We’ve all seen it, either on TV or in person – people hypnotized to squawk like chickens, speak in funny voices or perform embarrassing acts in front of a live audience.
But hypnosis has also been used in more serious matters: to help witnesses or victims of crime recall important events, or even to aid people struggling to lose weight or quit smoking.
On June 7, a trainee hypnotist held a comedy show at a private all-girls school in Sherbrooke, Quebec. Some students who got into a trance, had problems getting out of it. One girl was left in a hypnotic state for four hours after the show. Others complained of nausea and headaches.
The hypnotist had to bring in his mentor to snap people back to normal.
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After all this, some may still ask if hypnosis is, in fact, real.
According to the University of Hull in Britain, the answer is yes.
The research, released in 2009, concluded brain activity undergoes changes during hypnosis.
Doctors recruited students for the study. Using functional magnetic imaging, the participants’ brains were studied twice: once when the students were hypnotized, and the second when they were in a normal state.
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Brain activity in hypnotized people was monitored while they were resting in between tasks they were asked to perform. Usually, these sorts of studies examine brain activity during the execution of the task.
Hypnotized subjects were then asked to act out various suggestions, with doctors seeing if the students would follow through. Subjects who did respond, were found to have altered anterior brain activity.
The research also found hypnosis lowered activity in parts of the brain – known as the “default mode” network – where resting, daydreaming or letting their mind wander is involved.
In a press release, study leader Dr. William McGeown said, “These results are unequivocal; the changes in anterior brain activity observed in our study occurred only in highly suggestible subjects, those most open to the idea of hypnosis.”
“By contrast, no changes in brain activity were detected in these areas in the low suggestible subjects.”
McGeown did acknowledge though the study was small, the research shows “hypnosis is real.”
He adds the altered brain activity was due to hypnosis, and not because of “simple relaxation.”
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