Hidden Depths: The Story of Hypnosis

by Waterfield, Robin

  The differences make it clear that a different state is involved. There is little in any of following extracts that would be recognizable to hypnotized person:

  Throughout its duration, the intoxication will be nothing but a fantastic dream, thanks to the intensity of colours and the rapidity of the conceptions, but it will always retain the particular quality of the individual … He is, after all, and in spite of the heightened intensity of his sensations, only the same man augmented, the same number elevated to a much higher power.

  I thought that I was near death; when, suddenly, my soul became aware of God, who was manifestly dealing with me, handling me, so to speak, in an intense personal present reality. I felt him streaming in like light upon me … I cannot describe the ecstasy I felt.

  In that time we recognize life's deepest meaning; the opacity, the darkness is made bright. Like the lips of fresh and gentle girls, sound like kisses showers our bodies. In our spine, in our skull, colour and line buzz new, yet ancient and clear. And now, no longer resembling the colour and line to which we are accustomed, they reveal the grand secrets hidden in forms. That primitive and so very flawed knowledge of Life we had gained through sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch is now improved, and made whole. We are given the chance to learn the truth of Life inherent in each of us, all of truth, perfected, beyond the faculties of our senses.

  The first extract is the French Symbolist poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–67) on hashish; the second is from a report by William James in Varieties of Religious Experience of the experiences of the English critic John Symonds (1840–93) on chloroform; the third is from a short story called ‘Opium’, first published in 1910, by the Hungarian doctor Géza Csáth (1887–1919).

  Neurolinguistic Programming

  NLP has been described as ‘the art and science of personal excellence’. More precisely, it is a way of understanding people's behaviour patterns, and then influencing their behaviour. As a way of gaining power over your neighbour, it is popular among salespeople; as a way of gaining sensitivity to others, it is useful for, among others, social workers and businessmen (especially for conflict-resolution). It is a way of excellence, then, only if excellence is defined in terms of effectiveness. It owes a lot to the work of Milton Erickson. We saw in Chapter 10 how Erickson used language and precise observation of his patients to gain rapport with them and then to affect their present and future. Richard Bandler and John Grinder took the essential structures of Erickson's work (and that of Fritz Perls and Virginia Satir) and developed it into NLP. The central ideas are: first, there is no such thing as failure, only feedback. Every response is only information that can be used to tell you whether you are being effective. Second, people already have all the resources they need. All they have to do is access these resources at appropriate times. There are no problems, only results. Third, anything can be accomplished if the task is broken down into small enough pieces. Don't ask ‘Why?’, ask ‘How?’. Fourth, the individual in any group with the most flexibility will also control that group. Look at what you can do rather than the limitations of the situation you're in. Remain curious.

  Some people will be put off by the pretentious name and the slick packaging in which NLP is presented. Much given to mnemonics, snappy phrases (the ‘blame frame’; ‘what you resist persists’, ‘the swish pattern’), simple diagrams and tables (e.g. ‘six-step reframing’), NLP offers a way of unlearning skills you think you have, and then re-learning them to do them better. It also develops in the practitioner a high degree of sensitivity to others’ states of minds and body language. This is how it can help hypnotherapists (and other sorts of therapists too), because awareness of what the subject is experiencing enables a hypnotist to build trust more rapidly and securely, and, in a therapeutic context, to elicit emotions and resources, and tailor strategies for the subject's future. NLP is related to hypnosis historically, since Erickson was a hypnotist, and it can feed back into hypnosis by developing sensitivity to others, communications skills and confidence. But these skills are useful in any domain, so the relation of this aspect of NLP to hypnosis is purely accidental.

  However, NLP has another aspect – what they call ‘downtime’ as opposed to the ‘uptime’ skills of using the senses to develop sensitivity to oneself and others. ‘Downtime’ is using all the Ericksonian skills we looked at in Chapter 10 (mirroring, ambiguities, etc.) to induce a light trance in others. Why would one want to do this? NLP is based on the belief, shared by Erickson and others, that the unconscious knows best. So you take someone down into her unconscious in order to tap into the resources hidden but available there. These unconscious resources can help a person reframe problems as opportunities, open up horizons and so on.

  NLP arouses huge enthusiasm in its devotees. I was once standing in a queue and saw someone nearby holding one of Bandler and Grinder's books. With time to kill, I engaged him in conversation – and he would hardly let me go in the end, when we reached the front of the line. Academics are rather more sceptical. Scientific experiments have failed to validate most of the basic tenets of NLP, such as that there are ways, from a person's eye movements and speech patterns, to tell what his ‘primary representational system’ is – which of the sense modalities (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory and gustatory) he is primarily oriented towards. If it works, then, it probably does so simply because it trains people in sensitivity. It's like the central controversy over astrology: is it a science or an intuitive divinatory practice? An astrological chart should trigger the reader's intuitions rather than be taken as a rigid system. NLP can develop interpersonal skills without being a science.

