Most of the main normal mental phenomena of humans cannot be explained by prevailing dogmas that everything mental is caused by the brain. Humans can form new memories instantly. If suddenly someone sticks a gun in your mouth, you will instantly form a permanent new memory. Neuroscientist attempts to explain memory formation (through vague crude ideas such as "synapse strengthening") fail miserably when we consider facts such as the short lifetimes of synapse proteins (only a few weeks), and the fact that such a synapse strengthening would take too long to explain the instant formation of new memories. Neuroscientists cannot explain how you can instantly recall a memory when asked a question, or how learned knowledge could ever be translated into neural states or synapse states. Neuroscientists also cannot explain how a brain could possibly cause a person to be conscious, or to have a unified self. Our professors of neuroscience are also utterly unable to explain such basic human phenomena as imagination and the creation of new ideas. No one can give a coherent explanation as to how a single neuron or a billions could ever come up with a novel idea.
Besides failing to credibly explain normal human mental phenomena, we cannot credibly explain a large variety of abnormal human mental phenomena through theories that our minds come from our brains. For example, materialists are unable to credibly explain phenomena such as apparition sightings and near-death experiences.
The theory that your brain makes your mind also cannot explain a wide variety of baffling phenomena that occur under hypnosis. Such phenomena have been observed for more than two hundred years. What the average person knows about strange occurrences during hypnotic trances is only a fraction of the baffling anomalies that have been historically documented.
Let us look at some of the strange phenomena that have been well-documented as occurring during hypnotic trances.
Phenomenon #1: post-hypnotic amnesia, a failure to remember what happened under hypnosis, except when returning to a hypnotic trance, or after a post-hypnotic cue has been given.
First, let us look at a well-known aspect of hypnosis that is inexplicable under prevailing dogmas about the brain and mind. I refer to the fact that a hypnotized person will often be able to hear speech and respond to questions. But when he is awoken from a hypnotized person, that same person will often be unable to remember anything that went on during the hypnotic trance. But if that person is then put under hypnosis again, he will be able to remember what previously occurred during his hypnotic trance.
Such a tendency is mentioned in an 1851 book on hypnotism (when it was then commonly called animal magnetism). The book by William Gregory MD stated this (using the word "sleeper" for a hypnotized person, and "sleep" for a hypnotic trance):
"As a general rule, but not a rule without some exceptions, the sleeper does not remember, after waking, what he may have seen, felt, tasted, smelled, heard, spoken, or done, during his sleep ; but when next put to sleep, he recollects perfectly all that has occurred, not only in the last sleep, but in all former sleeps, and, as in the ordinary state, with greater or less accuracy, although usually very accurately indeed."
Such a failure to remember what occurred in the hypnotic state is all the more baffling when we consider that a person may be hypnotized and told to perform some simple action after a certain interval, and then woke up from the hypnotic state. The person may then perform such a post-hypnotic suggestion after the interval passed. So it is as if there is no memory of the post-hypnotic suggestion in conscious memory, but there is memory of the post-hypnotic suggestion in some subconscious memory, that then affects conscious actions after a certain interval passes.
We get a rather different account than the quote above in the 1993 paper "Hypnosis, memory and amnesia" by a psychologist John H. Kihlstrom. He states this:
"On termination of hypnosis, some subjects find themselves unable to remember the events and experiences that transpired while they were hypnotized...This posthypnotic amnesia does not occur unless it has been specifically suggested to the subject, and the memories are not restored when hypnosis is reinduced...However, it is temporary; on administration of a pre-arranged cue, the amnesia is reversed and the former amnesic patient is able to remember the events perfectly well."
The term "posthypnotic amnesia" is used for when someone has a conversation under hypnosis, but cannot remember after the hypnotic session ends what happened in the session. The paper
here claims that only 18 out of 243 subjects had such a forgetting. The paper
here says that 691 subjects were hypnotized, and that "A total of 31% of the subjects passed the standardized criterion for posthypnotic amnesia." Page 228 of the paper
here suggests that people awoken from hypnosis may report having no memory of training on some task they trained on, but may perform better when tested on such a task, as if they actually retained some task learning. Some studies suggest that posthypnotic amnesia occurs more strongly for subjects that are classified as "highly hypnotizable."
Harvard psychologist John H. Kihlstrom seems to have published more papers on the topic of post-hypnotic amnesia than any other researcher. It is often hard to read his presentation of his research findings (scientists love to present data in hard-to-read ways). But his 1980
paper "Posthypnotic amnesia for recently learned material: Interactions with 'episodic' and 'semantic' memory" gives some graphs that very clearly show a dramatic effect of post-hypnotic amnesia occurring within a subset of subjects that had been classified as "highly hypnotizable." In Experiment 1, 40 subjects were put under hypnosis and taught a list of words to memorize, along with the instruction that they should not remember the words after awaking from hypnosis, until a cue was given. The ten subjects that had been classified as "highly hypnotizable" remembered an average of fewer than one of the words, but remembered an average of 14 of the words once the cue ("now you can remember everything") had been spoken (as shown in Figure 1 of the paper, on page 237).
In Experiment 2 there were 12 subjects (none who had participated in Experiment 1) who had been classified as hard-to-hypnotize, and 12 who had been classified as "highly hypnotizable." The subjects were put under hypnosis and taught a list of words to memorize, along with the instruction that they should not remember the words after awaking from hypnosis, until a cue was given. The 12 subjects that had been classified as "highly hypnotizable" remembered an average of one or two of the words, but remembered an average of 16 of the words once the cue ("now you can remember everything") had been spoken (as shown in Figure 2 of the paper, on page 243).
