Stories about hypnosis
3 Buddhist wisdom stories about hypnosis from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Hypnosis made the ice bath feel warmStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On a TV hypnosis show a man sat in freezing water convinced it was a warm bath and enjoyed it — illustrating how much of cold and pain is mental.
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put a person in a freezing cold tub of water but they convinced this guy under hypnosis that it was nice and warm, just like a warm hot bath. You like going in warm hot baths this time of year? Really nice, warm and hot is very very nice. I don't usually indulge but I remember one of the people here we went to Bhutan together. When I walked up this mountain when you came down again, all your legs were very sore because really exerting yourself. I remember just going into the bath, a good excuse at last, a monk can have a hot bath. Lovely just to relax there. But in this particular case it was ice cold water. But they convinced him it was a warm hot bath and he was having a wonderful time in the cold icy water
- Singing the anthem of his own free willStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At a Cambridge psychical research society demonstration, a hypnotist puts a student in trance and tells him that when the hypnotist touches his right earlobe he'll stand and sing…
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this was the the time in Cambridge psychic research Society every year we get a hypnotist to come up to teach us a uh a little bit about hypnotism and being students everybody was willing to give it a try I went up there but I was not a good hypnotic subject at the time and there's always a few of the students were really really easy to hypnotize and they do make them do silly things which you know being you know undergraduates 18 19 years of age was great entertainment but what they did to this one poor student put him totally in in hypnotic trance and after he was in trance the hypnotist said when I touch my right earlobe you'll get up and sing the British national anthem in full loud voice and then he said I'm going to take you out of Trance now but you remember that instruction and so he took him out of the trance and he went back to sit in his seat and we were waiting to see what would happen of course eventually the hypnotist uh uh touch his right earlobe and this young man in the middle of a just like you know of 300 students like 300 of you you imagine you just suddenly get up and sing the Australian national anthem in four what an idiotic thing that would be to do but this guy did it he sang the British national anthem beginning to end in a loud voice even all the students were were howling with laughter you know it was the most funniest thing I'd seen and when he finished he sat down and we'd all sort of settled down as well this fellow was not embarrassed at all and so the hypnotist asked him he said why did you decide to sing the British national anthem and this student he gave a logical reason and that was when I realized that that student he had assumed he had sung that Anthem out of his own free will there's no way that he could distinguish between what was hypnotic suggestion what we all seen he was conditioned to do that and what he took to be free will it wasn't free will that was implanted into him by the hypnotist even though it's the most ridiculous thing to do
- The blister from a cold nailStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At a public demonstration of the Cambridge psychical research society, a student is hypnotised to believe a four-inch nail on a stick is red hot. It's at room temperature. When…
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hypnotized him and they had a piece of wood with a nail on the end, very simple equipment, didn't need much to buy a nail and a piece of wood and they hypnotized this guy to believe that the nail was red-hot. It was just room temperature and they touched the nail on this man's skin, he screamed in pain because he thought it was hot, you can understand that, but to see a blister come up on his skin, that was weird