Does Hypnosis Actually Work?

We see hypnosis in movies and TV all the time – after a few swings of a watch, some poor sap starts clucking like a chicken or crying like a baby – but is there any truth to this? Can you actually hypnotize someone?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain stuff. From how stuff works. Close your eyes,
breathe in and out slowly. Picture yourself by the ocean.
It's warm, you can hear the waves. You're completely at ease.
When you hear the name Franz Mesmer, you'll disrobe and

(00:25):
call nine one one. Now when I count backwards from three, YadA, YadA, YadA,
and tada. That's the Hollywood version of hypnosis. Luckily it's bunk.
But what is hypnosis? Is it real? Hey? I'm Christian
Sager and this is brain stuff And the short answer
is yes, but maybe not the way you think. We've

(00:47):
pondered hypnosis for centuries, but we still haven't fully explained it,
because hypnosis is a small piece of a much larger
puzzle how the mind works. Despite the mystery, we do
know some stuff. Hypnosis is a trance state characterized by suggestibility, relaxation,
and heightened imagination, like daydreaming. Think of losing yourself in

(01:11):
a book or a movie. You're conscious, but you tune
out stimuli, including your own worries and doubts. This happens
more often than you might think. In fact, you've probably
accidentally hypnotized yourself before you're highly suggestible when entranced, so
when a hypnotist tells you to do something, you're more
likely to do it. Hence the old cluck like a

(01:32):
chicken bit that we've all heard of. Fear of embarrassment
flies out the window, and not a sense of safety
and morality. It's reassuring when you think about it. At
least stage magicians are churning out temporary chickens instead of
Manchurian candidates. Hypnosis is often described as a way to
access the subconscious, the part of your mind that does

(01:52):
the behind the scenes thinking. It's the unsung hero, solving problems,
finding your stuff, giving out of the blue, Eureka moments,
and whatnot. Psychiatrists think hypnosis partially subdues the conscious mind.
They dig this idea because it jives with the other
ideas of consciousness. If your conscious mind is inhibitive, the

(02:14):
thing that hits the brakes while you're subconscious is the
seat of imagination and impulse, then of course you become
suggestible when the conscious part is on the cognitive back burner.
The subconscious also regulates sensations and emotions, so if you're entranced,
a hypnotist can trigger feelings and senses. It also stores memories,

(02:36):
meaning hypnotized people can access lost memories, and also that
it's possible to create false memories. We have some physiological
evidence to back it up. E g. S show a
boost in lower frequency waves during hypnosis. There's also decreased
activity in the left hemisphere of the cerebral cortext the
center of deduction and reasoning. This isn't conclusive of but

(03:00):
it lends credence to the quote direct line to the
subconscious thing. Skeptics have another explanation of this state, social pressure.
The idea is that people can be convinced that they
should act a certain way, and when they do, they think, oh,
I must be in a trance, kind of a self
fulfilling prophecy or a placebo effect, and this is just

(03:22):
scratching the certainess. Check out the brainstuff channel on YouTube,
and for more on this and thousands of other topics,
visit how stuff works dot com.