You are under hypnosis!

In a deep hypnotic dream, a person completely submits to the will of the hypnotist…
Stop! There are two fundamental mistakes in this short phrase.

A dream or not a dream?

For a long time, hypnosis was really considered a special form of sleep. From the beginning to the middle of the twentieth century, the explanation of the mechanism of hypnosis proposed by the great Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov was generally accepted: monotonous stimuli – visual, sound, tactile (heat from the passes – movements of the hypnotist's hands) – create a focus of inhibition in the cerebral cortex, which, in accordance with the long-known and still generally accepted laws of neurophysiology, irradiates (spreads) to other departments, and the brain, along with its carrier, falls asleep. Only the "guard post" does not sleep, which provides a rapport connection with the hypnotist (about the same as allows the mother to sleep with any noise, but instantly wake up with a quiet whimper of the baby). With the advent of electroencephalographs, it turned out that there is no inhibition in hypnosis, and the bioelectric activity of the brain of a somnambulist (a person in a state of deep hypnosis) practically does not differ from the EEG during wakefulness. Recent studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging have not added clarity to the question of the physiological mechanisms of hypnosis: the work of individual brain structures differs from both sleep and wakefulness, but what these differences mean is still unclear.

The now generally accepted definition of hypnosis looks streamlined: "A temporary state of consciousness characterized by a narrowing of its volume and a sharp focus on the content of suggestion, which is associated with a change in the function of individual control and self-awareness. The state of G. occurs as a result of special effects of a hypnotist or purposeful autosuggestion" (B.D. Karvasarsky. Psychotherapeutic encyclopedia). But, although in theory hypnosis is not a dream, in practice, during classical hypnosis sessions, doctors use the same techniques as their colleagues 100, 200 and even thousands of years ago: focusing on a brilliant object, lulling monotonous stimuli and monotonous speech with an emphasis on key points: "you sleep deeper and deeper" and "you hear my voice, my suggestions."

In a state of deep hypnotic sleep (let's use the wrong but convenient term that is generally accepted even among professionals), all those miracles occur, from which the impression was formed that people lose their free will under hypnosis. Up to the last, somnambulistic stage of hypnosis, even under the guidance of an experienced hypnotist, about one person out of 5-7 is able to reach. But they can jump around the stage like a frog, shy away from a scarf, sincerely believing that it is a snake, lie for a long time in the so-called cataleptic bridge, leaning on the backs of chairs only with the back of their heads and heels, nibble a vigorous onion with pleasure, without crying and feeling the taste of an inspired apple… Variety magicians and early researchers of the phenomenon of hypnotic suggestion tried everything that came to their mind – and indeed, under hypnosis, a person can fulfill any order of a hypnotist. Almost anyone.

Crime and punishment

Under no hypnosis can a person be forced to do something that is at odds with his sense of self-preservation or moral principles. For example, you can suggest to a somnambulist that he (a) does not see anyone present. If this invisible man picks up a vase standing on the table, the hypnotist will be sincerely surprised that it took off by itself and hangs in the air. He will "believe" that the room is completely empty, but after the order to walk in a straight line, he will carefully bypass the tables and chairs. He can sincerely agree that in front of him is not a window on ... the tenth floor, but a door, to "see" people entering through it (or, if you want, unprecedented animals), but he will categorically refuse to go out through this "door". And if a somnambulist agrees to harm his neighbor (for example, to pour "acid" on a hypnologist's assistant), there is never any certainty that he does not understand from the corner of his mind that this is a make-believe. True, one of the old books describes a case when the subject, stabbing the "enemy" lying on the couch with a dagger, after coming out of a trance, did not remember anything that happened to him, as it should be, but fell into depression, lost appetite and sleep ... He stopped wasting away and drying up only after he in a state of hypnosis, they showed an effigy pierced with a dagger and suggested that he had not killed anyone.

