Stage hypnotists...legit?

Cafe Society
41

Is the hypnotic state anything like being in the ‘zone’ when playing sports, painting, etc? In “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”, the author talks about getting into a state where you start seeing things differently. She says that in this state, we have a hard time recognizing the passage of time.

I’ve routinely gotten into that zone when playing pool or doing other things which I have practiced repeatedly. I’ll be playing, and suddenly everything seems much easier - when I shoot, I KNOW I’m going to make the shot. In the ‘zone’, I play at a way higher level than I do when I’m feeling normal. And sure enough, you do lose track of time.

I’ve been in that state when drawing things, or doing heavy programming tasks. Your perception subtly shifts, and you start performing at a much higher level. I’ve been shocked to look at the time and see that hours have passed when I thought it was only minutes.

42

[QUOTE=Kythereia]
…there’s evidence of people going into hypnotic states, but …
[/QUOTE]

I think you’ve nailed the fundamental problem in this discussion. No one’s really defined “altered state of consciousness” or “hypnotic state” very well. If one “feels different,” is that enough? If different brain wave types dominate, does that mean anything? Both these things happen during plenty of non-hypnotic activity, as well.

There’s lots of anecdotes in this thread about “entering the hypnotic state” but “not being able to be compelled to do anything.” Evidence for compelling people to perform actions under hypnosis that they’d be “morally unwilling” to perform normally is very weak. Evidence for people remembering better is very weak. Evidence for suggestibility (creating false memories, in particular) is strong, but conversational suggestibility is pretty common, anyway.

So to really get at this, we need to define exactly what we’re claiming a hypnotic state allows, that a non-hypnotic state doesn’t, and be pretty rigorous about it. I don’t think we’ve done that yet. Casual use of the term for possibly unrelated phenomenon like “highway hypnosis” confuses the issue for now; we can decide whether that’s true hypnosis after we define what true hypnosis is.

In particular, many folks claim that being “under hypnosis” is easily faked, and a few claim that it’s difficult to know when it’s happened to you. So exactly what properties to we look for in order to construct a test to know when someone is “really hypnotized?”

43

I would be very careful with the use of hypnotism.

Maybe someone will recognize what I’m talking about. There is a form of hypnotism that is used on highly trained soldiers when they leave the service. I know the name for it, but don’t know how I know it.

In 1986 I figured out something that would be highly destructive and told my uncle, he became agitated and said I must not talk about it to anyone, I must not even think about it. I completely forgot about it. I know that he was interested in hypnotism.

In early 2001 I found I was talking to a guy who used to be one of the highly trained soldiers - to put it crudely he mistook me for one of his own - I was quite surprized and asked him a few questions (I was thinking about the hypnotism trick).

From then on I had the feeling of having forgotten something, and in 2004 someone said something that made me remember what I had told my uncle 18 years before. It was like a cloud clearing - and there is no way I would have forgotten it.

I’ve always been very wary of hypnotism, although to my knowledge I’ve not experienced it - apart from Yoga ‘talkdowns’ - and demonstrating one of those to friends, I put a room of people to sleep.

I’m pretty sure that my uncle got someone to put a block on my memory, I can’t think of any other explanation.

I know of two other instances, one was the husband of a friend of a friend. He visited a hypnotist to quit smoking. He had been pretty depressed. On the way home he jumped in front of a train. He lost one arm and one leg, but lived. The other instance was a suicide, I can’t prove it but the hypnotist concerned ducked right out of sight for a year and her behaviour confirms my suspicion.

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[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
Is the hypnotic state anything like being in the ‘zone’ when playing sports, painting, etc? In “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”, the author talks about getting into a state where you start seeing things differently. She says that in this state, we have a hard time recognizing the passage of time.
[/QUOTE]
I really enjoyed that book back in junior high. I should see if I can get a copy again. Her technique on changing how you look at the world and reducing it to two dimensional lines really helped my drawing abilities.

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This Board is still all about fighting ignorance, isn’t it?

[QUOTE=FRDE]
There is a form of hypnotism that is used on highly trained soldiers when they leave the service.
[/quote]
No, there isn’t. The idea that, via hypnosis, anyone can be made to forget something that they would otherwise remember and want to remember, is incorrect. Read my earlier posts. Stage hypnosis works by willing and conscious compliance, and the opportunity to have fun, be silly and be a star. Therapeutic hypnosis is just one form of ritual magic. That’s all there is.

