Hypnosis Scoops Daily

The phenomenon of stage-fright affects not only actors; it is familiar in many walks of life. I recall my first experience in public lecturing. It was during my first or second year of graduate work at the University Even here hypnosis is not without value, as demonstrated by D. M. Allan's experiments on 60 college students. A large club of society women asked my department to send them a speaker. For some reason I was chosen. There was enough time for preparing the lecture, and I spent a great many hours in selecting and arranging material for it. Finally, the day has arrived, and I was ready and on time. The chairman asked me to say a few words about my experiences abroad, and then added a few flattering words of introduction. But once I faced the audience, I forgot all about the chairman's suggestion and went immediately on with my lecture, just as it had been prepared. I did not see anything, I did not hear anything, I was just rattling on with my speech-until the lecture was over. The ladies were quite encouraging in their applause. But I must have been, I know, a rather amusing sight. Was my experience exceptional? Certainly not.

Hypnotherapy Daily Bulletin

The typical progress of improvement using hypnosis in a case of nail-biting is described in the following report written by a subject of mine, S. K., who received but one treatment :

Wednesday, November 8, 1933.
"The first few hours after the experiment were not out of the ordinary. I did not try to bite my nails, but I believe this was more from will power than anything else, because my mind was constantly on my nails."

Thursday, November 9, 1933.
"The experiment seems to be working with quite a good deal of efficiency. I filed my nails, and rounded them off. My mind was not on my nails, and only once, when I saw an uneven curve, did I feel like biting it to round it off. However, I used the file."

Friday, November 10, 1933.
"Nothing unusual. I do not recall thinking of nails during the day, nor have I any recollection of trying to bite them."

Saturday, November 11,1933.
"I was asked how my nails were since the experiment. I looked at them, and found that they looked better than at any time for the past four or five years. Still have no desire to bite them, even to round them off. I just recalled that I used to bite them when I was excited over something, and that since Wednesday I have been excited over several things, and did not try to bite the nails."

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Hypnosis Daily Scoops

It is only fair to acknowledge, in this connection, that the above observations and experiments, conducted by individual physicians, cannot be regarded as the final word of investigation. Opinions differ, in fact, on the subject. Let me quote, for instance, from a recent statement issued by Dr. M. Fishbein, editor of the American Medical Association Journal: "Hypnotism has been used repeatedly for many years in an endeavor to alleviate the pains of childbirth but has not been found successful except in the case of hysterical individuals who have been repeatedly hypnotized and are therefore especially amenable to the power of suggestion." This, too, represents but a partisan belief. We must await experiments on a larger scale, capable of providing decisive evidence as to whether hypnosis can, indeed, help to combine the painlessness of "twilight sleep" and the flexible obedience to the physician's orders. In my mind there remains no doubt that it can. But we shall not have to wait long, perhaps, until this question is decided, one way or another. A big experiment, I hear, is being conducted in Soviet Russia, and one of these days prospective mothers may get glad news.

Hypnotic Suggestion Daily

It may be interesting to quote the description of one such operation performed by Esdaile's colleague, Dr. Webb, who spoke before the Medical College of Calcutta in these words: "I cannot recall without astonishment the extirpation of a cancerous eye, while the mart looked at me unflinchingly with the other one. In another case, the patient looked dreamily on with half-closed eyes the whole time of the operation, even while I examined the nature of the malignant tumor I had removed, and then, having satisfied myself, concluded the operation."Hypnotic suggestion penetrated considerably slower the field of therapeutic medicine. Yet here its influence was more lasting, it seems. In the course of the last thirty or forty years, ample evidence has been accumulated to show that hypnosis can be successfully used in the treatment of many diseases, especially when they are rooted in neurotic disorders and complexes. The older evidence was carefully collected and discussed in detail in two books of the same title, Hypnotism, by A. Moll and J. M. Bramwell, but much additional material can be found in various scientific journals of recent date. Finally, the latest scientific findings were compiled and briefly discussed by H. F. Dunbar, in her Emotions and Bodily Changes.

Hypnotizm Daily News

So I proceeded to develop a state in which the subject's mind is instructed to remember, to think, to criticize, in short, to be free and active; while the body persists in the inhibited state, with an open channel connecting consciousness and the autonomic nervous system. The procedure aimed simply to utilize every advantage of the trance and to remove its common disadvantages.The resulting form of light hypnosis I called oneirosis, to indicate its kinship to somnolence and slumber ("oneiros" means dream in Greek), rather than to sleep ("hypnos," sleep) that often is an enduring dark emptiness, as far as memory and experience are concerned.

