Page 163 - Encyclopedia of the Unusual and Unexplained Vol. 3

144 Mysteries of the Mind

Three students cover Starker, Steven. Fantastic Thought: All About Dreams, them in recovering details that may result in a
their faces with their Daydreams, Hallucinations, and Hypnosis. New speedier resolution of a criminal act. Increasing
shoes while under York: Prentice-Hall, 1982. numbers of clinical or lay hypnotists employ
hypnosis. (AP/WIDE Tart, Charles, ed. Altered States of Consciousness. New hypnosis to explore cases suggestive of past lives
WORLD PHOTOS) York: John Wiley & Sons, 1969. or accounts of alien abductions aboard UFOs.
There are also show business hypnotists who
induce the trance state in their subjects for the
Hypnosis
general amusement of their audiences.
The process of hypnosis generally requires a
hypnotist who asks a subject, one who has Skeptical scientists doubt that hypnosis is
agreed to be hypnotized, to relax and to focus a true altered state of consciousness and con-
his or her attention on the sound of the hyp- tend that the people who are classified as good
notist’s voice. As the subject relaxes and con- subjects by professional or lay hypnotists are
centrates on the hypnotist’s voice, the hypno- really men and women who are highly sug-
tist leads the person deeper and deeper into a gestible, fantasy-prone individuals. While it
trancelike altered state of consciousness. may be true that some psychologists and hyp-
When the subject has reached a deep level of notherapists make rather extravagant claims
hypnotic trance, the hypnotist will have regarding the powers inherent in the hypnotic
access to the individual’s unconscious. state, what actually occurs during hypnosis
with certain subjects remains difficult either
Many clinical psychologists believe that to define or to debunk.
hypnotherapy permits them to help their clients
uncover hidden or repressed memories of fears Throughout the ages, tribal shamans, witch
or abuse that will facilitate their cure. In certain doctors, and religious leaders have used hypno-
cases, police authorities have encouraged the sis to heal the sick and to foretell the future.
witnesses of crimes to undergo hypnosis to assist Egyptian papyri more than 3,000 years old

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