Hypnotic suggestion is an interesting area. I have wondered if the hypnotic openness to ideas is an evolved response to the frequency with which we experience a state of confusion over low importance conundrums. The two aspects of that formula are a state of confusion, and a low-importance conundrum.
If either factor is not present, then the amygdala kicks in and scrutinizes more aggressively. That is, if confusion is not present then the amygdala sees a solution, and judges subsequent inputs against it aggressively, disregarding (providing resistance against) anything which doesn’t fit. And if the conundrum is high importance, the amygdala vets all inputs quite aggressively to sort truth, because truth matters then.
But if both conditions, low importance and uncertainty are satisfied, the amygdala accepts inputs and doesn’t actively scrutinize or reject them. This tendency may have evolved to maximize awareness of our environment (which is filled each day with thousands of such low-importance, confusing stimuli,) without requiring the amygdala to sit down and focus on each one.
Allow me to relate an experience which happened to someone, as vividly as I can, which I think describes a momentary state of hypnotic openness. A man entered a doctor’s office. The large waiting room was entirely empty, and he sat down in a seat near where he was going to enter the examination room. Next to the seat was an outlet, and a small table, though he didn’t notice it. Across from him was a row of chairs facing him, and more chairs central to the examination room were behind those.
Several minutes passed. Another patient, a woman about mid-twenties in age, entered the waiting room. She was about 5′ 6″, 140 lbs, an SMV 6-6.5, and dressed unusually. Tight pink yoga pants rolled up at the knees, too-tight black spandex tank top, sweat shirt tied around her waist, sneakers, and her shoulder length black hair hung loosely.
She walked across the room, and took the seat exactly opposite the man, removed a recharging cord from her purse along with her phone, and then carefully positioned her purse on the seat next to her. She then got up, went to the outlet next to the man, leaned over right next to him, and plugged her phone in, placing it as close on the table to the man as possible, while saying, “I just need to charge this.”
As she sat, the man responded, “Here, take this seat – you can use your phone.” He got up and moved four seats laterally, so as not to crowd her. His expectation was a polite thank you and a nod, if she were to react at all.
Her eyes went wide. She immediately became peculiarly agitated, raised her hands as she began to get up, saying slightly excitedly, “No!… wait!… Don’t… Just… DDDAaaahhh….” By then she was on her feet, exhibiting the classical body language, slumped shoulders, and subtle foot stomping movements, of an upset, frustrated woman. She paused, in mid-action for a microsecond. Then as quickly as the storm began, it disappeared. Her hands dropped, her body relaxed, her facial expression changed, and she went from agitated to oblivious in a flash. She calmly spun around, picked up her purse, moved deliberately to the seat, picked up her phone, and began surfing, as if nothing had happened.
During the confused moment of the girl’s agitation, the individual reported feeling strangely blank. Her agitation didn’t make conventional sense for any reason, yet it was of such low importance that although puzzling, it was not resolved there, and the mind felt little need to resolve it. “Women are weird. Who knows what they are thinking.”
There it hung, in a vague place of uncaring confusion. Had someone said a strange, non-sensical reason to explain it, under those conditions, and that reason offered the slightest hint of justification, it probably would have been accepted by the mind without too much scrutiny. “She has daddy issues, and your close presence opposite her made her feel accepted by a man.” Oh. Poor girl.
“She has a shoe fetish, and your shoes were attractive to her – she liked looking at them.” That’s weird… To each their own?
“She is afraid to be alone, and an empty wall opposite her would make her feel alone.” Plausible.
So long as the solution was of similar non-importance to the problem it wouldn’t flag the amygdala, and you would just let it coast into your brain.
“She was a foot surveillance operator, and she wanted her customized phone to grab the IMSI identifier from your burner phone in your pocket as it reached out to a tower, while she filmed you with the hidden camera in her purse for the file being assembled by the covert team monitoring your activities.” Mayb… Wait, What? That one would flag the amygdala and invite greater scrutiny, so it would be no good, or would at least have to be couched in such a way as to be less intrusive.