This result was replicated in Kihlstrom's 2021
paper "Recognition in Posthypnotic Amnesia, Revisited." In Experiment 1, 16 subjects who had been classified as "highly hypnotizable" were put under hypnosis, and asked to memorize a word list, along with the instruction that they should not remember the words after awaking from hypnosis, until a cue was given. Upon awaking from hypnosis, the subjects could recall only about 3% of the words on the word list, compared to non-hypnotized controls who could recall all of the items on the word list. After the "you can now remember everything" cue was given, the hypnotized subjects could recall all of the words (Table 1).
In Experiment 2, a larger group of 24 subjects was used, also subjects who had been classified as "highly hypnotizable," but none of whom had participated in Experiment 1. The results were almost the same as in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, the hypnotized subjects could only recall about 8% of the words on the word list. But after the "you can now remember everything" cue had been given, the subjects were able to recall more than 90% of the words (Table 3).
In Experiment 3, a new group of 24 subjects was gathered, all of whom had been classified as "highly hypnotizable," and none of whom had participated in the previous two experiments. The 24 subjects were put under hypnosis, and asked to memorize a word list, along with the instruction that they should not remember the words after awaking from hypnosis, until a cue was given. Upon awaking from hypnosis, the subjects could recall only about 1% of the words on the word list, compared to non-hypnotized controls who could recall all of the items on the word list. After the "you can now remember everything" cue was given, the hypnotized subjects could recall 99% of the words (Table 6).
It seems clear from the results above that the phenomenon of post-hypnotic amnesia has been well-established by modern experiments by a Harvard researcher.
The 1833 work "Inquiries concerning the intellectual powers and the investigation of truth" by John Ambercombie MD contains a remarkable account of someone failing to remember what happened in a trance-like state upon waking, but remembering such events when again entering a trance-like state. We
read this:
"Another very singular phenomenon, presented by some instances of this affection, is what has been called, rather incorrectly, a state of double consciousness. It consists in the individual recollecting, during a paroxysm, circumstances which occurred in a former attack, though there was no remembrance of them during the interval. This, as well as various other phenomena connected with the affection, is strikingly illustrated in a case described by Dr. Dyce of Aberdeen, in the Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions. The patient was a servant-girl, and the affection began with fits of somnolency, which came upon her suddenly during the day, and from which she could, at first, be roused by shaking, or by being taken out into the open air....The remarkable circumstance was now discovered that during the paroxysm she had a distinct recollection of what took place in former paroxysms, though she had no remembrance of it during the intervals. At one time she was taken to church while under the attack, and there behaved with propriety, evidently attending to the preacher ; and she was at one time so much affected as to shed tears. In the interval she had no recollection of having been at church ; but in the next paroxysm she gave a most distinct account of the sermon, and mentioned particularly the part of it by which she had been so much affected."
Phenomenon #2: an insensitivity to pain during a hypnotic trance.
It was documented by many nineteenth century writers that under hypnosis a person could lose all sensitivity to pain. For example, in a 19th-century work, we read of a woman in 1829 who had her breast removed to treat cancer. The woman had no anaesthesia, but was merely hypnotized. The account says the woman "did not betray the least symptoms of pain...she talked tranquilly, during the whole time." Pages 65-67 of the same work describes another similar case of a younger hypnotized woman in 1854 who showed no signs of pain as her breast was surgically removed, as she smiled through the surgery. Using the word "somnambulists" to refer to those hypnotized, an 1831 report by a committee of French medical authorities, under the auspices of the Royal Academy of Medicine, stated the following:
"The greater number of the somnambulists whom we have seen, were completely insensible. We might tickle their feet, their nostrils, and the angle of the eyes, with a feather—we might pinch their skin, so as to leave a mark, prick them with pins under the nails, &c. without producing any pain, without even their perceiving it. Finally, we saw one who was insensible to one of the most painful operations in surgery, and who did not manifest the slightest emotion in her countenance, her pulse, or her respiration."
The author of one work tells us of his personal observations on this topic, using "mesmeric" to mean "hypnotic":
"In the first experiment I ever tried to assure myself of the reality of mesmeric anathsesia, a young woman was put to sleep and eight bad teeth were extracted from her ulcerated gums without her having any consciousness of it. But her inner consciousness being at the same time aroused, she was able to tell me the time by a clock in a house eight miles away, as I verified the next day by comparison with my watch."
The report above combines two inexplicable aspects of a hypnotic trance, an insensitivity to pain, and also clairvoyance during a hypnotized state, which is abundantly attested to in other reports discussed here and here and here.
On pages 27-28 of a book by Dr. James Esdaile he lists a host of dramatic painless surgeries he performed without using anesthesia, but only hypnosis on patients. The list includes about 20 amputations, and 200 removals of scrotal tumors ranging from 10 pounds in weight to more than 100 pounds in weight. Another book on this topic by Esdaile can be read here.
In the following quote from a nineteenth century work, we learn of a great irony: that physicians took up a chemical method of anesthesia, one which would often kill people, rather than using hypnotic methods of anesthesia that were proving very safe and effective:
"In Dr. Brown Sequard's lectures upon 'Nervous Force,' delivered in Boston in 1874, he speaks of this form of anaesthesia as follows :
'As regards the power of producing anaesthesia, it seems to me unfortunate that the discovery of ether was made just when it was. It was, as you well know, in 1846 or 1847 that the use of ether as an anaesthetic was begun. It started from this city (Boston). At that time in England, Dr. Forbes was trying to show from facts observed in England, and especially in India, from the practice of Dr. Esdaile, that something which was called Mesmerism, but which, after all, was nothing but a peculiar state of somnambulism induced in patients, gave to them the idea that they were deprived of feeling ; so that they were in reality under the influence of their imagination, and operations were performed that were quite painless. I say that it was a pity that ether was introduced just then, as it prevented the progress of our knowledge as to this method of producing anaesthesia. My friend Dr. Broca took it up in 1857-8 and pushed it very far; and for a time it was the fashion in Paris to have amputations performed after having been anaesthetized by the influence of Braidism or Hypnotism. A great many operations were performed in that way that were quite painless. But it was a process that was long and tedious, and surgeons were in a hurry and gave it up. I regret it very much, as there has never been a case of death from that method of producing anesthesia, while you well know that a great many cases of death have been produced by other methods.' "
A modern paper reports a similar result: hypnosis producing dramatic reduction in headache pains. We read this:
"Symptoms of headache and vertigo were treated using direct hypnotic suggestions of symptom relief in 155 consecutive skull injured patients. Posttraumatic headache and vertigo were completely relieved after an average observation period of 1 year 10 months in 50% and 58% of the patients, and partially relieved in 20% and 16% respectively."
