Hypnosis has been one of my main interests for the past few years, so i kind of know the "correct" answer(s) to the question, but i was curious to see what was the general public's view on this subject.

I want to read the genuine thoughts from people with little exposure to hypnosis.
So please no googling, i'm interested in your personal opinion on what hypnosis is and how it works.

Thank you

You are getting sleepy... very sleepy...

Practising hypnosis, like planning for world domination and ninja training, is an occupation favoured by the sad kid who sat in the corner at school, sucked at sport, underachieved and who nobody liked.

But on a more serious note, I don't believe that hypnosis exists. At least certainly not in the traditional controlling sense, though I will conceded that attempting to influence the subconscious may be of some benefit.

Still, I don't believe that the subconscious is in any major way independent of the conscious. I'm more inclined to believe that people are not saying what they really feel or think because they are in denial, and the general state of their mind is a bit off. A bit like a system that is misrepresenting the fact that its internal state is in a mess and it's about to explode. I also believe that talking about the conscious and subconscious is much too simple a model in the first place.

Just because someone thinks that they think something doesn't mean that their concious mind actually thinks it. It's more likely that their reasoning about what they think is flawed. They could simply not be intelligent enough to reason about their own conscious thoughts. I don't see why the mythical "subconscious" even needs to come into this equation.

"But surely what someone thinks they think is their conscious mind?" I hear you shout. Yeah maybe. I don't claim to have thought this through, I'm just doing my usual thing and trying to offend people.

I'm probably completely wrong here, but I see it as a way to stimulate someone's memory by trying to put them in an imagined situation. I don't see it as controlling so much as trying to get someone to remember something by creating the same feelings and sensations as when the memory first occurred.

Well, all I know about hypnosis is from movies and I doubt it really exists. At least in the ways depicted there - that is you tell someone to be sleepy and then give them some commands and they have to follow it no matter what (and aren't even aware of that themselves). Including impossible things like remembering some small detail from an event many years ago which they had already forgotten.

I believe Hypnosis is an old old wooden ship used in the cival war era.

I don't know how hypnosis is supposed to work, but I generally don't believe it's much more than a placebo effect. However, if you could somehow control a person's dreams, I suppose you might be able to do something interesting...

Just this morning my alarm clock was going off in my dream and I couldn't get it to shut off. I was trying everything, and getting very angry.

Five minutes later in the real world, I woke up and shut off my iPod's alarm.

Blargh; I see a thread like this five minutes before I head out the door? Yes, hypnosis is real, no it's not what you see in the movies, it's basically just being guided into a trance state (which is something you can do yourself; ever daydream?) although it's admittedly a tough thing to nail down with a definition. Even if you ask hypnotists (yes, I am one) what hypnosis is, you'll get differing responses.

BBL, yes it's real, watch Mythbusters or something. /bye

I used to have a hypnosis mp3 to put you in a trance.
It was kinda like a lucid dream.
In fact, I think it was just a lucid dream but wake induced.

Some people are very suggestible. Some people will buy something that a flashy ad tells them to, hypnotized or not. I think that these people can be "hypnotized" by suggesting to them that they're even more suggestible than usual.

Back in the '60's, a study was done with college kids, offering a reward of $1000 (equivalent to ~$10000 now) if they could pretend to be hypnotized, getting a leg pierced with a needle without flinching etc. Some of them were able to do it.

So the suggestible people get their motivation from trying to please the hypnotist.

For the record, I've been hypnotized, and I certainly didn't act like my usual self.

All I know about hypnosis is from the movies. I suspect it is like subliminal advertising though. Arthur, when you were hypnotized, were you aware of what you were doing, or did someone show you a video, or tell you what you did? I heard you don't remember anything from being hypnotized.

I remembered everything (although I only remember a few fragments now, as it was more than 30 years ago). Supposedly you won't remember anything if you're told not to remember before being awakened.

I don't believe it's real, I think that hypnotists are liars (I'm looking at you, 23!), and I think that "victims" are gullible sheeple wanting so much to fit in that they aren't willing to spoil the fun. In other words, I think it's a mind game to exploit the weak minded among us for personal gain.

Then what am I here for?! We should agree to a schedule or something.

The brain is a very complicated thing, and many things about how it works are not understood (and there will be many things that are well understood that I don't know about). I also don't know a great deal about how the mind works.

What I do know is that it's possible for the mind to enter a dissociative state, where you may do things that you normally wouldn't, or where you can "store" traumatic experiences. This can lead to (severe) mental health problems, and some people are more susceptible to this than others. I can easily imagine that it is possible to induce something like a dissociative state in which people are susceptible to suggestions, and how easy it is to do this (and what sort of suggestions they're susceptible to) will depend on the individual and whether they wish to cooperate or not.
I would expect functional hypnosis to be something like that. What's shown in films is for entertainment and as far as I'm concerned fictional.

EDIT:

Oh yes, I'm sure a lot of "hypnotists" are con-men, pure and simple.

Yeah, I trust everything on TV.

The lack of coherence in your post offended me.

A hypnotist once put me under a spell and told me hypnosis wasn't real, so I don't believe in it.

There have been a few times where I was scared or whatever and it seemed to me I closed my eyes (blackness during the couple of seconds of whatever) but afterward it seemed obvious I was responding to what I was seeing. For example, there have been two or three times driving cab where an accident was occurring right in front of me, and I seemed to close my eyes, but afterwards the passengers said I drove through some tiny gap or whatever to avoid it. Also a few times getting in fights, upon "opening my eyes" because the blows stopped coming, the other guy would be laying on the ground. I did feel my arms twitch (hitting back).

My personal favorite is Dr. Milton Erickson, if you can find books by him. I learned enough from him (not accounting for Psychology classes, hypnotherapy training, and even technical NLP classes), since most of his books are simply transcripts of him talking. If you can get the audio segments for it as well, those really help, since you can hear how he paces his words either to the classroom or to the test subjects who agreed to let him record their sessions.

Hypnosis is nothing like TV depicts, so you can get that out immediately. NLP (Neuro linguistic programming) is a way to gently suggest to someone certain points that you want to get across. You want to study up on this a lot, since you can inadvertently make suggestions that either result in "fake" memories, or give you the opposite effect of what you were aiming for.

That being said, even if you are only semi-interested in pursuing hypnosis (or hypnotherapy), you will learn a lot about it. I've been hypnotizing people for entertainment since I was around 15, and for therapy (stop smoking, less desire to eat for help with weight loss, general relaxation techniques) since I was 18. You get pretty comfortable about instinctively knowing who is more or less susceptible to hypnotic suggestibility, but that's more of an aside.

Now, are you looking more for the "ha-ha" hypnosis that a stage hypnotist performs, or more of the medical/therapeutic aspects of it?

I think you mean those more or less inclined to indulge your imagined hypnotic skills.

People really need to stop pretending that they are hypnotised so that they stop fooling hypnotists into believing that they can actually hypnotise people.

So what happens if two hypnotists go after each other? Will they ever wake up?

I've never been hypnotized, or even attempted to be so, so I can't formulate an firm stance on the matter.

What I can say with absolute confidence is that your subconscious is a tricky beast to nail down, as it controls more things about your overall body than just what your mind is thinking, but it can be influenced. For example, I've had excellent success using autosuggestion to dictate the potential content of my dreams each night.

Interacting with your subconscious via lucid dreaming is a heavy subject, so I'll just stop there and say... hypnosis? Hmmm... probably not as you picture it.

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Wow, someone else here knows who Milton Erickson is. I'm a Dave Elman man myself ...

Fun stats about therapies from some study by American Health Magazine:

• Psychoanalysis: 38% improvement after 600 sessions

• Behavioral Therapy: 72% improvement after 22 sessions

• Hypnotherapy: 93% success after 6 sessions

So, yeah. Totally not a real thing. BTW, I'm formally trained in therapy, but my real focus is on street/impromptu hypnosis.

My best successful post-hypnotic suggestion so far was on my buddy's wife; anytime you waved your hand in front of her face and told her to do/think something, she would a) accept the thought as her own, b) have amnesia for you saying it, c) repeat it back and d) go do it. So ... essentially, made her susceptible to Jedi mind tricks. I didn't do that until I'd been doing simple phenomenon for like an hour and a half so she was super-deep, but it worked awesome; she was basically our servant for the evening and had no recollection anything was amiss the next day. My buddy wanted me to leave it in there but I'm not that mean.

The people stupid enough to not believe in hypnosis probably do.

I bet your buddy and his wife are having a good laugh at your expense.

And I bet you're not the only one to think that. I also did some therapy stuff with her that had longer-lasting implications, and I know what signs to look for that signal legitimate altered states, so I had lots of evidence it was legitimate. But honestly, if people want to go on thinking it's all made up, or thinking that your own personal idea of what it is reflects reality, makes my work all the easier. Yes, yes, it's not real, nothing we do affects you, go about your business, citizen ...

I shall go about my business as a citizen and you as yours, Master Jedi.

I wish you good luck in amassing an army of mentally enslaved minions in your conquest for world domination.

[edit] That was a bit harsh, I will concede. In reality I'm not genuinely as sceptical of hypnotism as I make out.

Could you make my social phobia and "core beliefs" go away? I would appreciate that very much.

If he says he did on the forums here, is that good enough?

If I say I gave you one million dollars on the forums here, is that good enough?

I wonder who's more hypnotized... the hypnotee who's thinks she was hypnotized by the hypnotist, or the hypnotist who thinks he hypnotized the hypnotee.

I am not aware of any scientific evidence for hypnosis... so therefore, I have no informed opinion on it.

There will probably never be "scientific" evidence, admittedly. We can measure the state with equipment that monitors brainwave activity, but that's probably as close as you'll get.

