What do you make of this study: A direct intracranial record of emotions evoked by subliminal words?
This is more or less what I was going to post. I have seen a few stage hypnosis shows from backstage and chatted with the hypnotist. He deliberately weeded out people who wouldn’t be receptive, and said it didn’t work on anyone drunk.
It may not be a trance or special altered state of mind but there is a definite technique to getting people to behave in extraordinary ways that is more sophisitcated than just saying act like a chicken.
Have you ever tried doing such with a true, Vidalia, Georgia Onion? It’s no problem to do so, really. They’re perfectly edible in such a state, and you’d really be surprised that it’s an onion that you’re eating in such a fashion.
I can make a hat, or a brooch, or a pterodactyl!
Thomas Mann wrote a novella Mario and the Magician about a stage magician in Italy who compels the audience to make fools of themselves. It was an allegory of Fascism. At the end of the story, a working-class guy named Mario puts an end to the fun by shooting the evil magician
I took a fringe psychology class as an undergraduate. The prof brought a hypnotist to class and had himself “put under.” He lay down stiffly and his face took on a stupid expression with his eyes half closed. The hypnotist told him to visualize the second hand sweeping around a clock face and to raise his hand when exactly 60 seconds had elapsed. There was no clock in the prof’s field of vision. Ready, set, go! We followed the second hand on the clock, and the prof’s hand shot up at about 59 seconds. What was up with that? He also did the body-stiff-as-a-board trick lying across two chairs with a gap of a few feet in between.
After Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, the press reported that Sirhan Sirhan used to “hypnotize himself” to make himself an assassin, something involving a candle and mirror in a darkened room. Conspiracy theories since then have speculated that Sirhan was some sort of Manchurian candidate. In prison, he denied that he was capable of killing anyone and he had no memory of pulling the trigger, no memory of planning to kill Kennedy. It’s all very murky. Sirhan’s motivation for killing Kennedy was supposed to have been the 1967 Six Day War. That makes me skeptical. Oh yeah, everybody knows Arabs are murderous fiends.
And if she was also still pretending to be a chicken, she would b-wauk at it.
Because otherwise this whole exercise is theoretical. Every “hypnosis” show I’ve ever been to was at a comedy club, staged for the purpose of putting butts in seats. A hypnosis show boasting of unattractive people “taking it all off” just wouldn’t sell as many tickets, I don’t think…
…You are getting sleepy…you won’t do anything under hypnosis…you won’t do anything under hypnosis…in a few minutes you will wake up convinced you won’t do anything under hypnosis…
Hey I found the clip. (free registration req.)
It’s program #14 The Mind Hidden and Divided. The segment on hypnosis is somewhere between the 11 min. mark and 18 min. I couldn’t really watch it because my internet connection is poor and it’s a stream. I also couldn’t find the onion demo (I might be remebering that from elsewhere). But similarly, the first demo shows a guy who’s under convinced that amonia is a musky, masculine-smelling cologne. The second is the ice water demo.
None of this really contradicts anything you’ve said ianzin. I just wonder how Kreskin is defining his terms? There is certainly an altered state of perception here. How that differs from a “trance” state I don’t know.
Good find! I’m not sure I have sufficient intellect or academic candle power to understand the paper, but in so far as I can grasp what it’s saying, I agree that it seems to lend some credence to the view that subliminal messages might actually have an effect. In other words, maybe what I said before was wrong. However, it doesn’t seem to be quite as clear cut as all that, and the authors themselves point out that, “Our study concerns only a limited number of epileptic patients receiving antiepileptic drugs. Thus, the results may not be easily generalized to normal subjects.” And what they showed was a far cry from any form of subliminal advertising actually persuading people to make particular purchasing decisions, which is the concern behind most discussions about sublimnal messages. But yeah… good find! Maybe it’s my own ignorance that needs fighting!
But they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes.
There seems to be a logical disconnect here, and it might be me.
If (supposedly) hypnotized people feel relaxed to the point where they can blame their behavior on the hypnosis — that is, use the hypnosis as an excuse for behavior they would have done anyway — then doesn’t hypnotism have to be known to work first?
I mean, if a great many people would get up on stage and say to the failed hypnotist, “This is crap, this doesn’t work,” then the “I was hypnotized!” excuse falls to the ground and people wouldn’t use it any longer.
I understand there were once people who did things and said the devil made me do it or blamed their inappropriate behavior on elves and witches. Even today there are people who say the Internet is controlling them, or that the CIA has implanted mind-control chips in their butts. Did hypnotism happen to come along at the right time when “the devil” and “witches” were on their way out as an acceptable excuse?
