Dr. David Spiegel

Can you tell us what is hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a state of highly focused attention.

It's something like looking through the telephoto lens of a camera in consciousness.

What you see, you see with great detail, but devoid of context.

If you've had the experience of getting so caught up in a good movie that you forget you're watching a movie and enter the imagined world, you're part of the movie, not part of the audience, you're experiencing it, you're not evaluating it,

That's a hypnotic-like experience that many people have in their everyday lives.

To the extent that your somatic, your body experience is a part of the sport event that you're engaged with, I'd say that is a self-altering hypnotic experience.

If your physical reactions are distracting you or make you think about something else,

That's when it's less hypnotic-like and more just one of a series of experiences.

I don't like stage hypnosis.

You're making fools out of people.

And you're using the fact, and that's what scares people about hypnosis.

They think you're losing control.

You're gaining control.

Self-hypnosis is a way of enhancing your control over your mind and your body.

It can work very well.

But because it gives you a kind of cognitive flexibility, you're able to shift sets very easily, to give up judging and evaluating the way you usually do and see something from a different point of view.

That's a great therapeutic opportunity.

But if misused, it could be a danger, too.

And that's what scares people about it.