Dr. David Spiegel

wow that was it that was all he remembered and he practiced this exercise he was in the ward of the hospital doing the self-hypnosis after that grieving the boy he you know he told me later he said he knew he was going to die he was crippled he had arthritis he didn't think he was going to survive the war and i said and you gave he did die but you gave him a period of happiness and feeling loved before he died and that's not going to go away

and he had one subsequent rehospitalization one one of his brothers who was a chicago police officer was killed in the line of duty and we had to kind of piece them back together and help him grieve that loss but he went on to to uh teach uh adolescent boys how to do long distance cycling and he was you know he was out of the hospital no meds and he was he was doing fine so

and he had one subsequent rehospitalization one one of his brothers who was a chicago police officer was killed in the line of duty and we had to kind of piece them back together and help him grieve that loss but he went on to to uh teach uh adolescent boys how to do long distance cycling and he was you know he was out of the hospital no meds and he was he was doing fine so

You know, that's an experience I will not forget. And it shows you how the interesting thing about hypnosis is how much, you know, people think you're losing control. You watch this guy doing this. And I was reassuring myself. I was holding on to his arm while I was doing this.

You know, that's an experience I will not forget. And it shows you how the interesting thing about hypnosis is how much, you know, people think you're losing control. You watch this guy doing this. And I was reassuring myself. I was holding on to his arm while I was doing this.

But I was struck by how much control we both had over these extreme emotional states he was in and shifting from one to another, despite how intense they were. And that's one of the really cool things about hypnosis, is that you can be very intense, deal with intense emotions, but help people feel themselves as different people. So he was dissociated in the sense that he was two different guys.

But I was struck by how much control we both had over these extreme emotional states he was in and shifting from one to another, despite how intense they were. And that's one of the really cool things about hypnosis, is that you can be very intense, deal with intense emotions, but help people feel themselves as different people. So he was dissociated in the sense that he was two different guys.

He was, on the one hand...

He was, on the one hand...

uh terribly upset and angry about the loss and angry at himself for somehow not having been able to prevent this in the middle of a war but at the same time he could be the loving guy who grieved this boy and who recognized the gift he had they had given to one another in forming the relationship that they formed so the capacity to focus intently uh to control what's going on in mind and body but also

uh terribly upset and angry about the loss and angry at himself for somehow not having been able to prevent this in the middle of a war but at the same time he could be the loving guy who grieved this boy and who recognized the gift he had they had given to one another in forming the relationship that they formed so the capacity to focus intently uh to control what's going on in mind and body but also

to be comfortable with the idea that you can be two different people in a sense that you can be this horribly angry uh furious guy at himself and everyone else about what happened and at the same time this warm loving parent to this poor little kid um is is something that is a real strength of hypnosis

to be comfortable with the idea that you can be two different people in a sense that you can be this horribly angry uh furious guy at himself and everyone else about what happened and at the same time this warm loving parent to this poor little kid um is is something that is a real strength of hypnosis

Well, Jay, there's good news and bad news about this. The good news is that most children are in trance states most of the time. All eight-year-olds, they're out playing. You call them in for dinner. They don't hear you. They're doing their thing. Work and play is all the same thing for kids. They live in their imagination. So they live hypnotic-like experiences all the time.

Well, Jay, there's good news and bad news about this. The good news is that most children are in trance states most of the time. All eight-year-olds, they're out playing. You call them in for dinner. They don't hear you. They're doing their thing. Work and play is all the same thing for kids. They live in their imagination. So they live hypnotic-like experiences all the time.

And they can change all the time and be different and play at being different. And so it's one of the wonderful things about childhood is that you're in a more of a hypnotic consciousness state more of the time. But as we go through adolescence, we go through what the famous psychologist Piaget called formal consciousness in which you evaluate more and experiencing is less a part of that.

And they can change all the time and be different and play at being different. And so it's one of the wonderful things about childhood is that you're in a more of a hypnotic consciousness state more of the time. But as we go through adolescence, we go through what the famous psychologist Piaget called formal consciousness in which you evaluate more and experiencing is less a part of that.

So you learn to... Try to be more logical and analyze more and just let yourself feel things less. So some people lose some of that hypnotic ability when they acquire these formal operations. And there are about 20% of the population who, by the time they're 21, just are not very hypnotizable. They're very logical. And in Reverie, where we have the hypnotizability test,

So you learn to... Try to be more logical and analyze more and just let yourself feel things less. So some people lose some of that hypnotic ability when they acquire these formal operations. And there are about 20% of the population who, by the time they're 21, just are not very hypnotizable. They're very logical. And in Reverie, where we have the hypnotizability test,

We call them the researchers. They want to examine and evaluate everything. At the other extreme, some people retain extremely high hypnotizability, and we call them the poets. They just get into it. They just absorb themselves in anything. I had one guy recently who gets, he loved getting lost in movies. You know, he just enters another world. He becomes an actor in the movie and part of it.