Were You Really Hypnotized?

Many--probably most--volunteers insist that they were not really hypnotized. Why do they think that?

Several reasons are given, the most common being that they heard everything I said. Others insist that they were not hypnotized because they didn’t feel like they were. They readily admit however that they have no idea what it would feel like to be hypnotized--but they are sure they would know it if they were hypnotized.

I frequently tell a volunteer (almost always a woman) that one of their friends, Kristin, for instance, is not present and that when she wakes up she will not see Kristin. Several vounteers who have been given this suggestion have later asserted that they could see the "invisible" friend even though they had said and acted as if they could not.

Interestingly the volunteer had to see Kristin even though she was not aware of it in order to recognize who it was she could not see! If I had told her she could not see Judy and she did not know and could not recognize Judy she would of course see Judy.

I suspect that the principal reason so many volunteers who were--at least in my opinion--hypnotized find it so hard to believe is that it does in fact seem quite incredible. I could cite many, many examples. Many years ago Amy, the teen-age daughter of a friend, had seen me relieve her mother of severe migraines and asked if I could help her stop biting her fingernails.

Amy, like her mother, was an excellent subject and I quickly hypnotized her and suggested that she would stop biting her fingernails. As soon as I woke her up she immediately exclaimed: “It didn’t work with me. I wasn’t hypnotized. I heard everything you said. I wasn’t hypnotized.”

Several week later I saw Amy and asked how her fingernails were. “Oh, aren’t they beautiful”, she said as she proudly displayed her hands.

“Think you may have been hypnotized?”

“Oh, no. Didn’t have anything to do with that. I just decided to stop biting them.”

The late Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate, gave an excellent explanation. After describing his thoughts as he complied with a suggestion to leave his seat and walk around the auditorium, Feynman said: “I kept asking myself why am I doing this? I knew that I didn’t have to do it but somehow I just felt like doing it. I suppose that’s what hypnosis is.”

Doug, a student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, was a super subject who I had hypnotized many times and to illustrate my point that few people are aware that they have been hypnotized, I asked Doug if he had been hypnotized. To my surprise he immediately answered “Yes”.

I asked how he knew and he looked puzzled but after reflection finally replied: “I guess because of the things people have told me". To see how other volunteers have described the experience click here

I’ll be grateful for reactions from any of my volunteers. If you feel you were not really hypnotized, how do you know that? And if you think you were hypnotized, how do you know that?

Give me your reaction and I'll send you a free DVD of clips from a recent show. Be sure to include your mailing address. To reply click here.