The difference here is that this pain reduction comes after the patient leaves the hypnotized state. On page 292 of the book Human Possibilities: Mind Exploration in the USSR and Eastern Europe by Stanley Krippner,, we read about an experiment by J. A. Stern and his associates. Twenty people were inflicted with pain. Pain-relief techniques were tested on each of them, including hypnosis, acupuncture, aspirin and a placebo, and injections of morphine, We read that "hypnosis proved to be the most effective pain-reduction agent followed by morphine and acupuncture," and that the other methods were not effective.
A 2013 medical paper tell us this:
"Sampimon and Woodruff began using hypnosis near
the end of World War II, due to a lack of sufficient anesthetics while in a hospital for prisoners of war...Using this
method, the authors successfully extracted teeth, often
more than one: 'On being awakened, almost every patient expressed surprise at finding himself in the operating
theatre and refused to believe that a tooth had been
removed until he located the gap with his tongue.' Their
other cases involved hand surgery, including a 40-year old man with supporative tenosynovitis who 'tolerated
a 20-minute finger dissection with a tourniquet in place.
He remained in a deep sleep.' "
Phenomenon #3: an insensitivity to sound during a hypnotic trance.
It was documented by many nineteenth century writers that under hypnosis a person could lose all sensitivity to sound. A nineteenth century work says this about hypnotized patients, using the word "magnetizer" for a hypnotist and "somnambule" for the hypnotized person: "Sensitiveness is entirely abolished. The patient hears only the voice of the magnetizer and that of the person whom the latter places en rapport with him. His deafness is absolute for all noises that occur, of whatsoever intensity. In an experiment made at Paris, a sceptic fired a pistol near the ear of a somnambule. The latter heard nothing. The insensibility is not less complete in other parts of the body. We may bury needles in the flesh without the patient feeling the least pain. He suffers only when he awakes. The most painful surgical operations have been performed on magnetized subjects, and they had only learned what had happened after they had come out of their sleep."
Phenomenon #4: clairvoyance and ESP during a hypnotic trance.
It was documented by many nineteenth century writers and authorities that under hypnosis a person could show paranormal powers of clairvoyance or telepathy. In the long posts here and here and here and here I discuss some of the abundant observational evidence for such a thing. I may note that the reality of clairvoyance under hypnosis was firmly declared by a high-prestige French academic committee, a six-year investigation of the Royal Academy of Medicine that issued its report in 1831.
During the nineteenth century hypnotized people were often asked to engage in a kind of thought sharing or "mind meld" with another person, a state that was called being en rapport with that person. A nineteenth century work on hypnotism gives this summary, using the word "sleeper" for a hypnotized person:
"Thought reading presents itself in every possible variety of form. The sleeper, being placed en rapport with any person, can often describe, with the greatest accuracy, the subject that occupies the thoughts of that person. It may be an absent friend, or his own house, or that of another, or his drawing-room, bed-room, study, &c. &c. All these things the sleeper perceives, as they pass through the mind of the experimenter, and describes with great minuteness and accuracy, so as to excite our astonishment. Or he goes further ; he not only perceives the present, but the past thoughts of the person en rapport with him ; he shares his memory. Thus he will mention facts, no longer so existing, but remembered by the experimenter. Nay, he goes still further even than this ; for he perceives things once known to, and now forgotten by, the experimenter, who very often contradicts the sleeper, and persists in maintaining his own opinion, until, on further enquiry, he not only finds him to be right, but himself is enabled to recall the fact, which had, as we say, escaped his memory."
Many specific case examples of such a thing can be found in the three posts mentioned above (the posts
here and
here and
here). A nineteenth century
work Letters to a Candid Inquirer, on Animal Magnetism by William Gregory gives some very specific numerical details relating to clairvoyance in hypnotic trances (referred to below as "mesmeric sleep"):
"Major Buckley has thus produced conscious clairvoyance in 89 persons, of whom 44 have been able to read mottoes contained in nut-shells, purchased by other parties for the experiment. The longest motto thus read, contained 98 words. Many subjects will read motto after motto without one mistake. In this way, the mottoes contained in 4860 nut-shells have been read, some of them, indeed, by persons in the mesmeric sleep, but most of them by persons in the conscious state, many of whom have never been put to sleep. In boxes, upwards of 86,000 words have been read; 'in one paper, 371 words. Including those who have read words contained in boxes when in the sleep, 148 persons have thus read. It is to be observed that, in a few cases, the words may have been read by thought-reading, as the persons who put them in the boxes were present; but in most cases, no one who knew the words has been present, and they must therefore have been read by direct clairvoyance. Every precaution has been taken. The nuts, inclosing mottoes, for example, have been purchased of 40 different confectioners, and have been sealed up until read. It may be added, that of the 44 persons who have read mottoes in nuts by waking or conscious clairvoyance, 42 belong to the higher class of society; and the experiments have been made in the presence of many other persons. These experiments appear to me admirably contrived, and I can per- ceive no reason whatever to doubt the entire accuracy of the facts."
