Welcome to Huberman Lab Essentials,

where we revisit past episodes for the

most potent and actionable science-based

tools for mental health, physical

health, and performance.

I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stanford School of Medicine. And now for

my discussion with Dr. David Spiegel.

David, thank you so much for being here.

>> Andrew, my pleasure.

>> Can you tell us what is hypnosis?

Hypnosis is a state of highly focused

attention. Uh it's something like

looking through the telephoto lens of a

camera in consciousness. What you see,

you see with great detail, but devoid of

context. If you've had the experience of

getting so caught up in a good movie

that you forget you're watching a movie

and enter the imagined world. You're

part of the movie, not part of the

audience. You're experiencing it. You're

not evaluating it. That's a

hypnotic-like experience that many

people have in their everyday lives. If

I'm watching a sports game and I'm

really wrapped up in the game, but I'm

also in touch with how it makes me feel

in my body, kind of registering the

excitement or the anticipation.

Is that a state of hypnosis? Also,

>> to the extent that your somatic your

body experience is a part of this the

sport event that you're engaged with,

I'd say that is a self-altering hypnotic

experience. If your physical reactions

are distracting you or uh make you think

about something else, that's when uh

it's it's less hypnotic like and more

just one of a series of experiences.

>> I think for most people when they hear

hypnosis or they think about hypnosis,

they think of stage hypnosis, right?

>> They think of somebody with a pendant

going back and forth. Could you contrast

the sort of hypnosis that you do in the

clinical setting with the sort of

hypnosis that a stage hypnotist does?

>> I don't like stage hypnosis. you're

making fools out of people. Um, and

you're using the fact, and that's what

scares people about hypnosis. They think

you're losing control. You're gaining

control. Self-hypnosis is a way of

enhancing your control over your mind

and your body. It can work very well.

But because it gives you a kind of

cognitive flexibility. You're able to

shift sets very easily to give up

judging and evaluating the way you

usually do and see something from a

different point of view. That's a great

therapeutic opportunity. But if misused,

it could be a danger, too. And that's

what scares people about it. It's it it

is that very ability to suspend critical

judgment and just have an experience and

see what happens. It's an ability that

if people learn to recognize and

understand it can be a tremendous

therapeutic tool.

>> Do we know what sorts of brain areas are

active during the induction, the let's

call it the deep hypnosis, and then

what's shutting off or changing as

people exit hypnosis? The first is

turning down activity in the dorsal

anterior singulate cortex. So the DACC

is in the central front middle part of

the brain as you you well know and it's

it's part of what we call the salance

network. Uh it's a conflict detector. So

if you're you know uh engaged in work

and you hear a loud noise that you think

might be a gunshot, that's your anterior

singulate cortex saying, "Hey, wait a

minute. There's a potential danger over

there. You better pay attention to it."

So, it's a it compares what you're doing

with what else is going on and helps you

decide what to do. And as you can

imagine, uh turning down activity in

that region make it less likely that

you'll be distracted and pulled out of

whatever you're in. So, two other things

happen when people are hypnotized. One

is that that DLPFC has higher functional

connectivity with the insula, another

part of the salance network. It's a part

of the mind body control system

sensitive to what's happening in the

body. It's part of the pain network as

well. But it's also a region of the

brain where you can control things in

your body that you wouldn't think you

could. For example, we did a study years

ago where we took people uh who are

highly hypnotizable, hypnotized them and

told them to imaginary

culinary tour. So um we would they would

eat their favorite foods and we found

that they increased their gastric acid

secretion like by 87%. So their stomach

was acting as though it was about to get

I mean there was one woman it was so

vivid for her that halfway through she

said let's stop. full, you know, eating

these imagin

actual food. No.

>> Incredible.

>> And then we got them to relax and think

of anything but food or drink. And we

got like a 40% decrease in gastric acid

secretion. So they could and that was

DLPFC through the insula telling the

stomach you're getting food or you're

not getting food. And even we injected

them with pentagastrin which triggers

gastric acid release. And even then in

the hypnosis condition they had a 19%

reduction in gastric acid. So the brain

has this amazing ability to control

what's going on in the body in ways that

we don't think we have ability to

control. That's just one example. So

that's the DLPFC insulin connection. The

third thing that happens is you have

inverse functional connectivity between

the DLPFC and the posterior singulate

cortex. The posterior singulate uh is

part of the default mode network. It's

in the back of the brain. Um, and it's

it's an an area whose activity goes

down, for example, in meditators. And in

meditation, you're supposed to be

selfless. You're supposed to the self is

an illusion. You're supposed to let it

dissolve and just experience things. And

when you're doing that, the posterior

thing that is decreasing in activity.

