Hypnotic hallucinatory behavior

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Abstract
Hypnotic Hallucinatory Behavior It would appear to be important to refer to experiences as hallucinatory only when the eyes of the percipient are open, in the case of visual hallucinations, or when he “hears” with the impression that the sound is of external origin rather than localized within (as an experience on the level of imagining) in the case of auditory hallucinations. In such hallucinatory occurrences, incidentally, the subject may in certain instances question the nature of his experience and evaluate it critically even though the stimulus retains its validity as an apparently externally centered event. Negative visual hallucinations involving avoidance reactions are apparently an order of experience different from negative hallucinations which do not involve such avoidance reactions. Although sensory end-organ functioning may be the same in both such occurrences, there are apparently as yet poorly understood differences in functioning on a neurophysiological and neuropsychological level wherein cortical integration is in operation. Explicit description of hallucinatory activity in hypnosis enables the reader to know exactly what the writer is saying and thus avoids confusion in the literature. Hallucinatory experience and the more simple type of mental imagery may both be used in therapy, and comparisons may be attempted in relation to goal directed therapeutic efficacy. The issue of hallucinatory experiences and the mental imagery functioning, as described, have bearing on the study of perception where the exact nature of the events may affect Considerably the plan of study, the description of events, the subjective evaluation of the events, and the final interpretation of the experimental situation. Examples of visual and auditory hypnotic hallucinations have been given and they have been discussed insofar as they relate to the current problem. The description of nocturnal dreams as hallucinations has probably fostered current confusion in terms.

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