Hypnosis and Meditation

by Rob MacInnes

A frequent question I see arising from clients, the hypno-curious, and even on meditation oriented internet forums is: What is the relationship of hypnosis to meditation? This question takes on many forms: Is hypnosis a form of meditation? Is the phenomenon experienced in deep meditation some kind of hypnotic or auto suggested hallucination? Is the type of meditation I am doing really a form of trance or self hypnosis? Usually underlying the question is a notion that having one’s practice equated to hypnosis makes it somehow of a lesser order. In other words, “are you meditating or merely hypnotizing yourself?”.

This is also apparently a common question in professional hypnosis training programs. To loosely paraphrases Cal Banyan’s concise statement to the matter of the difference between hypnosis and meditation: “Meditation requires trance, hypnosis requires trance, hypnosis requires a heightened state of suggestibility whereas meditation does not, that’s the difference” (Banyan, 2008).

What is trance then? I can’t say for certain how Cal used the word, however Shor (1962), defines trance as “a fading of the generalized reality orientation, which gives context and perspective to ongoing contents of consciousness”. This definition is more than adequate for what I wish to convey.

Meditation generally involves, facilitates, or requires some form of trance. Either a focusing on defocusing from an object of perception, the mind, the breath, awareness of passing thoughts, feelings, or bodily sensations, imagery, movement of energy, mantra repetition, observation or inquiry into the self, observer, silent “witness”, contemplation on the nature of reality itself, inner sounds or sights, concepts of God, earth, nature, the universe or some higher power. In many eastern traditions, meditation may be preceded by techniques that are intended to manipulate or gather the energy in the body into an ideal state for meditation. Whether or not Buddhist oriented mindfulness meditation fits this definition of trance is beyond the scope of this article, yet we could, at the very least, say that such a practitioner might be more or less mindful of experiencing a trance process without any particular dissociation or narrowing of attention.

As mentioned, hypnosis also requires trance, yet according to most common definitions, a heightened receptivity to suggestion is present in the subject. Research by Weitzenhoffer & Sjoberg (1961), Barber & Glass (1962), and Hilgard & Tart, (1966) supports the idea that hypnotic inductions increase the direct type of suggestibility (as cited by Cardena & Speigel, 1991). Effective hypnotic inductions are, in general, designed and selected to generate the highest probability that suggestions given by the hypnotist will be accepted uncritically. In other words, they lead to a heightened state (or situation), in which the suggestions of the hypnotist or self-hypnotist will have a direct effect on the subject’s perception of reality. Once this occurs, the door to all the various hypnotic phenomenon swings open at varying degrees of magnitude, allowing for progressively less probable hypnotic behavior to be expressed at each stage.

A person can be in a meditative “trance”, without any above average level of responsiveness to suggestion, however, people in general have a baseline of different types of normal waking suggestibility that varies from person to person, regardless of what “state” they may be in. According to noted trait theorist Hans Eyesenck, there are actually multiple types of suggestibility, some of which bear no relation to one another. Of these, primary and secondary suggestibility are most commonly tested for. Secondary suggestibility, which involves indirect or concealed suggestions such as in the Binet Weight Test do not correlate with either classically measured hypnotizabilty or the primary, direct sort of suggestibility (Eyesenck, 1991). These factors, being distributed across the population, are likely to be to be present in varying degrees in someone practicing meditation or anything at all for that matter.

Regardless of whether one is in hypnosis or meditation, a human being is a dynamic organism which is constantly expressing itself through naturally occurring chronobiological cycles which include what can be regarded as naturally occurring states of hypnosis or trance. Chronobiology is a field of biology that examines periodic (cyclic) phenomena in living organisms and their adaptation to solar and lunar related rhythms.

The research of Ernest L. Rossi gives us some intriguing clues by offering a psychobiological perspective on hypnosis. Rossi (2002), while citing endocrinal research by Iranmanesh et al. (1989), Felker and Hubbard (1998), notes that people go in and out of such a condition several times a day via the ultradian rhythm phases, roughly every 90 to 120 minutes due to peaks of cortisol secretion that lead to psychobiological states of arousal which are then followed, after about 20 minutes, by ultradian peaks of beta-endorphin that lead to rest and relaxation.