No, he didn’t. Because there is no process or mechanism which could work as you claim/describe. Every beginner’s class on ‘critical thinking skills’ includes the lesson that just because you can’t think of another explanation, this doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Back in the 70s lots of people believed spoon-bending must be psychic because they couldn’t figure out how the trick was done.

So now we’re discussing urban legends?

Back to basic critical thinking skills. You might want to look up a common logical fallacy called ‘Post hoc ergo prompter hoc’. Stage hypnotists have to contend with this kind of poor thinking all the time. Someone goes to see a show by a singer. On the way back they have a car crash - no-one ever thinks of blaming the singer. Someone goes to see a show by a hypnotist. On the way back they have a car crash - and some people instantly assume there could be a connection. No, there couldn’t. Because there is no causal mechanism between the two.

No, it doesn’t. Her behaviour may be consistent with your suspicion, but your suspicion could be entirely baseless all the same. I could accuse my newsagent of being a Russian spy, who is very careful never to speak Russian so as to not give the game away. The fact that he never speaks Russian is consistent with my dumb theory, but my theory is still a dumb one.

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[QUOTE=ianzin]
This Board is still all about fighting ignorance, isn’t it?
No, there isn’t. The idea that, via hypnosis, anyone can be made to forget something that they would otherwise remember and want to remember, is incorrect. Read my earlier posts. Stage hypnosis works by willing and conscious compliance, and the opportunity to have fun, be silly and be a star. Therapeutic hypnosis is just one form of ritual magic. That’s all there is.
[/QUOTE]
I completely respect your extensive experience in these fields, but I have to ask - do you think willing and conscious compliance is an adequate explanation for such examples as the woman who was (apparently) made to forget the existence of a certain number, then asked to count her fingers - when I saw this in a documentary (I forget which - it was some years ago - the programme may have been Horizon), the subject appeared to display genuine perplexity and anxiety at not being able to count properly.

Of course I understand anxiety and perplexity can be convincingly faked.

47

I had the pleasure of seeing my sister-in-law (among several other volunteers) hypnotized by a stage hypnotist several years ago. She had been given a post-hypnotic suggestion to stand up and sing the Hallelujah chorus when she heard him say the name of the University. When the time came, she jumped up and sang it loud. But then she looked around all embarrassed and shocked. I asked her about it a few years ago and she said that she couldn’t help it and that she was shocked that she involuntarily started singing in front of a crowd.

This is an intriguing topic, to say the least.

48

[QUOTE=Sam Stone]
I’ve been in that state when drawing things, or doing heavy programming tasks. Your perception subtly shifts, and you start performing at a much higher level. I’ve been shocked to look at the time and see that hours have passed when I thought it was only minutes.
[/QUOTE]

Sounds like how I get when playing “Civilization.”

49

Surely if you thought only minutes had passed when it was in fact hours, that would mean you’re performing at a much lower level - after several hours, I’d expect to know it was hours by virtue of having achieved hours worth of work.

50

[QUOTE=ianzin]
This Board is still all about fighting ignorance, isn’t it?
[/QUOTE]
Yes, it is. While I have no quarrel with your objections to what people are saying about hypnosis, I do want to make a point about analogics.

In an earlier post, you had struck down an analogy someone made by saying that something particular about it was different from hypnosis, and then declared that on that basis there was no comparison at all. But that’s what analogics are for: comparing two things that aren’t the same thing. Yes, with analogics, you CAN compare apples and oranges. Both are fruits, for example. Both grow on trees.

If two things are the same in every way, then they aren’t analogous — they’re identical.

51

At the risk of being mocked and/or attracting unwanted attention, I’m going to share a short story.

I will preface this by saying that I personally feel that a lot of stage hypnosis involves people that are just more willing than most to make complete fools of themselves.

However, in my late teens/early 20’s, I played around with hypnosis. I had a girlfriend at the time that was what a stage hypnotist would call ‘very susceptible.’ I honed my technique on her. It got to the point where I could put her “under” (whatever you want to call it) with just a few choice words. I mostly did suggestions of relaxation, and/or horniness (oh, come on - I was about 20 at the time!) As we progressed, I did play around with some of the standard stage hypnosis stuff.

All of this went pretty well and was quite a bit of fun. I usually ended each time with something like ‘you will waking up feeling relaxed and refreshed’ and the GF always claimed that’s how she felt. She was definitely a willing participant.

