The trouble with hypnosis,

But what does it really mean to be under the influence of hypnosis? Many of those working most closely with it are surprisingly uncertain about exactly what hypnosis is. The absence of a standard definition is far more than a semantic quibble. It appears to signify a fatal flaw in the way we think about hypnosis--and in the way we think about ourselves. Decades of searching with sophisticated technology have not yielded a single shred of evidence that hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness. Indeed, it May not be a mysterious mental state at all. It may turn out to be a powerful confluence of much more accessible social and psychological processes rather than a single extraordinary phenomenon. In all likelihood, hypnosis is a metaphor for selling our own intrinsic mental capabilities short. Hypnosis may be the ultimate psychic sales spiel--a way for us to disown powers we already have and buy them back under a fancy label. What is Hypnotic Induction?

The ambiguity surrounding what it means to be under the influence of hypnosis starts right at the beginning, with no standard for hypnotic induction. Induction is supposed to be a ritualized set of procedures for bringing about the special hypnotic state. But it's not like a drug that's given in measured doses. There's no definition for what constitutes a dose of hypnotic induction. And here's the rub: in the absence of a standard, it is not possible to evaluate the effects of the induction process or even to state conclusively when a person is, or is not, undergoing hypnosis.

In the stereotypical image of hypnotic induction, there's an interaction in which one person temporarily assumes authority over another. The hypnotist gives the subject suggestions to relax and focus, to become compliant, to imagine situations such as an arm becoming heavy or a fly buzzing around the room, and then to follow suggestions meant to be therapeutic, such as letting go of pain and imagining another sensation replacing it.

In reality, however, almost any exchange imaginable has been defined as hypnotic induction, even an ordinary conversation. For some therapists induction is little more than another word for a typical psychotherapy session. For others the term implies helping a patient achieve an intensely focused and dissociated state of consciousness or the skillful use of suggestions such as, "You begin to notice the pain fading into the distance," or "You will be able to let go of the habit easily." And so-called self-hypnosis doesn't require two people.

A Trance Perchance?

Even if hypnotic induction withers in the light of scrutiny, surely there's some resulting state of mind all hypnosis subjects share regardless of the means used to achieve it? The Holy Grail of hypnosis research is a measurable trance state in which people somehow gain direct access to the deeper recesses of the unconscious, transcend pain, and stimulate their immune response. Such a state would reasonably be expected to show up as a signature pattern of brain waves or physiological correlates akin to the rapid eye movements of dream sleep.

Unfortunately, attempts to find brainwave patterns that distinguish hypnosis from ordinary waking consciousness have not panned out. The rare physiological sign of hypnosis spotted in the laboratory has failed to prove the existence of a hypnotic state. When Stanford psychiatrist David Spiegel, M.D., told hypnotized subjects to focus their attention elsewhere while receiving mild electric shocks, they showed a decreased physiological response to pain. But the same effect could be elicited from subjects not undergoing hypnotic induction--just by getting them to focus their attention elsewhere. "Every time we thought there was a physiological indicator it hasn't held up," concedes Thurman Mott, M.D., editor of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis.

THE FAILURE TO SNIFF OUT OBJECTIVE EVidence of a trance state has its effect. "It's nonsensical to argue that hypnosis involves some sort of special state when we can't find it no matter how long we look," says Robert Baker, Ph.D., author of They Call It Hypnosis and professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky, "Eventually you stop looking. It's like looking for ether." Baker has been practicing hypnosis for more than 20 years and has published original research in the field. "After doing all this work," he says, "it has become obvious to me, as it has to many people, that there is no such thing as an altered state of consciousness known as hypnosis."

It is entirely possible that hypnosis begets a state of mind that eludes current means of measurement. So, like spotting the tracks of Bigfoot, hypnosis proponents have tried to show that such a state exists by pointing to its alleged effects. Some seemingly miraculous bit of human behavior--say, calmly enduring a root canal without anesthesia--is seen as a sign that hypnosis was there.