Core beliefs? Depending on what you mean, maybe yes, maybe no. Core values tend to be very ingrained, so usually no. Social phobia? Almost certainly, but it depends on the cause and on how badly you want to be rid of it. My training is less on the "hypnotize you and make you stop doing bad things" direct approach and more the "hypnotize you and figure out from your subconscious where the bad things came from, then resolve it" regression approach. Maybe you just don't like being social, I dunno.

In any case though, it's likely to be a several-session fix so much as I'd love to relieve you of your money, you're probably better off looking for someone local instead of coming out here.

If I can find somebody else to accept that as reality, then yes.

~

I would only be impressed with a hypnotist if he can hypnotize someone even if they are actively trying to avoid it and get them to do/stop doing whatever it is they need treatment for. Otherwise, to me, it's nothing more than a giant placebo effect.

If seeing a hypnotist helps a person out, then good for him. But that doesn't scientifically validate anything other than that you are a self-selector who thought the treatment might help.

As an analogy: people pray to all sorts of different gods and they all claim it helps; obviously not all (if any) of them can be right in that the supernatural is intervening on their behalf, but they all think it works because of that.

I'd be interested in a test that randomly paired up legitimate (trained) hypnotists and con artists with people who did and did not believe in hypnosis. My hunch is that the results would show that the people who believed in it prior to the study would be more likely to report success, regardless of whether they got a con artist or not.

The warning bells that rung in my head just now were louder than the real bells that one time when I was in a clocktower! If it's real, there will be scientific evidence for it... if it's not, there won't be. And "scientific"... please

That seems to be a good experiment to start with. Except hypnotists will claim that the con artists are inadvertently doing real hypnotism.

Ah, I was looking for the term "Core Values". Heard it in the CBT group I was in. The social phobia comes from my "Core Values". I've pretty much figured out why I am the way I am, I just don't have any clue on how to "fix" it (ie: get over my major malfunctions).

Money? Booo. If I had any, maybe.

People say you won't do anything you really don't want to do under hypnosis. What scares me is that people really do want to do things that are immoral or criminal, but won't do it because of self control. People don't need hypnosis to cheat on their better halves or to rob banks or to kill someone. I don't believe it's always black and white. For every rapist there might be [some_number] persons that barely manage to behave. How would hypnosis affect this segment of people?

I'm sure there will be at some point. There have been positive scientific experiments on it; does that count? I honestly don't care; the air quotes are there for a reason ...

And they are. See how tricky this can be?

Compared to questions in real science, this is a cakewalk. I suspect that the lack of conclusive evidence for and against hypnotism comes from the trouble of precisely defining the what hypnotism is, and is not... without this, hypnotism is outside of science's realm of influence. I suspect hypnotists would like that to remain the case.

Just watched Penn&Teller BS episode on hypnotism... good stuff XD

Essentially true. I said as much in my first post.

I'd love to know why you suspect that, since there would be no benefit to it being the case. Science's attempts to figure out hypnosis has led to some pretty stupid myths (eg: 40% of people can't be hypnotized, like they're missing the right half of their brain or something) so if science could stop screwing that up, that'd be pretty sweet.

REVISION: Well before I waste time watching that episode, I did 30 seconds of googling ... lots of criticism over how inaccurate the show was and some comments by Wendi Friesen (who was on the show) about how they misrepresented almost everything she talked to them about. So ... I guess their show is well named? I'm sure truth makes for poor entertainment, wouldn't it? Since entertainers are all they are. Anyway, glad it was good stuff. I'm sure it was quite scientific.

Of course. In practice, it's quite simple to fudge the numbers. I can get a 90% success rate if I discredit everybody who I say isn't trying, or if I can define success in such a way that the person will basically agree no matter what happens.

I just meant the study would be neat for the benefit of a skeptic like myself.

Probably true.
I'd like to think of my interpretation as the beginnings of a scientific model for what hypnosis could be and offer some suggestions for falsifiable predictions, but of course I lack the relevant scientific background.

Of course their show is entertainment... but I wouldn't go around defending her ^{[1] [2][3]}! It is undeniable that everyone on that episode (save for the guy that did the stage performance) was a quack. The proper defense of hypnotism from their criticism would be that they focused on the quacks and didn't interview the more reputable hypnotists... e.g. the hypnotherapists and such.

Odd statement. So it's cool to misrepresent and lie about people on television?

This can probably be assumed without watching the show, I imagine.

No, they could interview reputable hypnotherapists and still make them look like quacks. Personally, I just ignore them. It's Penn and Teller, ffs.

On Mythbusters they confirmed it. That's all I know.

Why do you trust her and not Penn&Teller? I posted the links to her website which corroborate the claims she made on her show.

Sure, but I wouldn't go around trusting 100% the person who stands to lose financially if their business model is shown to be a lie. Penn&Teller could be 100% correct and she'd still claim they mis-represented her!

Speaking of entertainment... you like to quote Mythbusters... 'cause they are so well known for being the paragon of science .

I saw an unimpressive Mythbusters stunt on Youtube where three people remembered a few things while hypnotized. That hardly confirms anything...

I think people can generally recall things better when they are relaxed. There's a big jump between that and there being some sort of scientific proof that a hypnotist can help 90% of addicted smokers quit cold turkey.

It's more like we're talking about a subject I know enough about to smell their misrepresentation. I see your links and more than you, I read them. Everything she says is technically true, right down to the low percentage of success.

I actually know a thing or two about Wendi Friesen's experience. My trust is placed on a lot more than you might be aware of. Either way, we'll both believe what we like at the end of the day.

Not really. But I know other people do, so I'll speak at their level ...

She makes $1 million per year selling CDs that help men grow longer peepees. That's enough to discredit anything she says.

Seriously, you believe any bit of that? I guess I'll have to write off everything you say on the subject as you are a complete quack.

Congratulations Edgar, you have already been surpassed as the silliest Allegro.cc member!

I'll drink to that.

Mhmm, i created this thread just to collect information on how was hypnosis commonly seen, but no harm can come from clarifying a few things:

There is some truth to this, i'd say it's partially correct but it only sees one side of it.

Definetely not what you see in movies, but you CAN actually remember a lot more in hypnosis.

That's the whole point, the placebo effect works. It's a form of indirect suggestion that works wonders:
(from wikipedia on placebo)

Hypnosis is about using suggestion to a beneficial effect, it's all in your mind, but it works.

There have been MANY scientific studies that have found evidence of brain changes attached to hypnotic phenomenon.
For example take a look here: ^[1]
The entire chapter is about scientific studies on the REAL effects of hypnosis

Even though there are a few techniques (mainly from NLP) to use "covert" hypnosis, it simply doesn't work that way. You HAVE to want to be hypnotized, it's more as if the hypnotist guides the client into self-hypnosis.
You say it's nothing more than a giant placebo effect, that's great, because it works
Religious healing is just another form of hypnosis. You expect to be cured because of what you believe and that is what happens.
There isn't much difference between a legit hypnotist and an expert con artist... both know how to use suggestions in a powerfull way.

Hope to have clarified few things.

[edit]

Ever heard of Gerald Kein? He's continuing the work of Elman, i've found his course very good.

So do you believe that if you spend $50 on a CD, you can cure cancer, and make your penis bigger?

Not everything is "all in your mind." If I cut off my arm, no hypnosis is going to help me grow back a new one. Why doesn't hypnosis help there? Because it's physically impossible. Just like wishing away cancer or thinking about getting a second penis.

Sounds to me that hypnotists are just scammers: they take your money knowing full well that they cannot effect change. The thinking is basically, "Because I spent $100, I better change. Otherwise I wasted money."

So guess what. I'll heal you in one session. You just have to be super gullible and have lots of money. I'll call it hypnosis, to make it sound legitimate.

Uhm... who talked about growing an arm or curing cancer?
It's like complaining antibiotics don't make you taller
Some hypnotists are scammers, as much as other people are.

Hypnosis is used with huge success in many things, from pain managment to curing depressions.
The wikipedia article is quite good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnosis#Applications

I'll also post this link again, in case you missed it.
Scientific evidence does exist: http://books.google.com/books?id=uYKaMWAfcewC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=szechtman+pet+scan&source=bl&ots=HFoaGHA9Ue&sig=oeV5vP6NMLNjXoYVTo45U_Spc2E&hl=en&ei=S523TvnbMoizhAe-zYGeBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=szechtman%20pet%20scan&f=false

The woman that Chris was defending makes millions of dollars selling CDs that help you enlarge your penis. If you can enlarge your penis, why cannot you grow a new limb? It seems like she should be driving hospitals out of business.

At this point, I equate hypnosis with bullshit. And I could swap out hypnosis with BS in the quoted sentence, and I'd agree with you.

And yes, I think depressions can be all in the head, and if they are, all it takes is positive thinking to be "cured." I also think depressions can be from physical problems where positive thinking will not help.

I believe you can trick people into all sorts of things. I can convince a child that I stole his nose and have him beg me to put it back on.

From a practical standpoint, if you can trick somebody into quitting to smoke, then good for you. But let's not pretend there's anything scientific going on, other than you are taking advantage of somebody's gullibility.

And because you are doing nothing, there's actually nothing physical that you can cure unless it is something imaginary or stress related.

So again, from a purely pragmatic point, if you can help somebody by tricking them, then you can make the case for the ends justifying the means.

Some people are scammers, is this news?

Also, i did point out scientific evidence of physical effects (brain changes) in hypnosis. The effects of hypnosis are REAL, ladies have painless childbirthing thanks to it and countless surgeries where made without anesthetics during war time (when the simply didn't have any left).

From the wikipedia article:

But you seem to react quite defensively to the topic, there isn't much sense in me trying to persuade you.

I'm just the voice of reason for anybody who finds himself reading this thread.

I've nothing against the idea that a calmer, less stressed out person is less likely to be sick. But to pretend that you can cure things for one low price of $50 is just disgusting.

