0:03

I just don't want him

0:04

to make me bulk like a chicken.

0:09

I don't want him to make me do that. I wanna

0:11

do that in my own initiative.

0:17

Okay.

0:18

So

0:19

we're about to see a hypnosis show

0:22

on stage at the Mohagen Sun

0:24

Casino, which is this sprawling

0:26

complex in Eastern Connecticut. Inside

0:31

the casino, there is row after

0:33

row of slot machines and craft tables.

0:36

There's even a life-sized animatronic

0:40

wolf, which is perched on a

0:42

fica cliff. Look at that. at

0:44

the wolf at the wolf at the wolf

0:47

at the wolf is moved.

0:51

We're in for a great Sunday night.

0:53

Ladies and gentlemen, put it together for the world's

0:55

greatest

0:55

hypnotist, your buddy in mind,

0:58

mister Jim Spannato.

1:02

We met our hypnotist. gym backstage

1:05

before the show. He told us

1:07

that he started out his career as

1:09

just your standard magician.

1:11

That was until one day couple of

1:13

decades ago when he was asked

1:15

to be the opening act for a hypnosis show.

1:18

I didn't

1:18

even know what that was. Then watched

1:21

his show and I was like, whoa. What

1:23

is this all about? What

1:24

what made you go? Whoa. Because

1:26

I I never saw people act like that on stage.

1:28

You had people doing some crazy things. What

1:30

kind of thing? Well,

1:35

Jim

1:35

laughed like that because

1:37

he's about to make a bunch of people do

1:40

some of those very same

1:42

crazy things.

1:42

Just come come come come

1:45

come up my stage.

1:46

And I'd already told him that

1:49

I was gonna

1:49

go on stage. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

1:51

Come up. Oh, yeah. Keep going. We need a

1:54

Around twenty people, including me,

1:56

walked on stage, and soon

1:58

Jim was casting his spell.

1:59

let me ask your volunteers to sit

2:02

back in your seats. Place your feet flat in the floor.

2:04

Place your hands in your lap separated, please.

2:06

Yep. Close your eyes volunteers. Just sit

2:08

back and close your eyes and just listen just

2:10

listen to the music of my voice really really

2:13

simple. All I want you

2:15

to do is to roll your eyes so that top of

2:17

the ceiling as far as you can go as if you're trying

2:19

to stare at the top of your own forehead. Alright?

2:21

And as I do that, you're gonna feel your eyes begin

2:23

to get heavy so heavy that by the time

2:25

I reach zero, they'll actually clothes just

2:27

too. So

2:27

I was sitting on this chair on stage.

2:30

And at this point, I felt really

2:33

relaxed. sort of like if you've ever

2:35

meditated and the whole world melts

2:37

away. My head rolled

2:39

down and I started to lean forward.

2:42

And I actually thought my head was resting

2:44

on my chest, but producers Caitlin

2:46

Sorrie and Heather Rogers who were in the

2:48

audience. told me later that

2:50

my head was practically in my

2:52

lap.

2:53

Zero. Close your eyes, everybody. Everybody

2:55

close your eyes for life.

2:56

It was then that Jim gave us his

2:58

first suggestion to put our

3:00

arms out and imagine that one

3:02

hand is holding a heavy ball.

3:05

Based

3:05

on how low your hand dropped,

3:07

Jim decided who could stay and

3:09

who had to go. He kicked

3:11

about a dozen people off stage, leaving

3:14

just seven. including May.

3:17

And

3:17

all of us just happen

3:19

to be

3:19

women. It's always it's always

3:21

women here. So weird. Not

3:24

faking. You fake later on

3:26

tonight if you want, but none of you.

3:29

James hypnosis show is rated

3:31

r. It's a v paunchy variety.

3:34

So lots of swearing, lots of sex,

3:36

jokes. But

3:38

Jim, started off with something

3:40

easy, suggesting that the person

3:43

sitting next to us smelled unbelievably

3:45

good. When do you

3:47

smell it? Yes,

3:49

no. Okay. So

3:52

you can't hear it, but I said

3:54

no.

3:55

I was a bit foggy and maybe

3:57

I was starting to smell something

3:59

sweet.

3:59

But whatever state I was in, I

4:02

immediately snapped out of it as soon as

4:04

I saw the woman next to me leaping off

4:06

her chair and starting to sniff

4:08

the lady next to her. but

4:10

she didn't just sniff him like a regular person

4:12

would. She buried her head

4:15

deep into her crutch, and the

4:17

crowd went nuts for this.