Programs to create "zombies", most likely, were really conducted in the NKVD-MGB-KGB, and in the CIA, and in similar institutions in other countries. But rumors about the mysterious suicides of all those involved in the information about the "gold of the party", that the assassins of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King acted under the influence of suggestion, etc. look like obvious fictions. And even more so, hundreds of attempts of criminals known in the history of criminology to justify themselves by the fact that they did not act of their own free will, but under hypnosis were not confirmed. Only in a few cases, the masterminds of crimes (and even property ones) were really hypnotists, but the perpetrators could clearly be incited to do the same in reality. Posthypnotic suggestion is quite possible, but the less bizarre the task, the more likely it is that it will be completed. An hour after the end of the session, take a certain book from the shelf, open it on a given page and read aloud an excerpt – please! Why he was drawn to do this, the subject will not be able to explain or will invent something plausible. And to the reminder "don't you want to get under the table and crow three times, my dear," even an ideally hypnotic subject will most likely admit that this stupid idea just occurred to him, but he immediately discarded it.

Hypnosis is useless for detectives, too. Attempts to obtain under hypnosis testimony from suspects in crimes led to the fact that the defendant invented what he thought the hypnotist wanted from him, or continued to insist on his innocence, and when insistent demands for a confession began to beat in a hysterical fit. In most countries, including Russia, such investigative methods are prohibited. From time to time, lawyers try again and again with the help of hypnosis to help witnesses remember forgotten details, but it is never known whether he remembered them or imagined them. In any case, only operational information can be obtained in this way, and the testimony obtained in any altered state of consciousness does not have legal force.

But for powdering the brains in order to withdraw material values, hypnotic influence techniques can be used (although not with such efficiency as the authors of horror stories describe it).

Speak your teeth

Verbal suggestion acts not only on thoughts and feelings, but also on such physiological functions that are absolutely not amenable to conscious control. The most striking example of this is the inhumane experiment described in many books on hypnosis and suggestion on a criminal sentenced to death, who was announced that he would be executed by releasing blood from his veins, blindfolded, scratched on the wrist with something sharp and let a trickle of warm water run down his arm. After some time, the subject died with all the external symptoms of blood loss. The original source of this story has been lost in the retellings – maybe it's a story, but it's quite plausible.

The Wounds of Christ During Holy Week, especially inspired and fanatically believing Christians, even in our enlightened age, sometimes have stigmata on their hands, feet and forehead – changes in the skin, from redness to bleeding ulcers.
Blisters indistinguishable from real burns also appeared in volunteers who, in deep hypnosis, were inspired that "hot iron" or "burning coal" was applied to their skin (in fact, a pencil or just a finger).

In less dangerous experiments, hypnologists have studied the effect of suggestion on a variety of physiological functions. A person who has "drunk" a liter of inspired water increases the excretion of urine, and light and with a low density. And from an imaginary sweet syrup, the concentration of sugar in the blood increases, and in proportion to the amount drunk. Suggestion affects even unconditional reflexes – for example, pupillary: if a somnambulist in a darkened room is suggested that he sees a bright light, his pupils will narrow (and vice versa, expand in the light when dark is suggested). The number of white blood cells in the blood varies in accordance with the inspired feeling of satiety or hunger – and so on: thousands of articles and books describe dozens of studied physiological and biochemical effects of suggestion and auto-suggestion.

Become a Berserker
To do this, it is not necessary to chew fly agarics and gnaw the edge of the shield. One of the well–known effects of suggestion to specialists is stopping bleeding due to a spasm of smooth (not controlled by consciousness!) muscles of blood vessels and a rapid increase in the number of platelets in the blood. Hypnotic anesthesia is a banality at all: complex, including abdominal operations under hypnosis were done a century and a half ago, at the very dawn of scientific hypnology. True, "chemistry" turned out to be more reliable and simpler, but even now, instead of analgesics or the popular "laughing gas" (nitrous oxide) in the USA, many American dentists drill and tear their teeth under hypnosis.

