What Happens in the Brain During Hypnosis?

Hypnosis is not a state in which the brain “turns off.” Instead, research suggests that hypnosis involves changes in how different brain networks communicate and how a person directs attention, processes information, and experiences thoughts, emotions, and sensations. During hypnosis, attention can become more focused and internally directed, while ordinary distractions may become less important. This focused state can make it easier to engage with imagery, suggestions, memories, and new ways of experiencing an experience.

Brain-imaging research has found changes during hypnosis in networks involved in attention, self-awareness, executive control, and the processing of internal experience. One particularly interesting aspect of hypnosis is that the brain can become less focused on monitoring the outside world and more engaged with an internally generated experience. This may help explain why a person can become deeply absorbed in an image, sensation, memory, or suggestion while still remaining aware of what is happening around them.

Hypnosis also demonstrates something important about the relationship between the brain, attention, and perception: the way we direct our attention can influence the way we experience things. A suggestion does not simply “reprogram the brain” like a computer. Rather, hypnosis can provide a structured state of focused attention in which people may become more receptive to changing habitual patterns of thought, emotion, perception, and behavior. This is one reason hypnotherapy can be used as a complementary approach for areas such as stress management, anxiety, sleep, pain, and behavior change.