Deep Trance

This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis
> William Duke
>
> *
> E-Mail This
> * Printer-Friendly
> * Single-Page
> * Reprints
> * Save Article
>
> By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
> Published: November 22, 2005
>
> Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and
> entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists.
> Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion
> indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show
> profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions,
> researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and
> believe to be true.
>
> The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who
> were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the
> ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English
> words and thought that they were gibberish.
>
> "The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is
> fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an
> emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon and
> expert on attention. "But now we're really getting at the mechanisms."
>
> Even with little understanding of how it works, hypnosis has been used
> in medicine since the 1950's to treat pain and, more recently, as a
> treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, irritable bowel syndrome and
> eating disorders.
>
> There is, however, still disagreement about what exactly the hypnotic
> state is or, indeed, whether it is anything more than an effort to
> please the hypnotist or a natural form of extreme concentration where
> people become oblivious to their surroundings while lost in thought.
>
> Hypnosis had a false start in the 18th century when a German physician,
> Dr. Franz Mesmer, devised a miraculous cure for people suffering all
> manner of unexplained medical problems. Amid dim lights and ethereal
> music played on a glass harmonica, he infused them with an invisible
> "magnetic fluid" that only he was able to muster. Thus mesmerized,
> clients were cured.
>
> Although Dr. Mesmer was eventually discredited, he was the first person
> to show that the mind could be manipulated by suggestion to affect the
> body, historians say. This central finding was resurrected by Dr. James
> Braid, an English ophthalmologist who in 1842 coined the word hypnosis
> after the Greek word for sleep.
>
> Braid reportedly put people into trances by staring at them intently,
> but he did not have a clue as to how it worked. In this vacuum,
> hypnosis was adopted by spiritualists and stage magicians who used
> dangling gold watches to induce hypnotic states in volunteers from the
> audience, and make them dance, sing or pretend to be someone else, only
> to awaken at a hand clap and laughter from the crowd.
>
> In medical hands, hypnosis was no laughing matter. In the 19th century,
> physicians in India successfully used hypnosis as anesthesia, even for
> limb amputations. The practice fell from favor only when ether was
> discovered.
>
> Now, Dr. Posner and others said, new research on hypnosis and
> suggestion is providing a new view into the cogs and wheels of normal
> brain function.
>
> One area that it may have illuminated is the processing of sensory
> data. Information from the eyes, ears and body is carried to primary
> sensory regions in the brain. From there, it is carried to so-called
> higher regions where interpretation occurs.
>
> For example, photons bouncing off a flower first reach the eye, where
> they are turned into a pattern that is sent to the primary visual
> cortex. There, the rough shape of the flower is recognized. The pattern
> is next sent to a higher - in terms of function - region, where color
> is recognized, and then to a higher region, where the flower's identity
> is encoded along with other knowledge about the particular bloom.
>
> The same processing stream, from lower to higher regions, exists for
> sounds, touch and other sensory information. Researchers call this
> direction of flow feedforward. As raw sensory data is carried to a part
> of the brain that creates a comprehensible, conscious impression, the
> data is moving from bottom to top.
>
> Bundles of nerve cells dedicated to each sense carry sensory
> information. The surprise is the amount of traffic the other way, from
> top to bottom, called feedback. There are 10 times as many nerve fibers
> carrying information down as there are carrying it up.
>
> These extensive feedback circuits mean that consciousness, what people
> see, hear, feel and believe, is based on what neuroscientists call "top
> down processing." What you see is not always what you get, because what
> you see depends on a framework built by experience that stands ready to
> interpret the raw information - as a flower or a hammer or a face.
>
> The top-down structure explains a lot. If the construction of reality
> has so much top-down processing, that would make sense of the powers of
> placebos (a sugar pill will make you feel better), nocebos (a witch
> doctor will make you ill), talk therapy and meditation. If the top is
> convinced, the bottom level of data will be overruled.
>
> This brain structure would also explain hypnosis, which is all about
> creating such formidable top-down processing that suggestions overcome
> reality.
>
> According to decades of research, 10 to 15 percent of adults are highly
> hypnotizable, said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford who
> studies the clinical uses of hypnosis. Up to age 12, however, before
> top-down circuits mature, 80 to 85 percent of children are highly
> hypnotizable.
>
> One adult in five is flat out resistant to hypnosis, Dr. Spiegel said.
> The rest are in between, he said.
>
> In some of the most recent work, Dr. Amir Raz, an assistant professor
> of clinical neuroscience at Columbia, chose to study highly
> hypnotizable people with the help of a standard psychological test that
> probes conflict in the brain. As a professional magician who became a
> scientist to understand better the slippery nature of attention, Dr.
> Raz said that he "wanted to do something really impressive" that other
> neuroscientists could not ignore.
>
> The probe, called the Stroop test, presents words in block letters in
> the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a
> button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that
> sometimes the word RED is colored green. Or the word YELLOW is colored
> blue.
>
> For people who are literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it
> invariably takes them a little bit longer to override the automatic
> reading of a word like RED and press a button that says green. This is
> called the Stroop effect.
>
> Sixteen people, half highly hypnotizable and half resistant, went into
> Dr. Raz's lab after having been covertly tested for hypnotizability.
> The purpose of the study, they were told, was to investigate the
> effects of suggestion on cognitive performance. After each person
> underwent a hypnotic induction, Dr. Raz said:
>
> "Very soon you will be playing a computer game inside a brain scanner.
> Every time you hear my voice over the intercom, you will immediately
> realize that meaningless symbols are going to appear in the middle of
> the screen. They will feel like characters in a foreign language that
> you do not know, and you will not attempt to attribute any meaning to
> them.
>
> "This gibberish will be printed in one of four ink colors: red, blue,
> green or yellow. Although you will only attend to color, you will see
> all the scrambled signs crisply. Your job is to quickly and accurately
> depress the key that corresponds to the color shown. You can play this
> game effortlessly. As soon as the scanning noise stops, you will relax
> back to your regular reading self."
>
> Dr. Raz then ended the hypnosis session, leaving each person with what
> is called a posthypnotic suggestion, an instruction to carry out an
> action while not hypnotized.
>
> Days later, the subjects entered the brain scanner.
>
> In highly hypnotizables, when Dr. Raz's instructions came over the
> intercom, the Stroop effect was obliterated, he said. The subjects saw
> English words as gibberish and named colors instantly. But for those
> who were resistant to hypnosis, the Stroop effect prevailed, rendering
> them significantly slower in naming the colors.
>
> When the brain scans of the two groups were compared, a distinct
> pattern appeared. Among the hypnotizables, Dr. Raz said, the visual
> area of the brain that usually decodes written words did not become
> active. And a region in the front of the brain that usually detects
> conflict was similarly dampened.
>
> Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted to reading and
> detecting conflict, Dr. Raz said, although he did not know exactly how
> that happened. Those results appeared in July in The Proceedings of the
> National Academy of Sciences.
>
> A number of other recent studies of brain imaging point to similar
> top-down brain mechanisms under the influence of suggestion. Highly
> hypnotizable people were able to "drain" color from a colorful abstract
> drawing or "add" color to the same drawing rendered in gray tones. In
> each case, the parts of their brains involved in color perception were
> differently activated.
>
> Brain scans show that the control mechanisms for deciding what to do in
> the face of conflict become uncoupled when people are hypnotized.
> Top-down processes override sensory, or bottom-up information, said Dr.
> Stephen M. Kosslyn, a neuroscientist at Harvard. People think that
> sights, sounds and touch from the outside world constitute reality. But
> the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience, Dr.
> Kosslyn said.
>
> Most of the time bottom-up information matches top-down expectation,
> Dr. Spiegel said. But hypnosis is interesting because it creates a
> mismatch. "We imagine something different, so it is different," he
> said.

Ross

in article 1132746201.392861.173290@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups. com, Deep
Trance at deeptrance@webtv.net wrote on 11/23/05 3:43 AM:

> NOTE: This State of the Art hypnosis research article addresses the
> current research in Top Down vs. Bottom Up processing but fails to
> address the the current non/pre-verbal reptillian Bottom Up research
> for People Fixers. The Reptillian Always WINS. There is a major
> revolution going on in the field of Hypnotherapy. If your clients are
> not moving, they may need some reptillian Snake Oil... LOVE-Deep*Trance

In the absence of good technology and practice, Reptillian USUALLY wins.

Work both ends.