The expression "speak your teeth" was once used in a direct (and quite positive!) meaning. And the word "doctor" goes back to the Old Slavonic "to lie" – "to speak": spells, incantations, prayers from time immemorial, all peoples have had a mandatory, or even the only method of treatment. Suggestion and autosuggestion help to cure not only neuroses and more serious diseases from the section "nervous and mental", but also those that, it would seem, have nothing to do with the state of mind. No miracles: almost half of all bodily ailments are completely or partially psychosomatic, and many organic diseases, especially severe ones, lead to depression. Suggestion can break the vicious circle of supporting and reinforcing each other painful states of the body and soul.

Suggestion (and not biofields at all, qi energy and clearing the chakras with mantras) explains the results of healings with the help of psychics, hereditary magicians, charged newspapers, amulets of seventy-seven natural components, absolutely useless, or even obviously harmful drugs, etc. Quite often, especially with purely psychosomatic diseases, all this really helps. But being treated by charlatans is about the same as downloading hacked programs from suspicious sites (and even at a higher price than licensed ones). In particular, it is much easier for a layman to get some kind of complication like hypnosis (and many healers intentionally cause it in patients). And most importantly, a psychotherapist with a medical degree is unlikely to miss an illness with which you need to go (or even run) to surgeons, oncologists, cardiologists, etc. When "treating" self-taught people or taking quack drugs, this happens all the time: subjectively, the patient feels an improvement, and the disease progresses up to a fatal outcome.

There is nothing new under the moon

The oldest papyrus describing a way of talking to the gods through a boy who was put to sleep with the help of monotonous spells and fixing his gaze on a lamp dates back to the third century AD. It is not known how many thousands of years ago shamans learned to kamlat in a state of self-hypnosis and to cast a spell on fellow tribesmen, but in the descriptions of the morals of modern primitive tribes there are a lot of stories about how a brave warrior died accidentally breaking a taboo or learning that a sorcerer made him a deadly mumbo-jumbo. In fact, hypnosis is not necessary at the same time: faith and autosuggestion are enough.

In Europe, scientific hypnology began in the second half of the XVIII century, when the Austrian Franz Anton Mesmer, Doctor of Medicine, philosophy and law, in his spare time practicing as a doctor, discovered that he could treat patients not only by applying a magnet to the sore spot, but also by a simple touch. After the "crisis" – convulsions, sobs and loss of consciousness, turning into sleep, there was healing from a variety of diseases. Have you treated tanks of special design "charged" with Mesmer, and a whole tree in the middle of Paris, and bottles of "charged" water (does this remind you of anything)?

The theory of "animal magnetism" for that time was no less scientific than the theories of the world ether and phlogiston, but in 1774 a commission of the French Academy and the Royal Medical Society headed by Benjamin Franklin declared Mesmer a charlatan, ruling that "imagination without magnetism produces convulsions, and magnetism without imagination produces nothing at all."

Despite this, numerous followers of Mesmer continued to use his method and eventually found out that there really is no magnetism, convulsions and other painful phenomena are completely unnecessary, and patients can be treated in a state of somnambulism caused by monotonous stimuli and verbal suggestions. The stigma of a charlatan has been removed from Mesmer for a long time (unfortunately, posthumously), and in many European languages the later term "hypnosis" and the primordial "mesmerism" they are used as equal synonyms.

By the end of the XIX century, hypnosis had become a universally recognized method of psychotherapy, and for about a hundred years nothing extraordinary had happened in this area. The revolution in hypnology almost happened in the 1980s: all over the world (and in the USSR, which had just peeked out from behind the "Iron Curtain"), there was a buzz about neuro-linguistic programming.

In fact, NLP is nothing more than another psychological theory, no worse, but no better than a couple dozen others. It grew out of attempts to sort out the methodology of the American psychotherapist Milton Erickson – a truly brilliant doctor who was able to achieve the same thing in one session, which in classical psychoanalysis would take several years of weekly lying on the couch. Cases from his practice are no less exciting reading than the most twisted detective, read on occasion – you will not regret it.