The inverse connection is I'm doing

something, but I'm not thinking about

what it means for me. I may not even

remember much of it. If I do, I don't

care that much about it. And so that is

part of the dissociation that occurs

with hypnosis. So it's how you put

things outside of conscious awareness

and don't worry about what it means. It

also adds to cognitive flexibility. You

know, if you're thinking, well, people

like me don't usually do this. That may

inhibit you from enacting a new form of

psychotherapy, for example, that you've

never done before. Um, but if you're h

having this decreased activity in the

part of your brain that reflects on what

it means, um, you're more likely to be

cognitively flexible and willing to give

it a try. And that's one of the

therapeutic advantages of hypnosis as

well.

>> Do people with ADHD,

um, display disruptions in elements of

these networks? And has hypnosis ever

been used to enhance people's ability to

focus and hold attention? Um, because

that's such a built-in component of the

hypnotic state. There's sort of two ways

to think about it in terms of enhancing

focus. Yes, it has been very helpful um

in teaching people to just prepare your

mind to narrow in and focus on

something. And when you know when you're

really engaged in reading something or

you're writing a p I mean I'll have that

sometimes I'm thinking oh god I I have

to do this for another hour. Other times

an hour will go by and I'll think hey

great because when you're in it feels

game-like to you you know you're just

assembling the parts of the puzzle and

putting them together. It's fun. you

just get absorbed. That for me that's a

hypnotic like experience. When I'm

having trouble, when I'm struggling,

sometimes doing things like

self-hypnosis can help. It's possible

that for some people with that disorder,

training in self hypnosis might help,

but we'd have to see how hypnotizable

they were and take it from there. What

sorts of um things have you used

hypnosis successfully for, or have

others used clinical hypnosis um for?

And are there any particular areas of of

psychiatric

challenges or illnesses, I guess they're

called, um that are particularly um

amendable to hypnotic treatment.

>> Yes, there are. Uh we found it very

helpful for stress reduction. That mind

body connection is very helpful because

um part of the problem with stress is

your perception. You mentioned it

earlier in a sort of good sense. you're

at a, you know, a football game or

something and you feel the physical

reaction that can be a reinforcing

thing. Wow, this is exciting. Let's do

it. It can also be very distracting. You

notice it in your body. Your body tenses

up. Uh you start to sweat. The

sympathetic nervous system goes, your

heart rate goes up. When you notice

that, you think, "Oh god, this is really

bad." And then you feel worse. So it's

like a snowball rolling downhill.

Hypnosis can be very helpful in

dissociating somatic reaction from

psychological reaction. So, we teach

people to imagine their body floating

somewhere safe and comfortable like a

bath, a lake, a hot tub, or floating in

space and then picture the problem that

they're that's stressing them on an

imaginary screen with the rule that no

matter what you see on the screen, you

keep your body comfortable. So, at this

point, you can't you still can't control

the stress, but you can control your

physical reaction to it. And that starts

you feeling more in control. At least

there's one thing I can manage. And then

you can use it to think through or

visualize through one thing you might do

about that stressor. So hypnosis is very

helpful in controlling mind body

interaction in relation to stress. Um

it's very helpful for people to get to

sleep. I' I'm getting emails from people

who said you know I haven't slept right

in 15 years and now for the first time

um you know I'm listening to your app

and I can sleep at night.

>> I've been using the self hypnosis for

sleep for a long time. Um, and now the

Revery app and we'll talk about our

relationship to the Revery app and its

uses. I find it incredibly useful. It's

a kind of a training up of these

networks, right?

>> So, with repeated uh use of

self-hypnosis,

um, one could imagine that these

networks are getting stronger.