RJ
>
>
>> This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis
>
>>>
>>> *
>>> E-Mail This
>>> * Printer-Friendly
>>> * Single-Page
>>> * Reprints
>>> * Save Article
>>>
>>> By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
>>> Published: November 22, 2005
>>>
>>> Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and
>>> entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists.
>>> Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion
>>> indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show
>>> profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions,
>>> researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and
>>> believe to be true.
>>>
>>> The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who
>>> were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the
>>> ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English
>>> words and thought that they were gibberish.
>>>
>>> "The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is
>>> fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an
>>> emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon and
>>> expert on attention. "But now we're really getting at the mechanisms."
>>>
>>> Even with little understanding of how it works, hypnosis has been used
>>> in medicine since the 1950's to treat pain and, more recently, as a
>>> treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, irritable bowel syndrome and
>>> eating disorders.
>>>
>>> There is, however, still disagreement about what exactly the hypnotic
>>> state is or, indeed, whether it is anything more than an effort to
>>> please the hypnotist or a natural form of extreme concentration where
>>> people become oblivious to their surroundings while lost in thought.
>>>
>>> Hypnosis had a false start in the 18th century when a German physician,
>>> Dr. Franz Mesmer, devised a miraculous cure for people suffering all
>>> manner of unexplained medical problems. Amid dim lights and ethereal
>>> music played on a glass harmonica, he infused them with an invisible
>>> "magnetic fluid" that only he was able to muster. Thus mesmerized,
>>> clients were cured.
>>>
>>> Although Dr. Mesmer was eventually discredited, he was the first person
>>> to show that the mind could be manipulated by suggestion to affect the
>>> body, historians say. This central finding was resurrected by Dr. James
>>> Braid, an English ophthalmologist who in 1842 coined the word hypnosis
>>> after the Greek word for sleep.
>>>
>>> Braid reportedly put people into trances by staring at them intently,
>>> but he did not have a clue as to how it worked. In this vacuum,
>>> hypnosis was adopted by spiritualists and stage magicians who used
>>> dangling gold watches to induce hypnotic states in volunteers from the
>>> audience, and make them dance, sing or pretend to be someone else, only
>>> to awaken at a hand clap and laughter from the crowd.
>>>
>>> In medical hands, hypnosis was no laughing matter. In the 19th century,
>>> physicians in India successfully used hypnosis as anesthesia, even for
>>> limb amputations. The practice fell from favor only when ether was
>>> discovered.
>>>
>>> Now, Dr. Posner and others said, new research on hypnosis and
>>> suggestion is providing a new view into the cogs and wheels of normal
>>> brain function.
>>>
>>> One area that it may have illuminated is the processing of sensory
>>> data. Information from the eyes, ears and body is carried to primary
>>> sensory regions in the brain. From there, it is carried to so-called
>>> higher regions where interpretation occurs.
>>>
>>> For example, photons bouncing off a flower first reach the eye, where
>>> they are turned into a pattern that is sent to the primary visual
>>> cortex. There, the rough shape of the flower is recognized. The pattern
>>> is next sent to a higher - in terms of function - region, where color
>>> is recognized, and then to a higher region, where the flower's identity
>>> is encoded along with other knowledge about the particular bloom.
>>>
>>> The same processing stream, from lower to higher regions, exists for
>>> sounds, touch and other sensory information. Researchers call this
>>> direction of flow feedforward. As raw sensory data is carried to a part
>>> of the brain that creates a comprehensible, conscious impression, the
>>> data is moving from bottom to top.
>>>
>>> Bundles of nerve cells dedicated to each sense carry sensory
>>> information. The surprise is the amount of traffic the other way, from
>>> top to bottom, called feedback. There are 10 times as many nerve fibers
>>> carrying information down as there are carrying it up.
>>>
>>> These extensive feedback circuits mean that consciousness, what people
>>> see, hear, feel and believe, is based on what neuroscientists call "top
>>> down processing." What you see is not always what you get, because what
>>> you see depends on a framework built by experience that stands ready to
>>> interpret the raw information - as a flower or a hammer or a face.
>>>
>>> The top-down structure explains a lot. If the construction of reality
>>> has so much top-down processing, that would make sense of the powers of
>>> placebos (a sugar pill will make you feel better), nocebos (a witch
>>> doctor will make you ill), talk therapy and meditation. If the top is
>>> convinced, the bottom level of data will be overruled.
>>>
>>> This brain structure would also explain hypnosis, which is all about
>>> creating such formidable top-down processing that suggestions overcome
>>> reality.
>>>
>>> According to decades of research, 10 to 15 percent of adults are highly
>>> hypnotizable, said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford who
>>> studies the clinical uses of hypnosis. Up to age 12, however, before
>>> top-down circuits mature, 80 to 85 percent of children are highly
>>> hypnotizable.
>>>
>>> One adult in five is flat out resistant to hypnosis, Dr. Spiegel said.
>>> The rest are in between, he said.
>>>
>>> In some of the most recent work, Dr. Amir Raz, an assistant professor
>>> of clinical neuroscience at Columbia, chose to study highly
>>> hypnotizable people with the help of a standard psychological test that
>>> probes conflict in the brain. As a professional magician who became a
>>> scientist to understand better the slippery nature of attention, Dr.
>>> Raz said that he "wanted to do something really impressive" that other
>>> neuroscientists could not ignore.
>>>
>>> The probe, called the Stroop test, presents words in block letters in
>>> the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a
>>> button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that
>>> sometimes the word RED is colored green. Or the word YELLOW is colored
>>> blue.
>>>
>>> For people who are literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it
>>> invariably takes them a little bit longer to override the automatic
>>> reading of a word like RED and press a button that says green. This is
>>> called the Stroop effect.
>>>
>>> Sixteen people, half highly hypnotizable and half resistant, went into
>>> Dr. Raz's lab after having been covertly tested for hypnotizability.
>>> The purpose of the study, they were told, was to investigate the
>>> effects of suggestion on cognitive performance. After each person
>>> underwent a hypnotic induction, Dr. Raz said:
>>>
>>> "Very soon you will be playing a computer game inside a brain scanner.
>>> Every time you hear my voice over the intercom, you will immediately
>>> realize that meaningless symbols are going to appear in the middle of
>>> the screen. They will feel like characters in a foreign language that
>>> you do not know, and you will not attempt to attribute any meaning to
>>> them.
>>>
>>> "This gibberish will be printed in one of four ink colors: red, blue,
>>> green or yellow. Although you will only attend to color, you will see
>>> all the scrambled signs crisply. Your job is to quickly and accurately
>>> depress the key that corresponds to the color shown. You can play this
>>> game effortlessly. As soon as the scanning noise stops, you will relax
>>> back to your regular reading self."
>>>
>>> Dr. Raz then ended the hypnosis session, leaving each person with what
>>> is called a posthypnotic suggestion, an instruction to carry out an
>>> action while not hypnotized.
>>>
>>> Days later, the subjects entered the brain scanner.
>>>
>>> In highly hypnotizables, when Dr. Raz's instructions came over the
>>> intercom, the Stroop effect was obliterated, he said. The subjects saw
>>> English words as gibberish and named colors instantly. But for those
>>> who were resistant to hypnosis, the Stroop effect prevailed, rendering
>>> them significantly slower in naming the colors.
>>>
>>> When the brain scans of the two groups were compared, a distinct
>>> pattern appeared. Among the hypnotizables, Dr. Raz said, the visual
>>> area of the brain that usually decodes written words did not become
>>> active. And a region in the front of the brain that usually detects
>>> conflict was similarly dampened.
>>>
>>> Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted to reading and
>>> detecting conflict, Dr. Raz said, although he did not know exactly how
>>> that happened. Those results appeared in July in The Proceedings of the
>>> National Academy of Sciences.
>>>
>>> A number of other recent studies of brain imaging point to similar
>>> top-down brain mechanisms under the influence of suggestion. Highly
>>> hypnotizable people were able to "drain" color from a colorful abstract
>>> drawing or "add" color to the same drawing rendered in gray tones. In
>>> each case, the parts of their brains involved in color perception were
>>> differently activated.
>>>
>>> Brain scans show that the control mechanisms for deciding what to do in
>>> the face of conflict become uncoupled when people are hypnotized.
>>> Top-down processes override sensory, or bottom-up information, said Dr.
>>> Stephen M. Kosslyn, a neuroscientist at Harvard. People think that
>>> sights, sounds and touch from the outside world constitute reality. But
>>> the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience, Dr.
>>> Kosslyn said.
>>>
>>> Most of the time bottom-up information matches top-down expectation,
>>> Dr. Spiegel said. But hypnosis is interesting because it creates a
>>> mismatch. "We imagine something different, so it is different," he
>>> said.
>

Mindsci

Cool

Best wishes

barry

"DrEvilHypnosis" <DrEvilHypnosis@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1132723844.449432.170290@g47g2000cwa.googlegr oups.com...
>
> That was a nice link, Ed.
> The NG can use more solid information like that.
>
> Good job.
>