We will not delve into the theory – we will analyze only the main difference between the actual practice of Ericksonian hypnosis from classical. The fact that it is possible to achieve the therapeutic effect of suggestion not in a somnambulistic state, but at the earliest stages of introducing the patient into a hypnotic trance, has been known for a long time. Erickson used surface trance as the only method of hypnosis, and also generalized the known and developed a number of new techniques that allow the patient to quickly and effectively "talk his teeth" and unobtrusively introduce the necessary thoughts and actions into his head. Another secret of Ericksonian hypnosis is the personality of Erickson himself. Pills prescribed by the Luminary of Medicine work much better than the same ones, but prescribed by a district therapist. And in such a shaky and inaccurate field as psychotherapy, this "brand-promoted effect" is much more noticeable, so that the rays of glory of the Founding Father continue to warm his followers even a quarter of a century after his death. But, as in any other art, in order to achieve at least something similar to what Erickson was able to do, in addition to talent, years of study and work are also needed.

Psychotherapists apply the theoretical provisions of NLP and Ericksonian hypnosis with the same, no more and no less, success than other theories and classical methods of hypnotization: the effect here depends not on a particular school, but on the art of the doctor. For sure, in various Secret Centers, training in NLP methods is also included in the curricula, but it is unlikely that the most trained agent will be able to fool anyone he meets better than any gypsy. Not any, of course, but with personal talent and many years of practice. And not just anyone you meet, but a person with increased suggestibility chosen by elusive signs for the uninitiated. And even at the same time, "street" hypnosis works much, much less often and worse in Gypsy women and scammers of any other tribe than in the doctor's office, to which the patient comes prepared in advance for the fact that he will be inspired with what he wants. And short-term courses for everyone… Would you take a two-month violin course with a guarantee of Paganini's mastery? Many people have gone to similar NLP classes and still go…

Ordinary Soviet people work miracles everywhere!
Professor L.L. Vasiliev, corresponding member. USSR Academy of Medical Sciences and Head of the Department of Human and Animal Physiology at Leningrad State University, became interested in telepathy as a student – shortly before the First World War. And all his life he studied "Suggestion at a distance" and other "Mysterious phenomena of the human psyche" (the so-called two of his popular books published in the middle of the last century). For which he regularly received the full program. And not for the seditious topic of research, but because every one of them are telepaths, telekinetics and other paranormals – or people, to put it delicately, with an unhealthy psyche, or scammers. Or both at the same time. Leonid Leonidovich appointed one lady with a phenomenal talent of suggestion to the department as a laboratory assistant and kept looking for a brain radio in her (torsion fields had not yet been invented). And in her free time from research, the lady sold telephone booths under the guise of refrigerators on the gallery of Gostiny Dvor ("Galera" was the place of the greatest concentration of honest farcists and currency traders, speculators, scammers and other riffraff): they had just appeared in the Soviet Union and were in great short supply. In her creative handwriting, she was taken, and Prof. Vasiliev got no less than for the story of the Nautilus submarine – but this is a completely different story.

Are you suggestible?

Approximately 5-10% of people do not succumb to hypnosis even with a strong desire on their part and under the guidance of the most experienced hypnotists. Suggestibility (or rather, hypnability) can be determined using dozens of tests. The most common is a test for "sticking together" fingers, especially convenient in order to choose from a whole hall of people who can be brought on stage and demonstrate the "wonders of hypnosis" on them (in the USSR, hypnosis on the stage was banned in 1984, but psychics immediately occupied a free ecological niche). It sounds something like this: "Sit back ... Interlock your fingers and put them on your knees… I will count to ten, and for each count you will squeeze your fingers a little harder… Your hands are heavy and warm ... Once ... squeeze your fingers a little ... Your hands get warm and heavy..." And so on - the most suggestible after the count of "ten" will not be able to unclench their fingers without the permission of the hypnotist. With them, you can show another trick: "I put my hands to the back of your head. When I remove them, you will be pulled back, you will start to fall – but don't worry, I will pick you up ..." At the same time, such tests also work as preparation for the actual euthanasia.