The sex scene in the Penn & Teller show was an example of BS. Hey look, if you rub yourself, while I rub you and tell you to imagine dirty things you can make yourself orgasm! Let's call it hypnosis! In the real world, we just call that lesbian sex. And you're not a hypnotist, you're a prostitute.

Do I believe in "hypnosis"? I'd have to say "no" because it covers far too many ridiculous topics, and it seems that anybody who claims to be a hypnotist also believes in some subset of the ridiculous.

But do I believe that some self-titled hypnotists may be able to trick somebody into believing that they no longer want to smoke? Yeah, that's as possible as my tricking a child into believing that I have taken his nose and getting him to play along with me.

It's just a made up word for being a con artist. It's no more scientific than a magician's trick.

And so if you can help people by being a con artist, then I have no problems with that. But when you cross the line into pretending that you can treat cancer, then you're a criminal fraudster.

You cannot cure cancer with hypnosis (i agree with the criminal fraudster part for those who say otherwise) but you can definetely improve the living condition of people with cancer by using hypnosis: http://www.triroc.com/sunnen/topics/cancer.hypnosis.htm
http://www.mindmotivations.com/resources/hypnosis-and-cancer-trials

If you say that "hypnosis" is sometimes used out of place by scammers i DO agree with you.
But the FACT that clinical hypnosis exists and helps a LOT of people is plainly true.

Thanks to Matthew my perception of hypnosis changed. Before this thread I actually gave it quite some probability to have some kind of scientific basis - now I put it in the same drawer as homeopathy and faith healers and so on

Err, did you read any of my posts?

The pro-hypnotists are like the Scientologists of a Scientology debate.

I used to think I got drunk too, but it was all in my head.

Did anyone actually read this link? (or any other of the MEDICAL trial links i posted...) http://books.google.com/books?id=uYKaMWAfcewC&pg=PA93&lpg=PA93&dq=szechtman+pet+scan&source=bl&ots=HFoaGHA9Ue&sig=oeV5vP6NMLNjXoYVTo45U_Spc2E&hl=en&ei=S523TvnbMoizhAe-zYGeBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=szechtman%20pet%20scan&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=uYKaMWAfcewC&lpg=PA25&hl=it&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q&f=false

It's FULL of scientific evidence of hypnotic effects.
Thing is, i'm the only one actually posting some references while the anti-hypnotists just say "it 'aint true 'cause i say so"

[EDIT] My link-fu is fail, i was linking to the wrong link...
This is the good one:
http://books.google.com/books?id=uYKaMWAfcewC&lpg=PA25&hl=it&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q&f=false (check also the rest of the pages in the chapter)

[edit2]
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If you define hypnosis as a placebo effect then you are basically admitting that it's nothing because that is what a placebo is. As for your claim that it helps people, "so does" Christianity, Scientology, homeopathy, etc. So do placebos, which by definition are effectively nothing. I don't think measuring brain activity is a very scientific approach to confirming hypnosis without defining what that brain activity means for hypnosis. We already know that brain activity is affected by what the brain is doing and that you can affect changes in brain activity by providing some stimulus.

In other words, the placebo effect is real, and hypnosis brings it forth in a pure state. So taking a sugar pill to ward off a headache is a mild form of self-hypnosis.

The idea behind the things you keep calling fraud is that the mind can have a powerful effect on the body. I personally don't care about the hypnotists who offer their services for this stuff because it really does have a low success rate, but the ones experimenting with it for its own sake entirely within the community (and not marketed to the public) have had interesting results.

Again, low success rate, but if you want to look into a specific example of the principle, Google an old case study of Krebiozen and "Mr. Wright" from 1957. You can find write-ups of this from Scientific American to wacko homeopathic sites so everyone can pick their biases. Call it placebo, call it hypnosis, call it bullshit, call it whatever. However, this is the sort of effect your subconscious and beliefs can (and do) have on your physical body, and some hypnotists have been able to produce this phenomenon with hypnosis ... again, LOW success rate. But if the subconscious can have this effect on the body, why would it be considered a leap to say it's at least possible with hypnosis (the only discipline that deals directly with the subconscious)?

Apparently so.

That's because no one cares what bambam says. A placebo can put a cancer patient in full remission and he thinks it's nothing ...

Not that I agree with this, but saying they can't change but change anyway seems contradictory ...

Seconded.

Look at someone crying. Can you say that their puffy red eyelids and tears are a intentional "fraud" to induce sympathy?

I find that hypnosis is often a form of guided meditation. I started with hypnosis before I was into meditation, a few years back. I have a track that helps with "memory and focus", and it has a couple of key instructions that have indeed proven useful. It gives you a couple of triggers. One is placing your thumb and index finger to your forehead to recall information. It seems effective, and often when I struggle with remembering something (like where my keys are, or the name of a movie or actor), I can bring my hand to my forehead and it just pops in. It seems to dissolve distractions for just a moment, enough for me to pull the answer out.

Hypnosis doesn't work on everyone, especially not in their first exposure to it.

Hypnosis will not cure cancer, but it can help to raise spirits significantly and that can aid in curing cancer. I know a meditation teacher out of Toronto that comes into my office to do meditation sessions. She releases guided meditation CDs that are intended for cancer patients and she has seen successes. The CDs say right on them that they are not intended to cure cancer, but they are intended to lift you up so that you can fight it at an emotional and 'spiritual' level (my words, not hers).

You were the one that brought up that Wendi chick.

And 99% of her work is quite legitimate. Lots of hypnotists offer recordings for things like this, but I assume that's only because there's demand for it.

I had to google for her, and "Confessions of a Quackbuster" and the second sentence said "Get rich quick by speculating on gold" and it reminded me of you guys getting all excited about Bitcoins.

Firstly... science has for more than half a century been equipped with tools to differentiate low success rate from zero success rate. Having a low success rate does not excuse anything, or make it immune to scientific analysis.

Now, I will go as far as saying that there is a mental state (as defined by various brain scans) that is associated with some forms of hypnosis. I glanced at some papers that suggest you can alleviate pain using hypnosis... maybe I believe that too. However, taking that as evidence for the greater concept of hypnosis doesn't hold water. To the extent that hypnosis is equivalent to the placebo effect, I believe in it. Any extensions to that as advocated by quacks like Wendi Friesen I would not believe in until scientific evidence turns up for it.

Yes, there is demand for penis enlargement, but I highly doubt hypnosis can do more than give you a hard on. Based on the limited evidence I've seen, she's more akin to homeopathy practitioners. "I can give you water for hundreds of dollars and you'll get better!" yay! If that doesn't scream quack, I don't know what does.

Cool; no one said it did.

Do you believe that invasive surgery can be done using hypnosis as the only anesthetic?

As for "science", I haven't seen any yet, only opinion. I'm still curious what everyone thinks of the Mr. Wright case, and whether or not you accept that subconscious beliefs can strongly affect physical change. This is just the placebo effect, too.

Maybe you're supposed to pull at it in an attempt to stretch it out.

If hypnosis is like a dissociation (which is what I speculated above), then I would say that it's possible. Dissociation certainly exists, and I wouldn't exclude the idea that it can be put to good use.

Not my field, so I believe nothing. I don't remember the pain circuitry well enough to know whether such thing is possible. One word of caution though is that even if you make the subject ignore the pain, the periphery will still experience it and you are liable to get phantom pain side-effects. Hypnosis would have to operate on the level of dorsal root ganglia to be truly effective.

Given that we still have cancer and we don't melt tumors like snowballs on stoves, I think the story is bogus. It's a single datapoint and the methodology used in that case study seemed very bizarre. It all could have been a coincidence and without further repetition, I see no evidence that it was anything but that.

I'm not saying there was no repetition or a single datapoint. I'm just volunteering this one example because it's (relatively) well known. So ... bogus? It just didn't happen?

A low success rate that is distinguishable from no effect at all?
It's easy enough to do the control experiment, all you need is enough cancer patients. Hell, the existing medical records may be good enough for such a study (I don't know).
There is anecdotal evidence about cancer going into spontaneous remission, which should be perfectly possible but also very rare (but the sample of patients is large enough that you might see it some times).

Placebo effect is still an effect. The relevant question is to what extent the body's own immune system is able to overcome a disease. Stress reduces the effectiveness of the immune system, so reducing that will increase your chances.
To show that something is effective as a treatment it needs to perform better than a placebo, not as good as a placebo.

What I'm getting at is a more honest person would tell the person that hypnotherapy is nothing but a placebo effect and that you don't need me to change. If "hypnotherapy" works, then you could have accomplished the same thing by just believing in yourself. Instead, the patient is duped into thinking the hypnotist actually has some sort of "power" and is likely to keep going back for more help.

As I've said many times, at the end of the day, if a hypnotherapist can help you channel your inner self, then there's nothing necessarily wrong with it. But it still is dangerously close to being a fraudulent act, depending on how it is represented.

But when you venture into such ridiculous statements like "99% of Wendi's crap is legitimate" (why doesn't she send LeBron James her basketball CD?) or point to single data points / "extremely low success rates" as being proof that something works, then you've entered into a whole new level of delusion.

Exactly how I feel.

The interesting thing is, one (or more? Can't remember) study showed that the placebo effect is still in effect when the subject knows they are getting a placebo. I found that interesting.

Yes, we're usually pretty careful about letting the person know the power to change is in them, not us. Otherwise, they become reliant. Yeah, you could have "accomplished the same thing by just believing in yourself", but if you were able to accomplish that, you wouldn't have gotten the problem in the first place.

Per the stats I posted from American Health, hypnotherapy overall has a 93% success rate. Problem?

At least that you know of. How many failures are hypnotherapists not reporting?

Who said these were based on the hypnotherapist's reports? I wouldn't trust them either; to my knowledge, most don't do follow-ups.

