The role of gaze

Tonight I came across an interesting article from Discourse Studies, Vol. 8, No. 6, 745-770 (2006). It is entitled:

‘Calm down!’: the role of gaze in the interactional management of hysteria by the police

by Mardi Kidwell, University of New Hampshire

The abstract for the article is as follows: “Gaze is a central mechanism for the entry into and coordination of face-to-face interaction. As such, persistent and sustained gaze withdrawal may indicate significant troubles in an interaction. This article examines how two police officers, in seeking to calm a hysterical woman whose grandson has been shot, treat her refusal to gaze at them as a central component of her persisting hysteria. Toward the end of getting the woman to calm down, one officer seeks her return gaze using embedded and exposed methods of gaze pursuit. These methods work on a continuum in which, at one end, a turn at talk can be preserved as the main activity, while at the other end, the main activity becomes remedying the interactional trouble. These methods address different interactional relevancies having to do with 1) being a listener to a speaker, 2) being a recipient of a directive action, and 3) a basic obligation to comport oneself as at least minimally aware and responsive when targeted by the actions of co-present others.”

You can read it online at: http://dis.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/8/6/745

The relation of this to hypnosis and trance can clearly be seen when compared with the news report on the BBC website about the Italian thief using hypnosis to rob supermarket staff (cite on the Conversational Hypnosis website).

Memories Erased in Mice

The ScienceDaily story ‘Memories Selectively, Safely Erased In Mice‘ details how researchers have been able to selectively erase memories in mice. They quote Dr. Joe Z. Tsien, a brain scientist and co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, as saying “While memories are great teachers and obviously crucial for survival and adaptation, selectively removing incapacitating memories, such as traumatic war memories or an unwanted fear, could help many people live better lives.“

The method is via a molecular mechanism rather than a trance-related technique. However, considering that the technique could be used to erase a memory and hypnotic suggestion and mind control techniques could be used to build new memories it is certainly an interesting breakthrough.

Of course, the therapeutic value for post traumatic stress disorder and other psychological problems is promising.

Introducing the Trance Research Blog

This blog has been set up to research, and report the findings, on topic relating to trance states, including hypnosis, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), meditation, mind control and related fields of psychology.

The use of trance to induce altered states of conscious goes back thousands of years. Shamanism and various meditation and religious practices all use types of trance to enter non-ordinary states of consciousness to bring about healing, knowledge, and spiritual enlightenment. In modern times trancework has been used in medicine, psychiatry and psychotherapy, mind control experiments (or by cults), alternative therapies, and New Age and spiritual practices.

An example of the modern use of mind control is the case of the CIA’s MKULTRA experiments.

Project MK-ULTRA, or MKULTRA, was the code name for a covert CIA mind-control and chemical interrogation research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. The program began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, and it used United States citizens as its test subjects. There is much published evidence that the project involved the surreptitious use of many types of drugs, as well as other methodology, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function.

source: Wikipedia

The research on trance will outline models of trance, such as Dennis Wier’s “Trance Model” and explore competing theories/schools of hypnosis.