HYPNOSIS

 

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One of the varieties of sleep is the state of hypnosis. For many centuries, hypnosis was an inexplicable phenomenon and gave rise to superstitions and false ideas in people.

Since ancient times, sorcerers and shamans, magicians and priests have widely used various techniques and means that caused some people to enter a state of unusual concentration and detachment from the environment, numbness, drowsiness, prayerful ecstasy, etc. The fact that a person does not react to bright light, or noise, or pain from burns, cuts and injections, but completely submits to the will of the one who put him to sleep, amazed the imagination of believers, it seemed to them a "miracle". It was believed that in this case the human soul leaves its physical shell and enters into direct communication with "spirits" and "gods". The priests of ancient Egypt induced a state of similar "prophetic" sleep in teenage boys by making them stare at a polished copper lamp for a long time while stroking their foreheads with their hands. Many other methods and means are known - rhythmic monotonous sounds of unique musical instruments, smoke from incense containing intoxicating, narcotic substances, repeated spells and prayers. The priests used all these techniques of hypnosis, without being able or trying to understand its true nature. On the contrary, they shrouded their actions in mystery in every possible way, giving them a supernatural meaning, trying to support the belief in the existence of their gods, the belief that only they, the ministers of religion, had the gift of "working miracles", the gift of calling upon "good" and driving out "evil spirits", of contemplating "visions", of foreseeing the future, of learning about the past and of performing "miraculous healings". In the second half of the 18th century, the whole of Europe was filled with the fame of the Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who had discovered a way to cure diseases with the help of a new "miraculous" force, which he called "magnetic fluid". A specially appointed commission of scientists rejected the existence of the "fluid" and declared Mesmer's assertions unscientific. But this only fueled the ardor of numerous lovers of "miracles" and sensations. Traveling "magnetizers" began to travel everywhere, surprising the public with extraordinary phenomena that were supposedly accomplished with the help of their inherent power of "personal magnetism". The "magnetized" could not open their eyes at will, froze in unnatural poses, did not hear the shot from a pistol that rang out right next to their ear, and at the same time obediently carried out the orders of the "magnetizers". Only in 1843, when the book "Neurohypnology" by the English surgeon James Brad was published, these "miracles" first received a scientific explanation. Brad proved irrefutably that many seemingly inexplicable phenomena that "magnetizers" supposedly cause with the help of "miraculous magnetic force" are nothing more than the natural external manifestation of a special nervous sleep, which he called hypnosis (from the Greek "hypnos" - sleep). Brad induced hypnosis in his subjects by asking them to stare at the blade of his lancet without looking away. In their effect on the human nervous system, Brad wrote, this method of inducing hypnosis is no different from the techniques used thousands of years ago by ministers of religious cults; the supposedly "magnetizing" passes of mesmerists also act in the same way. Among these scientists, the names of our compatriots, physiologist V. Y. Danilevsky, psychiatrist A. A. Tokarsky and psychoneurologist V. M. Bekhterev, French researchers and doctors A. Liebeault, I. Bernheim, J.- M. Charcot and P. Richet, German physiologists W. Preyer, R. Heidenhain and many others should be mentioned.