4:22

Now that was the moment I realized

4:24

I needed to get off stage. So

4:26

I did. but everyone else

4:28

stayed on. And under hypnosis,

4:31

they ended up giving

4:33

the audience lap dances. They

4:35

got high smoking imaginary weed.

4:38

They've wrapped. Yeah. I can't stop

4:40

laughing. They had noises coming

4:42

out of their vaginas. And Lauren,

4:44

who's normally a real estate

4:46

agent was sent roaming

4:48

around the club looking for a lost

4:50

poodle

4:50

called twat.

4:51

hi

4:58

So what in the world was happening

5:00

in the minds of those people on stage.

5:03

Were

5:03

they really putty in Jim Spinnato's

5:06

hands? or

5:07

were they just hamming it up for the crowd?

5:12

Well, the thing is, entertainers

5:15

aren't the only ones who use

5:17

hypnosis. For thousands

5:19

of years across many cultures,

5:21

healers and doctors, have been using

5:23

something that looks a lot like hypnosis

5:26

to help their patients feel better.

5:28

And while we first covered hypnosis

5:30

in an episode a few years ago, We're

5:33

updating it now because scientists

5:35

just keep researching its potential

5:38

to help with all kinds of things,

5:40

from anxiety, to pain, to

5:42

wake loss. And

5:44

if this works, if you could harness

5:47

the power of hypnosis to

5:49

help people like a few look

5:51

into my eyes and you'll no

5:53

longer feel

5:53

crappy.

5:55

That would be amazing. but

5:59

what does the science say?

6:02

When it comes to hypnosis, there's a

6:04

lot of I

6:05

was like, whoa.

6:06

But then,

6:08

their science.

6:11

I'm Wendy Zugavin. Today, on science

6:14

versus we are hitting facts against

6:16

focus. as we dive into

6:18

the weird world of hypnosis.

6:21

It's all coming up.

6:32

oh

6:34

Welcome back. Today, we're

6:36

pushing science versus to the edge of

6:38

consciousness as we look

6:40

at the power of hypnosis.

6:43

And it seems Like, there

6:45

is something truly bizarre

6:48

about

6:48

hypnosis. And

6:49

the scientists who study it say,

6:52

that this isn't just about faking

6:54

it. I mean, shortly, when

6:56

people are on a stage, they might ham

6:58

it up for the crowd.

7:00

But when researchers study this,

7:03

they do think there is something weed going

7:05

on. So

7:06

let's find out what it is.

7:08

by starting with the basics. When

7:11

you take hypnosis off stage and

7:13

into, say, the doctor's office,

7:15

What

7:16

exactly happens? Professor

7:19

Philip Mushkin is a psychiatrist at

7:21

Columbia University in

7:22

New York. only thing you have to be careful

7:24

with these shares is they totally have a mind of

7:26

your own. So if you move even a little.

7:29

Correct. For

7:30

more than three decades, he's been treating

7:32

patients with hypnosis. And

7:34

he says that even after all these years,

7:37

he can still remember one of the

7:39

first times that he saw someone

7:41

get hypnotized. It

7:42

was a doctor who was being hypnotized

7:45

by another doctor. The

7:47

hypnotist gave his subject a

7:49

very simple, but

7:50

rather terrifying suggestion. You

7:53

cannot separate your fingers. No

7:55

force on earth. will

7:57

allow you to separate your fingers when you open

7:59

your eyes, your fingers will be fused

8:02

together, you cannot separate them.

8:04

Same brother out of the trance and her

8:06

hands are like this and he gives her a cup of coffee and

8:08

she goes to take it and just falls on the ground.

8:11

I'm amazed. She then did a neurology

8:14

residency here at the hospital

8:16

I'm at now. And I

8:17

ran into her one day. And I said,

8:20

I've been meaning to ask you this for years.

8:22

So here we are. What was going on? She

8:24

said, I don't know. He told me I couldn't

8:26

take my fingers apart. I couldn't take my fingers apart.

8:28

He gave me the damn cup of coffee. I made a

8:30

mess. I was embarrassed, but I couldn't take

8:32

my fingers apart. Seeing

8:35

this astounded fill up, he

8:36

went on to study hypnosis, and

8:38

he showed us how to hypnotize

8:40

someone. Look into my eyes.

8:42

Nah. That was just his dracula

8:45

impersonation. Okay. So here

8:47

it is. This is how you actually

8:49

hypnotize someone. And

8:51

you'll notice that the words that professor

8:53

Philip Mushkin uses are pretty

8:55

similar to what Jim said on stage

8:57

at the Meghan son Casino.