>> I I would I would think so. We don't

have evidence of that yet. Um but um you

know long-term potentiation provides a

pathway and you've described them on

your program a number of times that

allow for repeated activation of a

network to actually build new

connections that that work and at the

least even from a learning and memory

point of view if you start to acquire

memories about a problem. So one thing

we use hypnosis for is treating phobias

for example. And the problem with people

who have phobias like airplane phobias

or uh you know crossing a bridge or

being up high is that the more they

avoid it the more the only source of

associations and memories is their fear.

They don't have any good experiences

with it because they avoid it. You know

it's like get back on the horse after

you fall off kind of thing. And and with

hypnosis, if you can start people able

to manage their anxiety enough that they

can have more a wider array of

experiences, they start to have a

network of associations that isn't so

negative and may even be positive. In

therapy, there narrative is a huge

component and in hypnosis narrative is a

huge component.

>> Right? So it must be that the brain

state is what is really different

because you know I think people who have

trauma or phobias certainly um could

have a conversation about it. They some

of them might freeze up, some of them

might lose their articulation and so

forth. But what is different about that

state that combines with narrative you

think to allow these underlying neural

networks to to engage or to change? I

think of this as unsistatic

desensitization

because you're changing mental states.

And if and I think there's more and more

evidence that mental state change itself

has therapeutic potential. We're seeing

that with ketamine treating depression,

a dissocien drug. Um we see it, we know

it every morning when we wake up that

problem. You know, you made the mistake

of reading a nasty email at 11 p.m. You

didn't know what to do. You wake up in

the morning think, "Oh, that idiot.

Yeah, here's what I'm going to You know,

so just changing mental state itself has

therapeutic potential and I think we

underestimate our ability to regulate

and and change responses to be

cognitively,

emotionally and somatically flexible.

And so we do things, you're right, that

follow similar principles of facing a

problem, seeing it from a different

point of view, and then find some way to

reconnect to it to substitute something

that can make you feel good rather than

bad. Um, so that you activate other

centers of the brain like misolyic

reward system. And so I do that with

hypnosis and you can do it much faster.

People don't think they can, but they

can. If you're having right now that

physical experience, I'm thinking about

this, but I'm not feeling as bad as I

used to. Um, that can be a powerful

thing and you can do it with hypnosis.

So, I had a a woman came to see me who

had suffered an attempted rape. It was

getting dark. She was coming back from

the grocery store and this guy grabs her

and wants to get her up into her

apartment. It's outside her apartment

and she starts fighting with him and she

winds up with a Basler skull fracture.

He runs away. Um, the cops come since

she hadn't been raped. They left. They

weren't interested. And she wanted to

use hypnosis to get a better image of

what this guy looked like, which is a

painful, upsetting thing. So, she was

quite hypnotizable. I got her floating.

I say, "You're safe and comfortable now.

Nothing can happen that will harm your

body. But on on the left side of the

screen, I want you to picture this guy

and his approaching and what's

happening." And she said, "I really the

light was it was getting dark. I really

can't see much of his facial features,

but I do recognize something I hadn't

allowed myself to remember. If he gets

me upstairs, he doesn't just want to

rape me, he's going to kill me. And so,

in some ways, what she was seeing was

even worse. So, you know, you're

thinking, "Good, Spiegel, you made her

even more frightened than she was

before." But as you had pointed out in

your PTSD stress lecture, you've got to

confront the trauma to to restructure

your understanding of it. So on the

other side of the screen, I had her

picture um um what what are you doing to

protect yourself? And everybody in a

trauma situation engages in some

strategy of self-p protection. You know,

that's the salience network kicking in.

And um she said, "You know what? He's

surprised that I'm fighting that hard.

He didn't think I would." And so she

realized on the one hand that it was

even worse than she thought it was, but

on the other hand that she actually

probably saved her life. And so it was a

way of helping her restructure her

experience of the trauma and make it

more tolerable. So that helped with her.

She didn't rec she couldn't identify the

guy, but it helped her restructure and

understand her experience. And that's

something that you can do in just

talking straight out psychotherapy. But

sometimes you can do it a hell of a lot

faster and more efficiently using

hypnosis. And there is one randomized

trial out of Israel that shows that

adding hypnosis to PTSD treatment

actually improves outcome. So, uh it's

it's it's a way of accomplishing things

that we understand in the broader

psychotherapy world, but much more

quickly and and sometimes effectively.

