Hypnosis isn't a trick

skeptoid's picture

"Is Hypnosis Fake?" Hypnotist stuns TEDX crowd

Those who study cognitive persuation theory see hypnosis more subtely at work in media, in politicians, in religious figures, etc.

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Mori's picture

Pure garbage. 

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skeptoid's picture

I disagree. 

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hellyeah's picture

i agree that you disagree......

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Grothesk's picture

I enjoyed it despite the fact it was staged. So at 7:35 is the idea that the people on the stage are *still* hypnotized from before when he generally hypnotized the audience?  Because if I was sitting next to a dude who immediately slumped over after a dude yelled "SLEEP" at him I wouldn't just keep staring at some light on a wall....I'd fuckin' be amazed and stare at the dude slumped over next to me.  Take a look at the woman in black next to the first sleeper...isn't the idea that she ISN'T hypnotized because she doesn't fall asleep at 7:55 when he does it to her...and yet at 7:35 she doesn't incredulously look at the dude who just slumped over right next to her?  Makes little sense.

 

Oh, and at 14:38 he tells the woman to sit up and she starts sitting up a second before he snaps his fingers...because actors fuck up from time to time.  God, he also has them acting like chickens and yelling out ridiculous shit.  This was embarrassing to watch and makes me sad that Ted Talks would be reduced to this.  3/5 for the potential comments discussion, though.

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skeptoid's picture

None of it was staged and none of the people on stage are actors. I'm surprised you would go there. There are much more reasonable explanations for the things you observed, couched in human psychology, than that this was staged and these were actors. The speaker's hypothesis is interesting and gaining traction - it does appear to be a kind of REM "it's play dream time" psychological effect. A kind of lucid dream state, completely open to suggestion. No one does anything they don't secretly want to do, and everyone is given a choice, from the beginning, as to whether they will be giving themselves over to control. We all do this, in more subtle ways, every single day of our lives as we interact with society and in terms of the degree to which we construct our reality around what "authority" tells us is real. 

 

I believe the people most susceptible to full participation in something like this are those who tend more towards foolishness. That said, I've been in an audience where the hypnotist managed to get everyone in the audience on small things by running through a series of inductions. One very simple one was making the entire audience swallow involuntarily, including me, which pissed me off. I say "making", but at the beginning of the show he said that by watching the show everyone would be participating in the show - first suggestion, and remaining gave over a bit of my autonomy to the hypnotist. The only way to gurantee you will not be affected by a determined hypnotist is to not attend the show, or to walk out the moment he or she suggests that you will be agreeing to or participating in something.

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Grothesk's picture

You're expecting me to believe that this dude can literally take control of people to the point that he has them clucking around like chickens?  Thank Christ he uses this power for good.  Like what if he was a bad guy?  Wouldn't you be able to hypnosis-fuck anyone you want?  Wouldn't you be able to legally steal from them because they're willing giving you money when you "suggest" something to them?  How big do you think the audience was?  About 200 to 350 people (I have no idea, but the applause at the end didn't seem like more than 300 people)?  The reason I ask is because by literally just talking and having people view a spiral for a few moments he had total control over ~5-8 individuals and he also said that more in the audience were hypnotized; it seems that there is a TON of fucking potential for abuse there.  And both you and I know that the conept of hypnotism has existed for well over 200 years, so why hasn't anyone used it for evil?  It seems like at the very least one guy would use it for evil purposes, right?  And yet we don't hear bupkiss about it.  Why?  Are they just that stealthy and godlike?  Can they just hypnotize anyone who confronts them?  My bullshit alarm is ringing on multiple fronts.  
 

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backdraft's picture
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The person has to be willing to be hypnotized, otherwise, it doesn't work. Sure, with enough sessions and subtle subliminal suggestions you could slowly ease someone to do something against their will (basically brainwashing) but not like this. It would take time and the right kind of person for it to work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Grothesk's picture

It takes time and the right kind of person?  This guy just got like 8-10 people to cluck around like chickens and also fall into a completely unguarded state and it looked like it took him about 40 seconds.  Did he not have complete control over the people who were clucking around like chickens and yelling out stuff on command?  That's the reason I was asking what the size of the audience is because he had at the very minimum 5 people in hypnotic sleep out of a crowd of around ~300 and we only saw those people because they came up to the stage...the dude was saying there were more people in the audience who may have been hypnotized; that's a pretty good percentage of random strangers whom it apparently worked upon.  

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skeptoid's picture

He actually used a very common filtering technique to narrow down the crowd to what he called his "Allstars", which are the people most susceptible and most compliant. What's definitely not happening here is a bunch of preset actors loaded into the audience and coming up on stage to act for the hypnotist - no one up there knows the guy. Once he gets a promising short-list up on stage he goes through to see who's the real deal. Some are duds, obviously. 

 

People confuse hypnotist shows with magic shows. You can have a staged "hypnotist" show - that would be a "magic show". But guys pulling strangers up and doing this legit is real, and has been going on for many decades now. I didn't realize there were actually people who still believe all hypnotist shows are staged hoaxes - thought that had been debunked long ago.

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backdraft's picture
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"Did he not have complete control over the people who were clucking around like chickens and yelling out stuff on command?"

 

Yes, again because they were willing participants. They allow the suggestions to take place because they aren't evil and they are willing to play along. They might not know why the hell they are doing these things because the conscious mind is separate from the unconscious. 

 

 

 

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backdraft's picture
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Here some poor guy that they fooled into believing that he won't feel pain during surgery. In reality, he was in agony the whole time but he's in denial.