So why are you even quoting a meaningless statistic that someone likely pulled out of their ass?

Why is it "likely"? Or did you just pull that out of your ass?

I can give you my opinion (which is what the OP asked for), I can give you statistics, I can give you theory, I can give you history, I can give you case studies, I can tie them all together ... the bottom line is you'll argue no matter what, even when it's better than what you have. So, you know, knock yourself out.

What is your opinion on enlarging your penis via one of Wendi's CDs?

I'm trying figure out if you should be to the left or right of Derezo on the crazy scale.

Audio sessions have a relatively low success rate in my experience. Probably wouldn't do squat since I'm an analytical type ...

That's kind of a cop out answer. Do you think somebody could potentially have their penis grow due to legitimate face-to-face hypnotherapy?

Could somebody grow a second penis? Is there anything the mind cannot do, in your opinion?

Penis enlargement through hypnosis seems like an effective way of earning money.

Maybe they could make you think it was bigger!

I can't consider "could". I know they have. I'm past "could" on this one.

Your own early reply said you don't even think they are reliable and you're the pro-hypnosis guy here. Especially if there aren't any follow ups, you can't know what the success rate is.

What about the second penis? I'd like another one. Can you help me? Even if the success rate is low, I'm sure you could find enough interested people to get one success.

Um, what? I didn't say there were no follow-ups and I didn't say the statistics themselves were unreliable. I could say a lot of different things about a lot of different success rates with different therapists who have different methodologies and business models. Of course we can know the success rate, depending on how you go about researching it. I don't know specifically what they did. Neither do you. But you'll call it an ass-pull because it fits your worldview. Okay, cool. Don't put words in my mouth, kthx.

If your genes don't code for it, your subconscious won't know how to do it. Sorry to shatter your dreams.

First,

then

Could you make up your mind, or at the very least be clear on what's being said?

Citation needed.

Either you should be MUCH clearer, or you need to make up your mind. So far you've given two different answers for several questions. Its like you give the most convenient answer at the time to a given question.

See I was more on your side at the beginning, but your "defence" so far leaves a lot to be desired.

append: Besides I didn't put words in your mouth. I quoted exactly what you yourself said.

Sorry; this is why carrying on a bunch of conversations at once fails. Hypnosis for physical change has a low success rate because it depends highly on the individual. Simple stuff like quit smoking, weight loss, phobias, etc. are pretty much 100% by a competent hypnotherapist.

I was asked for my opinion, I gave it. You can believe it or not, no skin off my back.

And there's your classic non-argument. Once you get to a point you realize you're not getting anywhere you just quit

Seems like a logical outcome to me. Why would I keep banging my head against a wall? I gave you my opinion, you don't think it's real, cool, doesn't really affect my continued results, does it?

You beat me to it.

It's the perfect business. You lost both your arms in the Iraq war? No problem! Come to me and I can help you regrow your arms. It's coded in your DNA, all I have to do is help you unlock your subconscious power.

After six sessions with six easy payments of $500, nothing happens. Sorry sir, you just didn't believe enough. No refunds.

Because all of that stuff truly is "in the mind." But being able to help somebody with one of those things is no proof that hypnosis unlocks some subconscious power. Making that jump is ludicrous.

The success rate of physical change is "low" because it's bogus.

Does Wendi give refunds? I didn't check. I do, but I won't take a case I don't think I can fix.

Yes, because it doesn't. All a hypnotist does is get your subconscious to do with volition what it could (but usually won't) do on its own.

Is this a question of the legitimacy of hypnotism? I mean, if suggestion wasn't successful we wouldn't have television commercials. They wouldn't work if hypnotism didn't work. There's very little difference. You repeat suggestions into your subject that are crafted in a way that will get the action you want.

Just like commercials, it's effectiveness is limited; first and foremost by the number of subjects exposed to it.

We don't have television commercials. Oh BBC how I love thee.

Hypnotists are given much the same treatment here too.

So so far it seems to me that even the hypnosis supporters can't prove its any better than the placebo effect. Why not just sell capsules full of icing sugar for $100 a bottle, and tell them it'll work after one month, or their money back?

I don't think anybody is questioning the placebo effect combined with some sort of "power of suggestion," although the latter term would need some qualifications before I'd agree to anything.

The part most of us doubt is whether or not you can enlarge a person's penis, grow out a severed limb, or heal a crippled person via hypnosis, all of which Chris apparently thinks is possible with a "low success rate" assuming the patient tries hard enough and has some sort of magical gene that just needs to be thought into action.

The more scientific minded would say anything in the latter group is just rare coincidence. After all, if I did a rain dance every day, I would have, with a "low success rate," the ability to create a rain storm.

What are we fixing, exactly? If I knew this had a proven track record of permanent, positive success I'd do it in a second (or tell them to make their own).

I don't recall saying any of those but one was possible. I also don't recall saying they required a magic gene. Reading is fundamental, Matthew.

Doesn't matter what it is. The placebo effect is the placebo effect regardless of how it comes about.

So ... if you could fix someone's problem permanently by giving them water, you wouldn't do it? Just so we're clear.

That is really beside the point. You were/are claiming that hypnosis is some 100% guaranteed magical thing where everyone gets better. It clearly isn't. You just don't have any real data to back that up, and give us meaningless numbers.

But sure, on the bus today, I was thinking of making those pills myself and a website to sell them. Could help a lot of people. Especially me.

So far afaik scientific studies have shown that the placebo effect does not cure anything. Most times it reduces symptoms, and even then not for all people.

There's nothing wrong with trying to help someone, but you really aught not to sell them something like its some magical cure-all, when you can do the same thing with a vial of water and food-dye.

But extrapolation is more fun.

It's clever to say that we have a gene to enlarge a penis, but we don't have one to grow a limb. So basically, if by some coincidence a person's penis grows (or more likely, mismeasures because he wants it to have grown), you claim success. If it doesn't, then the person doesn't have the gene, or he didn't comply with the program, etc. It's never because hypnosis simply doesn't actually do anything.

Why should the same thing not apply to growing out a severed limb? We definitely have the genes to do that, at least at one point. Is it too radical? Is it because you know that nobody will ever coincidentally grow a new limb and it's impossible to trick somebody into thinking he has by just giving him a tape measure?

Then it's automatically inferior to hypnosis.

I'm claiming that the subconscious has an effect on the physical body, and hypnosis is the only discipline that targets the subconscious by design. That much at least is fact. It's not 100%, it's not guaranteed (nothing is), it's not magic. It's VERY effective treating a lot of subconscious problems, but wouldn't it be? It's actually pretty damn normal; you're just not used to it being framed in this manner.

I gave you one number to my knowledge. If you want data it's been posted. Are you looking for something specific?

When did I say success was based on genes? Hypnosis can't affect your genetic code. I think you need to re-read what I said.

I kept trying to read everything that everyone said. I really did. But my eyes started to glaze over, and I just had to throw in a couple 2-cents's:

Name a single person in history who, by shear power of mind, grew another penis. Or regrew a limb. Or altered their own DNA so they looked different. If it never happened "on its own" and "in the wild", there's no way hypnosis can really alter your brain chemistry so drastically to suddenly give you super powers.

Now, name someone who decided to give up smoking cold-turkey. Or stop having phobias. Or give themselves the will-power to lose weight. It's happened: it may have been difficult, but it wasn't downright impossible.

Hypnosis IS a mind game. That's the whole point. You get hypnotized when you watch a movie and tune everything out around you. You focus on something intently, and if you're scatter-brained like me, someone is droning on in the background, "reminding" you to focus on something and tuning everything else away.

So that begs the question: can you be hypnotized against your will? Some can be.

What about being given x-ray vision? Well, can you imagine people naked when standing in front of a large audience as you're giving a speech? If you can do it there, you can probably do it "after being hypnotized." Would you really WANT to be walking around everything, imagining people au natural? Well... that's up to you, I guess

Where is your evidence? Can we see it? How many clients have you had, how many failures, how many successes, and how many times have you followed up on your clients?

Hmmm. Maybe.

I would like to see some actual proof of that. And no, claims of penis enlargement aren't proof. I need actual evidence. Either someone does it on me, or there's a video taken of the before, and after, with no splicing or editing.

This one isn't really a number, but it is a quantity.

Now who's putting words in other's mouths? Remember earlier? I was seriously asking if you'd help me because I am interested in hypnosis, I would like it to be something special, since its a cool concept. However your attempts here have seriously made me question that.

You could hypnotize them to go out an buy a prosthesis!

Human limbs do not grow back (... or get larger).

Hypnosis is best used to treat bad habits... whether that be biting your nails, avoiding social interaction, or judging your own actions inappropriately. Superficial stuff.

It's like praying.

I do little enough work that I don't not follow up on my clients. And the details of my clients' personal problems aren't really your business. Sorry.

So go find some, I guess. Hypnosis is something that makes you want to experiment with it, and some people have gotten some interesting results. I could tell you more interesting stuff than that. But none of this is anything any serious therapist does anyway, so it's odd to focus on.

It was also an agreement.

I would help you, but that help has absolutely nothing to do with experimental hypnosis. Do you want to ask professional questions or do you want to know more about growing your dick?

How can you expect to be taken seriously when you make crazy claims? They aren't really all that separate. Given you claim penis enlargement via hypnosis is "a thing", then any questions about it ARE professional questions.

Are you being this obtuse on purpose? I wasn't asking for personal details. Just cold hard numbers.

We were asking you for some, since you're the resident expert. I personally wouldn't know what valid evidence would be, you might, given that you do that sort of thing.

No, if this were a pre-talk or screening interview and the conversation went off in this direction, I would basically refuse their money. And I don't expect to be taken seriously; I expect to be honest. If you don't believe me, well, I guess that was expected. I'm still not going to lie.

