The Differential Organization of the Structures of Consciousness during Hypnosis

Abstract

The previous chapter demonstrated the interaction of trait and situational/state variables in the reported phenomenology of hypnotic susceptibility. The data concerned phenomenological intensity effects, that is, those intensity effects thought important by Singer (cited in Zinberg, 1977) in determining an altered state of consciousness. The question can be asked as to what happens to the pattern effects among dimensions of consciousness during hypnosis vis-à-vis a baseline condition as a function of hypnotic susceptibility. This was the issue that Tart (1975, 1977) suggested would be paramount in determining a particular state of consciousness, and what the parallel distributed processing (PDP) researchers (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1988) assert are of primary importance in understanding how the brain processes information.