"Hidden observer" phenomena in hypnosis: an experimental creation?

Preserved critical ability and free will in deep hypnosis during oral surgery

Free will is a complex construct that includes critical reasoning, sense of ownership, and agency. The whole history of hypnosis has been linked to suggestibility. Little agreement has been reached, however, on exactly what we mean by suggestibility, and its role in hypnosis, despite the abundance of studies, hypotheses, and theories published to date. We report on a highly hypnotizable patient with a previous allergy to lidocaine and paradoxical reactions to pharmacological sedation, who underwent oral surgery with mepivacaine for local anesthesia, and hypnosis for sedation. During the procedure, she felt some pain and the hypnotist recommended bupivacaine to ensure lasting anesthesia. While remaining under deep hypnosis, the patient refused to change anesthetic and decided autonomously to continue with mepivacaine (for which she had previously been tested for allergy). Our case clearly shows a preserved, exemplary reasoning and ability to make autonomous decisions diverging from the hypnotist's advice while under deep hypnosis.

Hypnotic behavior: A social-psychological interpretation of amnesia, analgesia, and “trance logic”

This paper examines research on three hypnotic phenomena: suggested amnesia, suggested analgesia, and “trance logic.” For each case a social-psychological interpretation of hypnotic behavior as a voluntary response strategy is compared with the traditional special-process view that “good” hypnotic subjects have lost conscious control over suggestion-induced behavior. I conclude that it is inaccurate to describe hypnotically amnesic subjects as unable to recall the material they have been instructed to forget. Although amnesics present themselves as unable to remember, they in fact retain control over retrieval processes and accommodate their recall (or lack of it) to the social demands of the test situation. Hypnotic suggestions of analgesia do not produce a dissociation of pain from phenomenal awareness. Nonhypnotic suggestions of analgesia and distractor tasks that deflect attention from the'noxious stimuli are as effective as hypnotic suggestions in producing reductions in reported pain. Moreover, when appropriately motivated, subjects low in hypnotic suggestibility report pain reductions as large as those reported by highly suggestible hypnotically analgesic subjects. Finally, the data fail to support the view that a tolerance for logical incongruity (i.e., trance logic) uniquely characterizes hypnotic responding. So-called trance-logic-governed responding appears to reflect the attempts of “good” subjects to meet implicit demands to report accurately what they experience.