There's one thing I might add, Andrew,

and that is, you know, there's a notion

the late Gordon Bower, brilliant

cognitive psychologist, sort of one of

the founders of cognitive psychology uh

at Stanford. Gordon helped establish the

concept of state dependent memory that

when you're in a certain mental state,

you enhance your ability to remember

things about it. And the sort of the bad

example of that is the drunk who hides

the bottle and can't remember where he

put it until he gets drunk again. That

he's in that same mental state. People

go into dissociative states uh when

they're traumatized. So, in a way,

hypnosis is helping them remember and

deal with the memories better because

they're more in the mental state that is

more like what happened. And most rape

victims will tell you, I was floating

above my body feeling sorry for the

woman being assaulted below. Um, uh,

people in traumatic episodes, they just

say, you know, I blank out. I don't know

what's happening. I'm on autopilot. And

that's a kind of self-hypnotic state.

So, when you use hypnosis to help them

deal with the traumatic memory, you're

making the state they're in right there

in your office with you more congruent

to the state they were likely in when

the trauma happened. And I think that is

part of what helps facilitate treatment

of trauma related disorders. In a way,

the principle, Andrew, is like you need

to reconfront a traumatic situation

before you can modulate your

associations to it and then figure out

how you can approach that problem or how

you did approach that problem from a

different point of view. And I think

what happens is that people are

sometimes too good at being able to

separate themselves from the

recollection. So, it's in there

somewhere. It doesn't it's out of sight,

but it's not out of mind. It's having

effects on you, but you can't deal with

it. You can't reprocess it. The issue is

control. And hypnosis, which has this

terrible reputation of taking away

control, is actually a superb way of

enhancing your control over mind and

body.

>> It reminds me that naming is so

important. You almost wonder if um self

hypnosis and clinical hypnosis had been

called something else

>> that it would have um been separated out

from stage hypnosis in a way that would

make it um less uh you know less scary,

weird um complicated for people to

embrace. Uh but

>> you know the part of the reason for

having this discussion is I I would I've

had great experiences with hypnosis.

I've seen the data. You know, we're

talking about a lot of clinical

examples. It's incredibly powerful and

it boils right down to neural brain

states.

>> Um and you know I think in the years to

come it's going to become more

widespread. You've described some um

examples of people getting relief very

quickly.

>> How permanent are those changes? Um is

there a need for follow-up? And then is

it necessary to work with a clinical

hypnotist and is it better to do that

than self-hypnosis and so on and so

forth? Most people start by coming to

see a clinician like me. It's better to

see someone who's l has licensing and

training in their professional

discipline, somebody who can really

assess what your problem is and make

sure that you're not talking someone

into reducing their chest pain rather

than getting their coronary artery

problem

>> because they could have a real issue

there that hypnosis might adjust but

wouldn't deal with the deeper underlying

issue.

>> That's right. And typically when I use

it with people, I often only see them

once or twice or periodically, but not

every week and certainly not every day

if they have a pain problem. And

hypnosis is very helpful for pain. Um,

and and so what I'm doing is identifying

how hypnotizable they are. I give them a

standard brief test of their ability to

experience hypnosis and then going

through a self-hypnosis exercise with

them to deal with the problem, seeing

how they respond to it, and then

teaching them how to do it for

themselves. Now, we've developed an app

uh Revery that that uh can teach people

and step them through dealing with pain,

stress, uh focus, uh in insomnia and

help people eat better and and stop

smoking. Um and both we have elements

that take about 15 minutes and elements

that just take one or two minutes that

people can refresh and reinforce. So,

>> two minute hypnosis or even one minute.

>> Yes. And we're finding that twothirds of

the people find it even just the one

minute refresher uh helps them feel

better. They're reporting they feel

better. So the nice thing is you will

know very quickly whether it's likely to

help you or not. And if it is, you can

learn to do it for yourself.

>> Is there any evidence that hypnosis or

self-hypnosis can be used for dealing

with obsessive thoughts?

