> From: "Chambers, Catherine" <CATCH92@psy.soton.ac.uk>
> Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 15:04:24 GMT
>
> Dear Steve,
>
> Well, I've read all the messages and tried to find the 'Class Archives'
> on the web, with no success. I typed the address in correctly, but it
> just said address unknown. Any hints gratefully received!
Hi Catherine,
Try either my home page on the Web (go to the bottom, for Current
Debates, and click on the "Student Skywriting," or try the URL:
http://cogsci.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Hypermail/Debates/
> Although using email for debates is potentially a good idea, for us
> it's a little difficult because we have not been 'brought up' with it
> since the first year. It was interesting reading other people's
> opinions, but much of it went straight over my head! So I'm offering
> some more low key suggestions!
It was new to everyone only a few years ago. And you catch on and even
get addicted quickly...
> On the question of compliance versus suggestibility (is that the right
> word?) in hypnosis, I will give my opinion based on my experience of
> being hypnotised. I was at a ball and so quite drunk, which I've heard
> makes it more difficult to be hypnotised. Anyway as far as I was
> concerned, I was not hypnotised, merely going along with what the
> hypnotist told me to do. We were in a group of about 10 - incidently
> although some of the original group were told to go back into the
> audience at the beginning, I was not one of them - and we were asked to
> do various tasks such as singing, looking at the person next to us
> through glasses that would allow us to see them with no clothes on,
> smelling something awful. I acted as though I really did smell
> something, really could see the person next to me naked etc, but I was
> fully aware of the fact I was acting, had he asked me to do anything I
> didn't want to, I would have gone back into the audience. Is this what
> hypnosis really is? Under normal circumstances I would never act in
> front of an audience, so did I perform because of alcohol or hypnosis?
> Some of my friends who were on stage with me said they really could
> smell something awful etc, so maybe I'm just a 'compliance' person
> rather than suggestable.
That's the big question: Is there a real difference in what it's LIKE to
do something because you are really hypnotised rather than just being
compliant? The alcohol probably only made you less inhibited on stage,
but the fact that you felt you were not really having the mental states
you were told to have suggests that you weren't having them. The
question is: What about those that say they are? Are they lying?
deceiving themselves? Just trying to please the hypnotist? Read Spanos
and his critiques and then come back and tell me...
> Anyway I know that was all highly unintellectual, but this topic is
> completely new to me so it is difficult to come up with original
> thoughts on the issue.
>
> Hoping for some advice re the web,
>
> Thanks Catherine
What's "intellectual"? You said you were hypnotised but felt you were
just pretending. The question is, is there any more to hypnosis than
that? Chrs, Stevan
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