Deep Trance

NOTE: This State of the Art hypnosis research article addresses the
current research in Top Down vs. Bottom Up processing but fails to
address the the new non/pre-verbal reptillian Bottom Up research for
therapists (see my Nov. 23 'Does He Really Want Help' post). The
Reptillian Always WINS. There is a MAJOR revolution going on in the
field of modern Hypnotherapy. Are you rolling Snake Eyes too often? If
your clients are not moving, they may need some reptillian Snake Oil...
LOVE-Deep*Trance
>
>
This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis
>
> > >
> > > *
> > > E-Mail This
> > > * Printer-Friendly
> > > * Single-Page
> > > * Reprints
> > > * Save Article
> > >
> > > By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
> > > Published: November 22, 2005
> > >
> > > Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and
> > > entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists.
> > > Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion
> > > indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show
> > > profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions,
> > > researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and
> > > believe to be true.
> > >
> > > The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who
> > > were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the
> > > ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English
> > > words and thought that they were gibberish.
> > >
> > > "The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is
> > > fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an
> > > emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon and
> > > expert on attention. "But now we're really getting at the mechanisms."
> > >
> > > Even with little understanding of how it works, hypnosis has been used
> > > in medicine since the 1950's to treat pain and, more recently, as a
> > > treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, irritable bowel syndrome and
> > > eating disorders.
> > >
> > > There is, however, still disagreement about what exactly the hypnotic
> > > state is or, indeed, whether it is anything more than an effort to
> > > please the hypnotist or a natural form of extreme concentration where
> > > people become oblivious to their surroundings while lost in thought.
> > >
> > > Hypnosis had a false start in the 18th century when a German physician,
> > > Dr. Franz Mesmer, devised a miraculous cure for people suffering all
> > > manner of unexplained medical problems. Amid dim lights and ethereal
> > > music played on a glass harmonica, he infused them with an invisible
> > > "magnetic fluid" that only he was able to muster. Thus mesmerized,
> > > clients were cured.
> > >
> > > Although Dr. Mesmer was eventually discredited, he was the first person
> > > to show that the mind could be manipulated by suggestion to affect the
> > > body, historians say. This central finding was resurrected by Dr. James
> > > Braid, an English ophthalmologist who in 1842 coined the word hypnosis
> > > after the Greek word for sleep.
> > >
> > > Braid reportedly put people into trances by staring at them intently,
> > > but he did not have a clue as to how it worked. In this vacuum,
> > > hypnosis was adopted by spiritualists and stage magicians who used
> > > dangling gold watches to induce hypnotic states in volunteers from the
> > > audience, and make them dance, sing or pretend to be someone else, only
> > > to awaken at a hand clap and laughter from the crowd.
> > >
> > > In medical hands, hypnosis was no laughing matter. In the 19th century,
> > > physicians in India successfully used hypnosis as anesthesia, even for
> > > limb amputations. The practice fell from favor only when ether was
> > > discovered.
> > >
> > > Now, Dr. Posner and others said, new research on hypnosis and
> > > suggestion is providing a new view into the cogs and wheels of normal
> > > brain function.
> > >
> > > One area that it may have illuminated is the processing of sensory
> > > data. Information from the eyes, ears and body is carried to primary
> > > sensory regions in the brain. From there, it is carried to so-called
> > > higher regions where interpretation occurs.
> > >
> > > For example, photons bouncing off a flower first reach the eye, where
> > > they are turned into a pattern that is sent to the primary visual
> > > cortex. There, the rough shape of the flower is recognized. The pattern
> > > is next sent to a higher - in terms of function - region, where color
> > > is recognized, and then to a higher region, where the flower's identity
> > > is encoded along with other knowledge about the particular bloom.
> > >
> > > The same processing stream, from lower to higher regions, exists for
> > > sounds, touch and other sensory information. Researchers call this
> > > direction of flow feedforward. As raw sensory data is carried to a part
> > > of the brain that creates a comprehensible, conscious impression, the
> > > data is moving from bottom to top.
> > >
> > > Bundles of nerve cells dedicated to each sense carry sensory
> > > information. The surprise is the amount of traffic the other way, from
> > > top to bottom, called feedback. There are 10 times as many nerve fibers
> > > carrying information down as there are carrying it up.
> > >
> > > These extensive feedback circuits mean that consciousness, what people
> > > see, hear, feel and believe, is based on what neuroscientists call "top
> > > down processing." What you see is not always what you get, because what
> > > you see depends on a framework built by experience that stands ready to
> > > interpret the raw information - as a flower or a hammer or a face.
> > >
> > > The top-down structure explains a lot. If the construction of reality
> > > has so much top-down processing, that would make sense of the powers of
> > > placebos (a sugar pill will make you feel better), nocebos (a witch
> > > doctor will make you ill), talk therapy and meditation. If the top is
> > > convinced, the bottom level of data will be overruled.
> > >
> > > This brain structure would also explain hypnosis, which is all about
> > > creating such formidable top-down processing that suggestions overcome
> > > reality.
> > >
> > > According to decades of research, 10 to 15 percent of adults are highly
> > > hypnotizable, said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford who
> > > studies the clinical uses of hypnosis. Up to age 12, however, before
> > > top-down circuits mature, 80 to 85 percent of children are highly
> > > hypnotizable.
> > >
> > > One adult in five is flat out resistant to hypnosis, Dr. Spiegel said.
> > > The rest are in between, he said.
> > >
> > > In some of the most recent work, Dr. Amir Raz, an assistant professor
> > > of clinical neuroscience at Columbia, chose to study highly
> > > hypnotizable people with the help of a standard psychological test that
> > > probes conflict in the brain. As a professional magician who became a
> > > scientist to understand better the slippery nature of attention, Dr.
> > > Raz said that he "wanted to do something really impressive" that other
> > > neuroscientists could not ignore.
> > >
> > > The probe, called the Stroop test, presents words in block letters in
> > > the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a
> > > button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that
> > > sometimes the word RED is colored green. Or the word YELLOW is colored
> > > blue.
> > >
> > > For people who are literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it
> > > invariably takes them a little bit longer to override the automatic
> > > reading of a word like RED and press a button that says green. This is
> > > called the Stroop effect.
> > >
> > > Sixteen people, half highly hypnotizable and half resistant, went into
> > > Dr. Raz's lab after having been covertly tested for hypnotizability.
> > > The purpose of the study, they were told, was to investigate the
> > > effects of suggestion on cognitive performance. After each person
> > > underwent a hypnotic induction, Dr. Raz said:
> > >
> > > "Very soon you will be playing a computer game inside a brain scanner.
> > > Every time you hear my voice over the intercom, you will immediately
> > > realize that meaningless symbols are going to appear in the middle of
> > > the screen. They will feel like characters in a foreign language that
> > > you do not know, and you will not attempt to attribute any meaning to
> > > them.
> > >
> > > "This gibberish will be printed in one of four ink colors: red, blue,
> > > green or yellow. Although you will only attend to color, you will see
> > > all the scrambled signs crisply. Your job is to quickly and accurately
> > > depress the key that corresponds to the color shown. You can play this
> > > game effortlessly. As soon as the scanning noise stops, you will relax
> > > back to your regular reading self."
> > >
> > > Dr. Raz then ended the hypnosis session, leaving each person with what
> > > is called a posthypnotic suggestion, an instruction to carry out an
> > > action while not hypnotized.
> > >
> > > Days later, the subjects entered the brain scanner.
> > >
> > > In highly hypnotizables, when Dr. Raz's instructions came over the
> > > intercom, the Stroop effect was obliterated, he said. The subjects saw
> > > English words as gibberish and named colors instantly. But for those
> > > who were resistant to hypnosis, the Stroop effect prevailed, rendering
> > > them significantly slower in naming the colors.
> > >
> > > When the brain scans of the two groups were compared, a distinct
> > > pattern appeared. Among the hypnotizables, Dr. Raz said, the visual
> > > area of the brain that usually decodes written words did not become
> > > active. And a region in the front of the brain that usually detects
> > > conflict was similarly dampened.
> > >
> > > Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted to reading and
> > > detecting conflict, Dr. Raz said, although he did not know exactly how
> > > that happened. Those results appeared in July in The Proceedings of the
> > > National Academy of Sciences.
> > >
> > > A number of other recent studies of brain imaging point to similar
> > > top-down brain mechanisms under the influence of suggestion. Highly
> > > hypnotizable people were able to "drain" color from a colorful abstract
> > > drawing or "add" color to the same drawing rendered in gray tones. In
> > > each case, the parts of their brains involved in color perception were
> > > differently activated.
> > >
> > > Brain scans show that the control mechanisms for deciding what to do in
> > > the face of conflict become uncoupled when people are hypnotized.
> > > Top-down processes override sensory, or bottom-up information, said Dr.
> > > Stephen M. Kosslyn, a neuroscientist at Harvard. People think that
> > > sights, sounds and touch from the outside world constitute reality. But
> > > the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience, Dr.
> > > Kosslyn said.
> > >
> > > Most of the time bottom-up information matches top-down expectation,
> > > Dr. Spiegel said. But hypnosis is interesting because it creates a
> > > mismatch. "We imagine something different, so it is different," he
> > > said.

