on his voice, on the object he wanted us to be focused on. And my vision became blurred and dark around the edges, like I was in a tunnel and disoriented. I began to lose focus on the people and lights and conversations around me, and the only thing I really noticed was his voice, and the object of focus.
Looking back, I’d had similar experiences, before and after. It’s a lot like getting into “the zone” with creative or technical work that requires focus and undivided attention. But being put into that state of mind by someone else was a unique experience.
I think you can get the visual experience at least by focusing on one object for a while. After some time, you get tunnel vision, and everything except that object blurs or goes dark. There was something else going on, mentally, but I don’t think it was supernatural or anything like that. Just guided, deep focus, basically. Probably not all that different from guided meditation.
I was hypnotized as a high school student at a school assembly. I even have a picture taken by one of the school photographers. I recall a couple parts. One was suggesting that when I heard my trigger word, I would believe I was Elvis Presley. When I heard my word, I jumped up and performed a short rendition of Blue Suede Shoes, though I don’t recall ever singing it or knowing the words before. The other one was being given a wedge of lemon, then being told it was the most delicious candy I had ever eaten. I ate the whole wedge, peel and all, and I still have the recollection that it was very sweet.
I get hypnotized by beer just about every day.
A therapist tried one time. Nothing happened.
I think it’s a BS anyway, but I was willing to give it a go, fair attempt, and nothing.
I was hypnotized 5 times to quit smoking. Each time the effect lasted about 24 hours before cravings returned full force.
I went to a hypnotherapist to stop smoking. Nothing happened, all the cues and triggers I was supposed to have didn’t work.
I still quit for a while, mainly in my view because I had set myself for that date, so just did it cold turkey rather than relying on the hypnosis.
I wanted it to work, but I guess some people are more susceptible to it than others and I’m one of the latter.
buk, buk, buk
I was hypnotized on stage by a local performing hypnotist who called himself Mesmerizing Marvin.
buk, buk, buk
Marvin supposedly hypnotized those of us he called onto stage into believing we were common farm animals.
buk, buk, buk, ba-gawk
But, it certainly didn’t work on me.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
Pure rubbish!
There is nothing magical about hypnosis; in particular, it is not at all like sleep, despite what the name suggests. As a matter of fact, James Braid, the British surgeon who founded the modern study of hypnosis and coined the word, later regretted that term and proposed to replace it with monoideism (the fact of being focussed on one single idea), but that term never caught on, and we remained stuck with the unfortunate “hypnosis”. It’s simply a situation where the mind’s concentration is narrowed down to focus on a particular idea, increasing its susceptibility to suggestions. Each time you read a thrilling novel or watch a film, you are under hypnosis, and that is what allows you to suspend your disbelief.
When I count to three and say Prost, you shall open your eyes and get me one too.
Our software engineering team secretary once hired a stage hypnotist for a big team party. It did not go well. Not a single person could be ‘hypnotized’. We were all too logical, too skeptical, too analytical. He said we were the toughest crowd he ever had, so we bought him beers and we all just hung out.
My understanding is that stage hypnosis requires people open, willing, and excited to be hypnotized. That opens them up to suggestion. If you are a skeptic or try to resist, it isn’t going to work.
That is my understanding. It is not about putting people into a dream/zombie state, instead it is more like a relaxed (and this is the important part) more uninhibited state. They know what they are doing, clucking like a chicken etc., they are just OK with it.
Anyone who has done extensive actor training will recognize the effect, it is a method of getting out of your own way to “get into character” and allow emotions to flow.
Right. Despite what you might see in old movies, you can’t be hypnotized against your will.