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I was horizontal in the dental chair, waiting for two cavities to be drilled and filled. You know the routine. When I told the dentist I didn’t want any anesthetic, he gave me a wide-eyed “Really?”
“Please just let me have the room to myself for five minutes, and when you return, have at it,” I told him.
Once alone, I rolled my eyes upward, closing them, and took full breaths, imagining I was walking down a spiral staircase into a dark, quiet room below. By the time they returned, I was in a deep, self-induced hypnotic trance. As they commenced operations, I heard and felt everything, but from a detached and non-reactive mental posture. I noticed the pain, but its intensity was greatly diminished. That was decades ago, during my certification training in hypnotherapy.
Fast forward to the recent past at a workplace holiday party where the evening’s entertainment was a stage hypnotist. Several of my colleagues sat in a row facing the assembled while the smartly dressed barker induced them into trances and suggested they engage in all manner of amusing tricks, which most did. The audience roared with laughter, but I was not amused.
These two examples encapsulate the divergent perceptions most folks harbor toward hypnosis. Regardless, the neuroscience tells us trance states facilitate deep mental quiescence, memory recall, pain relief and subconsciously induced behavior change. For example, the pain-relieving power of hypnosis can be extraordinary. Several studies indicate the degree of analgesia while in a hypnotic trance can meet or exceed that from morphine, at least for certain conditions and procedures. Examples in this regard include childbirth, bone marrow aspirations, burn wound debridement and dental work, among others.
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Masquerading as Mind Control
In contrast, stage hypnotism masquerades as mind control, implying that one submits to the will of the hypnotist, following their suggestions like an automaton. Its practitioners exploit their subjects for entertainment, not help or healing. What’s more, there are disturbing accounts of physical injuries and mental distress resulting from some stage hypnotism, so certain countries (not ours) regulate the practice.
So, what is hypnosis? Well, while hypnotized, attention focuses narrowly, and awareness of one's surroundings diminishes. Some subjects describe it as being in a pleasant but shadowy, near-soundproof room. Inputs from the external environment may be restricted to the voice of the hypnotherapist. Unusual physical sensations sometimes accompany trance states, such as feeling as if one's body is levitating.
Until neuroscientists began studying hypnotic consciousness, most assumed it was simply a state of deep relaxation. However, subsequent research suggests a hypnotic trance differs from other kinds of awareness, incorporating its own unique qualities of mind. Chief among these is compartmentalization, the capacity to divide one’s awareness between two or more distinct perceptual vantage points. For example, during my dental procedure, my mind separated from but remained dispassionately aware of the part of me undergoing the operation.
An estimated 15% of us are highly hypnotizable and, in kind, very receptive to hypnotic suggestions (as opposed to commands), such as diminished pain perception or behavior change. An estimated 10% are all but incapable of achieving trance, while most of us reside somewhere in between. Many who are moderately to highly hypnotizable can learn to induce a hypnotic state on their own (self-hypnosis).
The ability to enter a trance appears dependent on brain morphology and is largely inherited, so you either have it or you don't. While there are no particular personality types more prone to hypnosis than others, hypnotic capacity correlates with being creative, empathic, disposed to fantasy and easily immersed in engaging experiences.
Now, contrary to popular misconception, hypnosis is not mind control. A hypnotist cannot compel someone to override her or his values or behavioral restraints, so the highly hypnotizable are no more gullible or submissive than folks who can't achieve trance. Rather, it engages mental resources and capacities otherwise inaccessible to the conscious mind, using them to promote learning, insight and behavior change.
Hypnosis is a bona fide psychotherapeutic treatment, not a parlor game.
For more, visit philipchard.com.
