4 ms·
Ask HN: Are there scientific underpinnings for hypnosis?
I know what I'm asking, there's not a lot on HN about hypnosis. To the extent I've researched it myself (10 years ago), all I've seen is pseudoscience. But when I see stage performances like this [1], I can't help but think "well, clearly this works on a small subset of people!" One might argue, that the trick is to get highly suggestible people on there. That's why it works. I suspect it's that simple (it could be that simple, I simply don't know, I am quite clueless). Perhaps more importantly, it could be researched if suggestibility is the only factor at play here [2, 3].
When I look at videos like [1], I clearly see problems with the explanation of hypnosis. It is apparently the same as REM sleep, yet no studies were cited. I mean, it sounds plausible, but a lot of things sound plausible (true and untrue things). In other words, hypnotists aren't scientists. When it comes to the human mind, the best scientific role we have are psychologists.
Did anyone on HN do some research on this? I'm asking you, because I'm dreading that Google would show me 10 websites with nonsense for every 1 website that has a small scientific result.
My own first pass yields (via scholar.google.com):
- VR and hypnosis (both effects seem to be independent, more research needed): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7247604/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7247604/
- Hypnosis reduces pain: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/25841/1/Thompson%20et%20al.%20in%20press%20NBR.pdf https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/25841/1/Thompson%20et%...
- Myths about hypnosis: https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/29294/1/Lynn%20et%20al.%202020%20ACP.pdf https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/29294/1/Lynn%20et%20al...
My (perilous) pass on YouTube yielded:
- SciShow talking about hypnosis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWMYNTnoEyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWMYNTnoEyQ (the Stroop test differences sound like compelling evidence, because that's performance-based)
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RA2Zy_IZfQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RA2Zy_IZfQ
[2] IMO such a thing should've been researched, wouldn't it? If I'd get a week, I could design a half decent experiment myself. The gist: get a control group and a normal person claiming to be a hypnotist. Get an experimental group with an actual hypnotist. The normal person performs a routine of whatever he/she believes is hypnosis, the hypnotist does the same thing. The only difference between the two should be how long they've studied hypnosis (preferably 0 seconds -- other than having seen a stereotypical depiction of it -- vs 10+ years). Then there's the "hypnotized group" in both conditions. Let this group perform certain tasks that one could rate on performance (cognitive tasks, acting tasks, the whole gamut). Video tape all of this. Get raters that need to classify and rate the tasks done on the video on a 1 to 5 scale based on performance or "most accurate". Calculate inter-rater reliability to see if people have quantified tasks and performance metrics similar enough. See if there's a big difference. I don't mean a p < 0.05 difference, no a big one. It should be clear that the hypnotist clearly brings something out in a subset of the audience where as the fake hypnotist clearly has little clue what he/she is doing with similar highly suggestible people.
Thinking about it now, I'd probably just recruit highly suggestible people. The way I'd do that is to get an independent hypnotist (that isn't part of any condition) and let him/her figure out who's highly suggestible for hypnosis, split that group in two for the control and experimental condition (matched on age, gender, etc.). This is why I'd need a week to get a half-decent design. It's been a while :P
If there are, then it's easy to isolate that hypnosis isn't just filtering out highly suggestible people. It simply suggests that it's one of the tricks they apply, but what are the other tricks?
[3] I've experienced a thing or two with meditation that seem to be related. Whenever I meditated getting into a trance or whatever they call it was never ever the point. Yet, I've been in emotional states that were very unusual and interesting. I experienced the same thing with exercise. So it seems plausible that more could be going on (but IMO that's not enough evidence, scientific research is needed).
- codeptualize 5y agoYou might be interested in EMDR. There is still lots of debate on it, but it's used in psychology and you might find some actual research. I don't think it has much to do with stage hypnosis though, which I would say is just entertainment. Similar to spoon bending, fortune tellers, mediums and similar. It's an illusion.
- mettamage 5y agoIt's an illusion? I want a source, explaining me how it is an illusion. I understand that we can "reason this away", I don't want reason. Reason alone is never enough. I need empirical evidence (reason + methodological experience). Empirical evidence is the only tool we have in understanding things like this, IMO. And I'm simply asking if someone in the HN crowd has researched the empirical evidence. __A way too short primer on how astrology is nonsense__ For example, when it comes to astrology it's quite clear to me how it is an illusion. For one, the physical mechanisms explained behind it are nonsense. That's not strong enough though as you can have theoretical nonsense but still a predictive model! So we also have to show how the model works. And it can be shown. In other words, it can be shown why the outcomes of astrology are as they are! Aka why does it always feel kinda true? Well, psychologists have researched this in multiple ways. And the result of that is interesting. I'll give you an example of one study I know about. A psychologist once did an experiment on his students. He said he'd all give them a personalized message about who they are as a person and asked the whole class to rate how accurate it stated who they were as a person. He wrote the same generic positive personality description to all of them and it was rated as a 4 on average (1 to 5 scale). I've learned this 15 years ago, so I don't know the specific study anymore. I did a quick Google search on it and found [1]. That's strong data showcasing why astrology readings feels "kinda true" to most people. The reason: most of what astrologists say are positive things. Other things they say can be showcased by other things psychologists found (e.g. techniques like cold-reading or like assessing who a person is and simply taking a risk on making a statement about that and if it doesn't work then redirect conversation flow so that the person forgets). My point is, there are tons of holes with astrology. __Back to hypnosis__ With hypnosis I see holes as well, but they are all about the mechanism as to why hypnosis does what it does. In other words, you can still have a "predictive model" (or in this case a technique that works to alter people their behavior, you have no clue why it works but it works). What I don't see are strong explanations as to why people behave the way they do. The only few things I know are: * People can induce adrenaline at will (via the Wim Hof Method) [2] * People can feel like they're in a dream state while they are awake through psychedelics (no source needed, personal experience as well) * People can get into a very strong emotional state (e.g. flow) via any means really. In other words, to me it shows that humans are quite capable of a very big emotional and behavioral range under a specific set of circumstances. So couldn't it be that there is some mechanism through which it happens via hypnosis? The first trick they use is to get highly suggestible people, alright, fair enough. But then when you have highly suggestible people, what is exactly happening to them? Apparently, according to one of the meta-studies I found, they use hypnosis to reduce people their pain during surgery. If that's the case, then it's clearly not just an illusion that doesn't warrant further research. It may be an illusion (it also may not fully be), but it at least warrants a scientific understanding of what's happening. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect [2] https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1322174111 https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1322174111