Later in the same work we read many detailed descriptions of clairvoyance under hypnosis,
one of which is the account below (which uses the "magnetic sleep" to refer to a hypnotic trance):
"E., in the magnetic sleep, as I saw more than once, could see perfectly what passed behind her,
her eyes being closed ; or any thing placed in such a position, that, had her eyes been open, she could not have seen it ; she could also see very often all that passed outside of the door, and when I was there, told us how many of the servants of the hotel were listening at the door, in hopes of
hearing wonders ; she would also often tell what was doing in the room above or below her. In short, she frequently exhibited direct clairvoyance in every form, not only in those just mentioned, but also in that of seeing prints or pictures shut up in boxes. Besides seeing various instances
of direct clairvoyance, I was able to satisfy myself that Dr. Haddock's experiments were made with the greatest care and judgment ; that he was particularly well acquainted with the various causes of error and confusion, very careful to avoid these, and that in short his accounts of such experiments as I had not seen were entirely trustworthy."
On
page 334 in the same work, we read this account of clairvoyance under hypnotism:
"We requested her to visit the house of Mrs. P., one of the ladies present. This house was in
Greenock, distant from my cottage about a mile and a quarter. She saw her servant in the kitchen, but said that another woman was with her. On being pressed to look earnestly at the woman, she said it was C_____ M______. This, Mrs. P. declared to be true. We then asked her to see if any person was in Mrs. P.'s parlor, when she said that Miss Laing was there, a young lady from Edinburgh, who
was boarding with Mrs. P. at the time ; that she was sitting on the sofa ; that she was crying, and that a letter was in her hand. On the party breaking up, I walked into Greenock with the ladies and gentlemen, in order to see if she was right about Miss L. It was true. Miss L. had received a letter by that evening's post from her father in Edinburgh, stating that her mother was not expected to live, and requesting her to come home by the first train in the morning."
Although living mind researchers have usually displayed an appalling failure to research the topic of clairvoyance under hypnosis that was so well-documented in the nineteenth century, we occasionally get evidence of it even in recent years. A 2020
paper found that hypnosis increased success in remote viewing efforts, remote viewing being essentially a synonym for clairvoyance. Using RV for a non-hypotic "remote viewing" attempts, and OB-RV for a hypnotically aided "remote viewing" attempts, in which subjects were encouraged to mentally travel out of their bodies, the paper states the following:
"The purpose of this study was to compare the ability to identify and describe physical targets, from a distance, in the RV and OB-RV states of consciousness.The results clearly demonstrate that in both conditions, the amount of correct information is clearly greater than wrong information, with a difference of around 20%. The only difference in performance between the two is in the number of correct information, which is slightly greater in the OB-RV condition."
The author Joseph Haddock
reported that after hypnotizing a subject, the subject would respond to any pain inflicted on Joseph, just as if the hypnotized person had felt the pain: "I have got individuals to tread on my toes, pull my hair, or pinch different parts of the body ; and I invariably found that, with this subject, not many seconds would elapse before she would complain of exactly similar treatment, and refer the pain to the exact corresponding part; and sometimes I have experienced considerable difficulty in dispelling the illusion."
An effect totally inexplicable under materialist assumptions is what is called "community of sensations" under hypnosis. It has been very frequently reported that a hypnotized person may instantly feel sensations felt by the person who hypnotized him. A set of experiments on this effect is reported in the "First Report of the Committee on Mesmerism" pages 225-229 of Volume 1 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (April, 1883), a committee including the illustrious names of Frederic Myers, Edmund Gurney, Frank Podmore, George Wyld M.D. and the eventually knighted physicist W.F. Barrett. We read this on page 226: "Thus out of a total of 24 experiments in transference of pains, the exact spot.was correctly indicated by the subject no less than 20 times." These were experiments in which the hypnotized subject was asked whether he felt anything, after the hypnotizer had been given some type of pain or sensation while in another room where the hypnotized person could not see him. Similar results were obtained by Dr. Edmund Gurney and reported in his paper "An Account of Some Experiments in Mesmerism," published on page 201 of Volume II of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research ( June 1884). As reported on page 205, a hypnotized subject identified with high accuracy many tactile and taste sensations occurring in a hypnotizer sitting behind him.
In his book Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism and Its Phenomena, Professor William Gregory of Edinburgh University describes extraordinary ESP occurring between some hypnotized people (called "sleepers") and their hypnotists (called "mesmerists") or non-hypnotized people brought into a kind of state of mental communion with the hypnotized person (called a state of being en rapport):
"The sleeper acquires the power of perceiving every sensation, bodily and mental, of his mesmerist. Nay, he often exhibits a like power in reference to all with whom he is placed en rapport, especially when this is done by contact. These sensations are so vividly felt by the sleeper, that he cannot distinguish them from the same sensations produced by direct external impressions on his own frame. Indeed, there appears to be no difference whatever between- the two. He feels what is felt by the person en rapport with him, as truly as if the original impressions were made upon himself....There is Community of Taste. If the operator, or any person, en rapport with the subject, takes any kind of food or drink into his mouth, the sleeper, in many cases, instantly begins going through the pantomime of eating or drinking ; and, if asked, he declares he is eating bread, or an orange, or sweetmeats, or drinking water, wine, milk, beer, syrup, or lemonade, or infusion of wormwood, or brandy, or whisky, according as the operator takes each of them, or any other substance. When the thing taken is bitter or disagreeable, the countenance of the sleeper at once indicates this, while his eyes, as usual, are closed, and the mesmerist or friend may stand behind him, so that he cannot see what is taken....The same thing occurs with regard to Smell. If the person en rapport with the sleeper, smell a rose, the latter at once begins to inhale the delightful perfume. If he smell assafoetida, the sleeper expresses disgust ; and if he place strong hartshorn under his own nostrils, the sleeper starts back, complaining of its pungency. The Community of Smelling is just as perfect as that of taste.....There is Community of Touch. Whatever touches the person en rapport , is felt by the sleeper, in precisely the same part. If the former shake hands with any one, the latter instantly grasps a visionary hand. If a pin be driven into the back of the mesmerist’s hand, the sleeper hastily withdraws his hand, rubs the part, and complains loudly of the injury. This may be tried in all forms with perfect success in very many subjects."
