Getting Hypnotized with David Spiegel

0:00About time we did a show on hypnosis. We're getting there. Okay. A lot of the body to cover, Neil. Okay. I mean, I only ever thought of hypnosis as a stage act. Yeah. And here we got one of the world's experts on it. Yeah. We're going to get into the real deal of hypnosis. Okay. Exactly. And we got to get Chuck out of that somehow. Coming up, all about hypnosis on StarTalk Special Edition. Welcome to StarTalk. your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk Special Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson here, your personal astrophysicist. As always, when you hear Special Edition, not far behind that is Gary O 'Reilly.

0:51Gary? Neil. All right. Former soccer pro. Mm-hmm. Turned announcer. Yes. And we're borrowing you from the UK. Meanwhile. And of course, Chuck Knight, Chuck and Baby. Hey, what's happening? All right, these special editions get inside the human condition in ways that I had never previously imagined we would. Yeah, which makes them very, very interesting. What is it to be human in the big picture? It's busy in here. It's busy. Yeah. Psychologically, physiologically, emotionally. You know, so Gary, set the stage here. What do you have? Well, in recent shows, we have ventured inside the human mind to discuss consciousness, which was both enlightening and fascinating.

1:34One takeaway from those shows is there is apparently no user manual for the human mind, which said mankind has found ways to navigate and manoeuvre through the matrix of neurons to facilitate change in our mental state. Psychotherapy is nothing new, and neither is hypnosis. But what is hypnosis and how the bloody hell does it work? Does it take away control or give control? It's got to be expert time. So join me in welcoming our special guest today. We've got Dr. David Spiegel. Nice. Dr. Spiegel, welcome to StarTalk. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here. Yeah, a clinical and research psychiatrist.

2:17So that makes you an MD in there. That's correct. And also means that you have access to all the great drugs. Well, let's just be honest here. Put that right up front. Put that right up front. That's the difference, kids, so that you know. When you see psychologists, you're like, that's somebody who's going to talk you to death. When you see psychiatrists, that's somebody who's going to give you some good drugs. Is that okay? Chuck figured that all out. Interesting. You went straight to drugs, not food. Oh, yeah, well, what can I say? You're the Wilson Professor and Associate Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford.

2:52That would be Stanford University. Right? That's correct. And you're director for the Center on Stress and Health. Ooh. Long overdue. Think about how in the old days we just say, just suck it up. Yes. Just get over it. Right. What's your problem, mister? What's your problem? Yeah. You're also the director of the Center for Integrative Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. You got all the right pedigree here. But what we're going to focus on is a part of the mind that so many of us are intrigued by, and that is hypnosis. Oh, I left out. Wait. You're the author of 13 books? Yeah.

3:31Yeah, but he hypnotized somebody to write them all. I will find out. He only wrote one. The other 12, he was just like, you want to write a book? I'm actually hypnotizing people to read them. Oh, good one. Nice, nice, nice. Good one. So you're here because this entire episode will focus on and pivot with hypnosis. And I'm skeptical. And so you're going to hear to undo my skepticism. Because I've seen hypnosis acts with magicians on stage. And there's pageantry to it. And I don't know. But that's why we have you here. So first tell us what is hypnosis so we're all on the same page, please. Well, I'm glad you're curious, Neil, and you're the expert on outer space, and I'm the expert on inner space.

4:24From what I can tell, outer space is easier than inner space. That could well be. Have you ever gotten so caught up in a good movie that you forget you're watching a movie and you enter the imagined world? Does that happen to you? So that's a state of self-esteem. No, because he's not saying that you lose touch with reality. it's just that you're so engrossed that you feel like you are an extension of the movie like okay well put so maybe maybe the closest i can give you on that is yes i have felt emotions of characters that are well acted for scripts well written in stories well told but no time did i think i was in the movie yeah but it's not about thinking you're in the movie so it's not this matter of suspending disbelief where it's like, wow, I'm part of the Matrix, right?