I suspect the brain may do this to optimize information intake. If you carefully scrutinized everything, every day of your life, and made sure every observation was 100% amygdala approved, you would be overwhelmed with the world around you. Why did that car cut off the other driver? Why did that girl smile when the guy insulted her? Why are there so many airplanes flying overhead all of a sudden? Who kyacks at night in the winter in Connecticut? Did I leave the cereal box in that position? What is in this soy sauce? To ease the flow, your amygdala enters a neutral gear, and if an answer presents itself, it just lets it flow through to be stored, to flesh out your understanding of the world with likely solutions to low importance issues you would otherwise be clueless about.
If this model of amygdala-non-reactivity is correct, you can see why hypnosis begins with, “You feel very relaxed.” That process shuts off the amygdala. Now the goal is to make the suggestions seem minor and unimportant, or even pleasurable. You can also see why driving a frequently used route is described as an example of a hypnotic state. Your brain shuts off and zones out, and you don’t scrutinize anything. Suddenly you arrive at your destination. Who knows what you subconsciously assume and process while you are on autopilot.
This is what I think Erickson talked about when he spoke of “resistance” in hypnosis. Resistance was the amygdala threatening to notice and reject a suggestion. He felt resistance was not to be avoided, but rather had to be probed, and cataloged cautiously. It was to be gently maneuvered around, like an obstacle on a path. If you felt resistance in one direction, you would move in another direction with less resistance, and try to find another way later, to couch something that did not provoke resistance. That resistance is amygdala resistance.
So coming around to Trump, part of his persuasion arsenal is that he doesn’t provoke aggressive resistance. He begins by being jovial, amused, and likable. Who could resist that? He has cultured a personae which you expect to speak in generalities, as well as hyperbole which will have at least a grain of truth. No resistance. He mixes imagery with what he talks about, and cultures a specific image for himself. He occasionally rambles, and for a moment you enter that non-judgmental state where your amygdala neither attaches an emotional valence to what he says or can figure out what he is doing. You are poised, waiting. No resistance. Then he says something slightly confusing, and as you pause he conjures an emotional response to a familiar image, and then verbally speaks of something else in the same terms, fitting it to that emotional response and linking it in the brain.
“You know Karl Rove… Real Estate… He’s a boiler… Bill OReilly on his show… Karl Rove is an angry man about to explode – and a total loser. Anyone who gives him money is a loser too.” Boom. What did Trump just do?Much better than “Karl Rove is an angry man.” No resistance, the ideas kind of meld with emotional images, and Rove ends up an angry loser nobody would give money to. Shah Shah!
It works on a lot of people, and I suspect those with easily overwhelmed amygdalae especially. Notice in this article resistance is said to be high among the “judgmental,” “fastidious,” “less trusting,” and those with “precise habits.” Those are all amygdala-related, amygdala-driven traits. If your amygdala is functional, it will stay on as you are hypnotized, and the effect will be thwarted.
By contrast, those who are resistant to hypnosis tend to be more judgmental, fastidious in their habits and less trusting of people.
That agrees with subsequent research showing hypnosis “turns down” the amygdala.
Under hypnosis, a person’s amygdala is turned down. A hypnotist or highly trained individual in self-hypnosis can relax the autonomic nervous system by using hypnosis. Turning off the amygdala disables a typical “fight, flight, or freeze” response and stops any emotional triggers that may occur.
Who better to see their amygdale turned down than a bunch of amygdala deadened rabbits? This would indicate that Trump will raid the group of Democrat voters, take the clueless “moderates” who can’t sort truth from reality because their amygdalae go with the crowd to avoid overload, as well as some liberals whose amygdalae never turn on anyway, and they won’t even know why they are voting for him.
All while he savages the GOP elites. What could be better?
GOPcalyspe cometh™
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