SLIPPING INTO TRANCE

摘要

It has been hypothesized that highly hypnotizable people spontaneously slip into trancewhen given imaginative suggestions without prior induction of hypnosis. We tested thisin two studies. In Study 1, we examined state reports from ten highly suggestible studentsfollowing the administration of a suggestion for altered colour perception. The suggestionwas administered twice, once with and once without prior induction of hypnosis. Stu-dents reported equivalent perceptual changes with and without the induction of hypnosis,but reported being in a hypnotic state only when a hypnotic induction had been admin-istered. In Study 2, participants received either a hypnotic induction or specific sugges-tions to not slip into hypnosis. Even under these circumstances, subjective respondingwas equivalent in both conditions and behavioural responding was only slightly higherin the 'hypnosis' condition. These data disconfirm the slipping-into-hypnosis hypothesis.