Hypnosis is more than just a party trick — it actually changes how the brain
works, a new study has
revealed.

Researchers have
found that when hypnosis is used to make people forget, it produces measurable
changes in the brain which suggest "the effects are real and not simply people
letting themselves go",

The Daily
Telegraph

reported on
Saturday.

According to lead
researcher Professor Yadin Dudai, the insights into memory suppression and
recall will help to understand the mechanisms underlying some forms of amnesia,
along with "how we suppress distressing memories or things we would rather not
dwell upon".

In fact, Prof
Dudai and his colleagues at The Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel came to
the conclusion after analysing the effects of hypnosis on two groups of
volunteers — those who were susceptible to hypnotic suggestions and those who
were not — after they had shown a documentary depicting a day in the life of a
young woman.

A week later, the
researchers placed the participants in a brain scanner and induced them into a
hypnotic state. In this state, the scientists gave the subjects a posthypnotic
suggestion to forget the movie, giving them a reversibility cue that would
restore the memory.

Once the
subjects had been brought out of the hypnotic state, the researchers tested
their recall, then gave them the reversibility cue and tested their recall
again. As expected, the hypnosis-susceptible group showed reduced recall of the
movie, compared with the hypnosis-non-susceptible
group.

Via Times of India