8:59

Roll your eyes up, roll him up

9:01

his eyes, they'll go. And keeping

9:03

your eyeballs up slowly close your

9:05

eyelids. Take

9:06

a deep breath, deep, deep, deep. When

9:08

I hesitate to do this, all I want you

9:10

to do is to roll your eyes to the top of the ceiling as

9:12

far as you can go. As if you're trying to stare at

9:14

the top of your own forehead, alright?

9:18

Philip says you can use lots of things to

9:20

hypnotize someone. You don't have to roll your

9:22

eyes up or take a deep breath. You

9:24

can use a spinning spiral. or

9:27

even dangle that all of the movie classic.

9:29

The gold watch floating

9:31

back and forth in front of your eyes, and those are

9:33

all techniques that work. So They

9:35

work. The gold watch works? Sure.

9:38

But they they all I thought it was

9:40

they all work for the same reason that the person

9:43

starts to concentrate his or her

9:45

attention in a very

9:47

narrow focus.

9:51

Philip says that when you're so

9:53

focused and the rest of the

9:55

world just melts away,

9:57

And all you can hear

9:59

is the hypnotist voice.

10:02

You are entering

10:04

a trance. Yeah.

10:08

That

10:08

is seriously what Philip and other

10:11

academics call it. A

10:13

trance.

10:15

Now, there's a few components needed for

10:18

someone to be considered hypnotized,

10:20

including what scientists call

10:22

absorption and suggestibility.

10:23

absorption really means that

10:26

you narrow your focus. You're

10:28

absorbed. And suggestibility

10:30

means that social cues that you

10:32

might ignore or

10:35

or you're more open to them.

10:37

In a

10:37

critical setting, a person who's hypnotized

10:39

might be sitting very still

10:41

and quiet. waiting for instructions from

10:43

the doctor. And once

10:46

that suggestibility kicks in,

10:47

that's

10:48

when they can start

10:49

to make suggestions to you.

10:52

like if perhaps they're trying to help you

10:54

quit smoking, they might say

10:56

smoking is poison.

10:58

Then the hypnotist basically wakes

11:00

you and ends the trance.

11:02

Now

11:02

in a minute, I'm going to have you

11:04

open your eyes. Don't do anything. Just

11:07

listen. At three. You

11:09

could start to move around and see a little bit Why

11:11

don't you do that now? Just get a little bit of

11:13

energy going on. Okay? Four almost

11:16

awake. On the next number, your eyes

11:18

will open. At that point, you'll be wide

11:20

wide wide awake feeling extremely refreshed

11:22

like you'd taken a short nap.

11:26

So as a recap, To put

11:28

someone under, you

11:29

first focus them, get them

11:31

absorbed,

11:32

then give them suggestions. And

11:34

finally, you wake them up.

11:36

But

11:37

knowing this left me

11:39

with one big question.

11:42

How does this

11:43

work? What

11:45

is it what is it about that focused state?

11:47

That

11:47

is what I can't wrap my head

11:49

around. The trans and the the

11:52

But being very, very focused, I

11:54

can completely

11:54

understand. But the fact

11:56

that then your mind is more

11:58

malleable

11:59

more likely to be suggestible

12:02

when you're concentrating? How does

12:04

that happen? So

12:04

we can look at the brain. And we can, to

12:06

some extent, look at the brain functioning.

12:09

Yeah.

12:09

Brain studies have looked at people

12:11

who seem to be under hypnosis and

12:14

they found some strange stuff

12:16

going

12:16

on. So for example, when people

12:18

are hypnotized and told they're in pain,

12:20

even though nothing's hurting them.

12:22

Parts of their brain look like they

12:24

are actually feeling pain.

12:26

And then let me tell

12:29

you about this weird study where

12:30

scientists wanted to know if they could

12:33

hypnotize the brain into thinking it

12:35

was hearing something that wasn't

12:37

there. Okay.

12:38

So here's what they did.

12:40

Researchers scanned the brains of eight

12:42

people. While they played them a recording of

12:44

a sentence, that didn't mean anything.

12:46

This

12:46

is what it was. The man did not

12:49

speak often, but when he did, it

12:51

was worth hearing what he had to say. The researchers

12:53

played

12:53

that sentence over and over and over

12:55

again so that it would get stuck in the

12:57

subject's mind.

12:58

The man did not speak often.

13:00

The band did not speak It was worth hearing what he had

13:02

to say. It was worth hearing what he had to

13:04

say. The people were then hypnotized and

13:07

told that they were hearing the recording again.

13:09

The man did not speak. But they weren't.

13:11

They were

13:12

just hypnotized, so

13:14

they thought they were hearing it. The

13:16

man did not speak often. But when he

13:18

did, it was worth hearing what he got to

13:20

say.

13:20

Here's what the researchers found.

