What is hypnosis? How does it control human nerves?

Hypnotism (originated from the name of Hypnos, the god of sleep in Greek mythology) is a kind of magic that produces magical effects by using hints and other means to put subjects into hypnosis.

Hypnosis is a special conscious trance psychological state similar to sleep but not sleep, which is induced by people (such as relaxation, monotonous stimulation, concentration, imagination, etc.). ). It is characterized by the weakening or loss of the hypnotized person's independent judgment and autonomous action ability, and the distortion or loss of feeling and perception. In the process of hypnosis, the hypnotized person follows the suggestion or instruction of the hypnotist and reacts. The depth of hypnosis varies with the individual's hypnotic sensitivity, the reputation and skills of the hypnotist. The effect of suggestion under hypnosis can continue to the awakening activity after hypnosis. The method of inducing the hypnotized person to enter the hypnotic state through certain procedures is called hypnosis.

Using special behavioral techniques combined with language prompts, normal people can enter a temporary, sleep-like state. Hypnosis can also be induced by drugs and can be divided into self-hypnosis and hypnosis of others. Self hypnosis is caused by self suggestion. Hypnosis of others is produced under the influence and suggestion of the hypnotist, which can arouse the repressed and forgotten things and tell the medical records, illness, inner conflicts and tensions. Hypnosis can also be used as a therapeutic method (i.e. hypnotherapy) to relieve or eliminate patients' mental and physical diseases such as tension, anxiety, conflict and insomnia.

In China, it can be said that hypnosis has a long history, which is also mentioned in Neijing. In ancient times, "You Zhu" and some religious ceremonies, such as "jumping to the gods", all contained hypnotic elements, but at that time they were mostly used for deception or a superstitious activity. In Europe and America, people have been studying hypnosis for a long time. The earlier record is that in Paris in the18th century, there was an Austrian doctor named FranzAntonMesmer who loved psychotherapy. He can treat patients with "animal magnetism" through a complex set of methods, including letting patients lie on their arms. The mechanism of hypnosis is explained by mysterious animal magnetism, which is a suggestive force according to modern understanding. It is said that the French government prepared to pay him a large sum of money for treatment, but he refused, probably because he didn't know it himself. Later, a Scottish doctor, james braid, became interested in this phenomenon, which would anesthetize surgical patients. /kloc-in the 9th century, he put forward the word "hypnosis", scientifically explained a passive sleep-like state caused by the healer, and borrowed the Greek word "hypnos" (meaning sleep) to "hypnotize". Later, under years of systematic and in-depth research by a group of people led by Pavlov, a biologist in the former Soviet Union, hypnosis has made great progress, and hypnosis has really become a rational and useful applied science. Now, famous universities and hospitals in many countries have hypnosis laboratories, and actively carry out feasibility studies on applying hypnosis to medicine, teaching, industry and other fields.

Hypnosis theory

1. partial regression theory

Hypnosis makes the subjects' thinking degenerate to the naive stage, losing the control they have when they are awake normally, and falling into the primitive way of thinking, so they act impulsively and produce fantasies and hallucinations.

2. Role-playing theory

It is believed that the subjects played another role through excessive cooperation under the guidance of hypnotists. Participants' expectations of the role and situational factors make them do some actions with a highly cooperative attitude. However, many scholars insist that hypnosis is another state of consciousness, not role-playing, because even the most cooperative subjects will not agree to operate without anesthesia.

3. The theory of separation in consciousness.

According to the experimental observation, hilgard thinks that hypnosis separates the psychological process of the subjects into two (or more) simultaneous shunts. The first shunt is the conscious activity experienced by the subjects, which may be distorted in nature; The second shunt is a conscious activity that the subjects are hard to detect and conceal, but its nature is relatively real, which hilgard called "hidden observer". Separation of consciousness is a normal experience that often happens in life. For example, people who drive long distances have had some reactions to the situation on the road, but they can't recall it, because consciousness is obviously divided into two parts: driving and personal thinking.

