NYT: This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis

[Thom Little]

Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists. Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions, researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and believe to be true.

The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English words and thought that they were gibberish.

"The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon and expert on attention. "But now we're really getting at the mechanisms."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/science/22hypno.html?ex=1133326800&en=eb257ef3bf9fd87a&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY

[dweller]

1. great article, thanks.

"Top-down processes override sensory, or bottom-up information, said Dr. Stephen M. Kosslyn, a neuroscientist at Harvard.
People think that sights, sounds and touch from the outside world constitute reality.
But the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience, Dr. Kosslyn said."

dp

[DELUSIONAL]

2. Cult members --

even a whole nation -- (some people can resist) was made to believe up was down and grey was blue . . .

And then there are the idiots who vote for and support bushie . . . they are certainly creating their own reality.

[lonestarnot]

3. What do they say about people who are not suseptible to hypnosis?

They just have hard heads or brains that have rocks in them or straw, or what?

[librechik]

4. I you realize it is only a suggestion, you can be aware and not cooperate.

Hypnosis almost by definition needs the coopertion of the subject. Unless they sneak it up on you without your conscious knowledge, like propaganda or McDonald's commercials.

[info being]

5. What about TV? Can't it hypnotize?

It sure seems like TV-watchers are hypnotized.

[Javaman]

6. Ahhh so this explains the fundies! n/t