13:23

When the people actually heard the recording,

13:25

a particular area of their brain

13:27

lit up. And when they were hypnotized

13:30

and told they were hearing it,

13:32

that area also lit up

13:34

as it did when they actually heard

13:36

the sentence. And what made

13:38

this even more convincing was

13:41

that when people were told to just

13:43

imagine that they were hearing

13:45

the recording, at a time when they weren't hypnotized

13:47

at all. That part of

13:49

their

13:49

brain stayed dark.

13:51

And

13:52

so this suggested to the researchers

13:54

that there was something curious

13:56

going on with hypnosis. Like

13:59

perhaps

13:59

it

13:59

was tricking the brain somehow.

14:02

But

14:04

still,

14:05

these brain scans with people

14:07

under hypnosis, they're often

14:10

really small. And brain scans at the

14:12

best of times are notoriously

14:14

difficult to analyze. So,

14:16

though, from what seeing.

14:19

There does

14:19

seem to be something special

14:21

about getting someone

14:22

to be really really focused.

14:24

It seems to make

14:26

them more open to following

14:28

suggestions.

14:28

But there's a lot that

14:31

goes on. We don't have a clue

14:33

about. So how does

14:35

it work? don't we don't know.

14:37

And

14:37

of course, whenever we don't know how

14:39

something works, it either

14:42

makes us think it's false.

14:45

BS of some sort. But e

14:47

dined. I don't. I don't

14:49

from my personal experience. I

14:51

don't from my experience with

14:53

patience. does it frustrate you that there's not

14:55

a mechanism at play that we know about?

14:57

We don't know about so much

15:00

that

15:00

that

15:02

you know, truly if you get yourself

15:04

caught up in all the things

15:06

we don't know, the

15:10

world seems hopeless. I'll

15:12

give

15:12

you a common example, falling

15:14

in love. Most

15:16

everybody falls in love. You see

15:18

somebody and you say

15:20

hello and you're pretty much in love at that

15:22

moment. Boom. What is

15:23

that? And

15:26

we

15:26

could come up with stuff but we're

15:28

making it

15:29

up.

15:30

Here's what we do know though. While

15:33

we like to think that everyone can

15:35

fall in love. It

15:37

doesn't look like everyone can be hypnotized.

15:40

And Philip says it can be really hard

15:42

to know who's gonna go undone just

15:44

by looking

15:45

at them. there are people

15:48

who are very hypnotizable,

15:50

but they were three piece suits. You're

15:52

gonna be weak will and not

15:54

be hypnotizable at all, an extremely

15:57

strong quilt and be very

15:59

hypnotizable.

16:00

Studies

16:03

with identical twins suggest

16:05

there's actually a genetic link

16:07

between people who are hypnotizable. Marissa

16:10

just say the only way that we

16:12

can know for sure if

16:14

say you can be hypnotized.

16:16

is to actually try

16:18

to hypnotize you. Ask you to

16:20

do a series of increasingly complicated

16:23

tasks

16:23

and see if you do it.

16:26

a test.

16:29

And

16:29

there's a few of these kinds of tests.

16:31

Two of the most common that come from

16:33

Harvard and Stanford. And

16:35

when scientists use these tests,

16:37

they've found that like most personality

16:40

traits being extroverted on neurotic

16:42

Hibnatizability falls into a

16:44

spectrum.

16:44

Where most

16:45

people are in the middle, fans

16:47

of fifteen percent are hypnotizable.

16:50

And then there are very,

16:52

very few incredibly hypnotizable

16:55

people. These are people who

16:57

will follow extremely complicated

16:59

suggestions.

17:03

On stage, Jim's hypnosis didn't

17:05

really work on me.

17:07

But I wanted to see how I would go in a

17:09

clinical setting, you

17:10

know, with a professional.

17:12

Look into my eyes.

17:15

Philip

17:15

gave me a short hypnotizability test.

17:18

And he used this simple scoring

17:20

system of zero to five. Zero not

17:22

hypnotizable at all. five

17:24

very hypnotizable. He put

17:26

me under and told me

17:28

my arm felt

17:30

tingling.

17:31

And it did Kane has started to feel tingling.

17:36

Then

17:36

after a couple more suggestions,

17:38

he got me out of it.

17:41

open up your eyelids, open them up

17:43

and bring them into focus. How

17:46

do

17:46

you you feel?

17:48

Yeah. I I feel very

17:52

a little

17:53

bit drugged out. Dropped

17:55

out. that most

17:57

similar to

18:00

when I

18:00

felt like this before. Okay.

