ABSTRACT
Hypnosis is of great interest to consciousness science because it involves – sometimes drastic – alterations in subjective experience. Hypnosis involves a hypnotic induction, followed by specific suggestions about changes in the experience of sensation, perception, and action. Hypnotic alterations in consciousness thus require a willing, motivated, and highly hypnotizable subject who first undergoes the hypnotic induction or hypnosis-as-procedure. The hypnotic induction typically starts by relaxation and focusing of the subject's attention on something, such as the hypnotist's voice, or a pendulum. Hypnotic suggestibility is normally distributed in the population. In hypnotic virtuosos, the hypnotic altered state of consciousness (ASC) should thus also show itself as an altered brain state. Hypnosis can be used as a method to study many aspects of consciousness and its altered states and contents, such as hallucinations and delusions. The concept of dissociation seems, however, to be helpful when theoretically modeling the ASC of hypnosis.