Matters needing attention in hypnosis.

First, the hypnotic environment and time setting.

Environment setting: It is best to choose a quiet, comfortable and warm environment, which is conducive to relaxation and makes people feel relaxed, comfortable and safe naturally.

Time setting: Generally, hypnosis lasts about one hour at a time, and it is adjusted according to the different problems to be solved in hypnosis. As therapeutic hypnosis, there are at least five treatments, the first is adaptive therapy, and the second is to really start treatment; Generally, every time 10 is 1 course of treatment. Of course, due to individual differences, some people do not necessarily need to complete the whole course of treatment to fully recover.

Second, the adjustment of living habits during hypnosis

Empty urine before each treatment, don't eat too much, and be full; Eliminate distractions and treat treatment with a peaceful attitude; It is absolutely forbidden to drink alcohol (dizziness, headache, irritability and other reactions will occur after drinking alcohol), and try not to take ginseng, hormones and so on. Try to keep a regular life system; Truly reflect the experience and changes after treatment to the hypnotist.

Third, contraindications to hypnosis

Although no examples of hypnotic suggestion with serious consequences have been reported at present, attention should be paid to the selection of indications and contraindications to avoid possible adverse situations. Contraindications include the following aspects:

1. Schizophrenia or other serious mental illness. Under hypnosis, such patients will worsen their condition or induce hallucinations and delusions.

2. Patients with brain organic mental illness with consciousness disorder. Hypnosis can aggravate symptoms.

3. Serious cardiovascular diseases, such as coronary heart disease, cerebral arteriosclerosis and heart failure.

4. People who have serious fears about hypnosis and remain skeptical after explanation.

What is self-hypnosis?

Human beings have the ability to use self-awareness and image, and can carry out self-reinforcement, self-education and self-treatment through their own thinking resources. In fact, people have already used self-hypnosis hints, such as prayers, religious ceremonies, Indian yoga, China Qigong and so on. Practice self-hypnosis in different ways. Hypnotic suggestion plays a great role in human life. When people are awake, suggestion also plays a role, but under hypnosis, the content of suggestion has more powerful and lasting power in the subconscious field. Hinting under hypnosis can not only change the feeling, consciousness and behavior of the body, but also affect the function of internal organs. Brain science research has proved that the prefrontal lobe of the brain is not only related to psychological activities such as consciousness and thinking, but also closely related to the hypothalamus, which regulates the activities of internal organs. This structural connection may be the main material basis for human beings to actively use consciousness and images to regulate the physiological functions of internal organs. Subconscious plays an important role in regulating people's breathing, digestion, blood circulation, immune response, substance metabolism and various reflexes and reactions. Many studies have proved that under hypnosis, when the body is in different States, the metabolic rate will change accordingly. For example, hypnosis implies that when the body is engaged in heavy physical labor, the metabolic rate can be increased by 25%. Self-hypnosis with self-training method can reduce the metabolic rate 15 ~ 20% compared with normal quiet state.

Usually take a supine position or sitting position, so that all parts of the body are in a comfortable and relaxed posture to practice. First of all, focus on your physical feelings, examine yourself, hypnotize yourself and hint at yourself. First of all, keep using "confidence, courage and satisfaction? Such positive emotions and beautiful images drive away all kinds of negative emotions such as boredom, anxiety and sadness, and then carry out self-planning, self-reinforcement and self-control to achieve the expected results.

At the beginning, you should choose a quiet environment, practice many times a day, and gradually change to practice regularly 2-3 times a day, which is better. 5-20 minutes each time. Beginners should not spend too much time at a time. If you stay a little longer, you will be easily distracted and unconsciously nervous when you fall asleep. Therefore, it is necessary to shorten the practice time appropriately, or even divide an exercise into several stages, each of which lasts only a few minutes.

