Hypnotic Recall Research Articles

Neurophenomenology of near-death experience memory in hypnotic recall: a within-subject EEG study

The neurobiological basis of near-death experiences (NDEs) is unknown, but a few studies attempted to investigate it by reproducing in laboratory settings phenomenological experiences that seem to closely resemble NDEs. So far, no study has induced NDE-like features via hypnotic modulation while simultaneously measuring changes in brain activity using high-density EEG. Five volunteers who previously had experienced a pleasant NDE were invited to re-experience the NDE memory and another pleasant autobiographical memory (dating to the same time period), in normal consciousness and with hypnosis. We compared the hypnosis-induced subjective experience with the one of the genuine experience memory. Continuous high-density EEG was recorded throughout. At a phenomenological level, we succeeded in recreating NDE-like features without any adverse effects. Absorption and dissociation levels were reported as higher during all hypnosis conditions as compared to normal consciousness conditions, suggesting that our hypnosis-based protocol increased the felt subjective experience in the recall of both memories. The recall of a NDE phenomenology was related to an increase of alpha activity in frontal and posterior regions. This study provides a proof-of-concept methodology for studying the phenomenon, enabling to prospectively explore the NDE-like features and associated EEG changes in controlled settings.

Effect on Emotional Well-Being of Hypnotic Recall of the Near-Death Experience

Article reporting the preliminary finding of overwhelming psychological benefit of hypnotic recall of near-death experiences, and discussing implications for future research.

When people remember dreams they never experienced: A study of the malleability of dream recall over time.

The source-monitoring paradigm suggests that dreams could be an important source of naturally occurring false memories. However, the malleability of memories for dreams remains to be investigated. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of suggestions on subsequent dream recall. Immediate dream recall collected in a sleep laboratory was compared with long-term recall 1 to 2 weeks later. Standard recall was also compared with hypnotic recall. Suggested elements were reported by 15% of the 26 participants. The hypnotic condition showed no differential effect. It was also found that between 3% and 7% of the dreams reported in long-term recall were probably naturally occurring false memories of dreams. These findings suggest that situations of misinformation can easily elicit false memories of specific dreams.

The rise and fall of forensic hypnosis

This paper examines the fortunes of the controversial use of hypnosis to ‘enhance’ autobiographical memories in postwar America. From the 1950s through the early 1980s, hypnosis became increasingly popular as a means to exhume information thought to be buried within the mind. This practice was encouraged by lay understandings of memory drawn from a material culture full of new recording devices (motion pictures, tape and then video recorders); and during the years when the practice was becoming most popular and accepted, academic psychologists developed a contrary, reconstructive, account of memory that was put to use in a series of battles meant to put an end to hypnotic recall. But popular commitment to the idea of permanent memory ‘recordings’ sustained the practice and the assumptions about memory and self that were associated with it, and in the face of a culture of academic psychology fully committed to the idea of ‘reconstructive’, malleable memory, a tidal wave of ‘enhanced’ memories swept America in the late 1980s and 1990s, in the so-called ‘memory wars’. These, in turn, provoked academic psychologists to research the claims and counter claims central to the memory wars. The paper will also make an argument about the importance of lay knowledge in the psychological sciences explored in this paper: that popular psychological beliefs played a significant, even formative role in defining the nature of forensic psychological expertise, and also the framing of elite academic psychological research.

Chaotic Patterns of Autonomic Activity During Hypnotic Recall

Chaoticneural dynamics likely emerge in cognitive processes and may present time periods that are extremely sensitive to influences affecting the neural system. Recent findings suggest that this sensitivity may increase during retrieval of stressful emotional experiences reflecting underlying mechanism related to consolidation of traumatic memories. In this context, hypnotic recall of anxiety memories in 10 patients, simultaneously with ECG measurement was performed. The same measurement was performed during control cognitive task in 8 anxiety patients and 22 healthy controls. Nonlinear data analysis of ECG records indicates significant increase in the degree of chaos during retrieval of stressful memory in all the patients. The results suggest a role of chaotic neural dynamics during processing of anxiety-related stressful memories.

Effect on emotional well-being of hypnotic recall of the near-death experience.

Article reporting the preliminary finding of overwhelming psychological benefit of hypnotic recall of near-death experiences, and discussing implications for future research.

The illusion of familiarity: an alternative to the report-criterion account of hypnotic recall.

Hypnosis increases the likelihood that participants will report incorrect material at higher levels of confidence. One interpretation of such data is that hypnosis induces individuals to lower the criterion they use to make memory reports. A lowered report criterion could account for the increase in items that participants are willing to report as memories but not for the increase in confidence that typically accompanies hypnotic retrieval. Although some participants may indeed lower their report criterion, this alone should not result in the highly confident confabulation so often observed. An alternative perspective is that for some participants, hypnosis alters the experience of retrieval such that items generated during retrieval attempts are more likely to have the qualities (e.g., perceptual fluency, vividness) usually associated with remembering. This illusion of familiarity would account for the higher levels of confidence that are so frequently observed in hypnotic recall, and adopting this perspective should lead to even greater caution in the use of hypnosis as an aid to retrieval.

