Hypnosis Stage Shows – by Arafin

“Does hypnosis work on its own or because the volunteer made his or her mind to do as suggested simply because they agreed to be hypnotized and should just behave as suggested?”

From the language employed in the question, (”volunteer”, “agreed”, “behave”), I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that a hypnosis stage show is being described here. Please forgive me if I am wrong. A stage hypnotist will ask for volunteers. Those that raise their hands are already agreeing to be hypnotized. The hypnotist then uses a variety of tests to select the most suggestible subjects and politely asks the others to sit down. Those few left on stage are thus agreeable to being hypnotized and hopefully very suggestible.

Subjects who naturally take things very literally usually make better subjects for a stage show than those who analyze a lot. This does not, however, mean that analytical people cannot be hypnotized. They just don’t seem to make the best stage show volunteers.

Now, every once in a while a volunteer winds up passing the hypnotist’s final selection test, yet they do not perform well. When told to cluck like a chicken they instead just mumble a bit and look nervous. What went wrong? Well, any number of things could have happened. They might have analyzed the suggestion to cluck and thought, “Gosh that’s silly! Why would I cluck like a chicken?” Or, they might have not been induced into hypnosis at all, or very little. Or, they might just really hate chickens. A good stage hypnotist will go with the flow and not miss a beat, perhaps trying a different suggestion for that person or maybe trying a deepener.

If someone on the stage clucks like a chicken, but is not at all hypnotized, the hypnotist, if any good at all, will recognize this and deal with it skillfully. Often the audience never catches on. If someone clucks but thinks to themselves, “Is this what it’s like to be hypnotized? Am I really under?”, then they are not experiencing anything that abnormal. Most trance subjects retain some portion of their capacity to analyze their own thought processes while under hypnosis. Only very, very deep trances include no analysis whatsoever. So the presence of analysis does not mean that the subject is faking, or simply agreeing to go along, or is not hypnotized.

Hypnosis does not work “on it’s own”. It works because two things take place. One, a hypnotist gives suggestions, and two, a subject *accepts* those suggestions with *less* analysis or resistance than they would otherwise use. The degree of lowered analysis usually corresponds directly to the depth of trance. However, when talking about how hypnosis appears to onlookers there is another thing to be considered, and that is that everyone and every trance is different and no two situations involving hypnosis will ever be exactly the same. What appears to be very deep trance might actually be fairly light, and vice versa. Experience as hypnotist and/or subject will make it easier to determine the real deal, but the odd anomaly will slip through now and again.

Arafin