You're getting sleepy...sleepy!: Subjects in the University of Hull hypnosis study were asked to imagine a non-existent cat. This isn't it. Or is it?
Courtesy rKnightA new study out of the University of Hull in Great Britain shows a person’s brain displays visible changes while under hypnosis.
Hypnosis has been around for a long time and used by professionals to help people reduce stress or pain, eliminate phobias, quit smoking, lose weight, and for just general relaxation. It’s also used as entertainment.
We’ve all seen the classic routine of volunteers in a trance running around on stage clucking like chickens. Or where somebody suddenly jumps up to dance like Pee Wee Herman when the song “Tequila” starts playing. Or where some poor fool thinks he or she is suddenly buck-naked on stage when the hypnotist utters a “trigger” word or phrase such as “monkey wrench”.
Some folks are easily hypnotized, others aren’t. When I still smoked, I had my doctor use hypnosis to help me stop (I don’t know that it worked – I still smoked after that although I did quit several years later so maybe the hypnosis planted something in my brain). In the past, I’ve volunteered at hypnosis stage shows I’ve attended but never seemed to get picked as a malleable subject. Like me you may considered myself unsusceptible to hypnosis but I believe we’ve all experienced hypnotic states when lost in music, or when driving, or just zoned out in front of the television. It’s as if the conscious brain shifts into neutral and the subconscious takes over.
In the Hull University study, researchers compared the brainwaves of ten “highly suggestible” (i.e. easily hypnotized) individuals against those of seven individuals who had low response to hypnosis. All the test subjects were asked to perform minor tasks such as “seeing” non-existent animals, or “listening” to non-existent music. During rest period between tasks brainwaves were carefully tracked using functional magnetic imaging (fMRI).
It was in these rest periods where the brains of the highly suggestible subjects showed decreased activity in the region where daydreaming or mind wandering occurred. The other group’s brains showed no such change at those times. The results give credence to the theory that hypnosis acts as a primer for individuals susceptible to suggestion.
“Our study shows that hypnosis is real,” said Dr William McGeown, a psychologist at Hull, and the study’s lead researcher. “It corresponds to a unique pattern of brain activation which was not observed in any other experimental condition and was not seen in people who were not hypnotizable.”
Results of the study were published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.
Hull University press release
More about hypnosis
And even more about hypnosis
Hypnosis is not just a parlor show, but a real tool that can be used for helping people who wish to overcome phobias, as well as entertainment. It is true that most of us are in a hypnotic state at some point each day whether we are driving the car, watching tv, or stirring a pot while cooking. Our minds wander, daydreaming and we are lost in the moment.....
Science Buzz is supported by the National Science Foundation.
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