mstrhypno

Ross wrote:
> in article 1132746201.392861.173290@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups. com, Deep
> Trance at deeptrance@webtv.net wrote on 11/23/05 3:43 AM:
>
> > NOTE: This State of the Art hypnosis research article addresses the
> > current research in Top Down vs. Bottom Up processing but fails to
> > address the the current non/pre-verbal reptillian Bottom Up research
> > for People Fixers. The Reptillian Always WINS. There is a major
> > revolution going on in the field of Hypnotherapy. If your clients are
> > not moving, they may need some reptillian Snake Oil... LOVE-Deep*Trance
>
> In the absence of good technology and practice, Reptillian USUALLY wins.
>
> Work both ends.
>
> RJ
> >
RJ, you are quite right, as any combatives instructor will attest and
any combat psycho-physiologist can prove. Reptilian response in a
combat situation is not "fight or flight" as originally thought, but
"Perceive, freeze, fight or flight" as shown by several other articles
I have linked to in alt.hypnosis over the years.

Even so, Ed's cited article was QUITE GOOD!

I'd love to see him doing more posts like that!

Lee Darrow, C.H.
http://www.leedarrow.com

Deep Trance

"Those Who Can't Talk SHOP Talk SHIT." -TheShadowNose
NOTE: This State of the Art hypnosis research article addresses the
current research in Top Down vs. Bottom Up processing of information
but fails to address the the new non/pre-verbal reptillian Bottom Up
research for therapists (see my Nov. 23 'Does He Really Want Help'
post). The Reptillian Always WINS. There is a MAJOR revolution going on
in the field of modern Hypnotherapy. Are you rolling Snake Eyes too
often? If your clients are not moving, they may need some reptillian
Snake Oil...
LOVE-Deep*Trance
> >
> >
This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis
> >
> > > >
> > > > *
> > > > E-Mail This
> > > > * Printer-Friendly
> > > > * Single-Page
> > > > * Reprints
> > > > * Save Article
> > > >
> > > > By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
> > > > Published: November 22, 2005
> > > >
> > > > Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and
> > > > entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists.
> > > > Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion
> > > > indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show
> > > > profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions,
> > > > researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and
> > > > believe to be true.
> > > >
> > > > The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who
> > > > were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the
> > > > ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English
> > > > words and thought that they were gibberish.
> > > >
> > > > "The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is
> > > > fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an
> > > > emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon and
> > > > expert on attention. "But now we're really getting at the mechanisms."
> > > >
> > > > Even with little understanding of how it works, hypnosis has been used
> > > > in medicine since the 1950's to treat pain and, more recently, as a
> > > > treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, irritable bowel syndrome and
> > > > eating disorders.
> > > >
> > > > There is, however, still disagreement about what exactly the hypnotic
> > > > state is or, indeed, whether it is anything more than an effort to
> > > > please the hypnotist or a natural form of extreme concentration where
> > > > people become oblivious to their surroundings while lost in thought.
> > > >
> > > > Hypnosis had a false start in the 18th century when a German physician,
> > > > Dr. Franz Mesmer, devised a miraculous cure for people suffering all
> > > > manner of unexplained medical problems. Amid dim lights and ethereal
> > > > music played on a glass harmonica, he infused them with an invisible
> > > > "magnetic fluid" that only he was able to muster. Thus mesmerized,
> > > > clients were cured.
> > > >
> > > > Although Dr. Mesmer was eventually discredited, he was the first person
> > > > to show that the mind could be manipulated by suggestion to affect the
> > > > body, historians say. This central finding was resurrected by Dr. James
> > > > Braid, an English ophthalmologist who in 1842 coined the word hypnosis
> > > > after the Greek word for sleep.
> > > >
> > > > Braid reportedly put people into trances by staring at them intently,
> > > > but he did not have a clue as to how it worked. In this vacuum,
> > > > hypnosis was adopted by spiritualists and stage magicians who used
> > > > dangling gold watches to induce hypnotic states in volunteers from the
> > > > audience, and make them dance, sing or pretend to be someone else, only
> > > > to awaken at a hand clap and laughter from the crowd.
> > > >
> > > > In medical hands, hypnosis was no laughing matter. In the 19th century,
> > > > physicians in India successfully used hypnosis as anesthesia, even for
> > > > limb amputations. The practice fell from favor only when ether was
> > > > discovered.
> > > >
> > > > Now, Dr. Posner and others said, new research on hypnosis and
> > > > suggestion is providing a new view into the cogs and wheels of normal
> > > > brain function.
> > > >
> > > > One area that it may have illuminated is the processing of sensory
> > > > data. Information from the eyes, ears and body is carried to primary
> > > > sensory regions in the brain. From there, it is carried to so-called
> > > > higher regions where interpretation occurs.
> > > >
> > > > For example, photons bouncing off a flower first reach the eye, where
> > > > they are turned into a pattern that is sent to the primary visual
> > > > cortex. There, the rough shape of the flower is recognized. The pattern
> > > > is next sent to a higher - in terms of function - region, where color
> > > > is recognized, and then to a higher region, where the flower's identity
> > > > is encoded along with other knowledge about the particular bloom.
> > > >
> > > > The same processing stream, from lower to higher regions, exists for
> > > > sounds, touch and other sensory information. Researchers call this
> > > > direction of flow feedforward. As raw sensory data is carried to a part
> > > > of the brain that creates a comprehensible, conscious impression, the
> > > > data is moving from bottom to top.
> > > >
> > > > Bundles of nerve cells dedicated to each sense carry sensory
> > > > information. The surprise is the amount of traffic the other way, from
> > > > top to bottom, called feedback. There are 10 times as many nerve fibers
> > > > carrying information down as there are carrying it up.
> > > >
> > > > These extensive feedback circuits mean that consciousness, what people
> > > > see, hear, feel and believe, is based on what neuroscientists call "top
> > > > down processing." What you see is not always what you get, because what
> > > > you see depends on a framework built by experience that stands ready to
> > > > interpret the raw information - as a flower or a hammer or a face.
> > > >
> > > > The top-down structure explains a lot. If the construction of reality
> > > > has so much top-down processing, that would make sense of the powers of
> > > > placebos (a sugar pill will make you feel better), nocebos (a witch
> > > > doctor will make you ill), talk therapy and meditation. If the top is
> > > > convinced, the bottom level of data will be overruled.
> > > >
> > > > This brain structure would also explain hypnosis, which is all about
> > > > creating such formidable top-down processing that suggestions overcome
> > > > reality.
> > > >
> > > > According to decades of research, 10 to 15 percent of adults are highly
> > > > hypnotizable, said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford who
> > > > studies the clinical uses of hypnosis. Up to age 12, however, before
> > > > top-down circuits mature, 80 to 85 percent of children are highly
> > > > hypnotizable.
> > > >
> > > > One adult in five is flat out resistant to hypnosis, Dr. Spiegel said.
> > > > The rest are in between, he said.
> > > >
> > > > In some of the most recent work, Dr. Amir Raz, an assistant professor
> > > > of clinical neuroscience at Columbia, chose to study highly
> > > > hypnotizable people with the help of a standard psychological test that
> > > > probes conflict in the brain. As a professional magician who became a
> > > > scientist to understand better the slippery nature of attention, Dr.
> > > > Raz said that he "wanted to do something really impressive" that other
> > > > neuroscientists could not ignore.
> > > >
> > > > The probe, called the Stroop test, presents words in block letters in
> > > > the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a
> > > > button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that
> > > > sometimes the word RED is colored green. Or the word YELLOW is colored
> > > > blue.
> > > >
> > > > For people who are literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it
> > > > invariably takes them a little bit longer to override the automatic
> > > > reading of a word like RED and press a button that says green. This is
> > > > called the Stroop effect.
> > > >
> > > > Sixteen people, half highly hypnotizable and half resistant, went into
> > > > Dr. Raz's lab after having been covertly tested for hypnotizability.
> > > > The purpose of the study, they were told, was to investigate the
> > > > effects of suggestion on cognitive performance. After each person
> > > > underwent a hypnotic induction, Dr. Raz said:
> > > >
> > > > "Very soon you will be playing a computer game inside a brain scanner.
> > > > Every time you hear my voice over the intercom, you will immediately
> > > > realize that meaningless symbols are going to appear in the middle of
> > > > the screen. They will feel like characters in a foreign language that
> > > > you do not know, and you will not attempt to attribute any meaning to
> > > > them.
> > > >
> > > > "This gibberish will be printed in one of four ink colors: red, blue,
> > > > green or yellow. Although you will only attend to color, you will see
> > > > all the scrambled signs crisply. Your job is to quickly and accurately
> > > > depress the key that corresponds to the color shown. You can play this
> > > > game effortlessly. As soon as the scanning noise stops, you will relax
> > > > back to your regular reading self."
> > > >
> > > > Dr. Raz then ended the hypnosis session, leaving each person with what
> > > > is called a posthypnotic suggestion, an instruction to carry out an
> > > > action while not hypnotized.
> > > >
> > > > Days later, the subjects entered the brain scanner.
> > > >
> > > > In highly hypnotizables, when Dr. Raz's instructions came over the
> > > > intercom, the Stroop effect was obliterated, he said. The subjects saw
> > > > English words as gibberish and named colors instantly. But for those
> > > > who were resistant to hypnosis, the Stroop effect prevailed, rendering
> > > > them significantly slower in naming the colors.
> > > >
> > > > When the brain scans of the two groups were compared, a distinct
> > > > pattern appeared. Among the hypnotizables, Dr. Raz said, the visual
> > > > area of the brain that usually decodes written words did not become
> > > > active. And a region in the front of the brain that usually detects
> > > > conflict was similarly dampened.
> > > >
> > > > Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted to reading and
> > > > detecting conflict, Dr. Raz said, although he did not know exactly how
> > > > that happened. Those results appeared in July in The Proceedings of the
> > > > National Academy of Sciences.
> > > >
> > > > A number of other recent studies of brain imaging point to similar
> > > > top-down brain mechanisms under the influence of suggestion. Highly
> > > > hypnotizable people were able to "drain" color from a colorful abstract
> > > > drawing or "add" color to the same drawing rendered in gray tones. In
> > > > each case, the parts of their brains involved in color perception were
> > > > differently activated.
> > > >
> > > > Brain scans show that the control mechanisms for deciding what to do in
> > > > the face of conflict become uncoupled when people are hypnotized.
> > > > Top-down processes override sensory, or bottom-up information, said Dr.
> > > > Stephen M. Kosslyn, a neuroscientist at Harvard. People think that
> > > > sights, sounds and touch from the outside world constitute reality. But
> > > > the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience, Dr.
> > > > Kosslyn said.
> > > >
> > > > Most of the time bottom-up information matches top-down expectation,
> > > > Dr. Spiegel said. But hypnosis is interesting because it creates a
> > > > mismatch. "We imagine something different, so it is different," he
> > > > said.