I've pretty much only not been able to (completely) help one person, and that's because they moved before we were done. Therapy work I've done maybe ... 20 or so times?

I wouldn't know what valid evidence might be for you either. I've done a lot of research into what the subconscious affects (and doesn't affect), talked with professionals about their personal experience and the thing's they're experimented with, and tried to figure out what works, what doesn't, why some things have a higher success rate than others, why something might work with one person but not another, etc. I've talked with hypnotists who help train new recruits in the Calgary police force, doctors who have been integrating it into their practice, local ambulance paramedics who use it for anesthesia ... but none of it is hard scientific rigor.

So I'll tell you what I know, and you can take it or leave it. I have no hard data for you, no evidence. This is just what we do.

Anything that's repeatable and verifiable.

Then why are you saying things about hypnosis penis enlargement being "a thing", and curing cancer. As has been said, the most likely explanation is pure chance. Especially if you can only claim there's a low success rate. For it to be an actual thing, it would have to do better than a placebo. Placebos have also been used in the same way, and in some cases, they also appear to "cure cancer". In reality, that is quite unlikely to have anything to do with the placebo itself. claiming anything more than that is lying pure and simple.

Had you actually kept to saying sane things, I'd probably have more faith in hypnotism. I was taking you seriously before that.

Nothing, sorry.

They were mentioned. It's been done. I guess it just doesn't seem that weird to me anymore, given my research. Sorry if I was too radical.

Would that apply to a cancer patient given six months to live having his tumors quickly disappearing? You told me a placebo wasn't a cure, so I'm curious now if it applies here.

I'm sorry, but anecdotal stories are not evidence.

It isn't a cure. Spontaneous remission happens. At most a placebo tricks the mind into feeling slightly better, which in and of its self, can help the body do it's thing better, and/or enhance existing treatments.

I don't ever recall saying it was.

Um, yes. That's a light form of hypnosis.

If spontaneous remissions happen, why is it odd that they can be induced? I guess I'm not getting why one is accepted and not the other.

My bet is that it wasn't induced. Pure coincidence. They happen too.

If a placebo worked in the case of cancer, then the doctor would simply tell the patient that his cancer is gone...

If we knew how to "induce spontaneous remission" then we'd have the cure for cancer.

Hypnotizing everybody who has cancer and getting the same low success results as spontaneous remission is proof of nothing other than hypnosis cannot cure cancer.

I'd like to bring up an interesting observation I (and numerous others) have had in the last few years, while experimenting with lucid dreaming. The general consensus, if you disregard the quacks who ramble about astral projection and the like (nonsense!), is that dreaming is a state nearly the opposite of being awake, where your subconscious is in charge and you participate in your dreams much like a passenger in a car. You might be doing quite a lot while dreaming, but really your consciousness is on autopilot while you experience the scenario your subconscious has somewhat haphazardly assembled from the material it has at its disposal.

When you have a lucid dream you screw things up by becoming conscious while still in the dream. Hence, you and your subconscious are active at the same time. As your subconscious is controlling the people, things, and events in your dream, it seems that you can interact with it much like you would anyone else in your waking life.

Here's the interesting part -- it's incredibly receptive to whatever you say. Find someone in your dream and ask them a question. They'll answer truthfully, even if the question references something IRL. Ask someone for help, of any kind. They'll make it happen without fail. You can use this as an easy technique to reshape your dream if you lack the confidence or skill to do it all by yourself.

The fascinating part, to me, is that your subconscious seems to have an eerie inability to deny you when you're in that state. My supposition at this point is that a genuine hypnotist may be able to generate some lasting effect by coaxing a person's mind into a dreamlike state where their subconscious is open to suggestion, much like it is when you're having a lucid dream.

Just a thought.

Yes. Yes they can. /NO EVIDENCE TOTALLY ANECDOTAL PROBABLY FILTHY LIES

Is it the same low success rate? The doctors I've talked to (incidentally, if we could cure cancer, I'm informed we couldn't legally claim to anyway) seem to have success above and beyond the placebo effect. Again, no evidence, but I don't see any for your statement either, so I'm asking.

Really? Has cancer been cured while I was out today? If we COULD induce spontaneous remission, cancer would be gone. pure and simple.

I think at most, hypnotism could be labelled as a healing aid. Not a cure.

append:
I personally could use a bit of an aid. I have NO bloody clue how to continue. I'm pretty sure I know what the root causes of my issues are, but how does a person get over deep seated psychological issues that they've had since they were a tot?

I never said it was a sure thing. I said it has been done. If someone's going to say the numbers are the same as the placebo effect, then I guess I'll have to take thier word they've done research I haven't.

Depends for what. For physical ailments, I agree completely.

Hey, a question I can answer maturely!

I'm not sure how much you would want to know right off the bat, but figuring out the initial sensitizing event and then working our way forwards through your life experience is standard practice for dealing with this sort of thing, with a very high success rate. There's other things that can be done to supplement that, but personally I'd start there and see what gets unearthed, or see if you respond better to some other methodology (that's my style, anyway). It's all programming; you got it 20 years ago, you got it yesterday. It can change.

I don't have to prove some quack's claims. He has to prove it. It's not very hard. If you can treat cancer with hypnosis, voodoo, or drugs, then start up a scientific study that proves it. Give some patients hypnotists, give some patients pretenders (the placebo), and give others neither (the control group).

With drugs there are always numbers that show how effective it has been in clinical studies. Such evidence is objectionably reviewed using valid statistical procedures to see if the drug helped, hurt, or was irrelevant.

So I'm generous in that I grant a hypnotist the same low success rate as doing nothing. Perhaps he makes things worse.

And, by the way, the lack of such evidence in something as high profile as cancer is proof that it doesn't work.

I'm asking you to prove your claim. If you're going to be anal about my comments I'll be anal about yours.

It's also proof that no one tries it very much yet. And as I said before, we couldn't legally claim it even if it were true. Put simply, it's proof of whatever you find easiest to believe. Nothing more.

I have no idea what the exact moment in time was that the issues started. But I have a general idea of what caused them. Trying to de-program the automatic thoughts is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Especially when my mood slips (yay depression and bipolar!) It doesn't look like I'll manage to do it by myself in the next decade.

Well, without knowing more details this is definitely a strong option. I'm not familiar with the hypnotherapists in Edmonton but look into it sometime.

If you're going to make tall claims, expect to be asked why you think they're true.

Induced remission is not spontaneous.
Anyway, do you know why it happens? That would be the first step to working out how to induce it.
Here's a bit of background: cancer occurs when the normal mechanisms that destroy cells that divide uncontrollably fail (this includes programmed cell death when the DNA is badly damaged, as well as an immune response to cancerous cells). This is a triple-redundant system, the body spends a lot of resources on preventing cancer (tests with mice also show a connection between physical ageing and development of cancer: it's possible to deay or disable the physical ageing of cells, but the fraction of mice that get cancer jumps up accordingly). Additional mutation can result in the reactivation of one of the safe-guards, causing spontaneous remission (or, alternatively, the cells can get so damaged they simply die). You expect that to happen, but you expect it to be rare.
Cancer research does indeed try to base a therapy on this, but it's hard.

Burden of proof. You claim something works, you provide the evidence.

But that's what they do in psychotherapy as well. If it works there, it works here. That has little to do with hypnosis working or not working (but if hypnosis is a form of dissociation, I can see that it could; or could make things far, far worse).

They aren't tall to me. I'll try to be more considerate of your feelings in the future.

... goes off me when someone else makes a claim. Perhaps I should rephrase it; why would someone think placebo has a similar rate of success to hypnosis? I guess I didn't ask because I assume the answer is "because it fits your model of reality". I'm open to alternate responses.

Yes and no. It's much less successful in psychotherapy because there's it's being done consciously, not subconsciously. I ask your conscious mind, I'll get no answer, or the wrong answer. The problem is in the subconscious. It's going to know how it got there.

That sounds a bit tongue in cheek given the discussion, but the placebo effect and hypnosis have the requirement of belief and it is through belief that the outcome of each is achieved. Much like a placebo doesn't work on everyone, not all hypnotherapy techniques work on everyone.

Pop a multivitamin in the morning that you believe will make you "feel good" and "have more energy" and there's a good chance you'll suddenly relate to those qualities.

Wake up every morning to Anthony Robbins' hour of power and you might start to "feel good" and "have more energy".

... or you might be more objective and realize that the only thing different about you in either case is your mental state, which you had full control of all along anyway.

I'm unconvinced that lucid dreaming is any different to ordinary dreaming. I frequently have "lucid" dreams, and I'm now convinced that it is simply an illusion of (or a memory of) being lucid rather than any sort of actual control.

I'm yet to be able to plan my lucid dreams in advance. For example, I should be able to say something like "In my next lucid dream, I'm going to use long division to work out the answer to 1985/777, and remember the result to 5 decimal places".

..It just never happens. In every lucid dream I just end up flying or doing the other cliched things you would expect a lucid dreamer to do. Perhaps the first couple of times I was fooled into believing that I truly had control because flying is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in your first lucid dream, but now that it has happened repeatedly without my pre-planned dreams ever occurring, I'm unconvinced.

I know some people claim to be able to affect what they do in their lucid dreams via suggestion, but this only goes to prove my point: if you were truly lucid you would have complete and intricate control (at least, this is my idea of being truly lucid).

If I were to lie in bed thinking about long division, I might eventually have a "lucid" dream about long division. However, chances are that I would not wake up having memorized the solution to 1985/777 to 5 decimal places. I could, in the style of all lucid dreamers, say something like "I was lucid and attempted the problem, but the dream world is a bit fuzzy and I couldn't solve the problem", but this really smells a bit like bullshit to me. If it was truly me in my full state of lucidity I would, by now, have achieved a lot more in my lucid dreams. For a start I'd have defined some sort of metric for measuring the fuzziness of dreams.

