Researchers from the Universities of Turku and Aalto in Finland and Sweden’s University of Skövde, have found evidence for the hypnotic state by studying a volunteer’s glazed staring eyes。
The study findings were published in journal PLoS ONE, and came about from observing a highly hypnotisable person, who could be hypnotised and dehypnotised by just using a one-word cue。
This meant the change between hypnotic state and normal state could be varied in seconds。
They found that the glazed stare was accompanied by objectively measurable changes in automatic, reflexive eye behaviour that could not be imitated by non-hypnotised participants。
Significantly, in the field of hypnosis research this result means that hypnosis can no longer be regarded as mental imagery that takes place during a totally normal waking state of consciousness。
The researchers believe that it may be the first evidence of the existence of a conscious state in humans that has previously not been scientifically confirmed。