Hypnosis and Sleep

"When I enrolled as a student of Mr. Elman, I did it for only one purpose. I wanted to learn how to hypnotize my wife in her sleep and give her suggestions to make her stop picking on me and nagging me. Mr. Elman said I couldn’t do it — that I wouldn’t be successful. I’ve been more than successful. I hypnotized her while she was sound asleep. She’d never let me hypnotize her while she was awake but I did it when she was asleep, and she didn’t even know it. I talked to her unconscious mind-told her how much her picking and nagging was disturbing me, and suggested that she never do it again. She hasn’t henpecked me for over a year, and I’m very proud to say that as a result I’ve been much happier. And maybe she has been much happier."

The literature pertaining to when a person can or cannot be hypnotized is conflicting. […​] Kroger (1963) and Fresacher (1951) also mention the possibility of hypnotizing persons without their knowledge or consent by leading them from natural sleep to the trance state.

While the recent study of Barber (1956) reported that suggestions during sleep were successfully responded to during sleep, no objective criteria, such as EEG, of the presence of sleep were used. The interpretation that Ss remain asleep during such suggestions, however, is called into question by a more recent study by Borlone, Dittborn, and Palestini (1960) employing EEG monitoring. In their investigation of the induction of sleep by direct suggestion and repetitive stimulation, these investigators reported the successful induction of EEG sleep patterns showing theta waves, and in one instance delta activity. They reported that such induced sleep could be turned into hypnosis by appropriate suggestions, but during verbal interactions between E and S, EEG patterns with waking alpha activity were shown, even though S had been instructed that he would remain asleep throughout.

All 4 highly hypnotizable Ss did respond behaviorally to the sleep-administered verbal suggestion and remained physiologically asleep. However, this only occurred when the suggestion was administered in emergent Stage 1 sleep. […​]<br>

All 4 low hypnotizable Ss failed to respond behaviorally to the sleep-administered verbal suggestion.

This study explored the possibility of eliciting motor responses from sleeping Ss. Nineteen Ss slept in the laboratory for 2 nights. Some Ss responded behaviorally, while remaining asleep, to verbal suggestions which had been administered previously during stage 1 sleep. Many responses were obtained without eliciting alpha activity during the suggestion, after the cue word was administered, or before and after the response. When a successful response occurred, alpha frequency was not significantly different from the slowed frequency occurring spontaneously during stage 1 sleep. The average response latency was 32 seconds, and this increased as the temporal dissociation between the administration of the suggestion and the cue word increased. After the S awakened, he did not remember the verbally presented material, nor could he remember responding, and he did not respond to the cue word while awake. When S returned to sleep the next night, or even 5 months later [emphasis added], the mere repetition of the relevant cue word (without repetition of the suggestion itself) was sufficient to elicit the appropriate response. It is concluded that a subject is capable of some interaction with his environment while he is asleep.

A complex relationship was found among the frequency of sleep-induced response, susceptibility to hypnosis, and how well the S slept. Insusceptible Ss were less likely to respond while asleep and had less opportunity to respond because they awakened when cue words were presented. They had also reported that they were poor sleepers outside of the laboratory situation. Response to sleep-induced suggestions was not correlated with waking motor suggestion, nor with hypnotic passive and challenge suggestion. Rather, sleep response rate was significantly related to hallucinatory and posthypnotic clusters of hypnotic behavior (which can be experienced only by deeply hypnotized Ss), particularly with responses obtained when there was temporal dissociation between the suggestion and the cue word.

A study performed with William Orchard suggested that sleep learning might be possible after all, so long as the learning is characterized as semantic, or perhaps implicit, in nature. A more extensive (and controversial) series of studies explored the possibility that subjects could respond to hypnosis-like behavioral suggestions while remaining asleep. Taken together, these studies can be viewed as pioneering attempts to explore the role of sleep in learning and memory.

The author demonstrates the possibility of developing prolonged hypnosis of a waking type, ranging from 16 hours to 7 days, with preserved normal waking-sleep rhythms. Persisting rapport, duration of a prearranged distorted reaction to date-questioning, and subsequent total amnesia were taken as criteria for prolonged hypnosis. They were met by five of ten trained, highly susceptible Ss. Normal sleep can apparently occur parallel with hypnosis, without interfering with it. Implications for a theory of hypnosis are discussed.

One question is: Are the Ss really hypnotized while asleep? An alternative hypothesis is that they are in normal sleep (not hypnotized), but re-enter hypnosis immediately upon awakening, according to an implicit posthypnotic suggestion.

Six highly susceptible *S*s were hypnotized and allowed to sleep in the laboratory during the night. Hypnotic rapport was tested after each of two awakenings, and simple suggestions were also administered in different stages of sleep. After awakening, hypnotic rapport was still present. In sleep, the *S*s did not react to suggestions in stages 3 and 4. They sometimes reacted in stage 2, but usually woke up either during listening or during responding to the suggestion. In stage REM the *S*s usually responded well to the suggestions; they sometimes woke up and sometimes not. The results are taken as a proof that hypnosis can continue after periods of sleep which occur during hypnosis. The question whether hypnosis and sleep can occur simultaneously or only alternately is discussed.

Hypnotic phenomena evidently work better if the EEG shows a waking pattern. As long as sleep stages are on the record, the possibility for responding to suggestions is considerably limited. The S necessarily tends to wake up fully, if he is to demonstrate typical phenomena of deep hypnosis. These findings favor the explanation that hypnosis and sleep are interfering processes rather than processes that could coexist independently.

Eleven highly hypnotically susceptible XS participated in a sleep-learning experiment which involved sleeping in the laboratory on two successive nights. The first night served as an adaptation period, and the second, an experimental period. Ten simple Russian-English word pairs were learned in the waking state upon awakening from the adaption night. Prior to going to sleep on the experimental night, the Ss were hypnotized, and given suggestions to perceive and remember the words to be presented. A second list of ten Russian-English word pairs were presented during emergent Stage I REM sleep monitored electroencephalographically and electromyographically. It was found that the 8s learned an average of 90% of the material presented under the waking condition, but only an average of 30% under the Stage I REM sleep. It was concluded that learning during sleep as here defined was possible but not practical.

[…​] it does appear that hypnotizable subjects have the ability to fall asleep easily and in a wide variety of circumstances. While this finding does not imply any basic similarity of sleep and hypnosis, it does indicate that there may be a common underlying mechanism involved in the capacity to experience hypnosis and the ability to fall asleep easily and maintain control of basic sleep processes.