  Meditation

  There are so many different kinds of meditation that finding a common core is not easy. Psychologist Deane Shapiro's definition is broad enough to cover almost all techniques: ‘Meditation refers to a family of techniques which have in common a conscious attempt to focus attention in a non-analytical way, and an attempt not to dwell on discursive, ruminating thought.’ Hypnotic imperialists often assimilate meditation to hypnosis, and there are certainly enough superficial similarities to make things confusing from the outside. For instance, relaxation suggestions are likely to be given by both hypnotherapists and meditation teachers, and I have even heard a hypnotist tell his subject that if she noticed any extraneous sounds during the session she should just lightly let them go, without allowing them to disturb her state: this is a standard instruction in meditation.

  But the practice of meditation involves repeatedly, over a period of twenty minutes or more, bringing one's attention back to the mantra or image or whatever the vehicle may be. You do not drop off into a full trance state; you do not let go into passivity; as in biofeedback, you monitor and regulate your performance. So the difference is one of will: the will remains active in proper meditation, but does not in self-hypnosis. In fact, this enables us to distinguish proper meditation from relaxation techniques, which are often wrongly called ‘meditation’, such as listening to tinkly music or Herbert Benson's ‘relaxation response’. In other words, while hypnosis may look like meditation from the outside, it does not feel like it from the inside. Also, in so far as they can be trusted as evidence, the EEG characteristics of meditation and hypnosis are different: the former are far closer to the pattern of a sleeping person than the latter, which are hardly distinguishable from those of someone who is wide awake. In less experienced meditators, alpha waves predominate; the more experienced touch on the deeper theta state.

  The differences between the two have been the subject of some scientific studies, not all of which are conclusive. For instance, some studies have shown that both meditation and hypnosis have similar effects on the autonomic systems: a reduced respiration rate, increased basal skin resistance, increased alpha rhythm activity in the brain, reduced blood lactate levels, reduced blood pressure and pulse rate. But these similarities are no more than one would expect. They are the typical changes brought on by relaxation, and both hyp
nosis and meditation involve relaxation (though neither of them stop there). However, the fact that two things involve relaxation does not make them the same, any more than the fact that both pancakes and bread contain flour makes them the same.

  Going back to Hilgard's demonstration of the hidden observer, it is possible to describe one difference between hypnosis and meditation as follows. Hypnosis affects output: pain or other perceptions are perceived but evoke no response. Meditation affects input: in deeper meditative states the amount of sensory information received is limited. This is not just a subjective impression of meditators, but has been proved by scientific tests: the sensory parts of the brain are less stimulated.

  Different meditation systems have different names for their ultimate goal (nirvana, bliss, enlightenment, etc.), and for the stages on the way, but they all both start and end with higher states than are recognized within a hypnotic context. The closest correlates within Western psychology to meditative experiences are the peak experiences described by psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908–70) in various books, drug-induced ecstasy and what Hungarian-born Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, director of the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont Graduate University in the States, calls ‘flow’. Maslow insisted – especially against behaviourism – that as well as basic needs such as eating and drinking, people have higher needs, such as the need to be dignified. What he called ‘peak experiences’ are essentially the satisfaction of these higher needs, culminating in transcendent and ecstatic experiences which are marked by a detached, focused view of the interconnectedness of all creation. Csikszentmihalyi defines what he calls ‘optimal experiences’ in terms of ‘flow’; they are times when we lose ourselves in whatever we are doing or experiencing, so that there is a suspension of the sense of time and a feeling of effortlessness. Sportsmen talk of being ‘in the zone’, others of being ‘in the groove’: this is flow, these are peak experiences – but they are not hypnotic experiences.

  Shamanistic Drumming and Dervish Turning

  A shaman is a master of spirits. He is the wounded healer, who has been threatened by chaos, insanity, death, but has mastered it, and this gives him the ability to heal or to make whole, to restore order to a body which is in the chaotic grip of disease. A shaman is possessed by a spirit (Polynesians call him a ‘god-box’), but it is a stable bond, like a marriage. When possessed, he enters a trance, which he communicates to others by rhythmic methods such as chanting, stamping, dancing and drumming. This causes an abreaction in his congregation, and therefore psychological healing.

  Whatever else a shaman may possess and use – a mask, for instance – he invariably has a drum:

  Its symbolism is complex, its magical functions many and various. It is indispensable in conducting the shamanic séance, whether it carries the shaman to the ‘Center of the World’, or enables him to fly through the air, or summons and ‘imprisons’ the spirits, or, finally, if the drumming enables the shaman to concentrate and regain contact with the spiritual world through which he is preparing to travel.

  Mircea Eliade (1907–86), the Romanian-born professor of comparative religion, actually defined shamanism as a set of ecstatic techniques. Shamans go into trances to achieve their goals, whatever they may be. Obviously, these are not hypnotic trances in the narrow sense governing this book, because they are self-initiated (and often involve taking hallucinogenic drugs). But one could perhaps call them self-hypnotic trances. And the rhythm of the drum is essential to take them on their journey, just as the measured voice of the hypnotherapist takes her clients into the trance world. No other instrument is considered to have the same ability to transport its user, and such transport is vital to his function. As a healer, he has to travel in the spirit world, recapture the fugitive soul of the sick person, and restore it to its owner. The shaman has the ability to release his soul from his body – that is his special gift – and in many cultures it is trance-induced drumming that guides this ability, so much so that the drum is often seen as the vehicle that the shaman rides on his journey.