"Summarizing the results of recent ESP research using hypnosis, Honorton points out that, out of 42 series of trials, slightly over half have provided positive results, as against a chance expectation of five per cent. 'I believe the conclusion is now inescapable that hypnotic induction procedure enhance psi receptivity.' "
Beginning on
page 223 of the book
Facts in mesmerism or animal magnetism : with reasons for a dispassionate inquiry into it by Chauncy-Hare Townsend, we have many pages of the author describing clairvoyance in a hypnotized subject Anna M. We hear report after report of Anna identifying things with closed eyes, seemingly as if she had vision rising from her forehead rather than her eyes. On
page 231 the same author states this about another subject he studied under hypnosis: "His eyes being always firmly shut, (as far as the strictest observation could determine,) he was able to read any number of words in the minutest type with perfect ease, and to discern small or large objects, near or distant, with the same felicity of vision which is possessed by a waking person." We
read this:
""This power of perception, analogous to sight, seemed to reside principally in his forehead. Whatever objects he took up to examine he immediately carried there."
Later in the same book we have
an account of very careful tests showing clairvoyance in a hypnotized subject:
"1st. I laid the patient on a sofa, in bright day-
light, with his face turned towards the window, and
made him lean his head back until I could see com-
pletely under his eyes. When he was so placed, I
could have detected the slightest gleam of the eye
through the smallest opening of the lids. I have
then given him a book, from which he has read with
ease, (holding it nearly parallel to his forehead,)
while all the time I fixed my eyes earnestly on his,
and yet could perceive not the slightest tendency in
them to unclose.
2dly. I laid the palms of my hands, the fingers
pointing upwards, on the eyes of various persons, in
such a manner as that the projecting parts of each
hand should exactly fit into the concavities about the
eyes. These persons assured me that, with their
eyes so covered, they could see nothing whatever. I
have given them cards or books in their hands, but
by no efforts on their parts could they distinguish
these objects. I have repeated the same experiment
again and again upon E. A., in a state of [hypnotized] sleepwalking,
and never found that the palms of my hands in
any way impeded his vision. He could see cards, or
read in books, under the above circumstances, with
perfect ease. I never felt any motion beneath my
hand, as if the patient were trying to open his eyes ;
nor did he evince the slightest inclination to draw
his head back from the pressure of my hands.
3dly. Standing behind the patient, I have laid my
closed fingers over his eyes horizontally, or I have
forcibly pressed down his lids with one finger of each
hand. This, which, when tried on others, effectually
impeded their sight, made no alteration in the visual
perceptions of the [hypnotized] sleepwalker.
4thly. Having filled a couple of china eye-glasses
with wadding, I, or some other person, held them
firmly to the patient's closed eyes when in sleepwalking.
This also made no difference in his visual
perceptions....
5thly. I have tried various methods of bandaging
the patient's eyes. I have tied a broad and thick
silk handkerchief over them, and then I have held
down with my fingers, or the palms of my hands,
the whole of the bottom part of the bandage. This
method seems to me as perfect as any. It did not at
all impede the sleepwalker's vision. In addition to
this, (the same result always ensuing,) I have laid
strips of wadding over the eyes before applying the
handkerchief, and I have firmly secured every possible
interstice between it and the cheek with cotton.
In the presence of Dr. Foissac, strips of diachylum
were added to all the above apparatus, in order to
fasten down the edges of the handkerchief to the
cheek ; but the sleepwalker saw as well as ever. On
several occasions I bandaged his eyes, adding the
cotton and the wadding before beginning to mesmerise [hypnotize] him,
when he has assured me that he could not
distinguish day from night. Then, having passed
into sleepwalking, he has immediately given proofs of
perfect vision — quite as perfect, indeed, as that enjoyed
by persons whose eyes are open and unbound.
6thly. I threw over the patient's head two thick
and large towels, which covered him in front down
to the hips. Through these he has read, holding the
book at an angle with his forehead, and has distin-
guished cards with perfect accuracy. This kind of
experiment was occasionally varied. Sometimes the
sleepwaker has been bandaged, and, in addition to
this, a towel has been thrown over his head ; but the
result was equally satisfactory."
Can we imagine a more stringent series of tests? And the subject kept
demonstrating clairvoyance, despite each and every thing impeding normal vision.
In his book Animal Magnetism, or Mesmerism and Its Phenomena, Professor William Gregory of Edinburgh University describes something even more remarkable than thought-reading or telepathy: an ability of a hypnotized person to access the memories of another person. He states this:
"Or he goes further ; he not only perceives the present, but the past thoughts of the person en rapport with him ; he shares his memory. Thus he will mention facts, no longer so existing, but remembered by the experimenter.
Nay, he goes still further even than this ; for he perceives things once known to, and now forgotten by, the experimenter, who very often contradicts the sleeper, and persists in maintaining his own opinion, until, on further inquiry, he not only finds him to be right, but himself is enabled to recall the fact, which had, as we say, escaped his memory.
We all know that we are apt, at times, to forget facts, which subsequently recur to the memory. But here, it would seem that the sleeper so sympathises with our past thoughts, as to read what we ourselves are for the moment blind to."
Phenomenon #5: extreme suggestibility.
