-wg
How
Deep is Deep?
Like so many aspects of the art of hypnosis, the
whole concept of depth is an abstraction. We tend to think of going
into trance as going “down,” so it is logical to measure degrees
of how far down and to call those degrees “depth.” In reality,
though, hypnosis isn't a vertical thing; it is merely an altered
state of consciousness, one of focused concentration. So when we say
someone is going deeper, what we
really mean is they are becoming more focused on the trance state and
less inclined to respond to external stimuli or distractions.
In the mid 20th
century two major scales for measuring hypnotic depth were commonly
used: the Friedlander-Sarbin scale and the later Stanford Scales,
developed by Andre Weitzenhoffer and Ernest Hilgard. These sought to
measure hypnotic depth by applying a series of test suggestions of
increasing difficulty – that is, requiring an increasing ability to
distort, ignore, or invent sensory information to comply with
hypnotic suggestions. The problem with these measurements is that
they assume everyone is identical in that everyone, if they are “deep
enough,” can perform every suggestion on the scale. In reality
people's minds are different; some people find it far easier than the
scale's inventors thought to do some things and all but impossible to
do others regardless of trance depth. The scales also fail to take
into account that people get better at manifesting trance phenomena
with practice. Today most of the professional hypnotists I know
don't bother with these formal scales unless they are conducting
research and need to cater to academia.
