Review · 2017
Hypnosis and top-down regulation of consciousness
Listen instead of reading · 35 minDirty Mind: Dirty Talk Hypnosis – Find Your Own WordsNo script, no borrowed lines: a trance that lets your own words out – in a lower, slower voice. Terhune, D. B., Cleeremans, A., Raz, A., & Lynn, S. J. · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 81, 59–74
Main finding
Hypnosis is presented as a tool for studying top-down regulation – how expectations and intentions shape experience. The authors stress large individual differences in suggestibility, including subtypes among highly suggestible people.
What was done
A review of how hypnotic suggestion can change perception, memory and the sense of control, and what that tells us about consciousness in general.
What the study does not show
A review summarizes and interprets other studies; it adds no new data. Its conclusions are only as strong as the experiments it covers.
Cite as
Terhune, D. B., Cleeremans, A., Raz, A., & Lynn, S. J. (2017). Hypnosis and top-down regulation of consciousness. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 81, 59–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.02.002
Original paperRelated topics
- Is hypnosis a special state – or expectation at work? The oldest debate in hypnosis research – state or expectation? With Orne's simulators, Hilgard's hidden observer and Kirsch's expectancy theory.
- How hypnotizable are you? How researchers measure it How hypnotizability is measured with the Harvard and Stanford scales, what low, medium and high scores mean, and why it matters for every hypnosis study.
Terms on this page
- Dissociation (in hypnosis research) In hypnosis research, dissociation means: something happens, but it does not feel as if you are doing it – like an arm that seems to rise by itself.
- Hypnotizability Hypnotisability describes how strongly someone responds to hypnosis. Some people feel a lot, some little, most are somewhere in between.
- Suggestion A suggestion is a sentence that invites you to experience something as if it were happening on its own – for example "your arm is getting lighter" – rather than doing it on purpose.
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