Hypnosis and the Brain
By Eric Greenleaf PhD
Recent findings in neurophysiology cast an intriguing light on the probable features of brain functioning that assist hypnotic effects and experiences . The first, most important neuroscience finding implicating hypnosis is Stern’s maxim:
“Our nervous systems are constructed to be captured by the nervous systems of others.”
Moreover, the measurement of the cortex, in all primates which include us, is proportional to the size of the social group to which the primate belongs – more faces to keep track of, more complex social interactions, bigger brains.
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As I remarked in “On the Social Nature of the Unconscious Mind,” the interface between unconscious neurophysiological functions of the mind-body, new learning, and interpersonal emotions of more than two people, is found in the communication medium we call “hypnosis”. Hypnosis used to be thought to actually capture the mind of the hypnotic subject , but, since the life work of Milton H. Erickson, MD, the subtleties of hypnotic conversation have replaced the coercive techniques of the past
What we capture when we capture the nervous systems of others and they us through hypnotic conversation is a mutual condition of ease, comfort , relaxed attention and moving interaction. It has always been thought of as dreamlike , and with cause.
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Vlahos, in the most recent Scientific American, writes of Krueger’s “Local Sleep Theory”. Lab studies have discovered that neuronal columns in the cortex “can exist in a sleeplike condition during whole-animal awake episodes…and can exist in awake-like states during whole animal sleep.” This might be said to illustrate the several uncommon dissociative states which occur with hypnotic conversation. Such communication may even generate parasomnias, resulting in “state dissociation in which the mental and physical characteristics of alertness, dreaming and deep sleep overlap. REM sleep with its reduced norepinephrine, is paradigmatic of both de-stressed dreaming and relaxation with hypnotic imagery.
Add to this picture neuroscience findings of a specialized cell – the spindle cell – which only occurs in humans and other primates, and in elephants, whales and dolphins. The cells occur in portions of the brain that are considered to organize our social interactions and empathy, speech, and rapid “gut reactions”. They provide a fast expressway for intuition about others and reactions of the body. They occur in a few cortical areas and in humans number some 80,000 cells. These target cells map, or represent, sensations – at the same time on the same cells – from a fantastic collection of stimuli: bodily sensations, including those for the internal organs; social emotions like shame, love and empathy ; difficult or problematic elements of living, and surprise or novelty . These cells cluster in the insula, “where bodily conditions are translated into social feelings” as Damasio proposes. Blakeslee noted that this part of the brain is activated when men and women view or imitate emotional expressiveness in others, and, “If one feels light or heavy in the metaphorical sense, one feels it in the right anterior insula.”
Now, envision the exquisite uses of allusive and metaphorical language in hypnotic conversation and how those fit the interface of bodily sensation and interpersonal emotion. Milton Erickson’s many innovations in hypnotic conversation immediately relate to elements of novelty and surprise , problems in living, bodily sensation and learning, and the complicated interpersonal emotions of families, communities and cultures, to form a brain-based therapy and healing practice, long before its neurophysiology was identified.
