The BBC website is reporting that Hypnosis has a “very real” effect that can be picked up on brain scans. A team from Hull University, performed an imaging study in which hypnotised participants showed decreased activity in the parts of the brain linked with daydreaming or letting the mind wander. The same brain patterns were […]
It seems hypnosis has been nearly everywhere over the past few centuries: onstage with entertainers swinging fat, gold watches; on couches with reclining psychoanalysis patients; in movies, books, and even children’s cartoons. But the one gig hypnosis couldn’t get was the scientific laboratory. Until now. The long-controversial practice of inducing a trancelike state through suggestion […]
According to the ‘Fear of Flying’ programme broadcast tonight on Channel 4, as many as one person in five of us has some degree of phobic reaction to flying – that’s 20% of the population! High profile disasters and terrorist atrocities, such as 9/11, only serve to heighten our fears. According to research reported in […]
An article in the New York Times highlights recent brain studies which indicate that when people are acting under hypnotic 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. (New York Times – 22nd November 2005)
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) a team of neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh have seen hypnosis actually working on the brain. In a study to be published this year, a group of patients with the painful rheumatic condition fibromyalgia were hypnotised to imagine a dial controlling their pain levels and the brain activity […]
Researchers found that volunteers under hypnosis experienced significant pain reduction in response to painful heat. They also had a distinctly different pattern of brain activity compared to when they were not hypnotized and experienced the painful heat. The changes in brain activity suggest that hypnosis somehow blocks the pain signal from getting to the parts […]
Hypnosis is more than just a party trick, it measurably changes how the brain works, says a UK researcher. (New Scientist – 10th September 2004)