A skeptic's deep dive into hypnosis

If you heard the voiceovers in the video and said, "Damn, those were some alluring voices. I wonder who they are?" Well have I got some YouTube channels for you: Medlife Crisis: youtube.com/@MedlifeCrisis WonderWhy: youtube.com/@WonderWhy Thomas Rintoul: youtube.com/@ThomasRintoul Also, There are many things that I wish I could’ve touched on in this video, but simply ran out of time before I had to stop writing and film the dang thing. One interesting area I wish I’d explored further is the unexpected overlap of people involved in hypnosis and people involved in neurolinguistic programming (NLP). I briefly touched on NLP in my EMDR video, too, but I anticipate it will be a future video topic. The short summary of NLP is that it’s a pseudoscience that claims to give people the ability to manipulate their perceptions, behaviors, and communication patterns to achieve whatever goal they want. Hypnosis was adopted as a technique used in NLP, but it makes some people in the hypnosis community very angry because they perceive it as a “bastardization”, total misunderstanding, or oversimplification of hypnosis. As such, they want nothing to do with NLP. But many others dip their toes into both. I’m not sure what other connections exist there, as I haven’t had enough time to further investigate.

A Navy training incident in 1975 gave me nightmares and intrusive thoughts during the day. It affected my work and home. Finally, a therapist trained in hypnotism gave me EMDR therapy, which is kind of like a hypnotic thing. In 6 weeks, 40 years of nightmares was GONE. Random intrusive angry thoughts: gone. The last eight years have been much, much better.

it's always good to remember that placebo is one hell of a drug

Just had to pause to comment on the hilarity of the Jesuit priest being called Hell

From the context of the Victorian era, I've always been under the impression that hysteria was just polite Victorian word for horny.

"Just" a placebo effect. Has anyone ever considered how powerful that is? That it is being convinced that a therapy works so therefore it does? How powerful is that? Seems to me that our brains can come up with healing for our body. We just need to figure out how to make that work more reliably.

Hysteria went away as an official diagnosis, but very much remained an idea in the culture. Would love to see it unpacked

I went for hypnotherapy and did not have a clue if it helped or not until my friends told me how much my confidence had improved. So it seems it did work. 😊

Yes to a video on hysteria! As a woman disabled by invisible ailments, I'm very interested in how I would have been viewed historically.

I'm a therapist who uses hypnotherapy in some (fairly limited context) cases. Particularly with clients who have a high level of symbolic thinking and often with highly artistic or creative minds. I like using for myself on occasion to help with specific behaviors. I like your take, and your research. It is useful, and yes, it's not the "magic bullet" that some of my clients want it to be. Thanks.

My mother urged me to see a hypnotherapist in my twenties, she was very concerned about my crippling anxiety and depression. I had no life outside my house, I had horrible self esteem. I hated myself and hated my brain, I felt defective. I saw the hypnotherapist and was instructed to move a finger for yes or no. Apparently I talked during the session too. I have zero recollection of the entire 2 hour hypnosis session. Afterwards, the hypnotherapist stated that he had asked me my earliest memory about my fear. He said I responded “it was dark, I could hear my mom. She was scared about a smell and worried I would be damaged”. I asked my mom about it and she broke down crying. She said she was anxious throughout her whole pregnancy. She inhaled the vapours from moth balls and thought she had damaged my brain. She obsessed about it for months.

Just before that Brilliant ad dropped I was 110% sure I was gonna get Rick Rolled.

My own perception of hypnosis as a non-psychologist, hypnotic trance and all trance are just different forms of dissociation/depersonalization. I came to this conclusion with my own experience in the BDSM community and reading research on "subspace" and it made me immediately think of my experience with "hypnotic trance". That article described subspace as a form of dissociation. This also explains why some people just don't go under trance. They A) don't believe in it but also B) don't consent to it and will likely have little rapport with the hypnotist. Dissociation is a highly vulnerable state. That's also why "subs" in BDSM can only go in subspace while in a scene with a "dom" they trust. This also further reflects in how the hypno community talks about steps towards hypnosis, Rapport, Rapport Rapport. Hypnosis without consent is impossible.

People, you go in and out of trance all day long: watching tv? you're in a trance, playing computer games? you're in a trance, driving your car? you're in a trance, staring into space disassociated? you're in a trance, concentrating on anything? you're in a trance. So trance states are normal and nothing to be afraid of. Hypnosis is ONE means to entering a trance state for a specific purpose. And if you don't want other people putting you into a materialist propaganda trance and programming you to desperately want things you don't need - TURN OFF THE TV.