An astonishing aspect of hypnotism is that hypnotized people will seem to act or believe in various ridiculous ways, if the person hypnotizing them has suggested the action or belief. A nineteenth century work
describes this aspect of hypnotism, describing some hypnotized subjects:
"When they drank water, and were told that it was milk, coffee, rum, whisky, or wormwood, they tasted it as such. Nay, after drinking it as whisky, they were told that they were drunk, and in a minute or two became, in every particular, very drunk indeed. The expression of the face was perfectly that of intoxication, and they could not walk a step without staggering or falling. They were easily made, by suggestion, to fancy themselves any other persons, and acted in character. They shot, fished, swam, lectured, and exhibited every feeling suggested to them. They were as easily made to suppose a stick to be a gun, a rod, a sword, nay, a serpent ; or a chair to be a tiger or a bear. From these animals they fled with extreme terror. They were made to see, hear, and feel a dreadful storm, and to creep for shelter under a table or a chair, supposed by them to be a house. From this, they were soon expelled
by the serpent, or by the flood rising, when they swam lustily for their lives. This was the first time that either of them had been tried ; and the control exercised by Mr. Lewis over their sensations, erceptions, and emotions was perfect, although their consciousness was entire. They knew the suggested impressions to be false, but could not resist them. It was most interesting to watch closely their countenances, when an object, for example, a handkerchief, was placed in the hand, and, after they felt quite sure of what it was, they were told it was a rat, &c. The gradual change to doubt, from doubt to certainty, and from that to disgust or anger, was inimitable, and conveyed at once, to those near enough to see it, complete conviction of their sincerity."
There follows in the book a description of quite a few cases of similar levels of suggestibility under hypnosis. Similarly, on page 85 of the
September 22, 1876 edition of The Spiritualist, scientist William Barrett tells us this:
"Selecting some of the village children and placing’ them in a quiet room, giving each some small object to look at steadily, it was found that one amongst the number readily passed into a state of reverie, resembling that dreamy condition between sleeping and waking. In this state the subject could readily be made to believe the most extravagant statements, such as that the table was a mountain, a chair a pony, a mark on the floor an insuperable obstacle."
On page 87 of the same document Barrett tells us this:
"I selected in the manner already described, a young lad, who in the course of five minutes was hypnotised, as Mr. Braid would say. The lad now readily believed any assertion I made, with evident relish going through the farce of eating and drinking because I suggested the act, though the only materials I gave him were a book and an empty vase."
Phenomenon #6: post-hypnotic suggestions.
An astonishing aspect of hypnotism is that people in a hypnotic trance who have promised to do something or been instructed to do something will often do just such a thing, even if they have no memory of promising such a thing or being told to do such a thing when they were hypnotized. A nineteenth century work describes this tendency, using the word "sleeper" for a hypnotized person:
"This leads me to another very curious phenomenon, namely, that the sleeper, if commanded, in the sleep, to do a certain thing, after waking, and at a certain hour, will do so, and however absurd or ridiculous the act, he cannot, in many cases, refrain from doing it, if he has promised it in
the sleep."
Post-hypnotic suggestion was the centerpiece of one of the funniest episodes of the original Dick Van Dyke Show. The experiments discussed above by Harvard psychologist John H. Kihlstrom (done in recent decades) show post-hypnotic suggestions are a well-established empirical reality, at least in regard to their ability to end a state of very limited forgetfulness commanded by a hypnotist telling subjects to temporarily forget something they learned under hypnosis.
Phenomenon #7: transposition of senses.
Another astonishing aspect of hypnotism is that people in a hypnotic trance sometimes reportedly have a kind of displacement of one or more of the senses. For example, they may be able to see only things presented to some part of their body other than their eyes. A nineteenth century
work describes this on
page 148:
"I have not hitherto noticed, save in passing, a phenomenon which occasionally presents itself, but which is not by any means uniformly present in a marked form; I mean, transference of the senses to some special part of the body.... But it sometimes happens, that the power of seeing, not
the ordinary sense of sight, but the clairvoyant power, is located in some special part. It has been observed to be located in the pit of the stomach, in the tips of the fingers, in the occiput as well as in the forehead, or on the top of the head, and in one case which I heard of from a scientific gentleman who tested it, in the soles of the feet. The books and journals which treat of Animal Magnetism teem with similar facts; and the head, hand, and epigastrium, seem to be the usually selected parts, probably from the proximity to the brain in the first, the great development of the nerves of touch in the second, and the presence of the great sympathetic plexus of nerves in the third. The fact itself is beyond all doubt, and it is quite unnecessary to accumulate cases. In one form or other, the power of dispensing with the eyes, and yet perceiving color, &c. quite plainly, is found in every good subject. The same thing frequently happens with hearing. Thus E. when on her travelling state or stage, is utterly deaf to
all sounds, save those which are addressed to her by speaking with the mouth in contact with the tips of her fingers. This fact I have myself verified. I believe she would not hear a pistol fired at her ear, in that state."
Phenomenon #8: astonishing time-keeping or time calculation abilities.
In the long Chapter 1 of the 1922 book "Medical Psychology and Psychical Research" by T. W. Mitchell there is a long discussion of astonishing time-keeping abilities of hypnotized subjects. Mitchell performed many experiments in which a subject under hypnosis was told to perform a simple task (to draw a cross on a piece of paper) after a particular interval of time expired. The subject would be brought out of the hypnotic state long before the interval expired.
On
page 12 Mitchell mentions an example of time-keeping seeming to occur with such post-hypnotic suggestions, starting with a January 3 post-hypnotic suggestion:
"On January 3rd, 1907, I made a similar suggestion to be fulfilled on 'the I45th day from this.' On January 16th I asked her in hypnosis if she remembered what I told her on January 3rd. She said she did. ' How many days are gone ?' '13.' ' How many to come ?' ' 132.' ' When does it fall due ?' 'May 28th.' All the answers are correct, and were given without any hesitation. On being asked the same questions on January 29th, she said that 26 days had passed, and 119 still to come (right)."
