MODULE 18 PREVIEW
Studies of hypnosis indicate that, although hypnotic procedures may facilitate recall, the hypnotist’s
beliefs frequently work their way into subjects’ recollections. Hypnosis can be at least temporarily
therapeutic and has the potential of bringing significant pain relief. Hypnosis may be both an extension
of normal principles of social influence and of everyday splits in consciousness.
GENERAL INSTRUCTIONAL OBJECTIVES
1. To explore the truth about hypnosis.
4. To discuss theories about whether hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness.
MODULE GUIDE
Facts and Falsehoods
1. Discuss hypnosis, noting the behavior of hypnotized people.
Hypnosis is a social interaction in which one person (the hypnotist) suggests to another (the subject) that
certain perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or behaviors will spontaneously occur. Afterward, subjects may
experience posthypnotic amnesia.
2. Discuss claims regarding the uses of hypnosis.
To some extent, nearly everyone is hypnotizable; however, only 20 percent of us is highly hypnotizable.
Subjects have reported that under hypnosis they have relived experiences from their childhood (age
regression). Although hypnotic procedures may help someone to recall something, the hypnotist’s beliefs
frequently work their way into the subject’s recollections. Research indicates that hypnotized people
cannot be made to act against their will any more than nonhypnotized people can, that hypnosis can be at
least temporarily therapeutic (through posthypnotic suggestion), and that hypnotizable people can enjoy
significant pain relief. One explanation is that this occurs through dissociation, a split between different
levels of consciousness.
Exercises: Hypnosis as Heightened Suggestibility; The Creative Imagination Scale; Hypnosis—A Stage Demonstration
Video: Module 2 of The Mind Series, 2nd ed.
Is Hypnosis an Altered State of Consciousness?
3. Discuss the controversy over whether hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness.
Some argue that hypnosis is a by-product of normal social and cognitive processes and thus not a unique
state of consciousness. These skeptics note that behaviors produced through hypnotic procedures can also
be produced without them. “Hypnotized” people may be acting the role of “good hypnotic subjects” and
allowing the hypnotist to direct their fantasies.
Others believe that hypnosis is more than imaginative acting. They note that hypnotized subjects
sometimes carry out suggested behaviors on cue, even when they believe no one is watching them.
Furthermore, they argue that certain phenomena are unique to hypnosis, for example, the reduction of
pain and the compelling hallucinations. The divided-consciousness theory of hypnosis argues that
hypnosis involves dissociation that is more extreme than the everyday dissociations that occur in our
information processing. Hilgard suggests that a hidden observer accounts for a hypnotized subject’s
awareness of experiences that go unreported during hypnosis.
Lecture: Is Hypnosis an Altered State of Consciousness?
Transparency: 90 Explaining Hypnosis