![]() ![]() What she had actually believed and responded to was the narrative of what had taken place (Sarbin & de Rivera, 1998), She knew that she was a student in my class, and she knew that she had consented for me to hypnotize her. But why should we infer the presence of any extra mental processes when they are not needed? We could talk about "trance logic," which is similar to the logic which is found in dreams, as Martin Orne (1959) did. We could talk about a "hidden observer" that always knows what's going on and maintains control, no how matter deeply a person is hypnotized, as Hilgard (1974) did. I then asked her if she had really felt like she was a chicken, and she slowly and thoughtfully nodded in agreement.īut if she had really believed that she was a chicken, why didn't she scurry away in fear as soon as I approached her desk? Why did she allow me to slowly walk her around the room, limping slightly, instead of struggling to get away, as a real chicken would surely do? Why was she able to understand my spoken question? How was she able to answer it by saying, "I'm a chicken?" And why were the suggestions so easy to undo, as if she understood English as well as she ever did? I guided her back to her desk, counted from one to ten to restore her usual perceptions, and then concluded the hypnotic demonstration. "I'm a chicken," she answered in a high, cackly voice, much to the amusement of the class. "Why are you walking like that?" I asked. She did so, walking slowly as I took hold of her elbow. "Would you like to open your eyes and walk around a bit?" I asked. She nodded in agreement, and I counted slowly backwards from ten to one, providing suggestions along the way that she could feel herself changing into a chicken and at the count of one, I announced that she had become a chicken. You will remember everything I have said, and it will be a thoroughly enjoyable experience. But until I do, you will experience the world exactly as if you had been turned into a chicken. "You will always be able to hear and to respond to my voice," I continued, "and I will return you to your normal state in a few minutes, before I bring you out of hypnosis. She readily agreed, After hypnotizing her, I told her that I would count backwards from ten to one, and that at the count of one she would have been turned into a chicken. Several years earlier, when I was discussing the topic of hypnosis in an Introductory psychology class, I asked a student who had showin herself to be an excellent hypnotic subject in my class in hypnosis if she would be willing to help me illustrate how easy it was to turn a hypnotized person into a chicken. And this experience taught me more about the true nature of hypnosis than I have learned from any other single source. "That's for stage hypniotists." But I did once. When I opened my psychology practice in New Jersey, one of my first hypnosis clients asked me, "You aren't going to turn me into a chicken, are you?" ![]()
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