Been there, done that, only without the hypnosis. It was at a summer camp, and with ice-cold spring water. The counsellor challenged everyone to hold their hands in the spring for as long as possible. Most folks immediately pulled their hands out within seconds after they put them in, since it was an unexpected shock, and pulling one’s hands out is an almost reflex-level reaction. But if you stay past that initial shock, it’s really not all that bad. I kept my hands in for over ten minutes (well, 10:01, but that’s still over ten minutes), and while it was certainly uncomfortable, it’s not exactly agonizing. The non-hypnotized subject could be counted on to pull his hands out quickly, because that’s what most people do, but it wouldn’t take much effect from hypnotism for the person who’s under to realize that it’s not so bad.
As for stage hypnosis, from what I understand, the biggest skill involved is in choosing good volunteers. Some folks are inherently more likely than others to do entertaining things on stage, and a good stage hypnotist can recognize and choose those folks as his volunteer. Note also that most stage shows have a dozen or more people under at once. This tends to impress the audience, but it actually makes the performer’s job easier: All he needs is one ham among those twelve to steal the show, and everybody will just notice that one.
And even if the show includes something extreme like stripping, well, a lot of people have exhibitionist tendancies, and are just waiting for a context where it’s socially acceptable. Ever been to New Orleans, before Katrina (or maybe even after; I’m not sure how well the atmosphere of the city has recovered)? A fair segment of the population will actually flash, because on Bourbon Street at night, it’s considered acceptable. Granted, it’s probably harder to find someone willing to strip on stage than it is to find someone willing to act like a chicken, but with a large enough crowd to choose from, you can probably find one. And if you can’t, then the hypnotist just doesn’t do that part of the show.
I’m :dubious: ske?tical of claims that hypnosis is real. I’m also ske?tical of claims that hypnosis is phoney baloney. Is that ske?tical enough for the Straight Dope?
To compound matters, I’m skeptical of skepticism, i.e., this method of knowledge could well be yielding inadequate data for all the heck I can tell.
You didn’t quote the very next sentence: “However, in all three patients, seizures did not involve the amygdala region, suggesting that our records may reflect essentially normal processing.”
Amygdala activity tends to correspond to the “significance” of stimuli. I get the feeling that you are assuming a caricature: “You must buy this candy today” and then noticing that the candy wasn’t bought that day and hence it doesn’t work. Even regular advertising doesn’t work that way. They just make you aware of the brand/product, and aim to setup a pleasant association, so that if 3 weeks later, you notice it while shopping, there’s a higher probability than before of you trying it. A minority of (impulsive) people may respond to the advertising in a direct cause-effect fashion, but not most.
I practice amateur hypnosis at home. Basically, when something is worrying me (I can be a nervy type A person at times) I get a friend to hypnotize me. Then they will say a bunch of reassuring stuff along the lines of 'You can handle your problems. You feel strength within yourself. You are able to relax. When you wake up you will have a good night’s sleep and wake up the next morning feeling happy and capable."
I don’t have any way to prove this, but it seems to work quite well. And I certainly do enter an altered state- throught the whole thing I am sure that I could move and talk and wake up if I wanted to…but I never want to. Ever. It’s wierd thinking you are in control, and then realizing you arn’t, really.
Is this because of some magic effect? No. It’s probably the result of feeling safe and relaxed and having someone that cares about me. I think it probably does bring me a state of heightened relaxation. And that makes it a valuable tihng for me.
Too many possibilities to say for sure. Some people just have an accurate sense of time. Your professor may have been able to replicate this feat any time. Somebody else may have been, deliberately or otherwise, been giving the professor cues as to the passage of time. It could have been a lucky shot that the hypnotist and professor couldn’t reproduce in years of trying.
I’m surprised Ianzin didn’t adress this. Numerous books teaching stage magic reveal the amazing secret. The average person can do this without hypnosis of any kind. You can even have another person stand on them. So long as their feet are far enough from the stiff-as-a-board’s waist, simple physics will make the trick work.
So far, no one has reported that any subject of hypnosis, and they’re all voluntary, more or less by definition, has reported anger, disgust, horrific embarrassment, threats of lawsuits, etc. as a result of their behavior. This would indicate at least a minimum level of acceptance of their actions. According to some well accepted theories of hypnotism which I have just recently made up, the so-called hypnotic trance is not a level of consciousness that is totally out of the subject’s control, and consequently, a subject of hypnotism can not be made to do something that s/he truly finds morally repulsive or repugnant. This does not mean that someone who may pose as a moral crusader may not be made to do something that underneath it all he might be attracted to. We’ve seen plenty of clergy caught in internet stings, for instance. But to answer the OP, no, a person cannot be made to do something that he fundamentally does not want to do.
For the record, I’m a professional stage hypnotist (Martin Taylor: The Hypnotist Who Doesn’t Use Hypnosis) and I was directed to this thread by Ianzin, whose views on hypnosis broadly accord with my own.
This question is one which I’m always asked in my shows, usually with the words: “Can you make someone do something she doesn’t want to do?”
The most succinct answer I can offer is: you can’t make someone do something she doesn’t want to do; you can make someone do something she doesn’t want to admit she wants to do.
I think that more or less says it all.
I feel vindicated.