Hypnotism Updates Blog

Not all fields of learning are equally adapted to hypnotic suggestion. There is hardly any great future for it in ordinary sciences, such as mathematics, history, economics, or physics. Much more promising, in this respect, are arts and skills in which emotion, particularly fear, are involved. Take, for instance, stage-fright or self-consciousness in public appearances. Everybody knows its psychological effects. One's memory is ready, one is willing and anxious to act according to one's best ability; but something happens the moment one appears on the stage : movements become clumsy, voice trembling, and memory refuses to perform its normal service. Clearly, it is a case of inhibition, and often a rather ridiculous sight. Stage-fright is due, of course, to lack of confidence and is anything but useful to the performer. It deprives the speaker of that "at-home" attitude on the platform which is essential to the stage. It makes the actor self-conscious and, therefore, unnatural in his behavior precisely at the time when mental and bodily ease are a condition of his success. Both the cause and the cure of these wide-spread difficulties are psychological. Practice may help. But there is no better remedy for them than hypnotic treatment.

Hypnotism Updates Blog

The first principle in treating objectionable habits is to condition the subject to some powerful emotion. Disgust and fear seem to be most effective, in this respect. But other emotions can be employed as well, either pleasant or unpleasant, as the case requires. Pre-hypnotic suggestions are useful, but the practician should concentrate more extensively on suggestions during the trance. Not to repeat the common but faulty practice of amateurs, the hypnotist should avail himself of, rather than violate, the rules of everyday psychological approach. Thus, it is not enough to reiterate, however vehemently, statements like "You are disgusted with your habit. You hate it. You will do your best to overcome it." Rather, one should utilize Pavlov's discovery, extensively applied to human beings by K. Dunlap, that a deliberate and repeated stimulation tends to extinguish a conditioned reflex. If the subject has, for instance, the habit of biting his nails, he is urged, while in the trance, to bite his nails consciously and repeatedly. At the same time, this procedure is associated with the feeling of disgust. Light hypnosis (oneirosis) is, of course, preferable to achieve the intended results.

Hypnotism Info Updates

No less interesting are the possibilities offered by hypnosis in childbirth. A number of medical authorities, among them von Oettiger, J. Raefler, Schultze, and Mohr, advocated suggestion to facilitate labor, especially when the mother is psychologically opposed to having a baby. In commenting upon this question, Mohr said in effect: "There are a number of well authenticated cases in which the term of labor was fixed in hypnosis and the term kept. This offers a therapeutic possibility which is not surprising if one recalls how often psychic excitement exerts an accelerating or inhibiting influence on the process of labor. The extent to which the normal course of labor may be disturbed by psychic factors is seen perhaps most readily in cases where, because of complete distraction of attention, the automatic course of the process is not inhibited, i.e., in psychotic patients. A woman whose earlier deliveries could be handled only instrumentally can give birth easily in abnormally short time to a child of the same weight, after she has become mentally ill (this is something to which Bleuler also has called attention.)"

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Hypnotic Experiments News Blog

Though anaesthetics (ether and nitrous oxide) were known from the beginning of the nineteenth century, they were not applied to surgical practice until much later. The first operation under ether was performed in 1842, but anaesthesia was not generally used until about 1850. As far as local anaesthesia is concerned, it (cocaine) was not discovered until 1884 by C. Koller. It was approximately at this time that Esdaile, a British surgeon in India, decided to try hypnosis. In the brief period of 1847-1851, he performed, on the natives, altogether several hundred operations, both minor and major. During the first year, he was not completely successful, and some of his patients suddenly awoke in the midst of an operation. But in the subsequent years he improved his technique, gained in confidence, and operated without any disturbance on the part of his patients.

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Somnambulistic News Blog

Somnolence, it is true, may be all that is required in some cases, just as deep hypnosis may be needed in others. But in most instances, the advantages proffered by a closer contact with the autonomic nervous system are so great that a light trance is preferable whenever it can be produced. For it combines an adequate control of the subject's bodily functions with his willingness and cooperation. I have come also to the conclusion that the prevailing tendency among hypnotists to stress muscular and sensory inhibitions-not to move this limb or that, not to see this object, not to hear that sound, not to feel any pain-serves largely to conceal from scientific attention the vast field of positive suggestion. It consists in stimulating, rather than in inhibiting, various bodily and mental functions, as well as in removing undesirable inhibitions. Positive suggestion cannot always rely on mechanical obedience of the subject, which is usually connected with somnambulism. It often calls for an intense activity of the mind, in recalling forgotten experiences, in imagining new sensations, in reasoning out problems, and in establishing fresh forms of emotional conditioning. These purposes are promoted by the clearness of the subject's mind. He manifests a better response in a light trance.

