This is a good tip to start meditation

1. Hypnosis

2. What is Hypnosis?

3. Hypnosis
• A social interaction in which one person
(the hypnotist) makes suggestions about
perceptions, feelings, thoughts, or
behaviors, and another person (the
subject) follows those suggestions
• Hypnotist serves as a coach or tutor
showing you the way.

4. Hypnosis
• State of awareness
• Highly focused attention
• Increased responsiveness to suggestion
• Vivid imagery
• Willingness to accept distortions of logic
• People do NOT lose control of their behavior.
Instead, they remain aware of where they are, who
they are, and what is transpiring.
• Alteration of sensation and perception

5. Is Hypnosis a Special State of
Consciousness?
• State view – Hypnosis is a special or altered
state of consciousness (see Hilgard’s
neodissociation).
• Non-State view – Hypnosis is not a special state
and similar effects can be produced when
people are properly instructed and motivated.
• Social-cognitive view – subject responds to
social demands of the situation. Play the role of
what is expected from a good hypnotic subject.

6. Social Influence Theory
• Powerful social influences produce a
state of hypnosis.
• This theory notes that a person’s
physiological state does not change
under hypnosis.
• Social factors influence people to
believe hypnosis will work.

7. Divided Consciousness Theory
• During hypnosis our consciousness splits so that one
aspect of consciousness is not aware of the role that
other parts are playing.
• Promoted by Ernest Hilgard (1904-2001)
• People experience dissociation – the splitting of
consciousness into two or more simultaneous streams of
mental activity.
• Neodissociation theory of hypnosis – a hypnotized
person consciously experiences one stream of mental
activity that is responding to the hypnotist’s
suggestions. A second dissociated stream known as the
hidden observer is processing info that is unavailable to
the consciousness of the hypnotized subject.

8. A woman doesn’t notice the smell of ammonia.
How can this be explained?

9. Evidence Supporting Hypnosis
• Role-Playing hypnotics drop the act when not observed
while actually hypnotized subjects maintain the act when
not observed.
• PET Scans reveal activity increased in the left and right
hemisphere color areas when they were told they were
seeing color. Activity decreased in the left and right
hemisphere color areas when they were told to see gray
rectangles regardless of what color they were. Only the
right hemisphere color areas were activated in people not
hypnotized. This shows hypnosis is a mental state.
• Imaginative suggestibility – the degree to which a person is
able to experience an imaginary state of affairs as if it were
real. Many people are open to suggestion even when not
under hypnosis.

10. Hypnotic Techniques

11. Hypnotic Induction
• The process by which a hypnotist
creates a state of hypnosis in a subject
• Usually done by voicing a series of
suggestions
• Voice is usually calm and of a rhythmic
tone

12. Hypnotizability
• Differences in the ability of people to
become hypnotized
• Varies from person to person
• Varies from situation to situation
• Most adults are moderately hypnotizable.
• Children are easier to hypnotize.
• People who have positive, receptive attitudes
towards hypnosis and expectations that they
respond tend to hypnotize easier.

13. Hypnotizability

14. Hypnotic Techniques:
Hypnotic Suggestions

15. Limits to Hypnotic Suggestions
• Suggestions usually involve sensations,
thoughts, emotions, and a wide variety
of behaviors.
• Hypnosis does not cause behaviors.
• Hypnosis can lead people to certain
behaviors but so can ordinary
suggestions.

16. Hypnotic Techniques:
Posthypnotic
Suggestions

17. Posthypnotic Suggestions
• A suggestion, made during a hypnosis
session, that the subject will carry out
when no longer hypnotized
• Technique can be used to encourage
helpful behavior changes, such as
stopping smoking or losing weight.
• Most only last for a few hours or days.

18. Hypnosis and
Memory

19. Hypnosis and Memory
• There are isolated cases of hypnosis
helping recall.
• Cannot be sure if the memory came
back due to hypnosis
• Cannot be sure if the memory is
accurate or one that is created to please
the hypnotist

20. Hypnosis and Memory
• Posthypnotic Amnesia – person is unable to
recall specific info or events that occurred before or
during hypnosis. Produced by a hypnotic
suggestion.
– Effects are usually temporary and where off either
spontaneously with a posthypnotic signal.
• Hypermnesia – Enhancement of memory for past
events using hypnotic suggestion.
– Not proven to work and can lead to distortions and
inaccuracies or pseudomemories.
• Age Regression – Recall or reexperience an
earlier developmental period.
– Often distorted and not accurate.

21. Hypnosis and Pain
Control

22. Pain and Hypnosis
• Hypnosis does work as a means to
control pain.
• Hypnosis can cause temporary
blindness, deafness, or complete loss of
sensation in a part of the body. Because
of this, hypnosis can be used as a form
of pain therapy (see Time article)

24. Hypnosis
• Play “Hypnotic Dissociation and Pain
Relief” (3:03) Segment #2 from The
Mind: Psychology Teaching Modules
(2nd edition).
• If Time Allows.
• Watch this & read Time article on this
subject.
• Our cerebral cortex allows to filter out
certain info and focus on other info.

25. Other Hypnotic
Claims

26. Placebo Effect
• Improvement due only to the power of
positive expectations
• People think they will get better so they
do

27. Feats of Strength
• Many feats of strength done under
hypnosis can be accomplished without
hypnosis.

28. Feats of Strength
The "amazing"
hypnotized
"human plank"
Actually,
unhypnotized
people can
also perform
this feat.

29. Limits to Hypnosis
• You cannot be hypnotized against your
will.
• Hypnosis cannot make you perform
behaviors that are contrary to your morals
and values.
• Hypnosis cannot make you stronger or
give you new talents.

30. MEDITATION

31. Meditation
• Aim to control or retrain attention. Two
general categories.
1. Concentration Techniques – focusing on a
visual image, your breathing, a word or
phrase. Often a mantra is repeated mentally.
2. Opening-up Techniques – Present-centered
awareness of the passing moment, without
mental judgment.
• Concentrate on the here and now without
distractive thoughts.
• Zazen or “just sitting” technique of Buddhism is a
form of this.

32. Effects of Meditation
• Most use Transcendental Meditation (TM) –
Concentrative meditation that does not require any
lifestyle changes and follows a simple format. Sit
with eyes closed and say a mantra over an over in
their mind allowing distracting thoughts to fall away.
• People experience a lowering of psychological
arousal by lowering heart rate, blood pressure, and
changes in to alpha-brain-waves similar to the state
of drowsiness that precedes stage 1 sleep.
• SPECT scans show increased blood flow to both
frontal lobes and decreased blood flow to the left
parietal lobe during meditation. Frontal lobes are
involved in attention focusing tasks and parietal
lobes are involved in visual-spatial tasks, which are
not needed in mediation.