Hypnotic Attenuation of the ‘Boundaries’ between Emotional, Visual, and Auditory Sensations

Abstract

On two tasks measuring cognitive “boundaries,” the performance of seventy-two hypnotized subjects was compared to the performance of seventy-two wakened subjects. On a task measuring the “boundary” between visual sensations and auditory sensations, all subjects counted the visible pulses of a metronome on some trials, counted the audible pulses of a metronome on other trials, and then decided whether they had seen or heard each number of counted pulses. Hypnotized subjects confused the visible pulses and audible pulses, whereas wakened subjects maintained the “boundary” between visible sensations and audible sensations. On a task measuring the “boundary” between visual sensations and emotional sensations, all subjects imaged specific emotions while viewing pictures of surprised faces, and then decided whether they had seen a surprised or emotional or assimilated (surprised-emotional) expression on each face. Hypnotized subjects assimilated the visual expressions and emotional images, whereas wakened subjects maintained the “boundary” between emotional sensations and visual sensations.

Emotion Makes Daydreams More Dreamlike, More Symbolic

“…Indeed, Kunzendorf and Maurer found that the effect of emotion on perception of faces was influenced by hypnosis [13]. Accordingly, Experiment 2 examined emotional and emotionless daydreaming with and without the induction of hypnotic sleep.…”

The unified theory of repression

“…Freud's (1900Freud's ( /1913 Interpretation of Dreams supposedly provided symbolic evidence for the universality of incestuous wishes "in the ante-chamber." However, laboratory studies have demonstrated that the second level of meaning in a "symbolic" dream arises from lingering emotions that consciously accompany the dream, not from unconscious wishes (Hartmann et al 2002(Hartmann et al -2003Kunzendorf & Maurer 1988-1989Kunzendorf & Paroskie 2000Kunzendorf et al 1999. Thus, Hartmann (1998) describes rape victims who have complete memories of their traumas, without any signs of repressionand who also have "symbolic" dreams of ocean waves that become overwhelming tidal waves, as their dream images begin to contextualize their consciously lingering feelings of being overwhelmed.…”

Emotionally Directing Visual Sensations: I. Generating Images That Contextualize Emotion and Become “Symbolic”

“…As an alternative, the authors of this article posit that the underlying level of meaning is composed of emotional concerns, which give direction to the visual image and, if they are not obviously expressed by the image, give it symbolic meaning. Thus, according to the present position, symbolic images are visual images that, at one level, exist more or less independently of any underlying emotion and, at another level, "contextualize" or picture or "provide a context for" the underlying emotion [9].…”

“…If lingering excitement, instead of helplessness, had coincided with the initial images of ocean waves, then further imaging might have moved in the direction of larger waves and more exciting opportunities for surfboarding. In either case, the symbolic value of the imaged wave derives from the particular emotion coincidentally experienced by the imager [9][10][11][12], not from any unconscious "object of emotion." This approach to symbolism, as an alternative to the Freudian approach, implies that a dream image of French bread in a warm basket has sexual meaning only if it "happens to coincide with any lingering sexual desires or any rubbing of the genitals," and has no sexual meaning at all if it "coincides with feelings of hunger" instead [13, p. 300].…”