Dr. David Spiegel

They're in this kind of altered state too, intensely focused, everything else outside of awareness.

And that's a hypnotic-like state as well.

Yes, I've done it, absolutely.

And all hypnosis, Sanjay, is really self-hypnosis.

What I do is teach people how to use an ability to the extent that they have it.

And so you're conscious, you're aware of what's going on, but you're more narrowly focused.

So in a hypnotic state, you're solving a problem, but you're putting aside other things that in ordinary consciousness you might be thinking about.

Yes, yes, that's right.

Yeah, I had a recurrent dislocating shoulder.

I eventually had a Bankart repair.

I have a very simple hypnotic induction.

I look up, top of your head, while looking up slowly, close your eyes, take a deep breath.

Let the breath out slowly through your mouth.

Let your eyes relax, but keep them closed.

Let your body float.

And then I let one hand or the other float up in the air like a balloon, and that's a signal to myself that I'm ready to concentrate.

And you can notice a kind of dissociation between your right hand floating up, your left hand comfortably sitting down.

You're already experiencing a non-clinical ability that you have to change the way your body feels.

And that means also I could imagine that I had a cooling pad on my right shoulder and let the cool, tingling numbness penetrate deeper and deeper and filter the hurt out of the pain.

And I might imagine being somewhere that I felt good in a mountain lake or in a hot tub.