Are you faking it?

[Apothem]

I've been doing my fair share of research on hypnotism, and I've come to the point of trying to 'test' a trance to see if it's legit and how deep it is. Simply gauging a trance is easy I suppose, but what are some methods to detect the legit behaviors of a trance? Or as a subject, how do you go about gaugeing yourself as far as how deep and effective your trance is?

[SDoll]

as a subject, how do you go about gaugeing yourself as far as how deep and effective your trance is?

Well as I go deeper I start to think like the hypnotist wants me to, saying to myself, "I could leave if I want to, but I don't want to." Also although it sounds odd, an erection is a good sign because it means you're relaxed. Also it's true what they say, the more you go under trance the deeper you go and the deeper you feel.

[cardigan]

To measure depth of trance of a subject there are some tests. The one I like to use most is to have him count backwards from 100 slowly. I then tell him that with every number he says, the rest of the numbers are starting to disappear - more and more, and that for every number he says, he will double his mental relaxation. At some point he will have "relaxed" the numbers out of his mind and he will be in a good depth of trance to do hypnotherapy. It's hard to spot a person faking it, but choose your friends! :-) Most people will be honest - if the purpose of the hypnosis is to aid them with something.
Another test is to tell them to forget a number - and then test it by having them count - to see if they omit the number from the count. That's a halucination, which means they are actually deeper than with the previous test - if that works.
A test to see who is faking would be to tell him that his hand is getting numb - more and more. Do a count and say that with every number it gets more and more numb and when you are done, it will be totally numb and impossible to feel anything in it. Then use a needle to test the results. It will blow them right out of the water if they are faking! :twisted:

[Apothem]

A test to see who is faking would be to tell him that his hand is getting numb - more and more. Do a count and say that with every number it gets more and more numb and when you are done, it will be totally numb and impossible to feel anything in it. Then use a needle to test the results. It will blow them right out of the water if they are faking! :twisted:

:lol:
That's just evil.

I like what you've mentioned tho, however it seems that most of my practice subjects have been over the internet. As much fun as it would be to scare the shit out of a faker, it's gonna be kinda hard unless I devise a way to administer a small shock from the keyboard without any extra hardware :P Either way, I suppose I have some thinking to do, I would figure there would be other things I could make a person forget, or remember for that matter that could also work. I'd ask for other techniques, but something tells me I need to figure that out on my own. However the contributions would be appreciated :D

[Apothem]

Ah ha, I had a wonderful idea on how to detect if someone is faking via an IM session. The one thing that's very hard to do via a keyboard is to remove either specific letters from typing OR gramatical things such as spaces or pushing the return key. For example, because of the habitual nature of how much we hit the space bar in the process of typing, you could, theoretically, make someone forget how to put spaces in their text and then have them repeat back to you a couple words or a sentence. Have yet to test this, but I thought it'd be worth mentioning for simple check to see if it's worth trying to begin with. Thoughts on this approach?

[cardigan]

I think it would work just fine. But it's a test for quite a heavy trance. Your subject might still be in a lighter trance even if this test doesn't work.

But people can fake any test over the net if they want to fool you. You can't devise a test that will flush out a faker - at least I don't think so. If somebody wants to spend hours working with you just to fake it, and this - for some reason - is their goal, then I really don't think you can prevent it. There are some twisted people out there, you know. But they are rare. You might meet one of those in 10% or less of the encounters. (Depends where on the net you meet them, I guess). But just keep at it anyway. It's good practise - even if the other person is faking it. If someone is willing to spend that long time with you and keep a straight face while you are trying to put them into trance - just to be able to ridicule you in the end, then I think that person is the ridiculous one!

[crazyguy9000]

I have lately been very active in online hypnosis via yahoo. The test I use more often than not is having the subject forget to use vowels. I also program them to respond to any questions automatically and immediately.

Then when I wake them from trance, I ask them simple questions that they can answer without thought. Their name, where they're from, favorite song, how they feel, what they're thinking, stuff like that.

If they respond quickly without using vowels, I am confident that they are in a deep trance. If they are slow, they may still be in a trance, but at the same time they may be faking it and going through carefully avoiding the vowels in each word.

[Fixx]

I've been doing my fair share of research on hypnotism, and I've come to the point of trying to 'test' a trance to see if it's legit and how deep it is. Simply gauging a trance is easy I suppose, but what are some methods to detect the legit behaviors of a trance? Or as a subject, how do you go about gaugeing yourself as far as how deep and effective your trance is?

It's very difficult to judge whether someone is faking or not, I think.

Most of the criteria in trance tests could be fulfilled by simple compliance of the subject, not necessarily by the subject being in a genuinely altered state and thereby being compelled to produce these effects.

It's far easier to gauge trance state by being the subject, imo. I've hypnotized myself loads of times and know what a trance feels like - varying degrees of dissociation from surroundings, suspension of critical faculties, etc.