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The Hypnosis Suggestions Scoops

The reason for the erroneous generalization drawn by many authorities on the subject lies in the inadequacy of their information. The evidence they have collected has almost invariably been insufficient, and in their own experiments they have commonly sinned against the simplest laws of suggestion. If a hypnotized subject is instructed in a crude fashion, such as "Go to this house and steal the necklace that lies in the top drawer of a dresser, second room to the right," he surely will not obey, unless, perhaps, he is a habitual thief. For some unknown reason, hypnotists commonly assume that the tone of sharp command is the most effective method of securing a blind obedience of the subject. In this they are not fully wrong. Firmness is recommended, no doubt, yet orders are obeyed only when the atmosphere of willing cooperation or that of animal fear has already been established. Surely, the emotion of fear is not the standard means of scientific suggestion. The remaining way of willing cooperation is much more desirable as well as effective.

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Hypnosis Info Updates Blog

No more truth is found in the contention, often heard in popular discussions, that hypnosis undermines the will of the subject and, when the sittings are regularly repeated, makes him hypersuggestible, a slave, as it were, to the commands of the practician. This contention is merely a vicious superstition of long standing, with no facts available to confirm it. A careful study of effects has substantiated, contrariwise, the enlightened opinion of scientists, that hypnosis has no known psychological ill-effects on the subjects. "Far from making them hypersuggestible," says Dr. Erickson, "it was found necessary to deal very gingerly with them to keep from losing their cooperation and it was often felt that they developed a compensatory negativism toward the hypnotist to offset any increased suggestibility."

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In the State Daily Blog

Some hypnosis experiments and treatments, as in the above instance, do not require the subject to produce any movements at all. He remains sitting in the chair, seemingly passive, with his eyes shut. Other cases call for various motions. Muscular inhibition, it seems, can be created or abolished practically at will; the practician's suggestion suffices to paralyze or to stimulate a muscle.

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The Hypnotic State Info Update

The beginner should not be impatient. He must be prepared to wait ten, fifteen, or more minutes before his subject enters the trance. Nor should he relieve the feeling of uncertainty by challenging his subject, "You cannot open your eyes. No matter how hard you try it, you cannot." Especially bad is to add contradiction to mistake, by persisting, "Well, try it " As a matter of fact, if the assertion is made before the subject is really in the state, he usually does open his eyes. As a result, the practician's prestige may be lowered, and the chances for success seriously diminished. I am, therefore, more than in agreement with Professor McDougall who remarked, "Challenge to movement in this early stage is a doubtful policy. If the suggestion fails, the failure is prejudicial, though not necessarily fatal, to the success of further suggestion."

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Hypnosis Daily Info Blog

There is usually no serious reason for objecting to the presence of the subject's friends during a sitting. Quite the contrary, they often help to keep the patient's mind at ease. There are, in fact, persons (quite numerous, too) who feel a vague but strong apprehension that something might happen to them in the state of hypnotic "sleep." They commonly ask permission to bring a friend along, which request should be granted without hesitation. It happens occasionally that such visitors fall into a trance themselves, with no previous intention to be so influenced. This happens so frequently, in fact, that one concludes that the spectacle of hypnosis acts contagiously. For this reason, group sittings are generally quite successful, and the number of subjects, all hypnotized at once, is small handicap. These group sittings, however, should never be transformed into public demonstrations, unless there exists a special scientific purpose therefore. I shall describe, to begin with, a simple method which I found quite practicable and convenient, and then, if the reader wishes to modify it or to select some other technique successfully used by some authority in the field, he is welcome and free to do so. He knows best the circumstances under which he intends to work.

Hypnotism Helpful Hints News

I find myself in fairly close agreement with Pavlov, in so far as he recognized the neural origin of hypnosis and the vital role of inhibition in its inward and outward manifestations. However, neither Pavlov nor his predecessors have apparently noticed the important fact-or thought important to emphasize it-that the control and regulation of inhibition involved in hypnosis, and probably also in sleep, resides primarily in the autonomic nervous system and finds its expression, only as an effect, in the cortex of the brain, which is the seat of consciousness. As far as sleep is concerned, its lasting nature, with drowsiness commonly preceding and following it, seems to indicate a neural inhibition accompanied with general metabolic changes. It is possible that the latter are due to the secretion of substances like hypothetical "hypnotoxin" of Piéron or, more likely, "sympathin" of Cannon and Rosenblueth. The quickness with which inhibition and excitation set in and vanish in a hypnotic state, demonstrates that the "The Identity of Inhibition with Sleep and Hypnosis," Scientific Monthly, changes constituting the bodily state of hypnosis are mainly of neural nature. Consequently, they can be introduced or removed with the speed of nervous conduction, that is to say, practically instantaneously.

