Hypnosis?

[jjcourtright]

I went to the comedy club over the weekend, and there was a hypnotist doing a show. While he was unable to hypnotize me, he did hypnotize four people on stage and one girl in the crowd. He made them do some crazy and funny shit. So what does everyone think about hypnosis? Anyone ever been hypnotized?

[ILovePapaSmurf]

<font color="purple">I was hypnotized once to see Carrot Top in 'concert.'</font color>

[karmattack]

I think that hypnotist is legitimate in that he has a handful of legitimate friends who can legitimately act.
To actually be hypnotized, one needs to feel extremely relaxed and safe, neither of which happens in front of a laughing live audience.

[jjcourtright]

My wife knew the girl that got hypnotized in the audience. If the five people that got hypnotized were just acting, they were pretty [censored] good actors. I am/was really skeptical of hypnosis, but they had me pretty convinced. In a group of about 50 people, I think that you can find one, or maybe two people that would be willing to make an ass of themselves in front of strangers the way that these people were, but I think that five is pushing it.

[Efexeye]

I've been hypnotized before, and it's legitimate....I wasn't acting, that's for sure.

[jjcourtright]

Was it in a comedy club-like setting?

[karmattack]

where were you at the time?

[Dr3vil]

One of my best friends was hypnotized on stage last September. It basically just uses tricks and repetition to put you in a very suggestive state of mind, a little like being drunk (I had to tell my friend what happend on stage for him to peice together the event). You know when your so tired you feel drunk/high? It's like that. Then the guy just f-ks with your head for the audience's amusement.

My friend Dan, for example, was convinced fruits were his friend, and saved an apple the hypnotist started to eat and bandaged it with electrical tape. Later, he was hypnotically commanded to eat his little buddy.
"I thought you said he was your friend?"
"Bitch had it comming."

Like drugs, some people have a very high tolerance, while others are light weights. Dan looks like he's high on opium if he has even three beers, so this was not a huge surprise (though I can't say how breakdown of substance vs. hypnotist resistance would really look like). Some don't get hypnotized, others will do just about anything while "under the influence." To me, it's just another example of the kookie synergy between mind and body, each effecting the other.

[Efexeye]

It was in a friend's apartment- just the two of us. I actually think hypnosis would be more likely to work in a crowded setting because the subject WANTS it to work, to entertain everyone watching.

[Razorback]

Four of my friends were hypnotized at a show and they said that they were completely under. The thing is that they are all actors... I think that means something. If you want to be hypnotized you will be. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

RB

[Efexeye]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
If you want to be hypnotized you will be.



[/ QUOTE ]

Very true.

[jjcourtright]

I really wanted to be. Because I am so skeptical, I figured that the only way I would be able to truly know that it is real stuff would be if I were hypnotized myself. I think I "wanted" it too much.

[karmattack]

These two factoids from hypnosis.com

"...However, it has also been shown that an individual can be tricked by the hypnotist, and possibly led by their trust in the hypnotist, to perform unusual behaviors in unusual situations, even potentially dangerous or embarrassing ones. This potential is well known to fans of 'stage hypnosis, 'particularly with that subset of individual's particularly susceptible to the dramatic tactics of the stage hypnotist. These tactics are for the most part different from the classical induction used in medicine and psychotherapy, relying on surprise, sudden confusion, social pressure, and other factors not unknown to medical Hypnotherapists, but not normally emphasized by them either."


"...Various authors have reported attempts by the U.S. CIA to research or use hypnotic techniques for mind control. All seem to report failure rates consistent with the experimental findings. Some people in some situations are apparently vulnerable to sudden confusion techniques of suggestion, but the use of classical hypnosis as 'mind control' is entirely unreliable in general. If you consider the speeches of a powerful orator or evangelical preacher to be a form of hypnosis, this seems to be the type most powerful in influencing the minds of people. And this type of situation is perhaps as well described in terms of social/group psychology as individual response to hypnotic suggestion."

[karmattack]

Here's another bit of info from hypnosis.com which relates well to what Dr. Evil said

"...For contrast, compare the case of a victim being drugged into helplessness. There is no evidence that hypnotic procedures ever 'drug' individuals into helplessness, or that they are in any sense actively resisting things that they do or allow under hypnosis. There is, however, good reason to believe that the relaxation and vivid imagery of the hypnotic situation makes it easier to 'trick' an individual in some sense into doing something that they wouldn't 'ordinarily' do in that particular situation with that particular person at that time. Thus the justifiable sense of remorse and violation when they realize what they've been led to do. Not dissimilar from the also controversial situation with abuse or alleged abuse by parents, where the child's implicit trust in the parent's interest in their welfare often complicates the evaluation and treatment of the situation after the fact."

What is consistent in everything I read is that the participant has to be trusting of the hypnotist and, on some level, willing to do what the hypnotist suggests.

[jjcourtright]

Oddly, I don't recall any attempt by the hypnotist to gain the trust of the people in the crowd or on stage.

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
on some level, willing to do what the hypnotist suggests.

[/ QUOTE ] This is somewhat like what my wife remembered from freshman Psyc. She said that the people that are most easily hypnotized are those that subconsiously really want to please people.

[karmattack]

Well, the most obvious question is....did the hypnotist just pick people randomly out of the audience or did he ask for a show of volunteers?

[jjcourtright]

He asked for volunteers. I was one of them. I went up on stage, felt kinda sleepy when he told us to relax(although that may have been the beer and the late hour talking). He was going down the line, there were about 15 of us on stage, and either putting people to sleep or telling them to get off the stage because they weren't hypnotized. The thing that made it pretty believable to me was that there was another group of people at the show that were close in age to our group. A guy went up on stage and then a coupla minutes later, a girl went on stage. We found out later that they were married. He ended up hypnotized, she did not. And she was laughing her ass off over the things that her husband was doing.

[Matt1]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
If you want to be hypnotized you will be.

[/ QUOTE ]

Summed up my opinion before I could even post in the thread. I hate it when you do that. /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

[Asteban]

<font color="green"> A good friend of mine read a book on hypnotism once, and decided she wanted to try it on me. It worked. Well, she didn't make me do anything that made a fool of myself, but she hypnotized me so it felt like I was falling off of a cliff, and I kept falling and falling, it was kind of scary and really cool at the same time. Then she said that I just stop falling.....and it felt like I was just floating there. It was awesome. The whole time I was just sitting straight up in a hard wooden chair. It felt like I was falling on my back and I just kept falling. It was really weird. But I'd do it again just because it was such a strange experience. </font color>

[Efexeye]

I agree Asteban, the experience was cool- kinda freaky, 'cause you know you're getting hypnotized, but you still don't remember. I also found it to be really relaxing and very "dimensional"- I felt like I existed in two places at once.

I think trust is important- you have to trust the person who hypnotizes you....now that I think about it, (and not to toot my own horn) I hooked up with that girl who hypnotized me not too long after she did it! Hmmmmmmm....

[Asteban]

<font color="green"> Now that I think of it I did kind of feel like I was in two places at once. At first it felt like she was just tipping the chair back, then when it felt like she had it all the way down to the ground I felt like I was falling, and then when she said stop, it still felt like i was floating on my back, then she said to open my eyes and I was still sitting upright in a chair. One part of me felt like I was just laying on my back in on the floor the other felt like I was falling off a cliff at high speeds. Except when I opened my eyes I realized that it was neither one. </font color>

[R_U_18]

I agree with the fact that if you want to hypnotized you will hypnotized. My girlfriends aunt quit smoking after she got hypnotized but her husband tried it too but it didn't work for him...