Look into my eyes: The power of hypnosis

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427291.200-look-into-my-eyes-the-power-of-hypnosis.html

by dimas • 17 years ago

22 13 17 years ago

pmichaud• 17 years ago

I have my doubts, but my wife has successfully used hypnosis to quit smoking and get over a fear of the dentist. I think it's placebo, but I don't tell her that -- if it works for her, I don't want to risk undermining the effect.

stcredzero• 17 years ago

If there was a way for companies to patent the placebo effect, it would have a lot more research behind it!

amalcon2• 17 years ago

There are a fair number of classic studies on the placebo effect, but nothing recent that I'm aware of. For example:

- Apparently the placebo effect has become more pronounced over time: an analysis of the placebo arms of various clinical trials showed that more recent ones tend to be more reliable

- Similarly, placebos are more potent in trials of new drugs, than in trials re-assessing the effects of older drugs

- The all-time classic is the study that shows that the placebo effect works even if the patient knows that the pill has no medicine in it.

yters• 17 years ago

Isn't that most of advertising? None of it really says anything real about the product. It is all about sticking an idea in our heads.

biohacker42• 17 years ago

According to Penn and Teller, there's not nearly as much power as advertised. I don't want to link to copyrighted material, so here's a link to a google search: http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&safe=off&q...

amalcon2• 17 years ago

If we're looking to magicians for this stuff, why not go straight to the man himself? James Randi is very critical of hypnosis, and has quite a track record as a skeptic.

pgbovine• 17 years ago

British illusionist Derren Brown does a lot of stuff with hypnosis and subliminal influencing of people ... there are a ton of 5 to 10-minute-long YouTube videos of his sketches. He never goes into what he thinks might be the science behind what he does, but some of the results are fascinating.

cesare• 17 years ago

He claims to use neuro-linguistic programming, subliminal messages etc. There are some videos in which he tries to explain what he does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=befugtgikMg

Luc• 17 years ago

Danger, danger, illusionist alert! Derren Brown is a 'mentalist', that is he performs illusions under the guise of mental tricks, psychology, the power of the mind etc. In reality this is just a guise, and when for example his professed method is hypnosis, it probably isn't, and instead misderection, slight of hand, gimmicks etc are involved. It's just another way to wow the public, and the public loves to believe it. Read '13 Steps to Mentalism' by Corrinda, it is one of the classic texts on mentalism and will get you wise to a lot of this stuff. That said, Derren is one of the masters in this field...

hussong• 17 years ago

Most of the fun with Derren Brown stems from wondering what is a real effect and what is just elaborate trickery. He's taken that to a new level by often explaining in detail how the manipulation works--but then the explanation itself might as well be a misdirection.

Look into my eyes: The power of hypnosis

Related Stories