Hypnosis News Today

There is, however, one important difference between hysteria and the hypnotic state, which accounts for the fact that people free from hysteria can nevertheless be hypnotized. Hysteria, namely, is a disease, a combination of pathological phenomena, indicating some defect of the system (glandular or neural), some unfortunate emotional experience in the patient's past (accident, love affair, bankruptcy, etc.), harmful influences of an unfriendly social environment (resulting in frustration and repression of basic urges, in unfavorable conditioned reflexes), or, most likely, some combination of these factors. All forms of hysteria, grave or mild, are symptoms of malady.

The hypnotic state, on the other hand, utilizes the normal mechanism of suggestion. A trance can be induced perhaps with greater ease among hysterics. Yet it is a mechanism found in all people, sick and healthy. Among normal people, to be sure, it does not manifest itself conspicuously, apart from hypnosis, and attracts one's attention no more than do the activities of one's liver or kidneys in a healthy condition. This mechanism is of great interest to the scientist, not only because it throws a new light on hysteria and, as we presently shall see, on psychoanalysis, Christian Science, and other forms of faith-healing, but also because a practical acquaintance with the physiology of suggestion opens countless other opportunities.

Hypnosis Helpful Hints Blog

I follow other authorities on the subject in distinguishing between hypnotism, as a body and field of knowledge, and hypnosis, as a phenomenon and state. One hundred and fifty years ago F. A. Mesmer (1733-1815), a Viennese physician, attempted to raise the art of suggestion to the level of practical science. But the flavor of magic was strong with him, just as it was strong with many of his successors. A believer in a causal connection between heavenly bodies and human lives, Mesmer revived the spirit of ancient astrology and taught that there exists "a fluid universally diffused, so continuous as not to admit of a vacuum, incomparably subtle, and naturally susceptible of receiving, propagating, and communicating all motor disturbances." This fluid, according to Mesmer, accounted for the phenomena of magnetism; but it acquired a particular significance in the human being who has two magnetic poles (!?). As a result, "animal magnetism" becomes a power that can be accumulated, concentrated and transferred.

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Hypnotism Daily

As interesting as the first part of the book "Theory" is, we feel that the part on "Practice" is still more absorbing. Dr. Winn, a professional hypnotist as well as a professor of psychology, has had much practical experience, and in his chapter "How To Hypnotize," he gives several advanced pointers that are usually ignored. The great importance of post-hypnotic suggestions, as yet not fully explored, is urged. (We feel that self-hypnosis, with regular "booster meetings" given by the hypnotist himself to the individual, is a rich and undeveloped field.)

Hypnotic State Update

On the occasion which he describes, the hypnosis operator commanded him to close his eyes and told him he could not open them, but he did open them at once. Again he told him to close the eyes, and at the same time he gently stroked his head and face and eyelids with his hand. Dr. Cocke fancied he felt a tingling sensation in his forehead and eyes, which he supposed came from the hand of the operator. (Afterward he came to believe that this sensation was purely imaginary on his part.)

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Hypnotism Script Daily Scoops

"He said I seemed to go into another room, and from thence into a dark closet. I wanted something off the shelf, but did not know what. I took down from the shelf a piece of smooth cloth, a long, square paste boardbox and a tin engine. These were all the sensations he had experienced. I asked him if he saw the articles with his eyes which I had removed from the shelf. He answered that the closet was dark and that he only felt them with his hands. I asked him how he knew that the engine was tin. He said: 'By the sound of it.' As my hands touched it I heard the wheels rattle. Now the only sound made by me while in the closet was simply the rattling of the wheels of the toy as I took it off the shelf. This could not possibly have been heard, as the hypnotized subject was distant from me two large rooms, and there were two closed doors between us, and the noise was very slight. Neither could the subject have judged where I went, as I had on light slippers which made no noise. The subject had never visited the house before, and naturally did not know the contents of the closet as he was carefully observed from the moment he entered the house."

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Hypnotize for a Cure Bulletin

The first case was that of a girl suffering from hysterical tremor. The doctor had hypnotized her for the cure of it, and accidentally stumbled on an example of thought transference. She complained on one occasion of a taste of spice in her mouth. As the doctor had been chewing some spice, he at once guessed that this might be telepathy. Nothing was said at the time, but the next time the girl was hypnotized, the doctor put a quinine tablet in his mouth. The girl at once asked for water, and said she had a very bitter taste in her mouth. The water was given her, and the doctor went behind a screen, where he put cayenne pepper in his mouth, severely burning himself. No one but the doctor knew of the experiment at the time. The girl immediately cried and became so hysterical that she had to be awakened. The burning in her mouth disappeared as soon as she came out of the hypnotic state, but the doctor continued to suffer. Nearly three hundred similar experiments with thirty-six different subjects were tried by Dr. Cocke, and of these sixty-nine were entirely successful. The others were doubtful or complete failures.