5:18But while you're watching the Matrix, you can get so engrossed and so consumed with what's going on that when Morpheus is in a chair and his head is hanging and Agent Smith is talking to him, you feel like all the tension. I agree. I'm just saying I credit good acting for that. So keep going. So hypnosis has been called believed in imagination. It's a state of highly focused attention. So it's like you're looking through the telephoto lens of a camera, which you see, you see with great detail, but you dissociate. You're less aware of what's going on around you. You turn down the salience network that warns you that something else might happen that's more important.

6:02This intensity of focus is a key part of hypnosis, and we do it all the time to some extent. Right now, you gentlemen have sensations in your bodies touching these very comfortable chairs you're sitting in. Hopefully, you are not even aware of those sensations until I mentioned this. Is that right? That's correct. No, I have hemorrhoids. Thank you for sharing that. TMI. Full disclosure. Sorry. Sorry, guys. Well, I am a doctor, but I'm not going to help you. Great. So you used the reference to a network. What network are you referring to? Do you think it's a neural network in your head? It's a neural network in your head called the salience network.

6:41And so it's what fires off when you hear a loud noise and suddenly you think, is that a gunshot? What is it? I better pay attention to it. You're easily distracted when that network is activated. So in hypnosis, you turn that down. You allow yourself to give yourself to whatever it is you are focusing on, put outside of conscious awareness, things that might ordinarily be in consciousness. And you can try out being different. That's the third and most interesting part of hypnosis. So you had a producer who said she was on stage being hypnotized. You do things. You know, the football coach will dance like a ballerina.

7:15It's what scares everybody about hypnosis. But it's actually a very important lesson that you can try out being different. You can suspend yourself. So it's highly focused attention, dissociation, and trying out being different. So, David, if Neil doesn't think it's a real thing, What can you say to him to make him understand in your mind that it is a real thing? Why are you starting to fight between us? All I said was I was a little skeptical. That's you don't believe in it. It's not a matter of faith. It's not a matter of faith. It's a matter of reality. Is the evidence there or not? The evidence is there.

7:50And I'm guessing you're probably not very hypnotizable. But whether you are or not, the phenomenon exists. It's the oldest Western conception of a psychotherapy. It's been around for 250 years. And it is a very robust phenomenon. And the majority, all eight-year-olds are in trances all the time. You know, if you call them in for dinner, they don't hear you. We lose some hypnotizability as we get older, as we get into our adult years. But the majority of the population is hypnotizable. Well, how do you test? Is there a standard hypnotizability test? Yes, there is. Yeah, we have one called the hypnotic conduction profile.

8:29It takes about five minutes. It's, we have it on our Reverie self-hypnosis app. You can try it for yourself. All I do is do a hypnotic conduction. So I ask you to look up, close your eyes, take a deep breath, let the breath out, let your eyes relax, but keep them closed, let your body float. And then I give instructions about having one hand or the other float up in the air like a balloon. And many people are surprised that the hand starts to feel different, that it feels like it wants to be up in the air. It feels different from the other arm. You pull it down, it pops back up. They feel less control.

9:00and we score that on a zero to 10 scale. And that's how we measure hypnotizability. In essence, a test of being able to turn inward and alter the way your body feels and reacts. Now, if somebody's actively resisting all of this the entire way, would that negate their susceptibility to being hypnotized? Well, not resisting. There are some people that just aren't hypnotizable. You can try to fight it for a while, but like, you know, why bother? And the funny thing is that there are people who think they're not hypnotizable. And that hand is up there in the air and you pull it down and it just wants to go back up.

9:39And they'll look at it and say, what is going on here? You know, they're surprised. So sometimes you think you can put up resistance, but you don't because you're just going along. Resistance is futile. It is futile. You don't have a chance. You're just lost. David, why are some people more hypnotizable than others? I know we're all different in a certain way. but there must be something in some part of the brain that is operating in a different way at a different scale. That's right. And we know that one of the things that happens when you go into hypnosis is that you turn down activity in the dorsal part of the anterior cingulate cortex.