Hypnosis Info Bulletin

Not only do I recommend practicians in hypnosis to take every sort of precaution for the sake of their patients and themselves; I also urge them to discourage every sign of a frivolous attitude toward this interesting field among their acquaintances and students, and to fight the abuse of hypnotic power by unscrupulous persons pursuing satisfaction of their vanity or an increase of income, rather than growth of knowledge and understanding. Not that hypnosis offers a rich field for abuse. As we have already seen, it is naturally protected against charlatans and criminals, both in regard to physical safety and moral corruption. Nevertheless, this protection is far from being sufficient. On the whole, it is true, as most scientific hypnotists assume, that the subject himself revolts against being forced to commit immoral or anti-social acts. But this is true only under normal and ordinary conditions. The possibility still remains that, in evil and skillful hands, suggestion can be used as a tool of considerable harmfulness.

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Hypnotic Suggestion Bulletin

Emotional agitation which naturally accompanies the expectation of being hypnotized for the first time should alone lead, as it seems, to unpleasant consequences and accidents. Fortunately for all concerned, this danger finds its antidote in the fact that hypnotic suggestion, properly controlled, is soothing. As J. B. Dynes says,2 "the hypnotic trance acts as a quieting influence." I have found, in my experience, nothing to contradict this observation.

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Hypnotic State Scoops

While suggestions are being given, the hypnotist should watch his subject closely. If he happens to feel uneasy or desires to make some important statement, he is not always able to manifest his wishes sufficiently plainly to attract the hypnotist's attention. Often his muscles are paralyzed for every practical purpose except to follow instructions given him. Nevertheless, motor impulses may succeed, not unlike in ordinary sleep, in breaking through the ties of inhibition and in producing a groan, a movement of the head, or result in some other slight indication. Five years ago I conducted a group experiment in education under oneirosis (a species of light hypnosis). Soon after I began to lecture, I noticed that one of my subjects, a girl already in the trance, moved her little finger again and again. The movements were merely incipient, but sufficiently obvious to make me realize that the girl wanted to express something or to communicate with me, but was unable to break the ties of muscular inhibition. I immediately interrupted the experiment, awoke her, and was told she was trying hard to inform me that I was talking too fast.

Hypnosis Daily Info Updates

In some cases requiring medical treatment, drugs may be of valuable assistance, as facilitating the process of hypnotizing. Alcohol and also chloroform, chloral hydrate (5 grains), paraldehyde (20 mms.), veronal (2 grain), and cannabis indica (12 grain) have been used with considerable success (Esdaile, Schrenck-Notzing, Herrero, Bernheim, Jastrow, and others). All systematic use of chemicals should be discouraged, however, and the hypnotist should resort to their application only in exceptional cases. In experiments, too, the practician should avoid drugs, unless the procedure be specially devised, following a careful estimate of the narcotic effect. Drugs will raise the percentage of successful hypnotization, to be sure; but, on the other hand, the significance of the results may be thereby greatly obscured. It then becomes somewhat difficult to determine precisely what role was played by the drug and what by the suggestion, and also to what extent did the narcotics interfere with the hypnotic regulation of bodily processes.

Hypnosis Daily Bulletin

These simple rules, though by no means compulsory in every case, are so elementary that they are being applied wherever suggestion is of value. Life imposes them, in fact, upon virtually all professional men, in their relations to clients. Any good physician, for instance, knows that the atmosphere of his office accounts for half of his success among patients, not only from the monetary but also from the curative point of view. And if he estimates soundly the role of these seemingly irrelevant factors, he will not hesitate to pay a high rent, to furnish his reception-room cleanly and impressively, and even to purchase an automobile whose make tends to magnify his prestige. That environment, if properly selected, facilitates suggestion should be best understood, of all people, by the hypnotist.

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The Hypnotic State Blog Update

There is, therefore, no need for us to believe that sleep and hypnosis are strictly identical. Their apparent similarity may signify a certain kinship of the two kinds of phenomena, a kinship assumed by the practicians since the days of Braid who called the hypnotic state "a nervous and artificial sleep." The late Professor I. P. Pavlov was the leading champion of the "Differentiation of the Hypnotic Trance from Normal Sleep," Journal of Experimental Psychology, hypothesis that ordinary sleep and hypnosis belong to the same group of phenomena and are merely different manifestations of inhibitory processes. According to him, the distinction between them can be briefly described as follows: "Inhibition is partial sleep, or sleep distributed in localized parts, forced into narrow limits. . . Hypnosis is inhibition spread over the usually active points in special areas of the hemispheres. Sleep is inhibition irradiated over the whole area of active points of the hemispheres and even over some parts of the brain below the cerebral hemispheres."

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Hypnotic State Blog Update

Full identity is out of question between the two sets of phenomena, hysteric and hypnotic. But the relationship is doubtless close. How can it be explained? A similarity of effects, anywhere in nature, can be accounted for, barring accident, in one of two ways: either the phenomena in question are themselves of the same kind or they proceed from a common source. The first alternative having been disproved by Bernheim, it remains for us to accept the second. As a parallel study of the phenomena of suggestion (including hypnosis) and those of hysteria shows a remarkable functional similarity, it must be rooted in the identity of the bodily mechanism underlying them, that is to say, in the mechanism of the autonomic nervous system. Hysteria, like the hypnotic state, manifests the signs of both the excitatory and inhibitory functions of the autonomic nervous system. The precipitating cause of neurosis is, as clinical observation demonstrates, almost invariably some shock of personal experience, but the basic explanation is to be looked for in some functional or organic disorder of the autonomic nervous system.