  Repetitive and monotonous songs and dances are also common elements in shamanic ritual, and it is no coincidence that a certain kind of rhythmic, prolonged dancing in youth culture today is called ‘trance dance’. Usually, it is the shaman himself who does the drumming, singing and dancing, but sometimes he has an assistant. Michael Harner, an anthropologist who gained a considerable following in the 1980s for his practical shamanic workshops, explains the rationale behind having an assistant doing the drumming:

  In the SSC [shamanic state of consciousness], part of the shaman's consciousness is usually still lightly connected to the ordinary reality of the physical or material environment where he is located. The lightness of his trance is a reason that a drumbeat often must be maintained by an assistant to sustain him in the SSC. If the drumming stops, he might come back rapidly to the OSC [ordinary state of consciousness], and thus fail in his work.

  There have even been attempts to explain shamanistic drumming scientifically. One suggestion is that rhythmic sound stimulates unusual areas of the brain, because a drumbeat contains more frequencies than most instruments, so that it simultaneously stimulates a number of neural pathways. Another observation is that shamanic drumming is often in the region of four to seven beats per second, which corresponds to theta brainwaves, which would be good for inducing and maintaining a trance state.

  With the assistant doing the drumming, we are getting closer to hypnotism, since we can see the assistant as a kind of operator and the shaman himself as subject. Sometimes it is explicit that the trance is induced by other people. The shaman often performs his rites in the presence of others – say, the family of the sick person he is trying to heal. Their chanting induces or deepens his trance: ‘For I am a big dancer. Yes, I am a big dancer. I teach other people to dance. When people sing, I go into a trance. I trance and put n/um into people, and I carry on my back those who want to learn n/um. Then I go! I go right up and give them to God!’

  Another traditional technique of inducing ecstasy is dervish turning. Although banned by Kemal Atatürk as part of his attempt to modernize and westernize Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s, it survives as a tourist attraction in some parts of Turkey, and as a living tradition underground all over the Islamic world. The dancers whirl around, their skirts forming a perfect circle around their ankles. They either have their arms folded on their chest, in which case the heart is the focus of attention, or spread out at shoulder height, with the right hand in a receptive gesture and the left thumb pointing down to earth, in which case the tip of the left thumb is the focus of attention, just as ballet dancers ‘spot’ in order to prevent getting dizzy. Since union with God is the goal of dervish turning, it is a kind of moving meditation, and the ecstatic nature of the goal, both of turning and shamanism, removes them from the sphere of hypnosis.

  A Speculation: Rhythm and the Brain

  The brain has a triune anatomy, which recapitulates our evolution. The oldest part of the brain is sometimes called the ‘reptilian brain’, since it resembles the brain of a reptile and is assumed to have developed about 500 million years ago. This part of the brain occupies the lowest part, the brain stem just above the spine. It is responsible for our most primitive and basic functions, such as the control of breathing and heart rate.

  When reptiles left the water and took to the land, they faced a whole set of new challenges, and evolved a second part of the brain to cope with them. This is the ‘mammalian brain’. It occupies the part of our skulls just above and to the front of the brain stem. It consists of two structures: the limbic system which is responsible for homeostasis – that is, for regulating things like temperature, blood pressure and the level of blood sugar – and the hypothalamus, which regulates eating and drinking, sleeping and waking, the hormonal balance of our bodies, and our emotions.

  Pasted, as it were, on top of the mammalian brain is the final stage, the cerebral cortex, which developed about 50 million years
ago. Its job is to look after those functions which make us peculiarly human: it thinks, plans, remembers, imagines and organizes, assesses sense data, communicates, appreciates art, constructs philosophies and so on. This is the part of the brain that is divided into two hemispheres: the right half which is characterized by holistic appreciation, and the left half which is logical, verbal and linear.

  One of the things that is noticeable about all or most of the practices outlined in this chapter is that they involve rhythm. The shaman has his drumming, the dervish his whirling dance; meditators attend to their mantras and their breathing; self-hypnotizers and channellers (who also often rock back and forth) follow their breathing too. Drugs help you get into rhythm and pattern. Hypnotists employ a steady, measured tone, or ask their subject to fixate on a swinging watch; they get their subjects to move into a measured breathing.

  My guess is that rhythm strikes a chord with a primitive part of the brain – more primitive than the cerebral cortex. Which part of the brain? The most rhythmical of human activities – music and dancing – are clearly emotional and sexual. These are functions of the mammalian brain, the limbic-hypothalamic system. We've briefly met the limbic-hypothalamic system before, in Chapter 11, since it is responsible for coordinating all the systems that go to make up mind–body interaction. We saw, following the ideas of Ernest Rossi, that hypnosis triggers the individual's own healing resources in the limbic-hypothalamic system. Since rhythm appears to be so important to inducing and maintaining trance states, I would guess that the way hypnosis triggers these resources is by means of rhythm. Even if this guess is off the mark, it serves to underscore the importance of rhythm to trance.