10:18The cingulate cortex is like a sea on its ends in the middle of the center of your brain. And the front part, the dorsal part, is part of a network that fires off when there's a mismatch, when suddenly something's happening that shouldn't be happening. And you turn down activity in that part of the brain when you go into hypnosis. We know now that there are some genetic differences that are related to hypnotizability. So people who have a variant of the gene catecholomethyltransferase that metabolizes dopamine have a particular variant that has a moderate speed of metabolizing dopamine turn out to be more hypnotizable than those who are heterozygous for methionine or valine and who either metabolize too quickly or too slow.

11:07We know there are many drugs that influence dopamine in your brain. So is it possible to take a drug and make you more susceptible to being hypnotized? Well, it's a good question. People have looked at that. The trouble is it's a matter of control as well. And so there are stimulants, for example, that may make you a little more hypnotizable at first, particularly if you're somewhat anxious or depressed, but will also inhibit your control system. So you probably will not respond as consistently. So there's no reliable drug change that can alter hypnotizability. However, we've just published a paper showing that you can use transcranial magnetic stimulation over a particular region of the brain, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and transiently increase hypnotizability a bit.

11:57And just so people understand, when you say transcranial magnetic stimulation, you're talking about placing magnets over a person's head. And then what happens with those magnets in that process? You can either stimulate or inhibit, depending on the frequency that you're administering. But you know that when electricity flows through a wire, there's a magnetic field circulating around the electricity. Yes. Right. You guys knew that. That's good. It's like physics 101. Yeah. Yeah. There's very electric current. There's an associated magnetic field and vice versa. And that's how we make electricity, by the way.

12:31And that's why it's called electromagnetism. That's right. That's right. Okay. All right. Good. We're all agreed on that. So you can inhibit activity in that salience network, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, via the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. So you can slow down activity in that region, which is the same thing that happens when people go into hypnosis. So it is possible to inhibit activity in the salience network and enhance hypnotizability. So if I go back to the original hypno, Greek for sleep. Yes. You're not putting people to sleep. So are you then manipulating the subconscious?

13:09Manipulating is one word for it. I would say you're probably enhancing access to parts of people's thinking and experience that they don't ordinarily think about. And so you're getting them in a frame of mind where they're less likely to be guarded, they're less likely to want to protect themselves, and they're more likely to suspend their usual expectations about themselves. That's another part of the brain in the back of the cingulate cortex called the default mode network. And it's a part of the brain where when you're not working or thinking or doing anything else, and you're just reflecting on who you are, what am I, what do people think of me, what did my mother want me to be?

13:45It kind of keeps us, I'm starting the psychotherapy now, but I know. Tell me about your mother. What it does is it, in a way, help imprisons you in the sense that you're going back to what your assumptions are about who you are, what you are, what you should be. And in hypnosis, you can inhibit activity in that region by activating the prefrontal cortex. And that inhibition is a kind of suspension of self. So when the football coach dances like a ballerina at one of those stage shows, I don't like making fun of people. I don't like making them look silly. But there is a message that he's able to let go of his usual assumptions about himself.

14:30So we suppress activity in hypnosis in the default mode network. And it makes you open to thinking differently about yourself. And that has great therapeutic potential. Absolutely. We'll get into the therapeutic value towards the end. And let me just slip something else here. Very important. Your community, your community of psychiatric professionals, have been tapped in the legal circles to testify on behalf of or against someone's memory recovered in hypnosis. And this is a fraught industry because of what could be implanted memories, and there was no end of people in the 1970s who under hypnosis would recount being abducted by aliens and having anal probes.

15:25We went there again. Sorry. So it's one thing to get inside my head and show me as a ballerina. It's another thing to get inside my head and say, tell me what happened in that part of your life that you don't remember. And then we're going to use that as testimony and put someone in jail because of it. Well, I mean, there's a very key part of that puzzle that is missing, and that is we now know from research that memory, no matter who you are, if you're a human being, your memory sucks. Well, I can't get that. No matter who you are. I guess I'm going a little back in time. There were decades over which people's testimony that comes out of hypnotic trance where they're remembering something was counted as evidence in court.