"Here is an example of Delboeuf's experiments. At 6.55 a.m. he suggested to his subject M. that at the
expiration of 1,500 minutes she was to ask Madame Delboeuf if she required anything. This suggestion was carried out with absolute accuracy. Delboeuf made twelve experiments of this kind, the time-intervals suggested varying from 350 to 3,300 minutes. Two of these were fulfilled at the moment they fell due. In three the impulse to fulfil the suggested act arose at the right time."
What we see here is a time-tracking ability (in post-hypnotic suggestions) greater than any ability humans in normal consciousness. If you asked a person in normal consciousness to do something (such as jumping in the air) after the expiration of 1500 minutes, he would be most unlikely to do the requested thing at the exact time (without the use of something like an alarm clock).
On
page 15 we have this example obtained by a Dr. Bramwell (whose book on the topic you can read
here):
"On Tuesday, December 24th, 1895, at 3.10 p.m., Miss D. was told, during hypnosis, that she was to make a cross on a piece of paper in 7,200 minutes (Exp. No. 7). This fell due to be fulfilled on Sunday, December 29th. When it was fulfilled Miss D. was teaching a Sunday School class, when she suddenly felt an impulse to make a cross and mark the time. It was only after doing so that she looked at the clock, which was behind her. Her estimation of the time was correct."
The
next page tells us that 45 similar experiments with Miss D. produced similar results: "Forty-five were completely successful, i.e. not only did Miss D. write down the correct terminal time, but this was done, also, at the moment the experiment fell due." On the same page Mitchell tell us, "I have made a series of observations which corroborate in many ways the results obtained by Dr. Bramwell."
On
page 19 Mitchell gives us exact results from experiments in post-hypnotic suggestion he did with a subject F.D. The astonishingly accurate results are shown below. For example, in the first experiment, the subject F. D. was told under hypnosis to do some specific thing (such as draw a cross) 700 minutes into the future, and the subject did that exactly that thing 700 minutes later.
Page 15 of the long document
here cites a case of a post-hypnotic suggestion with a remarkable "time keeping" ability involving a post-hypnotic suggestion given to someone put under hypnosis:
"I instructed S that he would come back and see me after thirteen days at
ten in the morning. Awake, he remembered nothing. On the thirteenth
day, at ten in the morning, he was present [...] He told me that he had
not had this idea during the preceding days. He did not know that he
was supposed to come. The idea presented itself to his mind only at the
moment at which he was required to execute."
The leading researcher Paul Janet explained why a case like this is so inexplicable:
"These facts are extraordinary and almost incomprehensible. It is
not a reason to reject them; but it is interesting, from a psychological
perspective, to precisely identify the points wherein the inexplicable lies.
What surprises me in these facts is not the impregnation and
persistence in memory of an image of which we are not conscious...1 would furthermore understand the return of these images and acts at a fixed date, if the
operator associated them with the appearance of a vivid sensation; for
example, 'the day you see M. so-and-so, you will kiss him,' the sight
of M. so-and-so thus acting as the stimulant that wakens the idea.
But what 1 absolutely do not understand is the awakening on a
fixed day without any point of attachment other than the numeration of
time: in thirteen days, for example. Thirteen days do not represent a
sensation; it is an abstraction. To understand these facts, we must infer
an unconscious faculty for measuring time. Now that is an unknown
faculty for which we can supply no analogies. Up until now, everything
could be explained by the laws of the association of ideas, images and
movements; but here we make a sudden leap. No association can
explain counting thirteen days without knowing it."
Phenomenon #9: mysterious cures
During the nineteenth century there were very many reports of people being mysteriously cured by hypnotic treatment. To find such reports, you can go to www.archive.org and search for "Mesmerism" and "animal magnetism" (the terms used for hypnosis treatments before the word "hypnosis" overtook them). Many
examples can be found in the book
Vital magnetism: its power over disease by Frederick T. Parson.
A modern scientific
paper ("Improving working memory performance in brain-injured patients using hypnotic suggestion") states the following:
"Working memory impairment is prevalent in brain injured patients across lesion aetiologies and severities. Unfortunately, rehabilitation efforts for this impairment have hitherto yielded small or no effects. Here we show in a randomized actively controlled trial that working memory performance can be effectively restored by suggesting to hypnotized patients that they have regained their pre-injury level of working memory functioning."
The paper testing 49 brain-damaged subjects reports a dramatic improvement in working memory for the subjects. Group 1 with 27 subjects improved from an average score of 81.74 (well below average) to an average score of 107.44 (well above average). Group 2 with 22 subjects improved from an average score of 80.36 (well below average) to an average score of 103.95 (substantially above average).
A psychology paper reports that after a brain-damaged woman was hypnotized and told that she could fix her cognitive problems, she "had major improvements in the cognitive tests," and "her Working Memory Index improved from the 0.17 % percentile to the 10% percentile."
See here for a wide variety of medical improvements produced by hypnosis.
Phenomenon #10: exaltation of thinking and speaking abilities under hypnosis
It has often been reported that in a hypnotic trance someone might be able to think and speak much better than he could in his normal consciousness. An example of such a thing is given in the book
The Mechanism of Man: An Answer to the Question, what Am I? by Edward William Cox. On page 301
we read this:
"But the Trance patient does what the Somnambule does not....He maintains a conversation, answer- ing questions with astonishing ability and in language such as he cannot command in his waking state. Often he will argue with scholastic skill, treating with ease and accuracy subjects of profound thought, far beyond the range of his waking iutelligence. I have heard an uneducated barman, when in a state of Trance, maintain a dialogue with a party of philosophers on 'reason and foreknowledge. Will and fate,' and hold his own against them. I have put to him the most difficult questions in Psychology and received answers, always thoughtful, often full of wisdom, and invariably conveyed in choice and eloquent language. Nevertheless, in a quarter of an hour afterwards, when wakened from the Trance, he was unable to answer the simplest query on a philosophical subject and was not merely inapt at the language of science he had been lately using so glibly, but at a loss for sufficient language in which to express a common- place idea."
