This school of thought holds that hypnosis as a state is very similar to other states of extreme concentration, where a person becomes oblivious to his or her surroundings while lost in thought. Often suggested as an example is when a driver suddenly finds his or her self much further down the road without any memory of driving the intervening distance (see highway hypnosis), when a person is watching television and focuses so intently on the program that he or she ceases to be aware of the sides of the screen, or when a person is thinking about another subject while reading, then realizes that he or she has read several pages without consciously doing so, or taking in any of the content.
The act of hypnotizing, is, in effect, the act of deliberately and mechanically inducing a similar state.
SuggestibilitySome psychologists have developed studies that show a correlation between the effects people display when acting as "hypnotized" and their level of suggestibility. Some of these studies involve the Harvard scale, and Stanford scale.
Hypnosis has been described as "suspension of the critical factor" which expands on the idea of "increased suggestibility". A person who claims to be hypnotized may accept statements as true that he or she would normally reject. However, this still does not show the validity of hypnosis as a real state, as subjects carrying out role playing would likewise answer seemingly illogically if convinced that was the paradigm.
It often appears as if the "hypnotized" participant accepts the authority of the "hypnotist" over his or her own experience. When asked after the conclusion of such a session, some participants claim to be genuinely unable to recall the incident, while others say that they had known the hypnotist was wrong but at the time it had seemed easier just to go along with his instructions. (Richard Feynman describes this, in his memoir Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, as his own hypnotic experience.) The mechanism of this effect is, however, disputed. Some hypnotists would claim that this showed the difference between a deep and a shallow hypnotic trance, while skeptics would cite that such effects can be duplicated in other circumstances where an agent holds authority, such as the Milgram experiment. Because of the ability to achieve these effects through normal varieties of communication and circumstance, there is no scientific theory that supports the existence of hypnosis.
Clinical observations of various depths of hypnosisBreuer's absent pupillary reflex signAn objective sign of hypnosis can be observed by a pupillary reflex test, which demonstrates a response that is opposed to the normal physiological response. When subjects are in a profound hypnotic state, they are asked to remain in hypnosis and open their eyes. The subjects' pupils are usually dilated and remain dilated or react poorly when a penlight is shone into them—the normal non-hypnotic response is a contraction of the pupil.
The esoteric publication Hypnotism, by Danish hypnotist Carl Septus, is an early reference work that notes the absent pupillary reflex sign. More specifically, it states that after subjects have been asked to open their eyes during a deep trance, light shone into the eyes does not cause pupil contraction. The hypnotist may use suggestion to keep the subject in hypnosis, but the hypnotist must avoid suggestions relating to eyes, visual focus, light, and the pupils' dilation or contraction.