Erowid References Database
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Mellett P.
“Hypnosis. Current views on the psychophysiology of hypnosis”.
Brit. J. Hosp. Med.. 1980;23(5):441.
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Abstract
At present there is no definition stating the precise nature of hypnosis and excluding all else. Descriptive but nonexclusive definitions currently offered show a considerable consensus (Orne, 1973). With a slight modification of Orne's view it may be said that hypnosis is an unusual (or altered) state of consciousness in which distortions of perception (possibly including those of place and time) occur as uncritical responses of the subject to notions from an objective source (usually the hypnotist) or a subjective source (his own memory) or both. For example, the hypnotist may suggest that the patient sees an object not present, hears music in the absence of sound, smells a rose in the absence of any flowers or scent, cannot move his eyelids when his neuromuscular system is intact, or perceives such lightness of his right arm that it floats upwards. If the subject behaves as if he has such experiences, reports that he has them, and (as far as can be ascertained) believes that he has them, he is regarded as in a state of hypnosis. The development of this state would usually have been preceded by an induction procedure but this is not a necessary precondition for the existence of hypnosis. We are unable, as yet, to state the conditions that are sufficient for the production of hypnosis. It is important to note a curious paradox: many
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| Notes # : Also pp. 444-5 |
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