Hypnosis as a weapon

[Shrykull]

Anyone know anything about it? I've seen demonstrations where people have been put to sleep, knocked right out by a hypnotist. Can it be done on an unwilling participant? When exposed to certain visual or auditory stimuli can it make a person feel pain/nausea, etc?

[Zixinus]

I recall that a person can only be hypnotised if the person wants to be hypnotised, otherwise it will simply have no effect.

[Molyneux]

I recall that a person can only be hypnotised if the person wants to be hypnotised, otherwise it will simply have no effect.

There are drugs which can be used to make someone much more suggestible...but if you're using drugs, you might as well just sedate the person completely.

[Covenant]

Hypnosis operates as an agreement between the doer and the hypnotist. The hypnotist puts them into a state of extreme awareness where they are suggestable, not insane. For that reason you can't make someoen do things they actually don't want to do. You can make their mind wander, or make them do things they only pretend not to want to do (you could probably make Ted Haggard gush about young boys, for example) but you can't actually force them to do things, like shoot themselves.

You can condition someone to obey a command, and hypnosis can help with that, but hypnosis is just a way of loosening up if you think about it. It's like getting them drunk. They do dumb shit, but they're still aware of it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The best you'll get is very good suggestion skills as Derren Brown uses. It works on a lot of people most of the time, otherwise, there is no foolproof way to brainwash someone like hypnosis without a funky drug cocktail or directly manipulating the brain's activity remotely.

[Shrykull]

The best you'll get is very good suggestion skills as Derren Brown uses. It works on a lot of people most of the time, otherwise, there is no foolproof way to brainwash someone like hypnosis without a funky drug cocktail or directly manipulating the brain's activity remotely.

But can't you do other things other than just making suggestions, I was saying I've seen a hypnotist put a room full of people to sleep in their chairs.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'd be a bit wary of that kind of stunt. Being able to nearly predict perfectly how people think or to manipulate how they react is one thing. Getting them to fall asleep on cue is quite another.

[Duckie]

The best you'll get is very good suggestion skills as Derren Brown uses. It works on a lot of people most of the time, otherwise, there is no foolproof way to brainwash someone like hypnosis without a funky drug cocktail or directly manipulating the brain's activity remotely.

Derren Brown's powers are, as he admits, not even that good on the whole. There is, at one point, a scene in one of his shows where he attempts to suggest to a man that blank pieces of paper are actually paper money.

And the dude, possibly because he is foreign and is paying more attention to what Derren is saying, possible because he's wary as a street vendor, or just for another of a myriad of reasons just looks at him and says "What is this shit?" or similar.

I'd hesitate to say that the majority of the attempts Derren Brown makes are successful, given that everything he does or tries doesn't make it into his shows.

[Adrian Laguna]

I'd hesitate to say that the majority of the attempts Derren Brown makes are successful, given that everything he does or tries doesn't make it into his shows.

Yeah, he often shows some of his failures, but it's doubtful it's all of them. I remember once where he was making people on the subway forget where they're going, and one guy didn't even hesitate in saying the name of his destination after Brown did his thing.

[Justforfun000]

You know, oddly enough compared to most things I think they underrate hypnosis. I've been to 3 different hypnosis shows now and have even participated in them and I can tell you right now, when it comes to certain people, they DO become hypnotized and do things they would not do in normal circumstances. They also can't remember it after. I could give you long stories to fully explain it (and I probably will have to here), but for the moment I'm definitely saying for the record that I believe true hypnotists can manipulate people by using their subconscious skillfully.

The thing about the subconscious is that it can be accessed fairly easily, but the trick here and the excuse they use to say it's not "them" controlling is that the cues they use to trigger the firing of it actually ARE coming from the people themselves. It's a low-level form of coercion that is in some ways much more powerful than direct persuasion.

Hypnosis is a fascinating subject. I've always been intrigued by the possibilities of it.

[Zac Naloen]

The best you'll get is very good suggestion skills as Derren Brown uses. It works on a lot of people most of the time, otherwise, there is no foolproof way to brainwash someone like hypnosis without a funky drug cocktail or directly manipulating the brain's activity remotely.

Derren Brown's powers are, as he admits, not even that good on the whole. There is, at one point, a scene in one of his shows where he attempts to suggest to a man that blank pieces of paper are actually paper money.

And the dude, possibly because he is foreign and is paying more attention to what Derren is saying, possible because he's wary as a street vendor, or just for another of a myriad of reasons just looks at him and says "What is this shit?" or similar.

I'd hesitate to say that the majority of the attempts Derren Brown makes are successful, given that everything he does or tries doesn't make it into his shows.

Didn't he do it successfully with 3 others though?

There's also the episode where he gave in a non-winning ticket at the dog races and they gave him the winning tickets value in cash

[Sea Skimmer]

You know, oddly enough compared to most things I think they underrate hypnosis. I've been to 3 different hypnosis shows now and have even participated in them and I can tell you right now, when it comes to certain people, they DO become hypnotized and do things they would not do in normal circumstances.

A person might be relaxed and do something that they would normally feel very unusual doing, but that is not the same as a person doing something they truly would not, like committing a crime. Numerous studies have found people may have looser social inhibitions when hypnotized, but they cannot be made to do anything against there own will. That means the value as a weapon is nil, you'd have more luck getting the subject drunk and then talking them into a suicide mission.

[chitoryu12]

Moreover, there is no guarantee that, if the hypnosis does work, that the subject will be unable to simply break the hold the hypnotizer has on him or her. Someone with a strong willpower, even if he slips and gets himself hypnotized, may be so fully aware of the situation that he can stop himself from doing anything.

And, of course, we have the problems of getting them to do what you want or even hypnotizing them in the first place. Party tricks are rarely good weapons.

[Spoonist]

Hypnosis is not a viable weapon. If hypnosis could be used as a weapon, it would have. Its as simple as that.

What most people forget is that there is three selections of people at a hypnosis stage performance, first that those who purchase tickets are more likely to believe in the effect, then those who would volunteer are usually more susceptible and then that the stage hypnotist actually selects which volunteers to come up on stage, so their acts are not a good representation of the whole population.

Then you should also consider the 'pack' effect, in that if you are being pressured by expectation to do things for the pack, then you are more likely to do so. Which has nothing to do with hypnosis.