However, one night, I decided to play with a more devious post hypnotic suggestion. I told her that when she heard the word ‘dog’ she would say ‘woof’ Later that night, I told her a joke whose punch line was something about a dog. She started laughing. Then, right in the middle of her laughing, she let out a half laugh/half ‘woof’. The immediate look of shock and surprise on her face indicated that she was not a willing participant at that point.

There were no more hypnosis sessions after that. We broke up a few months later. Looking back, I think her level of trust in me went from ‘total’ to ‘none’ in that split second that she let out that woof.

I don’t have any proof that hypnosis does or doesn’t work. I don’t have any suggestions of what exactly hypnosis might or might not be. I hadn’t even thought about this for a few years. I just thought the story was worth sharing. Draw whatever conclusions you would like from it.

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[QUOTE=C3]
It was pretty cool and I could definitely see how hypnotism could be useful in a pain management context.

[/QUOTE]

Back in 1960, my mom underwent hypnosis for a drug-free birth. They put her under and stuck pins in her to the point that she bled, and she didn’t feel anything. The birth went without a hitch, and pain-free. I guess they got her to concentrate her mind away from the pain. My dad was amazed by how cool it was.

53

That’s acupuncture, isn’t it? Or were the pins just to prove that it was working?

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[QUOTE=Liberal]
Yes, it is. While I have no quarrel with your objections to what people are saying about hypnosis, I do want to make a point about analogics.

In an earlier post, you had struck down an analogy someone made by saying that something particular about it was different from hypnosis, and then declared that on that basis there was no comparison at all. But that’s what analogics are for: comparing two things that aren’t the same thing. Yes, with analogics, you CAN compare apples and oranges. Both are fruits, for example. Both grow on trees.

If two things are the same in every way, then they aren’t analogous — they’re identical.
[/QUOTE]

But in this case - ianzin was not saying “oh, you cannot use an analogy to compare the two!” He was saying - your analogy assumes something that is false. (Specifically - that “chunking” is an altered state of consciousness).

In your example, you mentioned apples and oranges. Both are fruit - ok, we’ve found some similarity to compare them. It seems to me that ianzin’s point was that the analogy given was like comparing apples and racecars and saying both are fruit. Of course you can use an analogy to compare them - but you cannot say that both are fruit because it’s untrue.

On to the specifics:

Here, the comparison was between “losing” perspective of time when driving to a destination, and a hypnotic state. The similarity being that they are both special, altered forms of consciousness.

The point that ianzin made was that this is a bad comparison because they are NOT both special, altered forms of consciousness. Hypnosis may be (that’s debatable to say the least), but losing perspective of time on a driving trip is “normal consciousness, doing something that happens normally when one task if very familiar and routine.” Quote from ianzin, underlining mine.

Thus, while your primer might be helpful in another case, I’m not sure it’s so helpful here.

55

Okay, thanks for clearing that up, Doctor Who. :slight_smile: It’s just a pet peeve of mine when people knock down an analogy basically by saying that it isn’t identical in every way with its analog. Yes, if the point of the analogy was that both are altered states of consciousness, then the analogy was flawed. My apologies to Ianzin.

56

That one bugs me too, Lib, but it is one of the inherent dangers of trying to use analogies and is a good reason why they shouldn’t really be used in arguments/debates at all (not that this case is necessarily an argument).

57

[QUOTE=Mangetout]
That’s acupuncture, isn’t it? Or were the pins just to prove that it was working?
[/QUOTE]

This was just to prove it was working.

58

Here is my hypnotism story. My husband and I went to one of those stage shows. We were not selected as subjects, but we got to hear the whole spiel. So we went home, and then I, sort of as a joke, applied the techniques to my husband. “You are in a place of relaxation…you will get up half an hour before your usual rising time and you will cook eggs, bacon, and hash browns…” From the point of relaxation through all the steps of cooking breakfast.

Then I went off to sleep, visualizing that I would get a nice breakfast the next morning.

Big surprise. I woke up half an hour early, I got up, went downstairs, put the coffee on, broke eggs into a bowl, etc., etc.

This was not routine. I don’t wake up without a lot of prodding and I don’t cook. Did I hypnotize myself? I mean, I was expecting it to work on him.

59

No, but it sounds like you really put yourself in the mood for breakfast.

When you see a commercial for a snickers, and though you almost never have them you suddenly get an urge for one, did they hypnotize you?