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Hypnotism Helpful Hints News

Persons have been known to drink kerosene or diluted ink with apparent pleasure, as if it were wine, tea or milk, depending on the suggestion. Persons have been known to turn away with the expression of disgust on their faces from an excellent perfume; or to inhale with delight the vapors from a bottle of ammonia. Perception, evidently, is subject to serious modification in hypnosis.Krafft-Ebing made his subjects develop goose-pimples by suggesting a cold bath to them; also to lower or raise their bodily temperature, in accordance with his directions. Bramwell changed the rate of pulsation, to range on different occasions between sixty and over one hundred beats per minute. Eichelberg caused fever, in the same manner. Skin blisters were produced by suggesting a burn in experiments undertaken independently by Wetterstrand, Schrenck-Notzing, Delboeuf, C. Kreibich, F. Heller, and others. Even time could be regulated in some instances almost to the minute when blisters were to appear.

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Hypnosis News Today

However, underneath the sensational appearance, there is nothing miraculous about the phenomena of hypnosis. It is important for scientific men to recognize this fact, before they can free themselves from mysticism in investigation as well as from the opposite (negative) prejudice that the phenomena of suggestion are not worthy of scientific attention. When a problem had been interpreted in a wrong way, the scientist is not justified to turn his mind away from it in disgust. He must face it and correct whatever mistakes had been committed. The truth remains that everything in nature deserves serious and accurate study, and that every phenomenon is natural. Such recognition is the first principle of scientific method and the chief prerequisite for all fruitful and careful research. A talented observer converted to mysticism ceases to be a scientist. Let there be no mistake, science comes not to promote but to destroy superstition. And now let us keep in mind that the phenomena underlying the field of hypnotism are natural.

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Hypnotizing Your Subject News

Process of Hypnotizing Once you have made up your mind to hypnotize a subject, be sure that there exists between you the relationship of prestige-and-faith. Furthermore, ascertain yourself that the subject is in good health. If you are not a physician, make him undergo a preliminary medical examination. Finally, take a written consent of your subject that he is willing to be hypnotized. This latter precaution is necessary mainly for your own protection. When you, or still better your assistant or secretary, are through with these preliminaries, everything is ready for hypnotizing. How will you go about it ?

Let it be understood that there exist countless techniques, all of which are equally good so long as they give confidence to the practician and faith to the subject. The only purpose of any method of hypnotizing is to concentrate the subject's attention and thus to eliminate most of the disturbing influences while leaving but a single channel of suggestion, which is usually the voice of the hypnotist and the ear of the subject.

Hypnosis Helpful Hints Blog

The subject of hypnosis needed to be taken off of the vaudeville stage, out of the laboratory, and into the minds of thoughtful persons everywhere. Its merits are solid and various. It begins by showing that the phenomena of hypnotism are not mystical but natural. As such, they are susceptible to scientific analysis as well as control.The author then arouses our interest by proceeding to give one of the best descriptions of hypnotic wonders in the literature of hypnosis. These, he shows, are closely connected with hysteria, and with the still better known effects of suggestion and emotion. His running account of all these effects makes the reader feel he owes it to himself to grasp the situation.

Hypnotic Influence Info

As to the causes of this condition as produced Dr. Cocke says: "I firmly believed that something would happen when the attempt was made to hypnotize me. Secondly, I wished to be hypnotized. These, together witha vivid imagination and strained attention, brought on the states which occurred."

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Free Hypnotism Helpful Hints

Such facts as these have stimulated experiment in the direction of testing thought transference. These experiments have usually been in the reading of numbers and names, and a certain measure of success has resulted. It may be added, however, that no claimants ever appeared for various banknotes deposited in strong-boxes, to be turned over to anyone who would read the numbers. Just why success was never attained under these conditions it would be hard to say. The writer once made a slight observation in this direction. When matching pennies with his brother he found that if the other looked at the penny he could match it nearly every time. There may have been some unconscious expression of face that gave the clue. Persons in hypnotic trance are expert muscle readers. For instance, let such a person take your hand and then go through the alphabet, naming the letters. If you have any word in your mind, as the muscle reader comes to each letter the muscles will unconsciously contract. By giving attention the muscles you can make them contract on the wrong letters and entirely mislead such a person.

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Hypnotism Scoops

It is on power of supersensory, or extra-sensory perception that what is known as telepathy and clairvoyance are based. That such things really exist, and are not wholly a matter of superstition has been thoroughly demonstrated in a scientific way by the British Society for Psychical Research, and kindred societies in various parts of the world. Strictly speaking, such phenomena as these are not a part of hypnotism, but our study of hypnotism will enable us to understand them to some extent, and the investigation of them is a natural corollary to the study of hypnotism, for the reason that it has been found that these extraordinary powers are often possessed by persons under hypnotic influence. Until the discovery of hypnotism there was little to go on in conducting a scientific investigation, because clairvoyance could not be produced by any artificial means, and so could not be studied underproper restrictive conditions.