The subject basically pretends that everything that hypnotist says is true. Have you ever played a video game and got so wrapped up in the virtual world you just stopped noticing the real world? That’s called immersion, and it’s achieved by keeping your attention focused on the game. When your attention drifts away from the game, you start noticing that it’s 2 am or that’s you’ve been playing for four hours, and you remember that you are not in the video game, you’re just playing a video game. But as long as your attention remains on game, your feel like you are actually living in the video game’s world. Gamers love the feeling of immersion, so developers put a lot of work into figuring out how to keep gamers attention, which maintains the immersion.
Hypnosis works on the same principle. The hypnotist uses the patients full attention to create an imaginary world that feels real to the patient. The difference between video games and hypnosis is hypnosis patients actively give their attention to the hypnotist, while gamers passively expect the game to take their attention. When a hypnotic induction starts, the subject is asked to imagine the something in great detail, effecitvely putting the onus on the subject to make sure their attention is doesn’t drift. But when a video game starts, the gamer just watches the screen and expects the game to be interesting enough to keep her attention.
Hypnotism is more immersive than video games because the subject is helping the hypnotist keep her attention. This allows the hypnotist to create a virtual reality that is more convincing than video games. But it’s still just a game of pretend.
I always used to finish with the invisibility suggestion, but as I would generally follow the performances with an informal chat about it all, I would always ask the subjects what they had actually experienced.
Out of the, say, ten or so subjects who were given the suggestion, the responses might break down in the following way. Two had obviously been able to see me and had been openly separated from the rest of the group. Two or three would swear that the puppet and chair were moving all on their own and they could not see me, even though they may have guess I was somehow remotely responsible for the chaos that ensued. The remaining five or six would generally say they were aware I was there moving the objects, but that something in them would keep trying to blank me out, and they could only act as if I were invisible.
A professional hypnotist once told me that it is very difficult to hypnotize “mathematicians” (him meaning: math, physics, and computer science students), because (this was his intepretation) they are too well connected with the reality and will not accept nonsense. But he also said that given enough time and trying different hypnotists, probably everyone can be hypnotized.
This happened at a hypnosis training camp, where this guy had an interesting idea: To teach hypnosis more efficiently, he would hypnotize all the participants and give them hypnotic commands to remember the lessons better. And then he would teach the theory and let us do the exercises, as usual. Also, he said that in order to learn hypnosis it is better to be hypnotized first, because then you know what it feels like to be hypnotized, and that knowledge is very useful when hypnotizing others (you have better intuition on what can and cannot work). -- This strategy seemed to work for many participants, most of which were psychology students. Only two people in the group couldn’t be hypnotized: me and one girl, both students of computer science. The only time in my life when I regretted I wasn’t more susceptible to hypnosis. So at the end, all I learned was some theory.
A professional hypnotist once told me that it is very difficult to hypnotize “mathematicians” (him meaning: math, physics, and computer science students), because (this was his intepretation) they are too well connected with the reality and will not accept nonsense.
“Connected to reality” is in this context a nice way of saying that someone can’t let go and relax.
Computer Science/Physics/Math people especially have a problem with forgetting numbers because numbers are way more important for them then the usual person.
Also, he said that in order to learn hypnosis it is better to be hypnotized first, because then you know what it feels like to be hypnotized, and that knowledge is very useful when hypnotizing others (you have better intuition on what can and cannot work). -
That’s not about having an intuition about what works. Part of hypnotising somebody else effectively involves going into a trance state yourself.
Do you know how normal hypnotism works?
No
The subject basically pretends that everything that hypnotist says is true. Have you ever played a video game and got so wrapped up in the virtual world you just stopped noticing the real world? That’s called immersion, and it’s achieved by keeping your attention focused on the game. When your attention drifts away from the game, you start noticing that it’s 2 am or that’s you’ve been playing for four hours, and you remember that you are not in the video game, you’re just playing a video game. But as long as your attention remains on game, your feel like you are actually living in the video game’s world. Gamers love the feeling of immersion, so developers put a lot of work into figuring out how to keep gamers attention, which maintains the immersion.
Hypnosis works on the same principle. The hypnotist uses the patients full attention to create an imaginary world that feels real to the patient. The difference between video games and hypnosis is hypnosis patients actively give their attention to the hypnotist, while gamers passively expect the game to take their attention. When a hypnotic induction starts, the subject is asked to imagine the something in great detail, effecitvely putting the onus on the subject to make sure their attention is doesn’t drift. But when a video game starts, the gamer just watches the screen and expects the game to be interesting enough to keep her attention.
Hypnotism is more immersive than video games because the subject is helping the hypnotist keep her attention. This allows the hypnotist to create a virtual reality that is more convincing than video games. But it’s still just a game of pretend.
From Derren Brown’s Tricks of the Mind:
A professional hypnotist once told me that it is very difficult to hypnotize “mathematicians” (him meaning: math, physics, and computer science students), because (this was his intepretation) they are too well connected with the reality and will not accept nonsense. But he also said that given enough time and trying different hypnotists, probably everyone can be hypnotized.
This happened at a hypnosis training camp, where this guy had an interesting idea: To teach hypnosis more efficiently, he would hypnotize all the participants and give them hypnotic commands to remember the lessons better. And then he would teach the theory and let us do the exercises, as usual. Also, he said that in order to learn hypnosis it is better to be hypnotized first, because then you know what it feels like to be hypnotized, and that knowledge is very useful when hypnotizing others (you have better intuition on what can and cannot work). -- This strategy seemed to work for many participants, most of which were psychology students. Only two people in the group couldn’t be hypnotized: me and one girl, both students of computer science. The only time in my life when I regretted I wasn’t more susceptible to hypnosis. So at the end, all I learned was some theory.
“Connected to reality” is in this context a nice way of saying that someone can’t let go and relax. Computer Science/Physics/Math people especially have a problem with forgetting numbers because numbers are way more important for them then the usual person.
That’s not about having an intuition about what works. Part of hypnotising somebody else effectively involves going into a trance state yourself.