>> Sometimes there are some very

obsessional people who just turn out not

to be that hypnotizable for and it's not

random. they, you know, they tend to be

so overcontrolling of thought. They're

all busy evaluating rather than

experiencing. It's kind of a balance we

have to hit. And some, you know, we

sometimes we get too emotional and too

absorbed and you don't you're not with

it enough to sort of see other

possibilities. That can be a problem.

But on the other hand, sometimes you're

too rigid and controlled and you don't

let your emotions guide you to what you

need to do to protect yourself or

protect others. So um I would say in

general that people with OCD are in the

less on the less hypnotizable side of

the spectrum. They're less likely to

allow themselves to engage in any and

you know the typical example is the

checking with OCD for example. They

don't remember you know whether they you

know locked the door or turned off the

gas in the oven and they keep going back

and they keep check. So there the

evaluative component of the brain kind

of overrides the experiential one. And

um sometimes people can get some benefit

but but they're not a group that I would

select for being the most likely to

respond to self-hypnotic approaches.

>> Could you please tell us um what

hypnotizability is, how it's evaluated,

and what the Spiegel test is?

Hypnotizability is just a a capacity to

have hypnotic experiences. And we have a

test called the hypnotic induction

profile where we give a highly

structured hypnotic experience. About a

third of adults are just not

hypnotizable. Twothirds are about 15%

are extremely hypnotizable. And we can

measure that and give it a number from 0

to 10. Um, and that's very useful.

People who are low to moderate

hypnotizable like explanations about

what you're doing, but then they can

still get the benefit. So it helps me

guide my the nature of my treatment with

these people. Now the the eye roll is my

father um used to use an eyeixation

induction. He used to say look up at the

ceiling

>> so that people who are listening what um

might and and watching on video. So the

speaker test involves looking up at the

ceiling. So, it's tilting the head back.

I'm tilting my chin back and looking up

at the ceiling now. But I'm also

directing my eyes upward and my eyes are

open. And then the the eye roll test

involves then

>> closing the eyelids while the eyes are

open. And whether or not the eyes roll

back and as you said it then you see

scara the white part the white part

>> that means you're very hypnotizable or

moderately hypnotizable. Whereas if the

eyes move down and you see iris, the

colored part of the eye, as the eyes

close, less hypnotizable.

>> You're asking the brain to do something

difficult to to keep the eyes up while

closing the eyelid. And eye movements

have a lot to do with levels of

consciousness. You know, the

periqueductal gray surrounds these

cranial nerve nuclei. And um when we,

you know, we close our eyes when we

sleep, we have rapid eye movement when

we dream. Most drugs that affect level

of consciousness can affect eyes and eye

movements. Either the dilation or

contraction of the pupils depending on

whether it's a stimulant or an opioid.

And there's there's an old Zen practice

called looking at the third eye where

you're looking up in inside. It's like

there's a third eye between the other

two and your forehead. Um and I think

it's because we're visual creatures, you

know, we're we're pretty pathetic from a

physical point of view. you know many

animals can outrun us you know um and or

out smell us or see you eagles can read

could read newsprint at a 100 yards and

we can't you know it's so um the our

major defensive sensory input is vision

but the key issue is this that normally

when we close our eyes also we're going

to sleep you know you're you're not

worried about what's going on in the

world anymore here you're maintaining

resting alertness so you're you're

focusing But you're turning inward.

That's an unusual state. Normally, we

don't we close our eyes periodically. We

have to. But, um, when you close your

eyes for some period of time, it's

normally to go to sleep and you're not

worried about, you know, detecting risk

or threat. Uh, so it's it's an

interesting state because you're turning

inward. Basically, you're looking up,

you're shutting your eyes, and you're

allowing whatever happens outside you to

happen and focusing on what's going on

inward. So, it's a I think it's a signal

to your brain to turn inward.

>> Something that's come up a lot is this

idea of getting close to the phobia,

getting close to the trauma,

reexperiencing it as a portal to then

adjusting the response to it and

rewiring something. So, the troubling

thing or the horrible thing is no longer

as horrible to us. I've heard you say

before that in terms of therapeutic

approaches, it's not just about the

state you get into, but whether or not

you brought yourself there voluntarily.

>> That's exactly right.