mstrhypno

Deep Trance wrote:
> "Those Who Can't Talk SHOP Talk SHIT." -TheShadowNose

And nobody talks more of that than you, Ed.

Lee Darrow, C.H.
http://www.leedarrow.com
(he makes this SO easy!)

Deep Trance

(FLAMERS: Those Who Can't Talk SHOP, Talk SHIT)
NOTE:This State of the Art hypnosis research article addresses the
current research in Top Down vs. Bottom Up processing of information
but fails to address the the new non/pre-verbal reptillian Bottom Up
research for therapists (see my Nov. 23 'Does He Really Want Help'
post). The Reptillian Always WINS. There is a MAJOR revolution going on
in the field of professionial Hypnotherapy. Are you rolling Snake Eyes
too often? If your clients are not moving, they may need some
reptillian Snake Oil...
LOVE-Deep*Trance
> > >
> > >
This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis
> > >
> > > > >
> > > > > *
> > > > > E-Mail This
> > > > > * Printer-Friendly
> > > > > * Single-Page
> > > > > * Reprints
> > > > > * Save Article
> > > > >
> > > > > By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
> > > > > Published: November 22, 2005
> > > > >
> > > > > Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and
> > > > > entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists.
> > > > > Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion
> > > > > indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show
> > > > > profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions,
> > > > > researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and
> > > > > believe to be true.
> > > > >
> > > > > The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who
> > > > > were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the
> > > > > ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English
> > > > > words and thought that they were gibberish.
> > > > >
> > > > > "The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is
> > > > > fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an
> > > > > emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon and
> > > > > expert on attention. "But now we're really getting at the mechanisms."
> > > > >
> > > > > Even with little understanding of how it works, hypnosis has been used
> > > > > in medicine since the 1950's to treat pain and, more recently, as a
> > > > > treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, irritable bowel syndrome and
> > > > > eating disorders.
> > > > >
> > > > > There is, however, still disagreement about what exactly the hypnotic
> > > > > state is or, indeed, whether it is anything more than an effort to
> > > > > please the hypnotist or a natural form of extreme concentration where
> > > > > people become oblivious to their surroundings while lost in thought.
> > > > >
> > > > > Hypnosis had a false start in the 18th century when a German physician,
> > > > > Dr. Franz Mesmer, devised a miraculous cure for people suffering all
> > > > > manner of unexplained medical problems. Amid dim lights and ethereal
> > > > > music played on a glass harmonica, he infused them with an invisible
> > > > > "magnetic fluid" that only he was able to muster. Thus mesmerized,
> > > > > clients were cured.
> > > > >
> > > > > Although Dr. Mesmer was eventually discredited, he was the first person
> > > > > to show that the mind could be manipulated by suggestion to affect the
> > > > > body, historians say. This central finding was resurrected by Dr. James
> > > > > Braid, an English ophthalmologist who in 1842 coined the word hypnosis
> > > > > after the Greek word for sleep.
> > > > >
> > > > > Braid reportedly put people into trances by staring at them intently,
> > > > > but he did not have a clue as to how it worked. In this vacuum,
> > > > > hypnosis was adopted by spiritualists and stage magicians who used
> > > > > dangling gold watches to induce hypnotic states in volunteers from the
> > > > > audience, and make them dance, sing or pretend to be someone else, only
> > > > > to awaken at a hand clap and laughter from the crowd.
> > > > >
> > > > > In medical hands, hypnosis was no laughing matter. In the 19th century,
> > > > > physicians in India successfully used hypnosis as anesthesia, even for
> > > > > limb amputations. The practice fell from favor only when ether was
> > > > > discovered.
> > > > >
> > > > > Now, Dr. Posner and others said, new research on hypnosis and
> > > > > suggestion is providing a new view into the cogs and wheels of normal
> > > > > brain function.
> > > > >
> > > > > One area that it may have illuminated is the processing of sensory
> > > > > data. Information from the eyes, ears and body is carried to primary
> > > > > sensory regions in the brain. From there, it is carried to so-called
> > > > > higher regions where interpretation occurs.
> > > > >
> > > > > For example, photons bouncing off a flower first reach the eye, where
> > > > > they are turned into a pattern that is sent to the primary visual
> > > > > cortex. There, the rough shape of the flower is recognized. The pattern
> > > > > is next sent to a higher - in terms of function - region, where color
> > > > > is recognized, and then to a higher region, where the flower's identity
> > > > > is encoded along with other knowledge about the particular bloom.
> > > > >
> > > > > The same processing stream, from lower to higher regions, exists for
> > > > > sounds, touch and other sensory information. Researchers call this
> > > > > direction of flow feedforward. As raw sensory data is carried to a part
> > > > > of the brain that creates a comprehensible, conscious impression, the
> > > > > data is moving from bottom to top.
> > > > >
> > > > > Bundles of nerve cells dedicated to each sense carry sensory
> > > > > information. The surprise is the amount of traffic the other way, from
> > > > > top to bottom, called feedback. There are 10 times as many nerve fibers
> > > > > carrying information down as there are carrying it up.
> > > > >
> > > > > These extensive feedback circuits mean that consciousness, what people
> > > > > see, hear, feel and believe, is based on what neuroscientists call "top
> > > > > down processing." What you see is not always what you get, because what
> > > > > you see depends on a framework built by experience that stands ready to
> > > > > interpret the raw information - as a flower or a hammer or a face.
> > > > >
> > > > > The top-down structure explains a lot. If the construction of reality
> > > > > has so much top-down processing, that would make sense of the powers of
> > > > > placebos (a sugar pill will make you feel better), nocebos (a witch
> > > > > doctor will make you ill), talk therapy and meditation. If the top is
> > > > > convinced, the bottom level of data will be overruled.
> > > > >
> > > > > This brain structure would also explain hypnosis, which is all about
> > > > > creating such formidable top-down processing that suggestions overcome
> > > > > reality.
> > > > >
> > > > > According to decades of research, 10 to 15 percent of adults are highly
> > > > > hypnotizable, said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford who
> > > > > studies the clinical uses of hypnosis. Up to age 12, however, before
> > > > > top-down circuits mature, 80 to 85 percent of children are highly
> > > > > hypnotizable.
> > > > >
> > > > > One adult in five is flat out resistant to hypnosis, Dr. Spiegel said.
> > > > > The rest are in between, he said.
> > > > >
> > > > > In some of the most recent work, Dr. Amir Raz, an assistant professor
> > > > > of clinical neuroscience at Columbia, chose to study highly
> > > > > hypnotizable people with the help of a standard psychological test that
> > > > > probes conflict in the brain. As a professional magician who became a
> > > > > scientist to understand better the slippery nature of attention, Dr.
> > > > > Raz said that he "wanted to do something really impressive" that other
> > > > > neuroscientists could not ignore.
> > > > >
> > > > > The probe, called the Stroop test, presents words in block letters in
> > > > > the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a
> > > > > button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that
> > > > > sometimes the word RED is colored green. Or the word YELLOW is colored
> > > > > blue.
> > > > >
> > > > > For people who are literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it
> > > > > invariably takes them a little bit longer to override the automatic
> > > > > reading of a word like RED and press a button that says green. This is
> > > > > called the Stroop effect.
> > > > >
> > > > > Sixteen people, half highly hypnotizable and half resistant, went into
> > > > > Dr. Raz's lab after having been covertly tested for hypnotizability.
> > > > > The purpose of the study, they were told, was to investigate the
> > > > > effects of suggestion on cognitive performance. After each person
> > > > > underwent a hypnotic induction, Dr. Raz said:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Very soon you will be playing a computer game inside a brain scanner.
> > > > > Every time you hear my voice over the intercom, you will immediately
> > > > > realize that meaningless symbols are going to appear in the middle of
> > > > > the screen. They will feel like characters in a foreign language that
> > > > > you do not know, and you will not attempt to attribute any meaning to
> > > > > them.
> > > > >
> > > > > "This gibberish will be printed in one of four ink colors: red, blue,
> > > > > green or yellow. Although you will only attend to color, you will see
> > > > > all the scrambled signs crisply. Your job is to quickly and accurately
> > > > > depress the key that corresponds to the color shown. You can play this
> > > > > game effortlessly. As soon as the scanning noise stops, you will relax
> > > > > back to your regular reading self."
> > > > >
> > > > > Dr. Raz then ended the hypnosis session, leaving each person with what
> > > > > is called a posthypnotic suggestion, an instruction to carry out an
> > > > > action while not hypnotized.
> > > > >
> > > > > Days later, the subjects entered the brain scanner.
> > > > >
> > > > > In highly hypnotizables, when Dr. Raz's instructions came over the
> > > > > intercom, the Stroop effect was obliterated, he said. The subjects saw
> > > > > English words as gibberish and named colors instantly. But for those
> > > > > who were resistant to hypnosis, the Stroop effect prevailed, rendering
> > > > > them significantly slower in naming the colors.
> > > > >
> > > > > When the brain scans of the two groups were compared, a distinct
> > > > > pattern appeared. Among the hypnotizables, Dr. Raz said, the visual
> > > > > area of the brain that usually decodes written words did not become
> > > > > active. And a region in the front of the brain that usually detects
> > > > > conflict was similarly dampened.
> > > > >
> > > > > Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted to reading and
> > > > > detecting conflict, Dr. Raz said, although he did not know exactly how
> > > > > that happened. Those results appeared in July in The Proceedings of the
> > > > > National Academy of Sciences.
> > > > >
> > > > > A number of other recent studies of brain imaging point to similar
> > > > > top-down brain mechanisms under the influence of suggestion. Highly
> > > > > hypnotizable people were able to "drain" color from a colorful abstract
> > > > > drawing or "add" color to the same drawing rendered in gray tones. In
> > > > > each case, the parts of their brains involved in color perception were
> > > > > differently activated.
> > > > >
> > > > > Brain scans show that the control mechanisms for deciding what to do in
> > > > > the face of conflict become uncoupled when people are hypnotized.
> > > > > Top-down processes override sensory, or bottom-up information, said Dr.
> > > > > Stephen M. Kosslyn, a neuroscientist at Harvard. People think that
> > > > > sights, sounds and touch from the outside world constitute reality. But
> > > > > the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience, Dr.
> > > > > Kosslyn said.
> > > > >
> > > > > Most of the time bottom-up information matches top-down expectation,
> > > > > Dr. Spiegel said. But hypnosis is interesting because it creates a
> > > > > mismatch. "We imagine something different, so it is different," he
> > > > > said.

