Supernatural mind control, placebo effect or something in between? Hypnosis takes us on a journey into the mind…
In its simplest terms, hypnosis is a process by which someone becomes less aware of conscious thought and inhibition, and more open to suggestion. Changes in the brain’s neural activity can alter the subject’s perceptions and emotions, enabling them to focus their thoughts and filter out distractions. One key area involved in such altered states includes the frontal lobe, which accounts for a large portion of the brain’s mass and is responsible for a person’s personality, emotions and long-term memory.
Changing the brain’s frontal lobe function in turn alters a person’s subjective experience of reality, cognitive processes shift and elective actions occur without conscious volition. Other areas of the brain that are involved with altered states include: the parietal lobe, which can distort the subject’s perception of space and time; the thalamus, which can induce the feeling in a subject that they’re ‘in a world of their own’; and the reticular formation, which receives sensory information from the outside world and determines what is important and what’s not, so as to prevent us from suffering sensory overload.
Hypnotism is a form of dissociation that works by allowing the patient to respond to suggestion while ignoring competing or incompatible stimuli. This is achieved by means of existing mental faculties. People who are hypnotized have the same physical and mental abilities that they possess in a normal state. They cannot be empowered to perform acts of superhuman strength, nor can they be forced to recall events that they never retained, such as memories of their infancy.
Who can be hypnotized?
Scientists are always searching for characteristics that will predict successful hypnotism. They have ruled out any association between hypnotisability and being ‘weak willed’ or gullible. Nor are people with dissociative qualities or excellent imaginations especially open to this practice. However, it does appear that people who have the ability to become completely engrossed in daydreams or music are more likely to respond to hypnosis than those who cannot.
Read also Lifestyle Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy Auckland and Hypnosis and hypnotherapy training courses provided by LCCH