18:02

Is it a good feeling or a bad

18:05

feeling? It's like

18:05

a little bit woozy making. A little

18:07

bit

18:07

woozy. Okay. Yeah. As you

18:09

can hear, I do

18:11

sound pretty groggy.

18:12

And

18:13

that actually really surprised me for

18:16

just five minutes of focusing my

18:18

attention for my head to

18:20

feel all woozy. That

18:23

was odd. And it

18:25

led Philip Mushkin to tell me

18:27

You're

18:27

actually hypnotizable. Sorry to

18:29

to disappoint you. What number what number

18:31

am I? There'd be to three. At

18:34

least to three. I don't

18:35

want people messing with my hand

18:38

to be like a puppet on a string for

18:40

some hypnotist. or

18:42

even some researcher like

18:44

Amanda Barnier. I'm

18:46

a professor of cognitive science at

18:48

Macquarie University

18:49

in Sydney, Australia. Amanda

18:51

studies extremely hypnotizable people.

18:54

People at the top end of that

18:56

scale that still appears

18:57

on me. and she

18:58

writes about them in peer reviewed

19:01

journals. So Amanda told

19:03

me about one case of a man

19:06

called Blake. It's

19:06

not his real name. But you put

19:07

him under hypnosis and then gave

19:10

him a rather remarkable suggestion.

19:13

In a moment, I'm going

19:15

to get you look into a mirror and you're

19:17

gonna see a stranger not yourself. And then

19:19

I said, okay, lean forward,

19:20

open your eyes, and look in

19:23

the mirror. and he opens eyes he looks in the

19:25

mirror and then he looks

19:26

around the room and he looks at

19:28

me and he looks around the

19:30

room And I said, who is it? And

19:32

what do you see? And he said, it's not me.

19:34

I said, do you know who it is? And

19:36

he said, I think it's a guy that I used

19:38

to go to

19:39

school with. And I said,

19:41

do

19:41

you does he look like you? And he

19:44

said, no. Amanda

19:46

pushed Blake. And he kept saying that the

19:48

person he could see in the mirror was definitely

19:50

not him. He said, well, his eyes

19:53

are smaller, his nose is

19:55

bigger,

19:55

he's got freckles, So, yeah,

19:57

that's absolutely one of the most compelling sessions

19:59

that I've ever sat in. Amanda

20:03

tried this out on twenty

20:05

two highly hypnotizable people. And over

20:07

half of them said that they saw

20:09

a stranger when they looked in the mirror.

20:12

She also tried this out on people with low

20:15

hypnotizability, and it

20:16

didn't

20:18

work. So

20:20

from all this, Amanda knows that you

20:22

can push some people pretty far when they're

20:25

under. But how

20:27

far can you take it? I don't

20:29

know how far

20:32

and I don't know that it's not ethical

20:34

to test how far that mind

20:36

control

20:36

will go. I haven't tested. No. I don't

20:38

know where the limit is. There's gonna

20:39

be a limit somewhere. I don't

20:42

wanna

20:42

test it.

20:44

Look,

20:44

academics and their pesky

20:47

ethics.

20:51

Well, there's one organization

20:53

that doesn't have to worry about

20:55

that. the

20:58

CIA.

20:58

And

21:00

that's coming

21:00

up just after the break.

21:02

after the break Plus,

21:04

Could hypnosis

21:05

help you with your

21:07

anxiety?

21:14

One night, in

21:17

nineteen fifty one, jazz star

21:19

Josephine Baker walked into

21:21

Manhattan's famous Stork Club.

21:25

senses that she is not

21:27

welcome. Baker faced this type of

21:29

racism throughout her career. She wasn't

21:31

going to take it anymore. Listen in

21:33

as Josephine Baker calls the press

21:35

stirring up a PR storm, making

21:37

allies and enemies along the

21:39

way. That story is out now

21:41

only on not past it. Follow

21:43

and listen for free only on Spotify. I

21:47

need to

21:47

know why we baby talk.

21:50

On every

21:51

little thing, We answer the

21:53

yity bitty little questions that keep you sleep

21:56

deprived. I hated hearing

21:58

people baby talking even to

21:59

their kids, to their

22:02

dogs. How do you feel when you hear yourself doing it?

22:04

For Pulse. I'm

22:06

so annoyed. Why do we get all Gohoo Goh Goh Goh Goh

22:08

Goh Goh Goh Goh Goh Goh when talking to our cute little

22:11

poop monsters. find out on every little thing.