Deep Trance

(FLAMERS: Those Who Can't Talk SHOP, Talk SHIT)
NOTE: This State of the Art hypnosis research article addresses the
current research in Top Down vs. Bottom Up processing of information
but fails to address the the new non/pre-verbal reptillian Bottom Up
research for therapists (see my Nov. 23 'Does He Really Want Help'
post). The Reptillian Always WINS. There is a MAJOR revolution going on
in the field of professional Hypnotherapy. Are you rolling Snake Eyes
too often? If your clients are not moving, they may need some Bottom Up
reptillian Snake Oil...
LOVE-Deep*Trance
> > >
> > >
This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis
> > >
> > > > >
> > > > > *
> > > > > E-Mail This
> > > > > * Printer-Friendly
> > > > > * Single-Page
> > > > > * Reprints
> > > > > * Save Article
> > > > >
> > > > > By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
> > > > > Published: November 22, 2005
> > > > >
> > > > > Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and
> > > > > entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists.
> > > > > Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion
> > > > > indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show
> > > > > profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions,
> > > > > researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and
> > > > > believe to be true.
> > > > >
> > > > > The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who
> > > > > were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the
> > > > > ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English
> > > > > words and thought that they were gibberish.
> > > > >
> > > > > "The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is
> > > > > fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an
> > > > > emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon and
> > > > > expert on attention. "But now we're really getting at the mechanisms."
> > > > >
> > > > > Even with little understanding of how it works, hypnosis has been used
> > > > > in medicine since the 1950's to treat pain and, more recently, as a
> > > > > treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, irritable bowel syndrome and
> > > > > eating disorders.
> > > > >
> > > > > There is, however, still disagreement about what exactly the hypnotic
> > > > > state is or, indeed, whether it is anything more than an effort to
> > > > > please the hypnotist or a natural form of extreme concentration where
> > > > > people become oblivious to their surroundings while lost in thought.
> > > > >
> > > > > Hypnosis had a false start in the 18th century when a German physician,
> > > > > Dr. Franz Mesmer, devised a miraculous cure for people suffering all
> > > > > manner of unexplained medical problems. Amid dim lights and ethereal
> > > > > music played on a glass harmonica, he infused them with an invisible
> > > > > "magnetic fluid" that only he was able to muster. Thus mesmerized,
> > > > > clients were cured.
> > > > >
> > > > > Although Dr. Mesmer was eventually discredited, he was the first person
> > > > > to show that the mind could be manipulated by suggestion to affect the
> > > > > body, historians say. This central finding was resurrected by Dr. James
> > > > > Braid, an English ophthalmologist who in 1842 coined the word hypnosis
> > > > > after the Greek word for sleep.
> > > > >
> > > > > Braid reportedly put people into trances by staring at them intently,
> > > > > but he did not have a clue as to how it worked. In this vacuum,
> > > > > hypnosis was adopted by spiritualists and stage magicians who used
> > > > > dangling gold watches to induce hypnotic states in volunteers from the
> > > > > audience, and make them dance, sing or pretend to be someone else, only
> > > > > to awaken at a hand clap and laughter from the crowd.
> > > > >
> > > > > In medical hands, hypnosis was no laughing matter. In the 19th century,
> > > > > physicians in India successfully used hypnosis as anesthesia, even for
> > > > > limb amputations. The practice fell from favor only when ether was
> > > > > discovered.
> > > > >
> > > > > Now, Dr. Posner and others said, new research on hypnosis and
> > > > > suggestion is providing a new view into the cogs and wheels of normal
> > > > > brain function.
> > > > >
> > > > > One area that it may have illuminated is the processing of sensory
> > > > > data. Information from the eyes, ears and body is carried to primary
> > > > > sensory regions in the brain. From there, it is carried to so-called
> > > > > higher regions where interpretation occurs.
> > > > >
> > > > > For example, photons bouncing off a flower first reach the eye, where
> > > > > they are turned into a pattern that is sent to the primary visual
> > > > > cortex. There, the rough shape of the flower is recognized. The pattern
> > > > > is next sent to a higher - in terms of function - region, where color
> > > > > is recognized, and then to a higher region, where the flower's identity
> > > > > is encoded along with other knowledge about the particular bloom.
> > > > >
> > > > > The same processing stream, from lower to higher regions, exists for
> > > > > sounds, touch and other sensory information. Researchers call this
> > > > > direction of flow feedforward. As raw sensory data is carried to a part
> > > > > of the brain that creates a comprehensible, conscious impression, the
> > > > > data is moving from bottom to top.
> > > > >
> > > > > Bundles of nerve cells dedicated to each sense carry sensory
> > > > > information. The surprise is the amount of traffic the other way, from
> > > > > top to bottom, called feedback. There are 10 times as many nerve fibers
> > > > > carrying information down as there are carrying it up.
> > > > >
> > > > > These extensive feedback circuits mean that consciousness, what people
> > > > > see, hear, feel and believe, is based on what neuroscientists call "top
> > > > > down processing." What you see is not always what you get, because what
> > > > > you see depends on a framework built by experience that stands ready to
> > > > > interpret the raw information - as a flower or a hammer or a face.
> > > > >
> > > > > The top-down structure explains a lot. If the construction of reality
> > > > > has so much top-down processing, that would make sense of the powers of
> > > > > placebos (a sugar pill will make you feel better), nocebos (a witch
> > > > > doctor will make you ill), talk therapy and meditation. If the top is
> > > > > convinced, the bottom level of data will be overruled.
> > > > >
> > > > > This brain structure would also explain hypnosis, which is all about
> > > > > creating such formidable top-down processing that suggestions overcome
> > > > > reality.
> > > > >
> > > > > According to decades of research, 10 to 15 percent of adults are highly
> > > > > hypnotizable, said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford who
> > > > > studies the clinical uses of hypnosis. Up to age 12, however, before
> > > > > top-down circuits mature, 80 to 85 percent of children are highly
> > > > > hypnotizable.
> > > > >
> > > > > One adult in five is flat out resistant to hypnosis, Dr. Spiegel said.
> > > > > The rest are in between, he said.
> > > > >
> > > > > In some of the most recent work, Dr. Amir Raz, an assistant professor
> > > > > of clinical neuroscience at Columbia, chose to study highly
> > > > > hypnotizable people with the help of a standard psychological test that
> > > > > probes conflict in the brain. As a professional magician who became a
> > > > > scientist to understand better the slippery nature of attention, Dr.
> > > > > Raz said that he "wanted to do something really impressive" that other
> > > > > neuroscientists could not ignore.
> > > > >
> > > > > The probe, called the Stroop test, presents words in block letters in
> > > > > the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a
> > > > > button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that
> > > > > sometimes the word RED is colored green. Or the word YELLOW is colored
> > > > > blue.
> > > > >
> > > > > For people who are literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it
> > > > > invariably takes them a little bit longer to override the automatic
> > > > > reading of a word like RED and press a button that says green. This is
> > > > > called the Stroop effect.
> > > > >
> > > > > Sixteen people, half highly hypnotizable and half resistant, went into
> > > > > Dr. Raz's lab after having been covertly tested for hypnotizability.
> > > > > The purpose of the study, they were told, was to investigate the
> > > > > effects of suggestion on cognitive performance. After each person
> > > > > underwent a hypnotic induction, Dr. Raz said:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Very soon you will be playing a computer game inside a brain scanner.
> > > > > Every time you hear my voice over the intercom, you will immediately
> > > > > realize that meaningless symbols are going to appear in the middle of
> > > > > the screen. They will feel like characters in a foreign language that
> > > > > you do not know, and you will not attempt to attribute any meaning to
> > > > > them.
> > > > >
> > > > > "This gibberish will be printed in one of four ink colors: red, blue,
> > > > > green or yellow. Although you will only attend to color, you will see
> > > > > all the scrambled signs crisply. Your job is to quickly and accurately
> > > > > depress the key that corresponds to the color shown. You can play this
> > > > > game effortlessly. As soon as the scanning noise stops, you will relax
> > > > > back to your regular reading self."
> > > > >
> > > > > Dr. Raz then ended the hypnosis session, leaving each person with what
> > > > > is called a posthypnotic suggestion, an instruction to carry out an
> > > > > action while not hypnotized.
> > > > >
> > > > > Days later, the subjects entered the brain scanner.
> > > > >
> > > > > In highly hypnotizables, when Dr. Raz's instructions came over the
> > > > > intercom, the Stroop effect was obliterated, he said. The subjects saw
> > > > > English words as gibberish and named colors instantly. But for those
> > > > > who were resistant to hypnosis, the Stroop effect prevailed, rendering
> > > > > them significantly slower in naming the colors.
> > > > >
> > > > > When the brain scans of the two groups were compared, a distinct
> > > > > pattern appeared. Among the hypnotizables, Dr. Raz said, the visual
> > > > > area of the brain that usually decodes written words did not become
> > > > > active. And a region in the front of the brain that usually detects
> > > > > conflict was similarly dampened.
> > > > >
> > > > > Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted to reading and
> > > > > detecting conflict, Dr. Raz said, although he did not know exactly how
> > > > > that happened. Those results appeared in July in The Proceedings of the
> > > > > National Academy of Sciences.
> > > > >
> > > > > A number of other recent studies of brain imaging point to similar
> > > > > top-down brain mechanisms under the influence of suggestion. Highly
> > > > > hypnotizable people were able to "drain" color from a colorful abstract
> > > > > drawing or "add" color to the same drawing rendered in gray tones. In
> > > > > each case, the parts of their brains involved in color perception were
> > > > > differently activated.
> > > > >
> > > > > Brain scans show that the control mechanisms for deciding what to do in
> > > > > the face of conflict become uncoupled when people are hypnotized.
> > > > > Top-down processes override sensory, or bottom-up information, said Dr.
> > > > > Stephen M. Kosslyn, a neuroscientist at Harvard. People think that
> > > > > sights, sounds and touch from the outside world constitute reality. But
> > > > > the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience, Dr.
> > > > > Kosslyn said.
> > > > >
> > > > > Most of the time bottom-up information matches top-down expectation,
> > > > > Dr. Spiegel said. But hypnosis is interesting because it creates a
> > > > > mismatch. "We imagine something different, so it is different," he
> > > > > said.