..though no doubt I'll have a dream about measuring dream fuzziness tonight.

I've worked with a lot of people who believed their code would work, but I still always ended up having to fix it.

That just means you're more objective than they were, ML

No, it means I'm stronger willed. I believed it wouldn't work.

Regarding the dream post that sneaked in there, I dream every night. At some point in the dream, I realize I'm dreaming. And I feel like I'm in control. Whether that counts as lucid or not, I don't really care.

My dreams are bizarre and funny (to me) or disturbing, but not unrealistic. (i.e., I'm not flying.) I couldn't make up most of the stuff I dream about. I used to keep a notebook by my bed so I could quickly write down what my dream was about.

But then I started dreaming about dreaming and writing down the inner dreams in my outer dreams (so my real notebook was blank, but I thought it had stuff in it), and I didn't really feel like getting stuck in a recursive pattern, so I stopped. Waking up from a dream only to have to wake up from another one gets tiring.

I've had dreams like that, only every time I come up with the answer, the question changes. I get very angry and have to force myself to wake up, which sometimes leaves me in some weird paralyzed state for a brief moment.

And what's up with having a three hour dream in the span of five minutes? I hate those.

Do you believe you can control your own blood flow? That you can stop or reduce the bleeding just by wanting so?

It is one of the most used hypnotic effects in clinical settings:
From the Berkley Clinic: http://www.berkeleyclinic.com/img/berkeley/Bleeding1.pdf
And other research: http://womensmindbodyhealth.info/bleed519F.htm

Now, if this (even more) evidence can't convince your of the practical value and trueness of hypnosis, i don't know what can.

Read the links in this post

Well, that makes perfect sense and has a reasonable mechanism instead of this mind over matter mumbo jumbo. Vasoconstriction is partially controlled by the vasomotor center in the brain... so it makes perfect sense that it may be possible to affect that through the subject's beliefs. This is the kind of evidence that I am looking for. Hypnosis operating through a known neural pathway that starts in the brain.

I'll be obtuse though and say that it's not hypnosis, it's higher brain functions affecting the brainstem function. I'll reiterate my earlier point... each specific claim attributed to hypnosis needs to be proven separately because there is absolutely no guarantee that they use the same mechanism (although I'd expect most of its effects can be explained like that vasoconstriction example).

If someone's checking my pulse, I can freak them out by inhaling very slowly, which for some reason slows my heartbeat way down.

I wouldn't charge them $50 for the water, no.

Well said. Positive thinking and optimism can have a positive influence on the result. We have a natural tendency to connect the dots and assume the positive result was a cause of the praying or the hypnosis instead of realizing that it was other factors that actually mattered.

Therefore, to say that hypnosis can cure anything is misleading and dishonest. Hypnosis doesn't directly do anything to help. Perhaps it might allow the subject to alter his mental state and effect the result, but the "cure" would then be the new mental state, not the hypnosis.

Define the parameters for success. Just because the subject tells you it helped or worked doesn't mean that it actually did. To be objective, you would have to define what success means and evaluate the results based on that.

For example, if the goal is to quit smoking, does success mean the subject is never tempted to smoke ever again? Does it just mean that they quit smoking and never smoke again (though they might be tempted)? Does it only mean that they stopped smoking for a short time long enough to have been thought impossible before?

In order to objectively form a conclusion on the success of the hypnosis the parameters must be defined. Moreso, in the case of something like this, you can't conclusively guarantee that the subject is telling the truth. Maybe they did sneak a smoke and felt too ashamed to say anything. Maybe they're delusional and believe it worked even though it didn't. Without being able to absolutely test for success you can only believe that you were successful. You can't prove it.

Scientology works too, you know. Just ask any Scientologist!

I think it's misleading to think of your subconscious mind as a distinct consciousness. I would more accurately describe it as an automated extension to your own consciousness. You might not be consciously in control of what it does, but it is still your own mind doing it to the best of our knowledge (though perhaps there are microscopic aliens living inside of us that we haven't discovered yet ).

This has not been my experience. It's been a while since I remember having a lucid dream, but I don't ever remember it just doing as I command it in the dream. I am in control of what happens to some extent, but not through voice, for example. It isn't like a virtual world that my subconscious is interfacing with me through. As I said, my subconscious is still me! I think it's much more likely that there's a direct link between them, if they're distinct systems at all.

I tend to be somewhat of a realist in my dreams so despite wanting somebody to do something and asking them to in the dream, I generally subconsciously simulate what I believe they actually would do or say in that situation (pessimistically), just as I would imagine they would respond in real life.

I don't think you understand what "proof" means. It's not proof of anything.

Citation needed.

Wait, are you telling us that you are more qualified to help somebody with psychological issues than a doctor of psychology?

Why should that be a requirement? Just because you're lucid doesn't mean you're coherent. I've had dreams where I knew I was dreaming, but I still feel like I'm in that world, and I'm unaware of the state of the real world. Which is to say, it isn't like I could leave the dream world on demand if I wanted to (though I'd never want to). I don't think remembering a particular thought or idea is required to be lucid. Even in real life there are times when you can't remember something you wanted to.

No, I don't. There are physical means to regulate blood flow or stop the bleeding and the brain does control them, but I don't think anybody has direct control over these mechanisms. They are autonomous. Moreso, they aren't absolute. They do their best to control things, but the brain isn't in complete control of the body, nor the world around it, nor the implications of them.

In the USA, quacks cannot make claims that they can cure (i.e., effectively treat) any disease without their treatments going through proper government channels. This includes drugs, natural remedies, etc. I'm sure Canada has similar policies.

So if a person says, "even if we cured cancer, we couldn't legally claim to," what they really are doing is giving themselves an out for why they don't want to subject themselves to the sort of third party tests that everybody else does.

It's easy to give yourself a high success rate, both intentionally and unintentionally (you've mentioned some). But it's hard to fake an independent, controlled study. And why would you want to participate in a study that you have no control over? You can tout your own personal numbers if you want to try to convince somebody to part with his money.

First thing we do in the session.

It means they're a non-smoker. This can mean different things to different people and different methods are tailored to them depending on how they best respond. Some people are good at amnesia. Some people are good at disassociation. Some people are good at post-hypnotic suggestion. Use the correct tool for the job.

Just to keep up the anal treatment I've been getting, of course it's provable. Just observe them 24/7. Also, why would they be embarrassed? You think out of all the stop-smoking sessions a hypnotherapist does, and the failure rate you seem to assume, none of them blame the hypnotherapist? That's a little absurd. If it wasn't working, we'd know pretty easily.

They are quite literally in different halves of your brain. It's not misleading.

EDIT: Here's an interesting video on conscious and subconscious processes. There's actually a lot of odd stories about patients who have undergone this surgery ...

See, here's the fun thing; everyone's experience of hypnosis is different because they create it. It's like how no two people will draw the same house when told to draw a house.

Yes, that's what I meant by "it's proof of whatever you find easiest to believe. Nothing more." Lots of examples in your own post.

I certainly have a better tool. About half the professional hypnotherapists I know in town come from other backgrounds like psychology or are still doctors, and many of them do therapy exclusively via hypnosis now. Can't argue with results.

Um, everyone else tells us this too. I repeat; a lot of hypnotherapists are also doctors. NO ONE can claim it. Maybe it's different in the States.

Press release from yesterday:

http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm278894.htm

That's what I'm talking about. There are also agencies that approve surgical procedures, etc. Now maybe there's nothing specifically for mind doctors, I don't know. It's definitely not true that "nobody" is allowed to make claims about effective treatments for specific diseases, which is what I'm talking about when I use the word "cure." Maybe you mean something else.

But you could always get reputable third party sources to measure success. Then you can say things like, "A study conducted by XYZ showed a 83% chance of success," but of course if XYZ is some quack-partner, then it doesn't mean much.

The reason nobody can make the claim is because of agencies like the FDA. Obviously they can. I'm just talking about doctors, period.

You mean doctors are not allowed to say "I can cure cancer"? Of course they cannot say such things.

But can they say, "I have a degree from XYZ, have been practicing for N years, and am licensed at performing the allowed procedure FOO and prescribing drug BAR which has been approved by the FDA and clinically proven to successfully treat the disease"? Yes.

And could a hypnotist could make that same statement? I don't see why not, assuming they go through the same rigorous procedures that everybody else has to go through. But they'd have to come up with some particular, measurable, scientific reason why it works to get approval, because if the success rate depends entirely on the person's ability to play along with the hypnotist's games, then there would be no way to certify the process itself.

That we can say, yes. But that's the verbal fine print I was talking about.

You can, but would it be true?

If it weren't, we wouldn't be able to say it legally, now would we?

So it is "approved by the FDA and is scientifically proven to successfully treat the condition"?

Okay fine, hypnotherapy is not approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration. We have our own clinical licenses, legislation, and laws, obviously.

Sure, but most often, the Canadian laws and FDA equivalent just waits for the FDA to pass something, then passes it itself.

Still not seeing what hypnosis has to do with food and drug. Does the FDA honestly regulate that? (not sarcastic)

I just assumed they regulated all medical procedures. They do regulate a lot of medical related things like drugs (obviously), and medical devices. Looks like they don't regulate individual types of treatments outside of the drugs and devices. Though some other organization probably does.

No, unless you are using equipment. There is government involvement regarding things like surgical procedures, but I doubt that extends into harmless things like mind control. And while I don't think agencies like the AMA are technically ran by the government, they definitely work close enough to be considered official. (e.g., Lose your license, lose your right to practice medicine.)

A lot of medical practices are self-regulated, which is better than nothing, but still not proof of anything other than a standard and consistent level of quackery.

REVISION:

For example, I got LASIK surgery a few years ago. I didn't go to the board of LASIK surgeons to figure out if I wanted to do it or not. I read about the scientific reason why it works from objective third party sources. Once convinced it was legitimate, I then checked out the self-regulations and picked a guy who met their qualifications.

