ABSTRACT
The hypnotic trance becomes deeper or more profound; the subject becomes more responsive to suggestions for age regression, analgesia, hallucinations, deafness, amnesia, and so on. This chapter analyzes these and other assumptions that underlie the traditional paradigm. It presents an alternative paradigm for conceptualizing the experiences and behaviors that have been historically subsumed under the term "hypnotism" or "hypnosis." The dominant paradigm sees the person who responds to test suggestions as being in a fundamentally different state from the person who is unresponsive to test suggestions. The construct "hypnotic state," "trance," or "hypnosis" is used to refer to this state, which is conceived to differ, not simply quantitatively, but in some basic, qualitative way, from normal waking states and from states of sleep. The chapter demonstrates that a substantial proportion of individuals are responsive to various kinds of test suggestions when no attempt is made to place them in a "hypnotic trance."