Deep Trance

(FLAMERS: Those Who Can't Talk SHOP, Talk SHIT)
NOTE: This outstanding State of the Art hypnosis research article
addresses the current research in Top Down vs. Bottom Up processing of
information
but fails to address the the new non/pre-verbal reptillian Bottom Up
research for therapists (see my Nov. 23 'Does He Really Want Help'
post). The Reptillian Always WINS. There is a MAJOR revolution going on
in the field of professional Hypnotherapy. Are you rolling Snake Eyes
too often? If your clients are STUCK and not MOVING, you may need some
Bottom Up Reptillian Snake Oil for the Psychically Constipated (LYING
Lee Darrow and sociopath DrEVILhypnosis AKA David Ray Givens
dirge0513@aol.com )...
LOVE-Deep*Trance
> > >
> > >
This Is Your Brain Under Hypnosis
> > >
> > > > >
> > > > > *
> > > > > E-Mail This
> > > > > * Printer-Friendly
> > > > > * Single-Page
> > > > > * Reprints
> > > > > * Save Article
> > > > >
> > > > > By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
> > > > > Published: November 22, 2005
> > > > >
> > > > > Hypnosis, with its long and checkered history in medicine and
> > > > > entertainment, is receiving some new respect from neuroscientists.
> > > > > Recent brain studies of people who are susceptible to suggestion
> > > > > indicate that when they act on the suggestions their brains show
> > > > > profound changes in how they process information. The suggestions,
> > > > > researchers report, literally change what people see, hear, feel and
> > > > > believe to be true.
> > > > >
> > > > > The new experiments, which used brain imaging, found that people who
> > > > > were hypnotized "saw" colors where there were none. Others lost the
> > > > > ability to make simple decisions. Some people looked at common English
> > > > > words and thought that they were gibberish.
> > > > >
> > > > > "The idea that perceptions can be manipulated by expectations" is
> > > > > fundamental to the study of cognition, said Michael I. Posner, an
> > > > > emeritus professor of neuroscience at the University of Oregon and
> > > > > expert on attention. "But now we're really getting at the mechanisms."
> > > > >
> > > > > Even with little understanding of how it works, hypnosis has been used
> > > > > in medicine since the 1950's to treat pain and, more recently, as a
> > > > > treatment for anxiety, depression, trauma, irritable bowel syndrome and
> > > > > eating disorders.
> > > > >
> > > > > There is, however, still disagreement about what exactly the hypnotic
> > > > > state is or, indeed, whether it is anything more than an effort to
> > > > > please the hypnotist or a natural form of extreme concentration where
> > > > > people become oblivious to their surroundings while lost in thought.
> > > > >
> > > > > Hypnosis had a false start in the 18th century when a German physician,
> > > > > Dr. Franz Mesmer, devised a miraculous cure for people suffering all
> > > > > manner of unexplained medical problems. Amid dim lights and ethereal
> > > > > music played on a glass harmonica, he infused them with an invisible
> > > > > "magnetic fluid" that only he was able to muster. Thus mesmerized,
> > > > > clients were cured.
> > > > >
> > > > > Although Dr. Mesmer was eventually discredited, he was the first person
> > > > > to show that the mind could be manipulated by suggestion to affect the
> > > > > body, historians say. This central finding was resurrected by Dr. James
> > > > > Braid, an English ophthalmologist who in 1842 coined the word hypnosis
> > > > > after the Greek word for sleep.
> > > > >
> > > > > Braid reportedly put people into trances by staring at them intently,
> > > > > but he did not have a clue as to how it worked. In this vacuum,
> > > > > hypnosis was adopted by spiritualists and stage magicians who used
> > > > > dangling gold watches to induce hypnotic states in volunteers from the
> > > > > audience, and make them dance, sing or pretend to be someone else, only
> > > > > to awaken at a hand clap and laughter from the crowd.
> > > > >
> > > > > In medical hands, hypnosis was no laughing matter. In the 19th century,
> > > > > physicians in India successfully used hypnosis as anesthesia, even for
> > > > > limb amputations. The practice fell from favor only when ether was
> > > > > discovered.
> > > > >
> > > > > Now, Dr. Posner and others said, new research on hypnosis and
> > > > > suggestion is providing a new view into the cogs and wheels of normal
> > > > > brain function.
> > > > >
> > > > > One area that it may have illuminated is the processing of sensory
> > > > > data. Information from the eyes, ears and body is carried to primary
> > > > > sensory regions in the brain. From there, it is carried to so-called
> > > > > higher regions where interpretation occurs.
> > > > >
> > > > > For example, photons bouncing off a flower first reach the eye, where
> > > > > they are turned into a pattern that is sent to the primary visual
> > > > > cortex. There, the rough shape of the flower is recognized. The pattern
> > > > > is next sent to a higher - in terms of function - region, where color
> > > > > is recognized, and then to a higher region, where the flower's identity
> > > > > is encoded along with other knowledge about the particular bloom.
> > > > >
> > > > > The same processing stream, from lower to higher regions, exists for
> > > > > sounds, touch and other sensory information. Researchers call this
> > > > > direction of flow feedforward. As raw sensory data is carried to a part
> > > > > of the brain that creates a comprehensible, conscious impression, the
> > > > > data is moving from bottom to top.
> > > > >
> > > > > Bundles of nerve cells dedicated to each sense carry sensory
> > > > > information. The surprise is the amount of traffic the other way, from
> > > > > top to bottom, called feedback. There are 10 times as many nerve fibers
> > > > > carrying information down as there are carrying it up.
> > > > >
> > > > > These extensive feedback circuits mean that consciousness, what people
> > > > > see, hear, feel and believe, is based on what neuroscientists call "top
> > > > > down processing." What you see is not always what you get, because what