"In the first experiment a subject was ordered to solve under hypnosis a geometrical problem, well above his normal ability. The order was carried out, and in precisely the specified time. In another experiment Feldman read to the subject (under hypnosis) several strophes from the lliad (in Greek hexameter) ; the subject repeated them afterwards without a single mistake in words or metre although not knowing Greek. Then half a page was read from a French book. The subject repeated it without mistake. In a third experiment Feldman gave to his subject a difficult trigonometric problem which the latter tried to solve for several hours without success. Under hypnosis he solved it with remarkable ease, using a different formula, tackling logarithms without hesitation, etc. After waking up he was again unable to solve the same problem (Rebus, 1885, No. 41, PP. 370-371). Feldman observed that along with the increase of such faculties as memory and mathematical ability his subjects experienced peculiar changes of eyesight. Thus, for example, a certain Mr. T., normally near-sighted, in hypnosis would become exceedingly far- sighted."
A Russian scholar of hypnotism
describes stages of hypnotic trances, and we can only wonder what observations led him to make the remarkable claim mentioned at the end of this passage:
"The second [stage], when the sensitivity was partly suspended was magnetic half-sleep. In the third stage, magnetic sleep occurred when all external sensations and all contact with the outside world were stopped. In the fourth stage the magnetized person depended entirely upon his magnetizer who acted as an intermediary, capable of producing in his subject sensations, feelings and actions; this was a somnambulist state. In the fifth stage the patient could see clearly the inner mechanism of his body, the cause of his illness and the means to cure it; this was called clairvoyance. During the sixth stage the subject entered into a superior state, the union with the whole of nature, whereby he became able to understand all phenomena, and was not limited by time and space ; this stage was called secret illumination and the phenomena of ' stepping out of the body' could then occur."
Phenomenon #11: improved memory recall under hypnosis
Although it is widely claimed that memories that could not be retrieved in normal consciousness can sometimes be retrieved under hypnosis, such a claim is debated. But there is some evidence to support it. We had one example as part of one of the paragraphs I just quoted, from a scholarly work on hypnosis:
" In another experiment Feldman read to the subject (under hypnosis) several strophes from the lliad (in Greek hexameter) ; the subject repeated them afterwards without a single mistake in words or metre although not knowing Greek. Then half a page was read from a French book. The subject repeated it without mistake."
To give another example, on page 16 of the paper "The self-regulation of memory: for better and for worse" by two psychologists, we are told this: "More
dramatic findings were obtained by Fromm (1970) in a nisei student who denied any knowledge of Japanese;
when [hypnotically] age-regressed, she broke into fluent if childish Japanese."
In the same paper we read the following on page 16:
"Everyone who has administered... the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale Form C, which includes a suggestion for age regression, has
observed subjects who appear to relive episodes from childhood that have been forgotten, or not
remembered for a long time. Supporting these observations, Young (1926) was able to elicit a substantial
number of early recollections, whose accuracy was independently verified, in two hypnotizable subjects. And
more recently, Hofling, Heyl, and Wright (1971) compared subjects' recall of personal experiences to actual
diary entries made at the time, and found superior memory during hypnosis compared to a nonhypnotic
session."
I may note that you do not discredit such reports by referring to experiments in which people are asked to memorize information and then asked to recall such information under hypnosis (tests that may produce no improvement in recall, particularly if the information to be memorized was meaningless information). The issue is whether there can sometimes occur under hypnosis an ability to recall far better than occurs under normal consciousness. You do not discredit claims that such a thing sometimes occurs by merely showing that it does not always occur or often does not occur. It is well-known that effects under hypnosis vary tremendously from one person to another.
Phenomenon #12: Simultaneous writing and talking
In the book
Hypnotism Today we read this (
page 144):
"In automatic writing an individual can consciously converse intelligently on a topic, and at the same time his hand holding a pencil will write automatically and coherently on some entirely unrelated subject, the person having no conscious knowledge of what the hand writes. This is not a rare ability for many are able to do it in the waking state. During hypnosis it can often be invoked in others."
Later in the same book we read this: "Dr. Muhl tells of patients reading a book aloud while carrying on automatic writing with both hands at once, each writing of a different matter - a triangle of mental activity."
The lack of any workable neuroscience theory to explain hypnotic phenomena
It is impossible to explain the more anomalous aspects of hypnotism under the prevailing dogmas that the brain is the cause of human mental phenomena and the storage place of memories. When neuroscientists attempt to offer an explain for hypnotism, they usually use the trick of mentioning only a small subset of the phenomena that have been observed in hypnotic trances.
Near the end of his book Hypnotism and Treatment by Suggestion, Bramwell commented on the lack of any good theory to explain what occurs under hypnotic trances. He stated this:
"So far, no reasonable answer has been given to the question, 'What is the connection between hypnotic methods and the production of so-called hypnotic phenomena ?' Personally, I see no logical connection between the acts of fixed gazing, concentration of attention, suggested ideas of drowsy states, and the varied manifestations of so-called hypnosis."
After disputing some theories trying to explain hypnotism, the author states, "While I have raised objections to all the theories referred to — theories which are discussed much more fully in my larger work -- I have unfortunately, no theory of my own to bring forward in substitution for them." Bramwell had no theory because he was man of a materialist bent.
Once we discard materialist ideas about the brain, we may start to put forth some ideas that can begin to explain some of the mysteries of hypnotism. One idea is that the brain is not the cause of our minds, but mainly a kind of valve that limits our minds. If so, then something fairly simple such as hypnotism might reduce that valve effect. The result might be an abundance of mental phenomena inexplicable through any neural cause, not phenomena that are produced by the brain, but powers and aspects of a human soul that a normal brain blocked us from previously seeing, through a valve effect rather like how a valve prevents water from flowing.