22:13

Listen to EMT for free on

22:15

Spotify. When Melanie was a

22:16

kid, she recorded a

22:19

concert on what he thought was a blank

22:22

videotape. But the tape

22:24

was an

22:25

interview that my father had done

22:27

from Vietnam. with Walter

22:30

Cronkite. On this on this

22:32

video tape. Yes. That

22:34

had now been recorded over

22:36

by Billie Ray Cyrus. Billy

22:39

Ray Cyrus. On episode forty six

22:41

of heavyweight, I helped Melanie make

22:44

things right. Listen for

22:46

free on Spotify. It's

22:48

a rainy night and source text me.

22:50

He's infiltrated a neo Nazi terror group,

22:52

and he's inviting me to listen in on a

22:54

recruitment call. Would you feel comfortable

22:57

training at firearms. What is

22:59

your

22:59

ideology? I'm Ben

23:02

Mathew, and I cover extremism and

23:04

National Security for Vice News.

23:07

and for years, the story of this terror group has

23:09

consumed my life. How did you hear about

23:11

the base? Starting October eighteenth,

23:13

listen to American terror, free

23:15

only on Spotify.

23:22

Welcome

23:22

back. Today, we are diving into

23:24

the science of hypnosis. And

23:26

now, we're gonna see how far we

23:28

can push someone while

23:31

they're under. Like if you

23:33

are highly hypnotizable, what

23:35

could a

23:35

hypnotist make you

23:38

do? And

23:39

luckily for

23:41

us, back in the nineteen fifties,

23:43

the CIA was working on

23:45

this very problem, looking at

23:47

how far you could push hypnosis.

23:50

And they were doing it using covert programs

23:52

with adorable names

23:54

like Project

23:55

Blue Bird, Project Ada

23:58

choke, and

23:58

then less adorable, MK

24:00

Ultra. A

24:03

partially redacted CIA memo

24:06

summarize their thoughts on the potential of

24:08

hypnosis.

24:08

Fifth of May

24:10

nineteen fifty five,

24:13

subject, hypnotism and covert

24:15

operations. If

24:15

you recognize the voice, our CIA agent

24:18

is played by fellow Gimletter, Jonathan

24:20

Goldstein. I apologize

24:22

for submitting a document as long as

24:25

this one. The subject is highly controversial, and

24:27

even this treatment, which may appear

24:29

long, is abbreviated. Don't just

24:31

get to them, important, man.

24:33

Is this a part of, like, our is this what

24:35

we're doing? Is this a part of, like, us acting?

24:38

Yeah. Okay. because that's that

24:40

really surprised me.

24:43

The possibilities are not only

24:45

interesting, they are frightening. A

24:47

kind of double think orwellian world

24:49

of hypnosis while unlikely

24:51

is not utterly fantastic.

24:56

The CIA

24:57

knew this orwellian world of

24:59

hypnotizing people was unlikely because

25:01

of studies that they cited in their

25:04

declassified documents,

25:05

like this one. where researchers told

25:07

a hypnotized woman to stab

25:09

and poison several people. She

25:12

did it without

25:13

hesitating.

25:14

But when they told her to

25:17

undress, she snapped out of her

25:19

hypnotized state and refused. What

25:21

was

25:21

going on? Well, the thing

25:23

is, she knew the murders

25:26

weren't real, and they

25:28

weren't. The researchers had used

25:29

rubber daggers and sugar pills

25:32

for poison. But the

25:34

undressing, that was real,

25:36

and she could tell the difference

25:38

even when she was under.

25:42

It was studies like these that led the

25:44

CIA in nineteen sixty

25:46

to ultimately conclude that

25:48

the

25:48

quote appears extremely doubtful.

25:51

end quote, that you

25:52

could hypnotize someone into doing something

25:54

they don't really want.

25:56

So

25:57

that's the CIA. And

25:59

fifty years

25:59

later, Jim Spinnato

26:01

and his r rated hypnosis show

26:03

ran up against those

26:04

limits too. He

26:06

got those women on stage to do some pretty wild

26:08

stuff when they were under. Like,

26:11

here's Lauren, the real estate

26:13

agent.

26:13

She

26:16

did most of

26:18

Jim's suggestions, but

26:21

not

26:21

one. Jim suggested

26:22

that she go nuts making

26:25

out with her husband when Jim would

26:27

say

26:27

the words. Jim

26:32

said she wouldn't be able

26:32

to control herself with her

26:35

husband. Now Lauren

26:36

sat in her husband's

26:38

lap.

26:38

kissed him a little, but

26:41

that

26:41

was it. We

26:42

talked to Lauren about what was going on.

26:45

At that point, I already

26:47

was okay. There's a lot of people here

26:49

and that's inappropriate. Let's just

26:51

kiss, like, normal people.

26:53

Amanda Barnier has published work on

26:56

the limits of hypnosis too.