> > > > > you see depends on a framework built by experience that stands ready to
> > > > > interpret the raw information - as a flower or a hammer or a face.
> > > > >
> > > > > The top-down structure explains a lot. If the construction of reality
> > > > > has so much top-down processing, that would make sense of the powers of
> > > > > placebos (a sugar pill will make you feel better), nocebos (a witch
> > > > > doctor will make you ill), talk therapy and meditation. If the top is
> > > > > convinced, the bottom level of data will be overruled.
> > > > >
> > > > > This brain structure would also explain hypnosis, which is all about
> > > > > creating such formidable top-down processing that suggestions overcome
> > > > > reality.
> > > > >
> > > > > According to decades of research, 10 to 15 percent of adults are highly
> > > > > hypnotizable, said Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist at Stanford who
> > > > > studies the clinical uses of hypnosis. Up to age 12, however, before
> > > > > top-down circuits mature, 80 to 85 percent of children are highly
> > > > > hypnotizable.
> > > > >
> > > > > One adult in five is flat out resistant to hypnosis, Dr. Spiegel said.
> > > > > The rest are in between, he said.
> > > > >
> > > > > In some of the most recent work, Dr. Amir Raz, an assistant professor
> > > > > of clinical neuroscience at Columbia, chose to study highly
> > > > > hypnotizable people with the help of a standard psychological test that
> > > > > probes conflict in the brain. As a professional magician who became a
> > > > > scientist to understand better the slippery nature of attention, Dr.
> > > > > Raz said that he "wanted to do something really impressive" that other
> > > > > neuroscientists could not ignore.
> > > > >
> > > > > The probe, called the Stroop test, presents words in block letters in
> > > > > the colors red, blue, green and yellow. The subject has to press a
> > > > > button identifying the color of the letters. The difficulty is that
> > > > > sometimes the word RED is colored green. Or the word YELLOW is colored
> > > > > blue.
> > > > >
> > > > > For people who are literate, reading is so deeply ingrained that it
> > > > > invariably takes them a little bit longer to override the automatic
> > > > > reading of a word like RED and press a button that says green. This is
> > > > > called the Stroop effect.
> > > > >
> > > > > Sixteen people, half highly hypnotizable and half resistant, went into
> > > > > Dr. Raz's lab after having been covertly tested for hypnotizability.
> > > > > The purpose of the study, they were told, was to investigate the
> > > > > effects of suggestion on cognitive performance. After each person
> > > > > underwent a hypnotic induction, Dr. Raz said:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Very soon you will be playing a computer game inside a brain scanner.
> > > > > Every time you hear my voice over the intercom, you will immediately
> > > > > realize that meaningless symbols are going to appear in the middle of
> > > > > the screen. They will feel like characters in a foreign language that
> > > > > you do not know, and you will not attempt to attribute any meaning to
> > > > > them.
> > > > >
> > > > > "This gibberish will be printed in one of four ink colors: red, blue,
> > > > > green or yellow. Although you will only attend to color, you will see
> > > > > all the scrambled signs crisply. Your job is to quickly and accurately
> > > > > depress the key that corresponds to the color shown. You can play this
> > > > > game effortlessly. As soon as the scanning noise stops, you will relax
> > > > > back to your regular reading self."
> > > > >
> > > > > Dr. Raz then ended the hypnosis session, leaving each person with what
> > > > > is called a posthypnotic suggestion, an instruction to carry out an
> > > > > action while not hypnotized.
> > > > >
> > > > > Days later, the subjects entered the brain scanner.
> > > > >
> > > > > In highly hypnotizables, when Dr. Raz's instructions came over the
> > > > > intercom, the Stroop effect was obliterated, he said. The subjects saw
> > > > > English words as gibberish and named colors instantly. But for those
> > > > > who were resistant to hypnosis, the Stroop effect prevailed, rendering
> > > > > them significantly slower in naming the colors.
> > > > >
> > > > > When the brain scans of the two groups were compared, a distinct
> > > > > pattern appeared. Among the hypnotizables, Dr. Raz said, the visual
> > > > > area of the brain that usually decodes written words did not become
> > > > > active. And a region in the front of the brain that usually detects
> > > > > conflict was similarly dampened.
> > > > >
> > > > > Top-down processes overrode brain circuits devoted to reading and
> > > > > detecting conflict, Dr. Raz said, although he did not know exactly how
> > > > > that happened. Those results appeared in July in The Proceedings of the
> > > > > National Academy of Sciences.
> > > > >
> > > > > A number of other recent studies of brain imaging point to similar
> > > > > top-down brain mechanisms under the influence of suggestion. Highly
> > > > > hypnotizable people were able to "drain" color from a colorful abstract
> > > > > drawing or "add" color to the same drawing rendered in gray tones. In
> > > > > each case, the parts of their brains involved in color perception were
> > > > > differently activated.
> > > > >
> > > > > Brain scans show that the control mechanisms for deciding what to do in
> > > > > the face of conflict become uncoupled when people are hypnotized.
> > > > > Top-down processes override sensory, or bottom-up information, said Dr.
> > > > > Stephen M. Kosslyn, a neuroscientist at Harvard. People think that
> > > > > sights, sounds and touch from the outside world constitute reality. But
> > > > > the brain constructs what it perceives based on past experience, Dr.
> > > > > Kosslyn said.
> > > > >
> > > > > Most of the time bottom-up information matches top-down expectation,
> > > > > Dr. Spiegel said. But hypnosis is interesting because it creates a
> > > > > mismatch. "We imagine something different, so it is different," he
> > > > > said.