According to Rossi (2002), many of the highly adaptive processes that replay our natural circadian and ultradian quasi periodic cycles are modifiable by psychosocial cues and hypnosis… Within this framework, many of the classical phenomenon of hypnosis may be conceptualized as extreme manifestations and or perseverations of the quasi-periodic psychobiological processes that are responsive to psychosocial cues. The implication here is that what the hypnotist calls “hypnotic suggestion”, the chronobiologist calls “the entrainment of biological processes by psychosocial cues” (Rossi, 2002).

To me, it seems that ultradian rhythms would be deeply implicated in the naturally occurring instances of hypnosis that people experience several times a day, such as finding bruises on one’s body of unknown origin, missing an exit while driving, or negatively hallucinating the non existence of their car keys while autosuggesting (thinking) to themselves “I can’t find my keys”.

While these rhythms may not directly have anything to do with meditation itself, it would follow that the greater the length of the meditation session, the greater the probability of naturally occurring hypnosis, i.e., entrainment to ultradian rhythm phases, and as Rossi points out, it seems to be no coincidence that 20 minutes tends to be an optimum time period for the deepest, most relaxed aspect of many alternative healing, meditative, and self hypnosis systems.

It is therefore seems entirely possible that a person could spontaneously slide into a state of self hypnosis, over the course of a meditation session. As for the question of whether a specific phenomenon experienced within a period of meditation is in fact a positive hypnotic hallucination, here is a simple way you can test if you are really in a hypnotic state, in the commonly accepted “enhanced state of suggestibility” sense:

According to the Harry Arons six stage scoring system for hypnotic depth, or similarly with the modified version taught by Cal Banyan in the NGH certification course, glove or partial analgesia is a phenomenon that can occur by suggestion between stage three and six (Arons, 1961), while positive hallucinations typically occur at stages five, six, and sometimes four if the eyes are closed. According to the way most hypnotic depth scales are understood, if the subject is capable of phenomenon at a certain numeric stage, they are most likely going to be able to produce most if not all the phenomenon associated with the lower numbered stages.

If you want to test whether you are in a state in which there is a high probability of experiencing some of the classic hypnotic phenomenon such as hallucinations, simply suggest to yourself, confidently and in plain words, something along the lines of “all the feeling is leaving my hand from the wrist to the knuckles, it is going completely numb, completely numb etc.. nothing I can do to myself in that region will have any noticeable effect whatsoever….” and then give yourself a good hard pinch on the back of the hand, hard enough that you know would normally cause some degree of pain.

If you do feel pain, you are not at the level of hypnosis required for analgesia or anesthesia, and therefore are not deep enough to exhibit positive or negative hallucinations via suggestion. If you only feel some pressure, but no pain, you might be in a significant level of hypnosis, stage three. A third possibility, if you are pinching yourself and feel absolutely nothing, not even a pressure than there’s a good chance that you would be, in that moment, capable of experiencing complex hypnotic behavior, four or greater including classic hypnotic positive and negative hallucinations. If you can do this on your own then you are already a true hypnotic virtuoso.

References

Arons, H (1961). Master Course in Hypnotism. South Orange, NJ:

Power Publishers

Banyan, C. (2008) 5-PATH® & 7th Path Self-Hypnosis® Training

Program for Banyan Graduates ONLY. Tustin: Banyan Publishing,

Inc.

Cardena, E.& Spiegel (1991). Suggestibility, absorbtion, and

dissociation: An integrative model of hypnosis. In J Shumacker

(ed.) Human suggestibility: advances in theory research and

application (pp. 93-107) New York: Routledge

Eyesenck, H (1991). Is suggestibility? In J Shumacker (ed.) Human

suggestibility: advances in theory research and application (pp.

76-90) New York: Routledge

Hilgard, E. (1991). Suggestibility and suggestions as related to

hypnosis. In J Schomaker (ed.), Human suggestibility: advances

in theory research and application (pp. 37-58). New York:

Routledge

Rossi, E. L. (2002). The psychobiology of gene expression:

Neuroscience and neurogenesis in hypnosis and the healing arts.

New York: W.W. Norton & Company

Shor, R.E. (1962). Three dimensions of hypnotic depth. International

journal of clinical and experimental hypnosis, 10, 23-38.