As an expert, I've not seen a video more honest and direct about hypnosis. Great job, man.

As far as the state vs non-state debate, you missed some important research "Cerebral activation during hypnotically induced and imagined pain". They found that participants were given the suggestion that, following a cue, a painful heat stimulus would be delivered to their right hand. In one, the heat stimulus was administered, creating an actual pain experience, whereas in the second the cue was not followed by the stimulus and acted as a suggestion to experience pain. In the third condition, the participants were told that there would be no pain stimulus following the cue but that they should “imagine the pain as clearly as possible.” Pain ratings taken after each trial demonstrated that the participants experienced pain in the first two conditions (physically induced and suggestion-induced pain). In addition, they confirmed that they imagined pain clearly in the third condition. The fMRI data showed activation of pain-related areas in the first two conditions but not in the imagined condition.

I took part in a study on hypnosis and pain not so long ago! Suuper fascinating stuff! Conducted in a cognitive neuroscience research center in my city. The core of the study was a day in their lab, in a jacket sitting in a comfy armchair with electrodes on my head and a little elsewhere. I especially had an electrode on my leg that sent me painful electric shocks. While I was under hypnosis, they would send cycles of shocks of varying intensity (from imperceptible to almost unbearable) accompanied by different suggestion techniques to see I would feel the intensity shocks differently throughout my body and how the effect of hypnosis varied under different amount of pain. At the end, the hypnotherapist told me to get up and sit on a chair further back in the room at the snap of his fingers. But I stayed sitting in my chair because I did'nt feel like moving and it felt a bit awkward to just watch her snap her fingers and then stare at me as I just stayed silent in my big armchair. But after I'd put my clothes back on, as a researcher was escorting me out, she told me with a smile that the electric shocks were constant, that they'd never changed during the session. I was stunned. I went in there because I found the idea of being hypnotized fun, and I certainly felt a very pleasant state of flow while I was there. But I was still thinking reflexively I felt in control. I thought hypnosis had slightly changed my perception of pain, but I never expected that simply with a woman talking reassuringly to me, unbearable pain could become as subtle as a mosquito bite. Yes, it all happened in my head and I imagined it all because I wanted to please the researchers and because I wanted it to be real. But the effect on pain perception was wild and as real as a sensation can be. And I guess that's the point.

When I was 13, I had a problem with sleeping so deeply I would sometimes wet the bed. My mother took me to the family doctor looking for a solution, and the doctor hypnotized me, which cured me of the problem. I didn’t realize until I was much older that I had been hypnotized, but eventually I became aware of the memory of the doctors visit. I’m 65 now and I remember it clearly. I haven’t wet the bed since that day.

I got hypnotized once sort of, a guy on the street did this thing to me where he touched my arm and then made me hold something and give it back in these weird motions. It started with him asking me for a cigarette and ended with me handing him $30 and standing there for a minute wondering what had just happened. He robbed me in the strangest, yet non violent or threatening way. As it was happening I consciously knew I was being robbed, but I watched my hands open my wallet and hand him the money. It felt like a dream

I once "accidentally" hypnotized a patient. I'm a retired certified nurse-midwife and have delivered somewhere north of 3,600 babies. I studied hypnosis as a possible adjunct to "natural" childbirth techniques. I didn't formally induce hypnosis in labor, but I did incorporate many of the techniques of hypnosis as I coached laboring women to help them to remain calm and relax. Some years ago, I was seeing a woman for a new OB history and examination. She had never had a Pap Smear before and was very fearful since her sisters, "told me how much it would hurt." While I was preparing my equipment for the examination, I began talking to her in a soothing, sing-song voice, suggesting a deep sense of calm and relaxation. When I looked at her again, I noted that her eyes were half-closed and she was exhibiting blepharospasm, a twitching of the eyelids that is a sign of entering a hypnotic state. I realized that she was one of those 10-15% of people who are highly hypnotizable. I deepened her trance and proceeded with the examination. The exam went smoothly, and when finished, I brought her out of the trance while suggesting that she would feel rested and relaxed. She seemed a little confused and asked, "Did you do a Pap Smear?" I assured her that I had. She said, "I'm going to have a talk with my sisters." On leaving the exam room, my nurse caught my arm and said, "What did you do to her?" I said, "You were there, I just talked to her."