(And because the FDA is involved with medical equipment, then I trusted that the device itself was up to par.)

The entire brain is me.

To summarize:

A guy allegedly has brain surgery that disconnects the two hemispheres of his brain from one another (i.e., they can no longer communicate). He says it doesn't feel any different (i.e., he can't detect it).

To demonstrate, they put him in front of a computer, having him stare at a dot on the screen. A word or image is flashed on the screen on one side of the center dot. If it's on the right, the left^[1] hemisphere gets the information, which is allegedly where his conscious mind is. It must also be where speach processing is done. He explains to the tester the words or images that he sees.

When they flash an image on the right, he is dumbfounded. He doesn't know what he saw. Or at least, the "conscious" hemisphere of his brain doesn't. Apparently the left hemisphere only gets to control the convenient parts that don't spoil the fun (i.e., not his vocal cords, tongue, mouth, etc.). The tester then asks him to close his eyes and draw with his left hand. He mysteriously draws some rendition of the same word or object that was on the screen, but doesn't know why he did it. Apparently we're supposed to believe that the "right" (i.e., left) side of his brain is completely independent and operating entirely on its own, apparently operating the left side of his body? Not only that, it is capable of drawing without seeing what he's drawing. I wonder if he can walk, or pass something seemlessly between hands.

Mysteriously, his eyes are still blinking in sychronization. I'm not qualified to say that it's not possible, but it certainly looks questionable to me. I call bullshit.

I would be more inclined to say that the "doctors" you've worked with are quacks.

Don't get me started on Canadian doctors...

And it has various different parts.

Okay, I think we're going to stop here. I could post any study and you'll just call BS on it simply because it doesn't fit your worldview. Do your own research on corpus callosotomy if you like. You'll get the same information.

bambam is inclined to say that people who disagree with him are wrong. I am shocked by this. Shocked.

I haven't really been following the rest of the thread but so I'm not sure what this has to do with hypnosis, but from what you said it's one the case studies they'll teach you in Psych 101. More at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain

<edit>
I thought they didn't perform this anymore (It used to be a lot more common) but it looks like its still done today. I imagine though it's a last resort since the side effects and are much more well known today.

There were some posts above about LD'ing and I figured I'd just blather in general about it. I don't feel compelled to target individual sentences here and there.

A couple of points to mull over:

- If you try to do something in a dream, and it doesn't happen, it's largely because you're not totally lucid. There are levels of lucidity, and not everyone gets all the way there every time. Learn how to stabilize your dream before you try doing anything. Google will help you with that. If there's anything in your dream that is fuzzy then you're not fully lucid. When you are, everything comes into focus at once. Literally. All your senses should be on a razor's edge -- everything should feel more real than it possibly can. You won't need glasses, your hearing will be perfect, and you won't have to move your eyes around to 'focus' on things because this is 100% in your mind, and everything can and will be in focus already. Focus is, after all, a byproduct of how your eyes operate.

- It's entirely possible to dream that you're having a lucid dream. And yet you're not, because you'll find you have no control over the dream. It happens fairly often to me.

- Again, if you're not fully lucid you'll have a limited ability to do things. Asking people for help in the dream is an easy way to get around that. If you ask for something and they don't comply, you're either not lucid, or you're being a dick about it. Dream characters sometimes will tell you to sod off if you're being a total tool, lucid or otherwise.

- Lucid dreams are normal dreams, except that you are 'awake' and conscious and in control of your actions. However... just as there are differing states of wakefulness (groggy, hyper, alert, sluggish) there are differing states of lucidity.

- I know this sounds trite, but it absolutely applies to LDs. If you don't believe that something will happen, it won't. If you walk up to a brick wall and have even the slightest notion that you'll be stopped by it, you will. You gotta habeeb.

- Practice. Practice more. At first I totally sucked and couldn't do much, but now I'm in complete, full control of my LDs. The only thing outside my control is the duration of the dream. Some are short; some are long. I can use autosuggestion to influence the subject matter of my dreams, in the hopes that I'll have a familiar dream that will cause me to recognize that I'm dreaming. Make no mistake: this did not come easy for me. I have slaved away at it each and every night for over three years.

I've punched holes in the bedroom wall dreaming about fighting.

When I was a kid I used to roll out of bed all the time. Not a great way to start your morning!

Heh... to me the freaky ones are the false awakenings, where I'll "wake up", proceed into the bathroom, start brushing my teeth... then suddenly wake up all over again, only this time for real

I hate when somebody is beating the crap out of me in a dream, but I cannot fight back or yell because I know I'm dreaming.

I should set up a camera to see if I ever do slow motion punches or open my mouth without making a sound.

How about "getting up", and you actually do, but you're not actually awake? I've done that on occasion. Hasn't happened since I was a kid. But one time I walked outside, around the house and came in another door. Another time I actually went and took a bath. One time my alarm was going off, and for the life of me I couldn't turn it off, ended up finding my walkman, opening it up and cracking it in half That didn't make me happy when I realized what happened. Recently my alarm was going off, and I couldn't turn the damn thing off (a theme perhaps?), hit the alarm many many times, tried different buttons and NOTHING helped! Then I woke up, hit sleep, and went back to sleep

You need to ban him immediately

I was doing that fairly often about 4 years ago, I'd dream I'd open my eyes, stare at the ceiling a bit, and decide to get up. It's difficult to sit up when you're actually laying on your stomach.

I think I posted about that same dream already in this thread.

As far as I know I don't ever actually do things in my sleep, but my younger brother did once. He was just power walking in circles around the kitchen table around 1AM.

Me> What are you doing?
Him> Looking for my shoes.
Me> Go to bed.
Him> Okay.

He didn't remember it the next day.

Yep. That's ye olde false awakening, and I didn't start having them until I was 22 or thereabouts. That's what clued me in to to lucid dreaming. Now I have them fairly often. It's kinda cool because you're already semi-lucid, so if you recognize what's going on you can get a quick n' easy lucid dream. The problem is that you really are about to wake up, so it won't last long.

Oh, another thing I used to do:

A while back when I lived with my dad, I'd skip school a lot, and stay home and sleep much of the day. At a certain point I would get a bad "feeling" that usually meant someone was about to come home, even when I was asleep. A few times the feeling was so strong that it not only made me realize I was sleeping, but I was able to force myself awake after much strain (it was really hard). Most times (that I remember) I was actually right, not long after I woke up, my dad came home (even though it was a rather odd time for him to come home). Usually what I tried to do was move a limb or sit up while sleeping, when I actually manage to move, it immediately wakes me up, but actually moving something is the hard part.

How many levels deep have you gone? I'm at least at 4-5 levels deep.

It's kind of eerie when dreams sync up with real world events. I'm having this nice, bizarre dream, and all of a sudden something happens in my dream that parallels some noise in the real world. But the events that lead up to that noise in my dream were so structured, it's like I knew in 15 minutes that I'd be hearing that noise.

I think it has to do with the fact that you can dream in fast forward. It's like the dream is in Narnia time or something.

I don't have any super powers except that I wake up just a few minutes before my alarm would go off, 99% of the time.

When I get into a routine that happens.

Recently I went to sleep in the wee hours, intending to just catch a 3 hour nap. I ended up sleeping through my phone's alarm. I had an important appointment at 10am.

When I woke up, my eyes blasted open and I bolted up immediately and grabbed my phone.

10:00am exactly.

I'm really not sure. I know I've gone back to sleep while in a dream, so I suppose I've had at least one multi-stage dream Sometimes I'll have a brief episode where it seems like I can drop into and out of a dream just by opening and closing my eyes. I can usually do that four or five times before I drop out (i.e. wake up) for good.

Very, very, scary shit. From what I've been told the best, sure-fire method of inducing a lucid dream is WILD (wake induced lucid dream), where you simply remain perfectly still and wait until your body falls asleep, leaving your mind free to consciously jump into a dream. The problem for me is that the gateway to that state involves sleep paralysis, and that's not cool at all. It's a terrible feeling and even I get freaked out by it.

When I was in school I would regularly "wake up, but not really." It was practically a daily thing. My alarm would go off, I would wake up and shut it off, get out of bed, and start getting ready for school, and then my mom would yell at me to get up. I'd yell back at her, "I AM UP!!!11 " She'd yell at me that I am not up and then I'd wake up and realize I was still in bed sleep. Sometimes I would fall back asleep multiple times in the same morning and this would repeat. She'd think I was lying, but I honstly thought I was up!

When I was young I used to sleep walk a bit. One night when I was probably 7 or 8, I allegedly walked down stairs (we had really steep stairs in my original house), went outside, and walked half way down^[1] my driveway^[2]. As the story goes, my mother heard a sound, woke up, and went downstairs to check. She found my baby blanket, which I used to like to sleep with, laying at the door. She opened the door and looked outside and apparently saw me walking away... She called out to me and I apparently responded and came back and went back to bed without saying a word. I always wondered where I was going and where I might have woken up if she hadn't caught me.

I think I've allegedly slept walked a few other times (that people know of), but I don't remember any other stories. My brother allegedly swore in his sleep when he was like 10 (and we weren't permitted to swear until well into high school). I guess my mother woke up in the middle of the night and as she was passing by our bedroom door, she heard my brother yell out, "SHIT!" Shortly after, I guess he yelled, "IT HAPPENED ON THE BUS!" After that he was silent again.

I've heard my brother talk in his sleep a few times too. Allegedly I have done it also, but I don't think anyone ever witnessed anything memorable enough to ... remember.

This is exactly how my memories of LDs feel; however, I'm yet to find a strong enough correlation between my behaviour in LDs and real-life to believe that I was actually in control.

