HYPNOSIS & THE BRAIN

© By Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, PhD

President of the International Hypnosis Federation

IHF@cox.net and www.hypnosisfederation.com

(Includes excerpts from her book “Wake Up Who’s Secretly Hypnotizing You and What to Do About It”)

Bless scientists who try to figure out how hypnosis affects brain or how your mind works. They’ve got problems… Hypnosis and your mind are like electricity; we may know how to use it but no one really knows what it is.

All scientists take a S.W.A.G. (S-cientific W-ild A-ssed G-uess) and then often believe it as gospel.

Phenomenal brain hypnotists ask, “Where does this or that emotion or attitude live?” One researcher “locates” positive thought in the right front side of your brain, negative in the left rear, and addiction at the top front center… that is if you are right-handed. The left-handed are tabbed as positive on the left front side, negative at the right rear, and addicted at the top rear center. Ambidextrous people might find addiction at the top center of their brain.

But why believe a machine or another’s opinion. After all, it’s your brain. So try this. Close your eyes and ask, “Where is my positive thinking? Give it a location… Where is it? Where is negative thinking? … Where is addictive thinking.”

Your answers are correct… for YOU.

I, myself, find that my negative place is on the left side near eye-level, my positive is a whole brain experience or by my third eye, and addiction behind my tongue. How about you?

Not long ago, phrenology and science assessed your character by each bump on your head. Then the ink-blot test became the rage to assess traits. Now, it’s a testing device printout.

Amorphic thought can’t be pinned down. Those who dogmatically associate thoughts with a physical location don’t even know if the technological readout actually correlates to the factors they claim to detect. Just because a gizmo or gadget lights up in various ways doesn’t necessarily mean that that is the “location” of that state of mind, mood or idea. And just because it lit up in one person doesn’t mean it will be the same for you now or you ten minutes from now. Still, study after study dogmatically “interprets” and attributes specific brain parts to specific traits or function.

One popular scientific myth says that your left-brain is analytical and your right-brain creative. Oh look, both hemispheres register similar activity in trance! Diagnostic machines actually reflect that all of your brain works together. Your whole brain does undetectable things to create you and your thoughts. I think of thoughts like the dark matter of the universe… immeasurable yet somehow mysteriously gluing all matter into a cosmic grid.

BRAIN SCANS DEVICES: Picture This!

PET Scan: Radioactive glucose is injected into your blood or you inhale radioactive oxygen while x-ray scanners pick up the radioactive absorption.

Structural MRI: Strong magnets temporarily align hydrogen atoms of the water in your brain to give a stationary picture. A functional MRIf notes changes as they occur.

Highly Hypnotizable Fallacy

The label “highly hypnotizable” is highly prized and praised. Interesting when you realize we all live out whatever trance we put ourselves in. Doesn’t that make us all highly hypnotizable?

Hypnotizablity “tests” are another crock. They ignore factors like intonation and rapport and energy between the test giver and the test taker. They ignore a person’s history around the word “test.” These tests then are arbitrary markers that label people. So, the very label of “more susceptible to hypnosis,” is skewed. BUT still, those culled out as “highly hypnotizable” are tested with gizmos and gadgets to determine what is hypnosis.

A 2000 Harvard/Cornell/Stanford study, asked people in their regular state [as regular as you would be in a PET scanner, inhaling radioactive oxygen, and looking at a computer screen] “Do you actually see color or are you looking at gray?” All registered the most activity on the right brain.

Now, the first leap of faith; does that mean we experience vision or color or gray or whatever from the right brain or is the whole brain functioning but only the right brain registering on this particular test? BIG QUESTION.

Then, those subjectively culled out by “hypnotizablity tests” are hooked up and hypnotized. Next big leap of faith; Who can say if these folks are any more hypnotizable that you or me? ANOTHER BIG QUESTION.

The study concludes; “Among highly hypnotizable subjects changes in subjective experience achieved during hypnosis were reflected by changes in brain function similar to those that occur in perception (more activity in the brain’s centrally located cingulate gyrus). [Next big leap of faith; Who labeled this part of the brain as the home base for attention and emotion? BIG QUESTION] …These findings support the claim that hypnosis is a psychological state with distinct neural correlates and not just the result of adopting a role… [Just how was that proven?] …We have shown… that hypnosis changes conscious experience in a way not possible when we are not under hypnosis. Our study is a thin edge of a wedge that shows that conscious experience can be changed in a willfully directed way by hypnosis [I would add ‘or whatever other variable like thinking of eating chocolate or remembering your first kiss…’ might]. This ‘disassociation of senses’…may be why hypnosis reduces pain, anxiety, insomnia, and helps people quit smoking.” [Next big leap of faith; Great thought yet the ‘may be why’ part is vague and speculative. Anecdotal evidence tells us that hypnosis works but to attribute “disassociation of senses” to why is another BIG QUESTION].”

