Dr. David Spiegel

Normally, we close our eyes periodically.

We have to, but...

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.

So 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.

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 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 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 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 think that it's a matter not of absolute control, but more control that...

We need to think of our brain as a tool and our body signals as tools as well to help us understand what's going on in the world, what matters, what's important, what isn't.

but also something that can be managed, not simply 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 in terms of regulating pain.