by Alexis Jetter
Contrary to popular folklore, a hypnotized person isn't asleep and can't be compelled to act against her
own wishes--although anyone who's watched a Borscht Belt magician turn a middle-aged man into a squawking
chicken might doubt that. Though researchers can't fully explain what hypnosis is or why it works, they do
know that 75% to 91% of people can be hypnotized.
Psychologists describe hypnosis as an altered state of mind in which one's normal skepticism is largely
suspended, allowing a patient to focus attention on a single image and be open to suggestions posed by a
trained guide. Some practitioners call it daydreaming with purpose. It's similar to the absorption you
experience when reading a good novel, watching an engrossing movie, or listening so intently to the car radio
that you arrive home without a clue as to how you got there.
New brain scan technology shows that hypnosis can alter the way sensory messages are received in the brain
and experienced in the body. In a recent brain-imaging study conducted at the University of Iowa, researchers
found that hypnosis actually blocks pain signals from getting to the part of the brain responsible for
conscious perception of discomfort.
PET scans--which reveal active areas of the brain--also indicate that hypnotized people process suggested
sounds and images in the same part of the brain that registers real ones. That is, the brain accepts
hallucinations as authentic. Simply imagining sensations, without hypnosis, doesn't have the same effect.
That, of course, is what makes hypnosis such a great stage act. In a trance, your senses can be tricked.
You can be persuaded that a bottle of ammonia smells like perfume or that a large, fuzzy rabbit is sitting
on your lap. But the brain effects also help explain why hypnosis has become so useful to modern medicine.
It can make you conclude that chemotherapy isn't nauseating, for example, or that third-degree burns are
not painful.
"Fantasy can preempt pain," explains Linda Thomson, PhD, a nurse practitioner, and clinical hypnotherapist
in Bellows Falls, VT. And because pain isn't good for you, reducing it can produce profound benefits.