>> So, the this element of of deliberate

self-exposure, deciding, I'm going to

confront the trauma. I'm going to

confront the pain. I'm going to confront

the insomnia. I'm going to confront the,

you know, and fill in the blank. and

then

readjusting one's emotional response

right up next to that troubling thing

that seems to be the the hallmark of of

this treatment and pretty much all

treatments for getting over stuff. How

does one start to think about actually

dealing with something like this and

avoiding the hazards of just kind of

reactivating a lot of painful

experiences? Because a lot of being a

functional human being is also going to

work each day, interacting with people

and not bringing one's trauma, you know,

and dumping it out all on the table or

or being able to just function is so

crucial. So, how do you think about this

as a clinician?

>> You want to find a way to feel in

control of the access and to define what

happened on your own terms. It's not a

matter of are you exposed to something

that's upsetting, but how do you handle

it? What do you make of it? It's a

matter of thinking um uh about a problem

in a way that leaves you feeling you

understand it better. You're in more

control. You can turn it off when you

when you want. You can turn it on when

you want. And so we have to in life deal

with stressful things. Mere exposure to

trauma or stress, it's a part of living

anyway. We can't avoid it even if we'd

like to. And um it's not pleasant, it's

not great, but it's sometimes things you

need to learn about life. And if you can

find an algorithm for facing it, putting

it into perspective, dealing with it,

you become a stronger person, not a

weaker person.

>> I can see examples in hypnosis from your

descriptions of hypnosis where uh you

want to unify the mind body connection,

feel what you're thinking, think what

you're feeling, etc. But I could also um

point to elements within the hypnotic

process in which you are actively un

trying to uncouple those. What do you

think is the adaptive way to to

conceptualize the mind body?

>> I think um that it's a matter not of you

know absolute control but more control

that that um we need to think of our

brain as a tool and and our body signals

as tools as well to help us understand

um what's going on in the world, what we

need, what matters, what's important,

what isn't. uh but also something that

can be managed not simply you know

absorbed and so hypnosis I think is a

kind of limiting case where you can push

it about as far as we can push it uh in

terms of regulating pain is a you know

is a good example of that you know

obviously you need to pay attention if

you just broke your ankle you better pay

attention to it and get help or you're

having crushing subternal chest pain you

better do something about it but our

brain is sort programmed to treat all

pain signals as if they were novel pain

signals if it's a sudden new problem

that needs to be attended to. I teach

people to to to think of the pain and

categorize it. See, is it does it does

the pain mean that if you put weight on

this, you're going to reinjure your

ankle, for example, or does it simply

mean that your body is healing and the

pain is a sign that gradually things are

getting back to normal? And and so you

can modify the way you process pain

based on what your brain tells you the

pain means. And that's true for

emotional pain as well. And particularly

where I think a strategy that really

helps is if you think of uh an

interpersonal problem or a threat of

something coming um as as a an

opportunity to do something to ameliate

the situation. So it's not just it's

happening to you, but something that you

can influence and do something about.

>> So it's blending the receptive with the

active response that I think can make a

difference. So you try and process it in

a way that gives you a deeper

understanding of what's happening. You

face it, but you also say this is an

opportunity for me to do something about

it. And the minute you realistically

enhance, and this doesn't mean imagine

away a heart attack. It means figure out

how to rehabilitate from a heart attack

or a broken leg or something like that

in a way that you get as much control

into the situation as you can.

>> Can children be safely hypnotized or do

self hypnosis?

>> It's sometimes harder for them to do

self- hypnosis. They need more structure

to do it. You've got to share your

dorsal prefrontal cortex with them a

little bit. But yes, absolutely.

Children can be very hypnotizable and um

I I know pediatricians who use it

wonderfully all the time. They get them

to focus on something else.

>> Good dentists can use it to help kids

with fear and pain. So yes, it can be

very effective for children. We did a

randomized trial. I have a publication

in pediatrics and the paper was children

having to undergo avoiding systo

urethrograms. So I would meet with them

and the mother the week before. We find

out from the kids where they like to be

and I'd say, "You're going to play a

trick on your doctors. Your body's

there. You're somewhere else. Go visit

your friend. Go to Disneyland. Do

something else." And the mother would

work on this with me at the head of the

table. And we found that these children

were much easier to image 17 minutes

shorter procedures. And that's a long 17

minutes for for a little kid. So it can

be very effective with children. They're

less anxious, they have less pain, and

uh get through these difficult

procedures very well.