 

 

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skeptoid's picture

You're expecting me to believe that this dude can literally take control of people to the point that he has them clucking around like chickens?

 

Nope. I'm expecting you to believe that under the right conditions, and with the right personality traits, certain folks can be easily coerced into willfully handing complete control of themselves over to a hypnotist. I'm saying that these people are not "conscious and faking" but rather "dreaming and playing" with the overwhelming sense one has in lucid dreams that one can do whatever "they want" without fear of consequence. Hypnotists are typically careful not to encourage anything too dangerous or embarrassing (nudity, etc.) since the person is in a state where they believe they are in a consequence-free dream reality. It's also very common for those who have been hypnotized to have very little memory of it - something like remembering your dream from last night. 

 

There is also something of what happens to test subjects during the Milgrim experiment on display here, I believe.

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backdraft's picture
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It's basic psychology. We have a subconscious mind that can do shit that the conscious mind isn't aware of. 

If a person is willing and able to go into a "suggestive state" and accept subconscious suggestions you have hypnotism. The participant can't be forced, so in a way he or she is playing along but also consciously is not able to make sense why this is happening.

 

If you have irrational fears or maybe fetishes that you can't explain or control, it's the same thing. The unconscious mind rule over the conscious mind.  

 

Granted, in these setting theres always people who give in to peer pressure and just play along, but this doesn't mean hypnotism is fake.

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skeptoid's picture

LOL there are actually people who think this was staged in these were actors. THAT'S a surprise - no all of these folks are random public. In other news, Bright has been released on Netflix - Joe Rogan has a cameo.

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Grothesk's picture

I am one of those people who believe these are actors.  There are others who legit believe a man is putting people into a lucid dream state where they'll listen to almost anything he commands them to do. 

 

Yeah, it's *ME* who deserves a LOLing at, guys.

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skeptoid's picture

LOL - really, yes. I really believe that you're the one out on the fringe with this one. That wasn't a conspiracy - I don't know whether or not his REM hypothesis is correct but those were strangers.

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Grothesk's picture

When a crazy guy on the street holds up a sign that the end is here and is babbling about the return of Jesus and he makes eye contact with me, I just give him a smile and say, "sure, friend" and I move on.  So...

 

Sure, friend.  :o)

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skeptoid's picture

Okay, pal - ask around. This isn't woo woo stuff - it's pretty well established. You're pulling our leg. Hypnotic states are real - they can be induced in animals FFS. Are the animals in on the conspiracy?

 

What about at least splitting the difference and saying some of these guys are good at filtering down to a set of individuals who came to the show wanting to act out on stage. Do they have to be actors hired to perform?

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Mori's picture

Oh my god! This comment section. It's the same shit as religion. It's complete garbage but of course you get people trying to explain how it is not, how god is real, how fables from a book really happened and should drive our morals, etc, etc. Oh and they can prove it's real too, there are plenty of evidence, oh my. Geezus!!

 

If you get chemicals involved you can get humans to do shit, sure enough. But "sleep" as a substitute for an epidural for pregnant women is probably going to backfire.

 

Pure garbage.

 

PS: Next let's discuss how ghosts are real and also aliens.

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skeptoid's picture

The fact that you think hypnosis belongs in the same grab bag as ghosts and deities is fucking hilarious beyond all get out. GTFOH LOL! You actually believe all of the people who practice hypnosis, all of the people who have benefited from hypnosis, all of the scientific study and confirmation of hypnosis - ALL of this is a conspiracy? Yes, this comment section is hilarious.

 

Here's an idea - why don't you and Groth do what the fat chick did. Go to a hypnotist show determined to "not act out on stage" and when the hypnotist does their initial induction lie and say you couldn't open your eyes and come up on stage to specifically not do whatever the hypnotist is suggesting. Then you can watch the others who are affected and judge more closely whether or not these are all actors who want you to believe in ghosts.

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Grothesk's picture

"all of the scientific study and confirmation of hypnosis"

 

Let me stop you right there, friend, and interject a little bit of reality:  SOURCE REQUIRED.  And I'm not interested in some source that also speaks on the healing properties of crystals or one that espouses the power of the stars upon our futures...I want a respectable, scientific source confirming your claim.  I'm not being a dick when I ask for that either, so please offer us a link.

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backdraft's picture
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FFS it's not that hard to look up, but at this point I think your just bored and trolling. 

 

Heres 77 300 result on Google Scholar from 1990 to present.

https://scholar.google.fi/scholar?q=hypnosis&hl=fi&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=1990&as_yhi=2017

 

If you don't want to dig into it heres one paper on pain reduction, well the abstract anyway.

http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2003-06077-004

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Mori's picture

Do you care to present a solid argument with proof or are you just a googler? I can google you all the evidence for god that suports religions too. There's more of that than there is about hypnosis and it's still all just false, stupid, idotic and consumes way too many hours of our productive minds.

 

Mind you that we're not talking about chemically aided behavioral therapy (at least I am not) but we're talking about the "say the word sleep to someone that is SUSCEPTIBLE and have them in a transe in under 2 seconds" garbage.

 

Please...

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backdraft's picture
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"Do you care to present a solid argument with proof or are you just a googler?"

 

If the scientific method isn't enough for you, then sorry I can't help you. I might as well argue with flatlanders.

If you are genuinely interested you can find scientific proof that hypnotism is real and a susceptible person can be put under hypnosis fairly quickly IF he or she is willing. 

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Grothesk's picture

In your specific example I would like to learn more but I have to pay $12.00 to download the PDF...seems like they would make this shit available.

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