The Active Participation of Highly Susceptible Hypnotic Subjects in Generating Their Hypnotic Experiences

Abstract

Hypnotized individuals have traditionally been considered to be detached from the control of their own suggested behavior. We tested this and the alternative notion that hypnotized subjects attempt to self-generate the experiences (i.e., mainly of in voluntariness) as well as produce the behaviors thought to be prototypical of high hypnotic ability. In an experimental investigation, highly susceptible hypnotic subjects were found to engage in the kind of imaginative activity that would be expected of individuals who were attempting deliberately to generate their experiences of involuntariness; they engaged as actively in imagery-generation as did subjects who were specifically instructed to imagine during suggested responding, and they experienced as much involuntariness as subjects in whom suggested movements were produced by an external physical force. The implications of these findings for the neodissociation and social psychological theories of hypnotic responding are discussed.