Hypnosis

Essay by Anonymous UserHigh School, 11th gradeA+, November 1996

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The British Medical Association and the American Medical Association has called

it 'a temporary condition of altered attention in the subject that may be induced by another

person,' (Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia) but there is still much about hypnosis that

is not understood. Because it resembles normal sleep, it was studied and was found that the

brain waves of hypnotized people are more similar to the patterns of deep relaxation than

anything else. Rather than a psychic or mystical idea, hypnosis is now looked upon as a

form of highly focused concentration in which outside influences are ignored.

The most known feature of the hypnotic trance is that hypnotized person becomes

easily influenced by the suggestions others-usually the hypnotist. They retain their abilities

to act and are able to walk, talk, speak, and respond to questions; but their perceptions can

be altered or distorted by external suggestions. At the command of the hypnotist, subjects

may lose all feeling in a place on the body, and any kind of pain will not cause them any

pain. The heartbeat can be slowed or quickened, and a rise in temperature and perspiration

can be created. They can be commanded to experience visual or auditory hallucinations or

live the past as if it were the present. Also, recently a scientist discovered that the way the

subject's mind experiences time can be altered so that hours or even weeks can pass in

second, from the subjects point of view. Subjects may forget part or all of the hypnotic

experience or recall things that they had forgotten. The hypnotist may also make

'posthypnotic suggestions' that are instructions to the subject to respond to a something

after awakening. For example, the hypnotist might suggest that, after the subject wakes up

he will have an urge to...