16:13And so just where does that all stand right now? There's a law in California that says that a witness or victim who's been hypnotized cannot testify except under certain circumstances. Wow. And the circumstances are that it's done by an independent psychiatrist like me, for example, and it's video recorded. So you can see whether people are implanting information. The idea of implanting information goes far beyond hypnosis. There are studies that show that if you show a movie of a car accident and you ask them, did you see the stop sign when it really, in fact, is a yield sign, about a third of people will say, yeah, I saw the stop sign when it was not a stop sign.

16:53So people can have information suggested or, you know, the police can tell how, where were you when you did this? And there have been cases of people, forget hypnosis, who confessed to crimes they actually did not. Very bad part of it. Wait, wait, but so apart from those, because we know that's the failure of memory. Right. But it's not a failure of memory if under hypnosis someone says they were abducted by aliens. I think it is because. Well, I got a guy here. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I forgot. Yeah, we have an actual psychiatrist who is a expert on this. We got the real guy here. Exactly. So are we suggesting that in those cases, the alien abduction might have been implanted by the questioner?

17:36And that would show itself. in the video. Sure, it's possible. Now, the alien abduction stuff is not closely tied to hypnosis. I mean, there were a lot of people who reported this who were never hypnotized. That's why I said it's a failure of memory. Yeah, but the psychiatrist, John Mack, wrote a book with the cases of people who recounted this under hypnosis. That's what I'm getting at here. So just bear with me here. If you are a person who is under the impression for whatever reason you had an experience, it could have been in a very vivid dream, okay? And that has become, in your mind, a true experience that you had.

18:14If someone places you under hypnosis, right, and puts you in a state of being very receptive to going back and recalling this memory, you will recall it without them implanting anything. You'll just relive the very vivid dream that you had. Right, but we have professionals asserting that this recalled memory is evidence of a true thing that happened. And getting back to your court, I mean, this is, and it ends up, I mean, lives have been ruined by this. Okay, so... Let me finish. I'm gonna make sure he's got everything he's got to say about this. Well, you know, you're the expert on outer space, so maybe there are aliens out there.

18:55I'm not authorized to comment further on that. Would you like me to hypnotize you? But I knew John Mack. He was one of my professors when I was training, and I had great regard for him, but I disagree with him completely about this alien abduction stuff. Most of the people who did it were having like dreams as they woke up. And in this transition period from waking up in REM sleep to waking up, they start thinking these things. I think I admired and respected John, but I think he was just flat out wrong about this. But let me give you a counterexample. Do you remember the school bus kidnapping in Chowchilla, California?

19:31It was this terrible thing where two guys overtook a school bus full of kids, buried the bus in a ditch by some factory, and were trying to hold them for ransom and get money. And for two days, the kids were gone. People were totally scared. And when the school bus driver finally got out, they got it. They found them. They got them out. And they said, well, who were these guys? He says, I don't know. He said, well, they overtook you in a car. Do you remember the license plate? And he couldn't remember it. And they hypnotized him. And they said, now you're looking at the car overtaking the bus.

20:05You can see it in the rearview mirror. And he remembered all of the numbers and letters of the license plate for the first time in the wrong order. But he got them. And that led to the arresting conviction of these guys. So there are situations that are the exact opposite of what you talk about with alien abductions and John Mack. Memory is associational. You know, it's like you go back to your elementary school and you start having memories of things that you hadn't thought about in 40 years, you know, and the lockers look a funny size and all that. And you remember some friend you'd forgotten about.

20:37So you can use hypnosis and you can use just interrogation to get people to recall things that otherwise they're not consciously aware of. Doesn't mean it's always right. It doesn't mean it's always wrong.

20:58I'm Ali Khan Hemraj, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

21:13What makes people more receptive to a verbal suggestion? In hypnosis or just in general? Under hypnosis, yes. You're narrowing your focus of attention. The premise is simply, I'm going to guide you through an experience you can have. And I'm going to show you that I can do that by helping you feel that one hand is lighter than the other. And if you pull it down, it wants to go back up. So what I'm asking you to do is narrow your focus and focus more on the experience than some evaluation of the experience and what it means and why you're asking me this. And have I ever done this before? You're just immersing yourself in the experience and seeing what happens.