26:58

Like in one study, she just

27:00

hypnotized people to send her a postcard in

27:02

the mail. every

27:03

day. But pretty

27:05

quickly, they stopped.

27:07

Which brings us

27:08

to our last question.

27:11

Could we use hypnosis

27:13

to push people into doing

27:14

things that

27:16

they want for themselves,

27:18

but just can't?

27:20

Like, could you use it to stop us

27:23

eating junk food? Feeling

27:25

anxious or even feeling

27:27

pain? Well, this

27:29

is something that Professor Philip Mushkin

27:31

uses hypnosis for these days.

27:33

He tries to help his patients

27:35

with it, like for pain.

27:37

Sometimes he'll

27:38

be sent patients that have tried

27:40

other stuff like pills, and it didn't

27:43

work. So that doctor might

27:44

say. What about other ways of

27:46

controlling your pain? physical therapy,

27:50

massage. And someone might

27:52

say, have you considered

27:54

hypnosis? and here's how

27:55

it would work. The idea

27:57

would be that, say, you had

27:59

a pain in

27:59

your on arm. Philip

28:02

would put you in a trance and

28:04

then make suggestions like

28:06

You can't feel your right arm.

28:08

Or in studies on this, sometimes

28:11

they say Imagine the arm being completely

28:13

filled with a sensation of

28:15

relief. At other

28:17

times, doctor would ask patients to

28:19

wear a glove. and

28:21

then say, you cannot

28:23

feel pain because the glove you are

28:25

wearing prevents you from

28:26

feeling it.

28:27

and this seems kinda wild.

28:30

But studies on highly hypnotizable

28:33

people show that

28:35

sometimes it actually can help. That's

28:37

what a recent meta analysis of over

28:39

forty studies on pain found.

28:42

And they were looking at all kinds of

28:44

pain like pain in cancer

28:46

patients, chronic pain, and things like

28:48

pain from burns or

28:49

surgery. They said

28:50

it was about as

28:53

helpful as as stuff like CBT and

28:55

mindfulness. In fact, the

28:57

National Institutes of Health in the

28:59

US says that

29:00

quote, a growing body

29:02

of evidence suggests that hypnosis

29:04

may help to

29:05

manage some painful conditions.

29:08

End quote, And

29:09

so far, the strongest evidence that we

29:11

have for this is in pain.

29:14

Scientists have also looked at whether highly

29:16

hypnotizable people can be

29:18

hypnotized in to quitting

29:20

smoking or losing weight. And that

29:22

research

29:22

is more mixed. We're also

29:24

seeing some studies on certain kinds

29:27

of anxiety. like getting anxious before

29:29

medical treatments. And sometimes, he

29:31

hypnosis can help. Philip

29:33

and others have seen it work in

29:35

very specific instances.

29:38

Like, he told us about this one patient

29:40

who was in hospital, really

29:42

sick with a bad lung disease, and

29:44

she was spiraling. anxious

29:46

thinking. What if I die? She had the

29:48

cutest little three year old twins. They'll

29:50

never have a mother. Just incredible

29:55

intense emotion And I'm saying to her,

29:57

I want you to take deep breath, which is not so

29:59

easy for her. And I want you to

30:01

imagine it's still floating. And through about

30:03

twenty minutes to calm her

30:05

down, until this torrent of emotion

30:07

had run its course, and then I had her

30:09

come out of the trans. And she

30:11

opens her eyes and with a big smile

30:14

says, wow. That was intense.

30:16

Should that I remembered it. I remembered

30:18

everything and said, wow. I said, all the

30:20

stuff was pent up in just when

30:22

I sort of hit this state,

30:24

it all came out.

30:26

But while

30:27

chatting to Philip as well as reading

30:29

the reports on hypnosis, happen in

30:31

a clinical setting. In lots

30:33

of cases, it really didn't

30:35

feel like what was happening was

30:37

some kind of mind control.

30:40

but rather that if hypnosis was

30:43

helping,

30:43

it could have been due to

30:44

something else, like maybe our

30:46

old friend, the placebo effect.

30:49

and that having a nice doctor like Philip

30:51

tell you we're gonna do this thing and

30:53

it might help. Well,

30:55

that just does it.

30:56

It could also

30:59

be something as simple as

31:01

just helping you relax. In

31:03

fact, one review, at heart

31:05

rates, breathing, and sweating when people were

31:07

under hypnosis. And it

31:10

found that it can physically relax

31:13

you. It's actually something I noticed as

31:15

well. And then

31:16

there's this final idea that there

31:18

is something about the

31:20

intense focus of being hypnotized.