It is difficult to describe in words how street scammers define indoctrinated people. In about the same way as any of you can understand that if you have a badly shaven man with shifty eyes, a rumpled suit and a puffy face offers you to buy a diamond ring for a thousand rubles – you need to hold your wallet pocket with your hand, silently and quickly walk away from him.

How to resist hypnosis? And is it possible to do this at all?

If you know that they are going to hypnotize you, but for some reason you don't want to - elementary. Just do not follow the instructions, sing songs out loud, dance (if evil spies have not tied you to a chair), etc. It is not possible to hypnotize a person who knows that he is going to be put to sleep without his consent! Unless very hypnotic people can be affected by the so-called raush hypnosis: a person enters the door, and from the threshold he gets a gong, a flash, a push in the forehead and a cry of "SPAAAAT!!!" – he falls into the hands of an assistant. But this is done either at variety performances, when clients selected in advance by simpler tests are ready to be put to sleep, or for demonstration to students at hypnotherapy courses, and most often – after preliminary ordinary hypnosis sessions, during which good somnambulists are selected and their trusting relationship with the experimenter is established. Without prior preparation, rausch hypnosis does not work.

If you start to talk your teeth on the street – keep in mind that all sorts of suspicious persons who stop you under some dubious pretext can not only (and not so much) hypnotize you, but, for example, just grab your wallet when you start exchanging money for them. And no street hypnosis works instantly: the object of influence has enough time to understand that they are not just starting a conversation with you, but are trying to sell you some kind of product or - with or without suggestion – unobtrusively cheat. And if you get a call with an offer to buy a miracle drug (a fairly common way of fooling, especially the elderly, in which hypnosis is not required, pure suggestion with a completely clear mind of the person being fooled also works) – do not engage in conversations: even your swearing can be used to continue the frowning. Just hang up.

No hypnosis!

Have you noticed that the terms "hypnosis" and "suggestion" are used almost as synonyms here? For suggestion – uncritical perception of other people's ideas as their own – hypnosis, by and large, is not needed. And this is also not news at all: it is impossible to say better about everyday suggestion than the most famous Russian psychiatrist and neurologist V.M.Bekhterev wrote in the brochure "The Role of suggestion in public life" more than a century ago:

"Suggestion is reduced to the direct inoculation of certain mental states from one person to another, ... occurring without the participation of the will (and attention) of the perceiving person and often even without clear consciousness on his part… At the present time, there is so much talk about physical infection through ... microbes that, in my opinion, it is worth remembering about ... mental infection, the microbes of which, although not visible under a microscope, nevertheless act like real physical microbes everywhere and are transmitted through words, gestures and movements of surrounding persons. through books, newspapers, etc., in a word, wherever we are, in the society around us we are already exposed to the action of psychic microbes and, therefore, are in danger of being mentally infected."

In the second edition of the same brochure, 1908, Bekhterev quotes the book "Psychology of Suggestion" translated into Russian in 1902 by the American philosopher Boris Sidis:

"In the middle of the street on the square, on the sidewalk, a merchant stops and begins to pour out whole streams of chatter, flattering the public and praising his goods... A few more minutes – and the crowd begins to buy things about which the merchant suggests that they are "beautiful, cheap"…
A street speaker climbs onto a log or a cart and begins to harangue the crowd… His proofs are preposterous, his motives are contemptible, and yet he usually drags the masses with him..."

Perhaps the invention of television has not greatly strengthened the role of suggestion in public life. And the proverb "he who is warned is armed" was invented in ancient Rome…

Alexander Chubenko
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru

16.01.2009