PRECUNEUS PRESUMPTION

A study at the University of Geneva, Switzerland used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to understand what happens when you try to move a hand “paralyzed” by hypnosis and correlated hypnosis with more activity in your brain’s precuneus region (labeled as the location of your “internal representation,” memory, and imagery.)

In the study volunteers pushed a button with one hand or the other in three conditions:

1. Normal state… all twelve were first in their regular state of mind.

2. Hypnotic left-hand paralysis… six were told, “Your hand is paralyzed and is very heavy… it is stuck on the table…”

3. Feigned paralysis…six volunteers were told, “Pretend your left hand is paralyzed.”

Dr Yann Cojan concluded, “Hypnosis is associated with an enhanced activation of the precuneus, a brain region involved in memory and self imagery [and I ask, ‘says who? How do they know for sure? And what other parts of the brain may be involved too?] and with a reconfiguration of executive control mediated by the frontal lobes [what?]… Hypnosis induces a disconnection of motor commands from normal voluntary processes under the influence of brain circuits involved in executive control and self-imagery… Hypnosis had people connect to the idea that they cannot move the hand… and it doesn’t send the message to move. Hypnosis allows an internal representation from a suggestion but does not act through direct motor inhibition. This shows a neurobiological foundation for the striking impact of hypnosis on the brain and behavior… hypnosis produced distributed changes in prefrontal and parietal areas involved in attention along with striking modifications in the functional connectivity of the motor cortex with other brain areas… These results suggest that hypnosis may enhance self-monitoring processes to allow internal representations generated by the suggestion to guide behavior but does not act through direct motor inhibition… Despite the suggestion of paralysis, the motor cortex was normally activated during the preparation phase of the task. This suggests that hypnosis did not suppress activity in motor pathways or eliminate representation of motor intentions… These findings make an important new step towards establishing neurobiological foundations for the striking impact of hypnosis on the brain and behavior… Hypnotists call the lack of desire to raise your hand when given a suggestion of numbness or paralysis ‘hypnotic passivity.’”

What is hypnosis anyway?

You are hypnotized and passive when dozing in front of the TV. You hypnotized and passive when you hear the phone ring but you don’t budge saying to yourself; ‘I’ll just let it ring, I am too relaxed to move.’ You are hypnotized when you bored out of your mind in a dull meeting. You go in and out of these “states” all day long. Do your hundreds of moods and states of mind present “special” brain activations? We have yet to know. But to insist that mind-altering thoughts and states translate directly to brain altering activity is error laden. If we are to map the mind/brain we must take into account more than changes in temperature. First we must learn the basics what is thought? Where do thoughts themselves exist. Does your brain create mind, or does something else create mind? Do thoughts change brain chemistry or does chemistry change thoughts?

When you change your mind do you change the very structure of your brain? Structural changes, change function; functional changes change structure. Going round and round and round in a circle game.

Thank you scientists for speculating, researching and learning. Thank you too for helping us understand altered states… but beware. A premise that structure reflects function may be seriously flawed given how little we know about matter and how it relates to function. The underlying brain mechanisms of this phenomenon are not understood. To claim “solid science” stands behind anything to do with mind including hypnosis is a wonderful pipe dream at this time.

Let’s tell the truth. Although how hypnosis works is unknown, hypnosis influences your body. Hypnosis can put you in a state of deep relaxation or bring you to anxiety and stress depending on the suggestions you embrace. The work of the hypnotist is to positively influence your thoughts and your body the same way you do all the time with self-talk.

References:

Stephen M. Kosslyn, PhD, William L. Thompson, BA, Nathaniel M. Alpert, PhD (Harvard Medical School), Maria Costantini-Ferrando, PhD (Will Medical College, Cornell) & David Spiegel, MD (Stanford), American Journal of Psychiatry & Harvard University Gazette, August, 2000 funding attributed to John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Yann Cojan, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Lakshmi Waber, University Hospital Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Sophie Schwartz, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; Laurent Rossier, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland; Alain Forster, University Hospital Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland; and Patrik Vuilleumier, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, “Imaging The Hypnotized Brain: Neural Mechanisms Of Suggested Paralysis,” Cell Press June 25, 2009 Neuron, Volume 62, Issue 6, 25 June 2009, Pages 862-875

“Wake Up Who’s Secretly Hypnotizing You and What To Do About It” Shelley Stockwell-Nicholas, PhD, “the Hypnosis of Sxience” Creativity Unlimited Press, available at www.hypnosisfederation.com