I'm still utterly unconvinced. The next time you have a lucid dream, I want you to consciously think of two large numbers, memorize them, perform long division on them and then memorize the result. I guarantee that you will fail. Something as seemingly simple as visualising writing down the various stages of long division falls apart in a dream state. If you were genuinely conscious, you would be able to put your finger on why it was falling apart, and if you were genuinely in control you would be able to fix it.

I will certainly give it a try, and I suspect it will succeed and fail at the same time, but for entirely different reasons. I'm sure I'll have no trouble computing the number, but I'll likely lose the dream in the process. LDs require intense concentration to maintain for a long time. You have to stop and periodically stabilize the dream or else you'll lose it, and if you spend too much time obsessing over a particular element, your subconscious will happily take over once more and you'll drift off to your typical dream state. You can feel this happening and stop it with surprisingly little practice. I usually start to feel dizzy, and the periphery begins to blur badly. I can do a bit of hand rubbing and get another minute or so, or I can spin and really give myself some time to work with.

Maintaining a LD, I believe, is a subtle battle against your subconscious for control. You're in its back yard, breaking its rules, and it doesn't like that. It has a plan for your dream time, and you're stomping all over it. So the first chance it gets to take over, it will. If you pay attention to the dream, you stay in control. If you let your mind wander or focus on one thing for too long, you're vulnerable.

Personally, I don't believe Sirocco's lucid dream story. When I dream, even when I'm lucid, the world doesn't suddenly become full and clear. That's because it's all in my mind and the world isn't complete. It isn't like a 3D game map that exists in its entirety. It is formed as I experience it and does change at will, even when I'm lucid. I don't notice that it isn't full and clear because I'm only focussed on one thing at a time, and that typically is always clear to me.

Moreso, I generally don't just experience dreams in the first person, but experience them in the 3rd person as well. My vision isn't blurred even during a normal dream because I'm not seeing through eyes. The image is directly implanted into my brain! Things can be fuzzy in that they aren't well defined, but that too doesn't change when I become lucid.

Your mind is only capable of handling so many thoughts and ideas at a time. There are limitations to our potential. It doesn't matter if you're lucid; your mind still has limitations. In fact, I would be more inclined to believe that your brain has a greater capacity or can achieve a greater capacity when you aren't lucid. I call bullshit.

I'm surrounded by noobs

I've never had a 3rd person dream. I'm guessing your mind is so focused on gaming it shapes your perception of things. Interesting. Very interesting, actually. Your experiences would indicate you're achieving what is commonly referred to as a low level of lucidity. There's no scientific way to gauge that since LDing is a 100% subjective thing, but if you're still seeing a bunch of fuzzy or poorly defined details you're definitely not well off.

Your conscious brain has numerous limitations, and your subconscious has certain limitations as well, but it has access to far more raw knowledge and... let's call it computing power. When you're LDing both parts of your brain are active at the same time. Both are active, but one side is in more control than the other. Get it?

You can call BS all you want. If you don't attempt to improve what little LD skills you have, you'll never do anything with it. You spend a third of your life sleeping. Some of us want to enjoy that.

Start here if you're actually serious about LDing.

I really do enjoy sleeping. I dream every night and love it. It's hard for me to get up because I don't want my dream to end (I can generally jump right back into a dream if I lay back down and go back to sleep). I have my fair share of lucid dreams as well.

... weren't you berating me about anecdotal experience earlier?

Anyway, for my experience, I'm not good at lucid dreaming (not that I've tried very hard). Learning and experiencing hypnosis has definitely helped my sleep though; it used to take me 2 or 3 hours to get to sleep at night (yes, really) and now it takes ten minutes. I can set my internal alarm clock to wake up at arbitrary times (which I'll hit to within 5 minutes) and I either began dreaming again, or just started remembering it. Which is nice.

My loosely lucid dreams usually begin with me realising that I'm lucid and then zooming in on my surroundings to a sub-atomic level. These dreams certainly do feel "razor sharp", but they are not the most interesting dreams I've had. It's either this or I decide to start flying.

The dreams that I really enjoy (and these are in no way lucid) are the ones where I wake up in an emotional state that I have not experienced before. For example, the other day I dreamt of a vast temple in a forest, with hazy dappled light streaming through the leaves. It wasn't particularly vivid, but I woke up with such a strong feelings of something ancient and powerful that for 10 minutes after waking it warped the whole perception I have of my life.

I stopped at the bit where it says I'll have to wake up multiple times per night to record my dreams. Sleep is precious to me, and this is starting to sound like a great way to cause sleep deprivation.

I can sorta relate to that. Most of my LDs are fun, but the dreams that really stick with me are the ones that come out of nowhere. I had a non-LD dream a few years back where I launched into orbit from an old Apollo mission capsule (dream physics FTW) parked just outside a Dollar General on the other side of the city. Things didn't go according to plan, and I shot past orbit and drifted out past our solar system and deep into the Milky Way. I guess I had been playing Mario Galaxy too much, because I noticed a bunch of cool galaxies in the distance made up of various materials: legos, Lincoln Logs, match sticks, Super Mario ? blocks, etc. I realized I was running out of oxygen and had no way to get home, so I sat back in my tiny capsule and watched galaxies drift by until I expired. It was a surprisingly sublime experience.

There was a point to all that, I swear

I woke up from the dream feeling fucking awesome. Unbelievably refreshed, at that... and it lasted much of the day. It doesn't happen often, but when it does you really take notice.

Do keep in mind that much of the material is written for people who are overly eager, and wanting to get into LDing as fast as possible. I took a much slower, measured approach where I set my alarm ten minutes early, then used the time to remember as much of my dreams as I could. I then used a voice recorder to log all the details while I did ye olde brush-teeth-comb-hair-shave-etc routine. Combined with autosuggestion, I eventually started having LDs with increasing frequency. I still have them less often than I'd like, but it's better than it was when I started, where I had two over the course of my entire life ^___^

So, no, there's no need to wake up during the night. If you do, for whatever reason, you can repeat something simple as you fall back to sleep, such as "I know I'm dreaming" which may give you a little boost. Or you could suggest subject matter for upcoming dreams instead. "I'll dream about Godzilla smashing Tokyo", for example

Uggh. I've started having a lot of repeats again. Starting to get nightmare-ish again. Pisses me off.

Wow. I was woken up by my housemate leaving in the early hours of the morning and so decided to have a stab at a lucid dream.

The first thing to note: falling back asleep whilst conscious is extremely unpleasant. I don't know whether it's because I've been suffering from allergies recently and therefore have trouble breathing at night, but it felt like being suffocated with a cushion.

Actually if it wasn't for the fact that I used to play a game with a by brother as a kid where he would try to suffocate me with a cushion, and I would go completely calm and just breathe through the cushion, I'm certain that I would have given up on attempting the lucid dream and just woken up completely.

I've experienced sleep paralysis many times when waking up, but I've never experienced being concious while falling asleep.

Anyway it worked. The dream was crystal clear. I could even move my hands in front of my face. I immediately floating out the window into the street where it was snowing and walked around a bit. I then conjured up a beautiful woman to talk to but hadn't decided who it was, and so her face was blurred which after a short period caused the whole dream to fall apart.

Now here's the thing: I remember being completely concious and I remember the surroundings as clearly as I remember yesterday, but I'm still not convinced that I actually was. Why didn't I decide to try the long division task I mentioned - had I just forgotten? Why didn't I just stop and plan what I was about to do. I know myself well, and this is the first thing I would do if I was truly concious.

I can't deny the it was very different to an ordinary dream, and the horrendous experience of falling asleep while conscious is evidence enough that something strange was going on, but I'm still not convinced that the dream itself was anything more than an illusion of consciousness.

Do left brain/ right brain restriction still apply in lucid dreams? I was under the impression that reading is supposedly off-limit in dreams. Algebra is certainly a heavily left-brained activity. Long division generally requires interaction with the environment so trying to combine the two might produce strange results if you can manage it, such as the test mentioned earlier with separated brain hemispheres.

A few times, I've had to stay up studying despite being extremely tired. I feel that, seeing that my conscious mind would not let sleep happen, my subconscious lulled me into believing that I was studying so I could be taken into sleep. Once, my sister tried to get me to actually go to bed and I shooed her away saying that I was studying, and I remember actually believing it.

I haven't had a lucid dream in quite a while since I've been taking sleeping pills (short term). I hit stupidly low level sleep with them and it interferes with my memory and such, but in about a week I'll be off them and back to normal. The stress at work was getting to be a bit much, and I needed to make sure I was getting at least 8 solid hours a night. Big projects require concentration

My experience is that the only obstacle between you maintaining a lucid dream is your ability to concentrate on maintaining it. If you stop and concentrate on one particular thing your subconscious will start reasserting control, and you'll be swept back into the dream, losing your lucidity. This is a gradual, yet swift process, and it's easy to ignore it until it's too late. I have no trouble reading, whether it be in books or messages scrawled on walls, and things requiring cognitive work beyond just conversing and physical activity are no problem as long as I don't obsess over them. If you don't stop and periodically remind yourself that you are dreaming, and perform simple stabilization techniques -- you will lose the dream. Every time. Absolutely.

The way I think of LDing is like being swept down a river. If you get the chance, at certain areas you can swim against the flow. As long as you keep swimming in the opposite direction, you won't go further downstream. Pause for too long, and...

If you want to create a book and read it, you'd better be prepared to stop every paragraph (or page, depending on practice) and retrain your thoughts.

Thought I'd throw this out for more about the division of the brain. To answer something mentioned far above, this isn't directly related to hypnosis. I'm also not sure how well accepted this thinking is; it will probably be accused of being unscientific again. But it might get you thinking about the way the brain operates, which is what the theory, practice and study of hypnosis is based on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=dFs9WO2B8uI

Leaving the link like that since I apparently fail at movies now ...