found this rabbit hole while researching stuff from the 1700s.
TLDR this guy named Mesmer did some weird stuff with magnets trying to treat rich peoples illnesses. accidently found a way to induce a state called of mind "Somnobalisum" (a state similar to sleepwalking)
the word mesmerism comes from this guy. Anyway he was shut down a group of scientists (including Benjamin franklin) and the French revolution happened.
Fast forward to the 1800s and mad doctors found a way to induce somnobalisum without magnets. They called it hypnosis.
First step is to induce a tranced state. (shutting off the conscious mind bringing forth the subconscious, akin to a deep meditative state)
Then the second step is to induce somnobalisum by hypnotising the subconscious mind like you did with the conscious mind.
Think inception but instead of dreams its level of consciousness.
the person is now in a state of somnobalisum. they will have no memory of the event and can be influenced to do an number of different things.
over the years they did a number of experiments on people and got some interesting results
Somethings you'd expect - they could make them fall into a deep sleep, in a therapeutic setting they could influence a persons habits or help them access regressed memories.
some stuff you might not expect would be that this can be used instead of anesthesiology. meaning a real hypnotist can put you in such a deep state that you can be operated on...raw. im talking limb removal with no pain. its called Hypnotic analgesia. people have been getting this done for over 150 years.
https://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=86437 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/sussex/7355569.stm https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/hypnotist-puts-himself-trance-surgeon-2232873
that's not all, weirdly enough a person in a state of somnoblasim will often perform a familiar physical tasks or actions with much more ease and accuracy compared to a normal state of mind.
and they score significantly higher on "psychic tests". Actually all psychic research seems to be just a branch of hypnotism. Project stargate anyone?
thoughts?
Yeah the hypnotizable aspect is interesting. I tried being hypnotized one and nothing happened. I never "went under" but what's wild is others among me did and that was utterly shocking to me. Perhaps that's part of why I'm in this forum today. I suspect most here are not susceptible (though some clearly are lol)
There's a related phenomenon I've experienced twice.
It typically happens to people while driving a familiar route, and that's how it happened for me. Both times I just sort of "blacked out", had absolutely no memory of the trip. Could not name a single thing I saw or that happened, but all the while I was operating a motor vehicle on a busy freeway.
So years later when I heard about NPCs, I thought, "Yeah, you can probably do almost everything a person does on a daily basis even when there's no one upstairs."
Autonomic nervous system (not the same as subconscious). It's the same system that allows us to walk or bicycle with ease
Oh no, this is something absolutely different. You'd know it in a second if you'd experienced it.
EDIT: I should mention the specific name for this phenomenon, except it does not have one (at least one of which I have ever heard). That's how suppressed this all is, further demonstration of a Big Secret.
I meant to reply earlier, but man I've had this happen to me twice. Both times were later at night driving, and the craziest part to me is that when you "come to", it all seems so nonchalant.
One of them was a solid 30-40 minutes of driving. It's much worse in retrospect than when it actually happens.
I also tried to be hypnotized and it didn't do anything. I've known some psychologists that say it's not what it's made out to be. It can't bring back repressed memories. It also can't make someone do something they don't want to do.
I tried lucid dreaming with some friends once, it was a interesting experience, and I did end up having a bizarre lucid dream weeks later.
Been forever since I have had them, seemed like I stopped having them around the time I figured out how to fly or do whatever I wanted. There were so many dreams were I was like. Ok my moms alive even though she died years ago, this obviously isnt real. Try to fly only to fall on my face lol.
My dad, promised me not to get into the hypnotism stuff. I dont know if he was yanking my leg or what. But he claimed when he was 16, his family had him in a boys school type deal. He was the trouble maker in the family and was getting in trouble constantly, so he was sent to this school for a couple years to try and discipline him. Later on he was the only one in the family who didnt go to college and him and his dad butted heads over it quite a bit.
Anyway, found a book about hypnotism in the library ( so he claimed ). And read it and tried it on one of his classmates one friday night.
Claims he couldnt get the guy to snap out of it and he went insane.
My dad wasnt really the type to just straight up lie, he was a story teller so he would embellish the truth sometimes, but the look of regret on his face whenever he would tell this story made me believe there could have been some truth to it.