31:23

that can help you change the

31:25

way you think about

31:27

your

31:27

pain or your anxiety. And

31:32

that's kind of how Philip sees

31:34

it, which takes us

31:36

back to my greatest fear.

31:38

being forced to make animal noises

31:41

while I'm under hypnosis. With

31:44

more work, could you make me

31:46

quack like a duck?

31:47

if you wanted to? It

31:50

is if you wanted

31:52

during the experience to be

31:54

disinhibited in that way. For

31:56

me, I guess,

31:57

the the whether the side to bark

31:59

like

31:59

a duck or bark like a dog or

32:02

crack like a duck,

32:02

that would be evidence

32:06

for me about the power of

32:08

hypnosis, I guess. That power

32:09

of hypnosis is internal. what

32:12

you're saying is that would be evidence

32:14

of my power over you. That

32:16

is not how it knows this

32:17

works. So

32:19

what Philip is Kinda

32:21

saying here, is

32:23

that if you really wanted to

32:25

be hypnotized

32:26

into bulking like a chicken,

32:28

The

32:29

power of hypnosis could help

32:31

you because there

32:33

is

32:33

something about the power of the

32:35

mind, the power of

32:38

your mind. that when

32:40

you tune in and focus

32:42

and you're just completely

32:45

focused on the words that someone

32:47

tells you you're completely

32:50

focused on the words that

32:52

someone tells you that

32:54

everything else just

32:56

fades away and

32:58

you are so focused

33:00

on the words that someone

33:02

tells you so

33:05

focused on the words

33:07

that someone tells you that

33:09

you just nod your

33:11

head

33:12

and you start to do it.

33:14

More

33:16

black, black, black,

33:18

black,

33:18

black, a chicken.

33:22

That science

33:23

vases.

33:24

Hello.

33:32

Hey, Michelle Dang.

33:34

Produced your science vases. Hi, Wendy.

33:36

How's it going? It's good.

33:38

You're looking to my eyes.

33:41

and tell me how many citations

33:43

there are. Oh,

33:45

today okay.

33:47

There

33:47

are forty eight citations in

33:50

this episode.

33:50

forty eight. So my

33:54

hypnosis worked on you. Yeah.

33:57

Yes. So if people wanna see these

33:59

citations, where should

33:59

they go? They should

34:01

go check out our show notes. They

34:03

should

34:04

go check out the link. They

34:07

should go to Look, I

34:09

made you all rosy. Yes. I'm feeling

34:11

a bit out

34:14

of it. They should go

34:15

check out the transcript, which is in our show

34:18

notes. Great. Thanks,

34:19

Michelle.

34:20

Thanks,

34:21

Wendy. Bye. Bye. His

34:23

episode was

34:26

produced by

34:28

Heather Rogers,

34:30

Michelle Dang and me, Wendy

34:32

Zookerman. with help from

34:33

Caitlin Sourie, Austin Mitchell, Diane and Trutie Rivendron.edited

34:35

by Annie Rostrasse, Caitlin Kenny,

34:37

and Vlad Sorrell.

34:40

back checking by Michelle Harris and Kenny Fostigates. Sound

34:42

design and music production by Mackie

34:44

Ball, mixed by Martin Peralta and

34:48

Peter Leonard. Music written by Martin Bobby Peter

34:50

Leonard, and Emma Munga. Thanks to

34:52

Alex Bloomberg for being the

34:54

man who ended

34:56

up speaking pretty often and Joseph Goldstead from the

34:59

very amazing podcast, I know you

35:01

know, called heavyweight. He

35:04

was out CIA

35:05

agent. Thanks again. I'm Wendy

35:08

Zukovin. Back to you

35:09

next time.

35:15

When

35:19

Melanie was a kid, she recorded

35:22

a concert on what she thought was a

35:24

blank video tape. But the

35:27

tape was an

35:28

interview that my father had

35:31

done from Vietnam with Walter

35:33

Cronkite. On this on this video

35:35

tape. Yes. That had now been

35:37

recorded over by Billie

35:40

Ray Cyrus. Billy

35:42

Ray Cyrus. On episode forty six

35:44

of heavyweight, I helped Melanie make

35:46

things right. Listen for free

35:50

on Spotify. Hi.

35:51

I'm Jorge Just, host of

35:53

dysfunctional family story time. Each week

35:55

offers them a classic story about

35:57

families, flawed families, and

35:59

odds families. small families. And of course. I

36:02

remember calling the

36:02

attorney general and telling him when are

36:05

you gonna arrest my

36:06

brother? At large families.

36:09

for all the families that don't quite fit together,

36:12

there's this functional family

36:14

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for you, Disfunctional family story time is out now. Follow and

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