Risk Management in Hypnotic Recall of Near-Death Experiences

A substantial number of people facing physical and/or psychological crisis report having a near-death experience (NDE) involving a subjectively real experience of an alternate reality. Where NDE content is associated with positive emotions, benefit might be gained by hypnotic recall of the NDE, yet such recall might involve possible risk in the form of reactivation of the original crisis. In this article we describe a study involving hypnotic recall of positive NDEs by one male and five female subjects. We describe in detail some procedures to minimize risk, including a hypnosis protocol.

Distignuishing the source of memories reported during prior waking and hypnotic recall attempts

AbstractSubjects attempted to identify the occasion on which they first reported particular responses to questions that were asked twice during an experiment on hyphosis and memory 1 week earlier. During this earlier experiment, subjects of high and low hypnotizability had been randomly allocatd to one of two recall test sequences: wake‐hypnosis ro wake‐wake. Recall improved from the first (R1) to the second test (R2) in a comparable manner for both test sequences, indicating a failure of hypnosis to enhance memory. It is noteworthy that, when later queried about the origins of specific recollections, the majority of subjects exhibited a bias to attribute their responses to R1, regardless of whether hypnosis was used during R2. Moreover, low hypnotizables exposed to the hypnotic procedure and, to a lesser extent, high hypnotizables who recalled both times in the waking condition displayed and exaggerated tendency to overattribute recollections to R1. These data indicate that individuals cannot distinguish between memories retrieved prior to hypnosis and those that occured during hypnosis. Implications for implementing judicial standards regarding hypnosis are discussed.

Memory distortion in hypnosis.

Abstract This paper presents data from a programmatic series of studies that varied the range of conditions affecting potential increase of recall, memory distortions, and distortions of confidence during and following hypnosis. All the studies used a paradigm that exposed Ss to misleading information some time before memory was tested and applied procedures in the hypnotic setting to analyze memory performance in both recognition and free recall. Results from the program failed to demonstrate any increment in accurate memory due to hypnosis, and the accuracy of memory reports in hypnosis was at times significantly reduced. Further, hypnotic recall was distinctively distorted when false information was introduced after, rather than before hypnosis. Results were discussed in relation to the role hypnotic as opposed to contextual variables may play in explaining Ss' memory test performances, and some legal implications are drawn from the data.

Hypnotic amnesia, disorganized recall, and inattention.

Hypnotic amnesia, disorganized recall, and inattention.

On flashback and hypnotic recall.

Abstract This essay deals with both the intra-individual and interindividual varieties of arousal state-bound experiences. The former are labelled as “flashbacks” while the latter embrace the great fantasms and repetitive schemes, the ever re-written plots and images of literature, art, and religion. Flashbacks are both arousal-state and stage (i.e., set and setting) bound experiences. Flashback and hypnotic recall differ only in the ways by which they are induced. Induction methods should be distinguished from induced states on the hyperaroused perception-hallucination and hypoaroused perception-meditation continuum. Flashbackers may be characterized by their (a) variability on perceptual-behavioral tasks; (b) tendency to minimize (or reduce) sensory input; (c) high esting heart rates; (d) hypnotizability; and, hence (e) preferential right-cerebral-hemispheric cognition; and (O a display of EEGalpha dominance in the resting, waking state.

Hypnotic recall of aircrash cause.

Abstract Hypnotic techniques can be used to help a patient recall suppressed material which implicates him in a devastating disaster. The cause of an air crash was found after 2 short. hypnosis sessions, where other orthodox methods used over a period of 2 years had failed. The method can be used in all cases of amnesia. The patient is made to hallucinate a threatening situation, and his hallucination gives a clue to the basic problem. He is then made to hallucinate a pleasant scene, which gives an indication of the method he uses to escape from the problem. This is repeated at the second session for confirmation. If the patient does not bring up the required material by free association under hypnosis, a dissociation of the personality is induced in which the observing ego watches what the experiencing ego is doing to cause the accident. The results demonstrate that in this case, at least, hypnotic techniques were more successful than sodium amytal interviews, free association, psychiatric interviews, ph...

THE UNCOVERING OF EARLY MEMORIES BY IDEOMOTOR RESPONSES TO QUESTIONING.

Abstract A therapeutic technique to facilitate hypnotic recall is described. The recall of events surrounding the patient's birth appears to be particularly significant. During therapeutic sessions with patients, these events are portrayed as causative factors in the patient's illness and are relived with great affect. After such sessions, relief of relevant symptoms often follows. Two cases are presented which allowed for verification of details mentioned by the patients during such regressions. While rigorous evidence is lacking, it is the author's view that these experiences represent real memories; however, the possibility that they are therapeutically useful fantasies cannot be disproven at this time.

A Case of Stage Fright, Originating at the Age of Seven, Relieved with the Aid of Hypnotic Recall and Partial Regression

A Case of Stage Fright, Originating at the Age of Seven, Relieved with the Aid of Hypnotic Recall and Partial Regression

Hypnotic recall of material learned under anxiety- and non-anxiety-producing conditions.

Hypnotic recall of material learned under anxiety- and non-anxiety-producing conditions.