Self-hypnosis suggestion therapy is mainly used for:

(1) Reduce psychological pressure, improve sleep, improve social adaptability and immune function, and prevent and treat various psychosomatic diseases;

(2) Enhance memory and attention, and improve learning efficiency;

(3) correct all kinds of bad habits and lose weight;

(4) Treating sexual dysfunction, dysmenorrhea, pelvic floor muscle relaxation and climacteric syndrome;

(5) controlling pain;

(6) Improve sports training and competition results.

In short, many people in modern times are successfully using self-hypnosis suggestion to protect their physical and mental health. In the future, with the development of medicine, many diseases will be prevented and treated by vaccines. Using various psychological techniques to control diseases and develop people's psychosomatic potential will become the mainstream of future medicine.

Hypnotic logic

Among all the typical hypnotic phenomena, one of the most interesting phenomena is hypnotic logic. The word "hypnotic logic" was first put forward by Aon (1959). Its basic meaning is that hypnotized people can believe incompatible opinions or opinions at the same time without knowing that they are incompatible with each other. Aon (1962) said that if hypnotized people want to imagine the chair negatively (that is, imagine that the chair is not in its original place), they will control themselves not to touch the chair when they are asked to walk indoors with their eyes open, but they still insist that they can't see the chair. This is a manifestation of hypnotic logic. People without hypnotic logic will bump into chairs (Bowles, 1976). In this kind of experiment, it is not clear whether the hypnotized person really believes that the chair is not in its original position; Or the chair is still there, but they can't see it anymore. If they believe that the chair is still in its original place, but they can't see it, then they can avoid it when they can't see it, which is not illogical, because the hypnotized person may remember the position of the chair. If the chair is moved, the experiment will be more perfect. The reason is that after the chair is moved, if the hypnotized person reports that he can't see the chair on the one hand and avoids touching the chair on the other, it will explain the incompatibility of his reaction more clearly, because they can no longer know the position of the chair by memory. Another similar hypnotic logic phenomenon is the "double" illusion reported by some people. Its performance is that under the guidance of the hypnotist, the hypnotized person hallucinates an object, and this object is already in the house; Or seeing a person in a hallucination, this person is entering the room. This is all a double illusion hypnosis logic. However, MacDonald and Smith (1975), Xi Han, O 'Busto and Maikangqi (1976), Xi Han (1977) and others found that not all reports were double hallucinations, and many hypnotized people pretended to see double hallucinations. In addition, the incompatibility of double hallucinations is also questionable. Here we need to analyze the hypnotized person's belief in the authenticity of the illusion object. They can't think that the object of illusion is just the product of imagination. If they really believe that phantom objects exist objectively, it is illogical to see more than one object. Of course, even in this case, there are some reasons that can reasonably explain the coexistence of dual objects. If the hypnotized person knows that one of the two objects is an illusion, there is no compatibility at all. Because when the hypnotized person is told that the hallucination object is hallucination, it can disappear. Transparent illusion is another manifestation of hypnotic logic. The so-called transparent illusion is that the hypnotized person reports that he has seen the real object through the illusion object (Johnson, Maher and Barber,1972; Xi Han et al., 1976). Similarly, some hypnotized people report that this phenomenon is false. It is obviously illogical to see one object completely hidden by another. However, there are not many rules to follow in hallucinations. For most hypnotized people, one of the attributes of illusion may be that the hypnotized person can see the opposite object through it. Hypnotic logic is an elusive phenomenon. Although many people have reported its existence, the more carefully you analyze it, the more difficult it is to grasp it. The main reason is that we don't know whether the hypnotized person really believes that the object he sees is real or an illusion: whether he really believes that there is no object or a negative illusion. It is not difficult to deny the existence of hypnotic logic phenomenon. However, hypnosis logic is still an interesting problem, and I hope that there will be more in-depth research in the future to solve some problems raised here by analyzing the knowledge of the hypnotized person. In these studies, we can adopt a method similar to that of Han Xi and Mai Kangqi (1982).