>> Has hypnosis ever been done in uh for

couples like couples therapy? Are you

aware of any coordinated hypnosis?

>> I mean, I've done plenty of it in

groups, not not with couples.

>> You can hypnotize large groups at once.

>> The metastatic breast cancer, there was

a group of like 10 women who would meet

once a week and we would all go into

hypnosis together.

>> I didn't realize that you were

hypnotizing them collectively.

>> Yes. Yes. Right.

>> Fascinating. and and that you know if

anything I think it brings out the best

in people's abilities because it's a

shared social experience and and they

would talk about it afterwards and so

yes that's absolutely doable. Yeah.

>> Breathing itself is um you've described

is a bridge between conscious and

unconscious states. What is the role of

respiration in shifting the brain's

state

>> during a hypnotic protocol? There are

breathing patterns that may increase

sympathetic arousal um or may decrease

it may how we neocylic sighing seems to

actually where you have more time spent

exhaling than inhaling seem and there's

reason to believe that it induces

parasympathetic activity because you're

increasing pressure in the chest and uh

therefore um allowing the heart to slow

down because blood is being returned to

the atrium u more easily. I do use it. I

ask people to take a deep breath as part

of the induction and then slowly exhale.

And partly as a result of our research

together, I'm emphasizing the slow

exhale more as part of an some to

enhance the idea in the induction that

this is a period of relaxation because I

think they are inducing that and perhaps

perceiving it as well. So there there's

no you're absolutely right that

breathing is very interesting because

it's right at the edge of conscious and

unconscious control that it will go on

automatically but we can control it and

so it's a kind of way for us to

demonstrate to ourselves

uh it greater ways of an of modulating

our internal state. Uh so you can either

do it thinking about it the way we do

with pain control and hypnosis or you

can do it to some extent by taking

charge of your breathing and doing

things that will produce a change that

you want to see happen in your body.

>> Great. I'm really excited to see where

all of this goes. Yes.

>> Breathing, vision, bodily states. Uh am

I missing any any other ingredients?

Typically, you're in a physically

relaxed state, but frankly, there are

people at the peak of performance,

including physical athletic performance

or musical performance, when they're in

hypnotic states, too. You know, I've

talked to classical pianists who say,

I'm not think if I start thinking about

what my fingers are doing now, I screw

up. You know, I'm floating above the

piano thinking about the n the tone that

I want to feel exuding from the

instrument. So, that's a hypnotic- like

state, too. and and many athletes in who

are at in peak performance are just

flowing with it. They're they're not

they're not thinking step by step what

am I doing and that's when you're doing

your best or you know when when we're

working or uh giving a talk and doing it

well we're in a hypnotic- like state. So

it it doesn't it it usually

requires uh but doesn't necessarily

require physical comfort or quietness.

It can sometimes be intense activity.

>> Um where can people learn more about how

they can get hypnotized. Uh we mentioned

Rey. We will put a link to it. It's

reve.com

is the way to access that

>> or it's the Revery app from the app

store is the other way. Download the Rey

app from the app store.

>> Great. Is there a centralized resource

that people can go to to find um really

well-trained hypnotists?

>> There are two good professional

organizations uh that will help you with

that. One is the Society for Clinical

and Experimental Hypnosis and I think

that's

us and the American Society for Clinical

Hypnosis and they both provide referral

services for professionals in general.

look for someone who is licensed and

trained in their primary professional

discipline. Psychiatry, psychology,

medicine, dentistry, um, and who has

training and interest in using hypnosis,

uh, is is a way to do it.

>> Great. First of all, thank you so much

for being here today, for sharing your

knowledge. I hope we can do it again and

again.

>> I hope so. It's an incredible thing that

in this world where we are discovering

so much about how the body works, you

know, the mind is still rather

mysterious and people are struggling

with a lot of things, but also I think

people are really excited about applying

tools like hypnosis to um perform

better, feel better mentally and

physically. And so you've pointed us to

a tremendous amount of resources and how

these tools work and where they've

already been demonstrated to work. So

just thank you. I know this is your your

life's com professional uh commitment in

life and and we all benefit. Thank you

very much, David.

>> You're welcome.