21:50and that allows people to accept unusual things sometimes. Interesting. So is it kind of like you're filtering out the noise that surrounds suggestion? Yes, you are. You're accepting the premise that you're telling me something interesting and useful and I'm going to follow it and see what happens. Interesting. Now, we do that all the time anyway, but we do it in a more complete way in hypnosis. So what happens if you do not bring someone out of their hypnotic trance? Are they a chicken forever? Or ballet, ballerina forever? If people need eggs, they will remain being a chicken. It's, the worst thing that happens is they go to sleep and they wake up in their ordinary consciousness.

22:37But normally people after a few minutes, and I don't do that, I don't just leave people that way. But they will just bring, they can bring themselves out. You don't lose control, you actually learn to gain control. You can put yourself in our hypnosis app, Reverie. We're teaching people to do this for themselves. You get to hear my mellifluous voice. I ask a question, you respond. But you're doing it for yourself. And we've had tens of thousands of people doing self-hypnosis. And we haven't lost anybody yet. They bring themselves out. Very good to hear. Tell me the name of the app again. Reverie, R-E-V-E-R-I.

23:11And just go to reverie.com or the App Store or Google Play and download it. And how does this differ from meditation with regard to how your app treats it specifically? Because they're meditation apps, and they each try to get you introspective, some peaceful introspective state on yourself. Well, hypnosis is there to focus on a problem, change the way you and your body react to it, and deal with the problem. So if you're stressed, for example, I'll tell you to first get your body comfortable. When you get stressed, your muscles tighten, your heart rate goes up, you start to sweat. And then you notice that and you think, oh my God, this is really bad.

23:53And you feel worse. And it's like a snowball effect. What you do in hypnosis is you can get your body floating in a bath, a lake, a hot tub, or floating in space. Notice that your body's more comfortable. And then I help people use an imaginary screen to picture the problem on one side and a possible solution on the other. so you can deal with the part of the stressor that you can do something about, which is how your body reacts to it, and then figure out what to do about it. Meditation is different. Meditation is, you're not trying to control or change anything, it's open presence. If you have thoughts or feelings, you just let them flow through you like a storm passing by.

24:32You will do a body scan and see how different parts of your body are acting, and you cultivate compassion. There are good things, there are changes in states of consciousness, But hypnosis is more like an antibiotic, and meditation is more like a vitamin. You just do it every day to be better and feel better. Whereas with hypnosis, you use it to deal with the problem. Got it. So if the entry and exit of a hypnotic state is important to, as it were, under the Hippocratic It goes, do no harm. Self-hypnosis in the hands of the untrained, is that possibly not the best thing, or is this a benign situation and state?

25:14Let me put it this way. Hypnosis is, for example, highly effective in controlling pain. People, even during surgical procedures, can reduce substantially their pain. We've done randomized clinical trials demonstrating that. 88 ,000 Americans died of opioid overdoses, last year alone. And we are just awash in dangerous drugs, fentanyl-laced pills, and people are dying. Hypnosis has not yet succeeded in killing a single person. The worst thing that happens with hypnosis is it doesn't work. And so I think it's a tragedy that we are not making better use of our own inner resources to deal with problems like stress, pain, insomnia, smoking, learning to eat better.

25:59Or addiction in general. But we're... You say smoking, but addiction in general. Addiction in general, yes. Addiction in general, you can help with that too. That's right. Are these benefits temporary or can they remain as a permanent mental state for patients? Or do they need ongoing maintenance? Yeah. Many people, they make the change. We've had people, for example, who learn to stop smoking. I just tell them, for my body, smoking's a poison. I need my body to live. I owe my body respect and protection. They think of your body as if it were your baby. Would you ever put tar and nicotine-laced hot air in your baby's lungs?