A complete scientific explanation of hypnosis was given in the works of I. P. Pavlov and his followers. I. P. Pavlov called hypnosis incomplete, partial sleep. Usually a person in deep sleep does not react to anything around him (of course, if the stimuli acting on him are not too strong, otherwise he wakes up). This happens as a result of inhibition that has taken over the brain of the sleeper. However, sleep is not always so complete. Sometimes the sleeper, not perceiving most of the noises around him, wakes up from some specific sounds, even if they are weak. A mother who has fallen asleep by her baby's crib immediately wakes up from the barely audible sound of his voice, but does not react to anything else. In such incomplete sleep, inhibition does not cover the entire cerebral cortex, some part of it remains free. Pavlov figuratively called such areas "guard" or "on-duty" points. The nerve cells of the "guard" point respond very sensitively only to certain stimuli. One of the forms of such partial, incomplete sleep, in which the overwhelming mass of cortex cells is inhibited, and the "guard" point is tuned to the sound of the hypnotist's voice, is hypnosis. The "on-duty" point ensures rapport, which is the medical name for the phenomenon of special contact between the hypnotized and the hypnotist, which previously seemed inexplicable and surprising. Such a waking point remains isolated during hypnosis against the general background of the sleeping cortex of the cerebral hemispheres. The irritation from the sound of the hypnotist's voice is perceived by this "guard" point, deprived of interconnection with the rest of the inhibited cortex and therefore free from its controlling and competing influence. In this case, the activity of the excitation center, “tuned” to the doctor’s voice, increases, which explains the increase in the power of suggestion in hypnosis. That is why any word of the hypnotizer, even a very quietly spoken word, has a bright, strong, indelible effect on the brain of the hypnotized person. This explains phenomena that previously seemed completely incomprehensible. Let’s take such an interesting example. A person immersed in hypnotic sleep is given a bitter medicine, say, quinine powder, and is suggested that it is sugar. And the person thinks that he really has something sweet in his mouth. By suggesting to a hypnotized person who is in a warm room that he is very cold, one can cause him to shiver, constrict his blood vessels, etc. Another example is no less interesting. The hypnotized person behaves in accordance with the age suggested to him. For example, an adult who is suggested that he is a two- or three-year-old child walks around the room with small, unsteady steps, answers questions with childish babble: instead of "car" he says "cal", instead of "horse" - "holse", etc. Young people who are suggested that they are old, walk as if with difficulty, their backs are bent, their speech resembles that of an old man. This property of hypnosis to increase a person's susceptibility to suggested images, thoughts, actions, as well as the ability to cause profound changes in the activity of his body with words has been used since ancient times by priests, as well as all sorts of healers and charlatans to demonstrate imaginary miracles. The priests of ancient Egypt inspired boys, who were put into a hypnotic sleep, to see gods and hear their voices. The child repeated the words suggested to him in a dream by the priests, and the people perceived them as the "will of the gods" revealed to the boy immersed in sleep. This was a convenient way for priests and rulers to influence the people, to instill in them those thoughts and actions that were beneficial to them. Since ancient times, the state church has been especially willing to resort to "miracles of healing". From century to century, here and there, rumors were born about "holy" stones and springs that bestow health, about "all-powerful miracle workers" who rid the sick of illness with a wave of their hand or a single word, legends multiplied about the healing power of "revealed" icons and relics of "saints". Belief in "miraculous healings" has survived for thousands of years. Even today, thousands of patients flock from all over the world to the French town of Lourdes, famous for its spring that supposedly saves from illnesses "by the grace of the Mother of God". And many in other places still seek relief from illnesses not in the doctor's office, but in the water of "holy" springs. The rumor of such "miraculous healings" is based on the deliberate deception of believers by the "church", which has no relation to the biblical God the Creator. There have been isolated cases of actual healing of the sick, but there is no "miracle" in this (unless they are supernatural or performed by occultists, agents of Satan, and similar "miracle workers").

Sometimes in these cases, suggestion is used, made to the patient immersed in hypnotic sleep. From the effect of suggestion on such patients, those rare cases of recovery occurred, which were observed from time to time in places of religious pilgrimage, especially since in such places many externally hypnotizing moments are deliberately created (the glow of candles, quiet monotonous singing, repeated prayers, etc.), and the hypnotic state greatly enhances the effect of suggestion. The scientific explanation of hypnosis reveals the essence of other "miracles" as well. For example, during a hypnosis session, spectators were always amazed by the detachment of the hypnotized person from his surroundings, his indifference to the most severe pain, including burns and wounds. To what, if not the patronage of "spirits", could the Chukchi in former times attribute the fact that a shaman, who had gone mad during a shamanic ritual, would grab hot coals from the hearth by the handful, without feeling any pain, without changing his face at all? Hindu believers explain the amazing insensitivity to pain, unbearable cold and scorching heat of a yogi frozen in a "sacred sleep" by the communication of his soul with the "deity". And scientists see the explanation of these phenomena in the fact that in deep hypnosis, some areas of the cerebral cortex can be inhibited much more strongly than in natural sleep, and then a person does not feel pain from a burn, although any pain caused to him during normal sleep would immediately awaken him. However, this does not refute the position on the close relationship between sleep and hypnosis. The most important argument in favor of the correctness of the concept of hypnosis as a type of sleep developed by I. P. Pavlov and his followers is that the same conditions are essentially necessary for the emergence of both of these states, namely, everything that promotes the emergence and development of cortical inhibition has a hypnotic effect. For example, in order to induce hypnotic sleep in a person, it is best to act with weak or moderate, but long-term and monotonously repeated stimuli, be they rhythmic movements, monotonous sounds, concentration of the gaze, repeated words or light stroking of the skin. This explanation sheds light on what has been hidden under the mask of mystery for many millennia and continues to hide under it in some places even now. Here is the solution to the mystery of the "magic" drum, the incessant roar of which accompanied the frantic dance of the shaman during the rite. The "magic" means of immersion in the "sacred sleep" of yogis, who repeated monosyllabic words countless times, become clear. The secret of the action of the "magnetic" passes of Mesmer and his followers is also revealed. And the words of prayers and spells, repeatedly pronounced after the priests in the churches of the Orthodox and Catholics, are they not nothing more than conditions that increase the suggestibility of believers and thereby sometimes prepare the ground for the demonstration of imaginary miracles. Science and true faith in God have forever dispelled the fog of superstition and delusions around hypnosis. The use of hypnosis is extremely dangerous, because in this state a person voluntarily gives himself over to the power of another person, and this is often used by the devil, criminals and false religions. There is an alternative to all this: genuine biblical faith in God the Healer and natural methods of healing without the use of zombification and deception.