Hypnosis for Memory Improvement

Challenges with Popular Beliefs about Hypnosis and Memory

Did you know that most Americans have an incorrect understanding of hypnosis as it relates to memory? It's true - Many of my fellow Americans have beliefs that go against established scientific understandings of how memory and hypnosis are related. For example: A nationally representative sample survey of Americans showed that 55.4% of the United States population agreed that, “Hypnosis is useful in helping witnesses accurately recall details of crimes.”^[1] Unfortunately, that belief simply isn't correct. In fact, the opposite is true: Courts treat hypnosis-based recollections as untrustworthy. Although hypnosis can lead to more recall by witnesses, it does not lead to more accurate recall. ^[2]In the video and article below, I will share with you the important points from my research on hypnosis for memory improvement:

Widely-accepted beliefs about memory and hypnosis are not just interesting in their departure from decades of scientific research that disputes those beliefs. Popular opinion has the ability to seep into many parts of our lives, and its influence over the use of hypnosis for memory improvement made this particular use of hypnosis extremely popular and widespread in postwar America. The importance of lay knowledge lies in its power to shape how we approach and study the psychological sciences. Many researchers agree that popular psychological beliefs, no matter how wrong, play, “a significant, even formative role in defining the nature of forensic psychological expertise. And also the framing of elite academic psychological research.”^[3]

Even today, the influence of popular culture continues to impact the study of the science behind hypnosis and its ability to improve memory. In the scientific community, hypnosis is considered a relatively taboo topic, due to its convoluted history. Because of this, relatively few psychologists and scientists study the link that inevitably exists between hypnosis and its ability to alter, construct and define memories. As an example of the scientific community distancing itself from scientific applications of hypnosis, John F. Kihlstrom, a Berkeley psychologist, carefully limited his definition of hypnosis. He called it a social interaction in which one person acts on another’s suggestions, producing “alterations in cognition and voluntary action.”^[4]

There are, however, a few psychologists, researchers and scientists who believe that hypnosis has immense potential, beyond its ability to induce atypical experiential states. Unlocking this potential may provide significant insights into cognition, the brain and working memory function. It's even possible that hypnotic research may have major implications for developing new methods to improve human learning and memory performance.

According to my understanding, hypnosis is the induction of a highly-focused state of consciousness, in which a person is more responsive to suggestion or direction than they would be while not in hypnosis. This state can be achieved by the individual alone or with the help of another person or even a hypnosis recording . With that more expanded view of hypnosis, let's take a closer look at what the research tells us about the link between hypnosis and memory. We'll begin by looking at what memories really are.

What is Memory?

Memory can be defined as the faculty by which the brain stores and retrieves information. Although many people believe that memory works like, “a video camera, accurately recording the events we see and hear so that we can review and inspect them later,”^[1] This belief is actually incorrect and is not supported by science. Memory is not a storehouse of past events, whatever most people assume. It is an active process, and its job is to keep your sense of yourself steady and coherent from one situation to the next.^[5] Memories may be false when they are at first stored. They may also become false during repeated instances of retrieval and/or may be corrupted by time, ensuing events, brain injury or trauma, a person’s own sense of self, confidence about the memory and many other factors. So, to sum up memory, the idea that our memories are perfect, unaltered representations of historical reality is incorrect.

History of Hypnosis for Memory Improvement

Hypnosis as a means of memory improvement and recall (known scientifically as Hypnotic Hypermnesia) became popular after World War II, when clinical and experimental hypnosis became widespread practices. “From the 1950s through the early 1980s, hypnosis became increasingly popular as a means to exhume information thought to be buried within the mind.”^[3] As audio and video recording devices were made available for the public to buy and use, the lay public's concept of a memory as a permanent, unalterable item fixed in the mind gained more acceptance. People began to believe that memories were stored just like audios and videos, as unalterable records of past events. This widely-held scientifically-incorrect belief also encouraged psychoanalysts and therapists who believed hypnosis was the key to unlocking these "unalterable" repressed or unclear memories.

This belief eventually lead to two important developments in the history of hypnosis and memory improvement: The first being hypnotic age regression and recall: The widespread phenomenon of people getting hypnotized and then suddenly remembering fantastical events that may or may not have happened to them as a child. The second being forensic hypnosis: The practice of regressing subjects to a specific moment or event that they had witnessed to, “replay the memory of a crime.”^[3] Although these developments helped with the creative writing of many movie scripts, the truth probably wouldn't sell many tickets. Let's take a closer look at these two key developments.

Hypnotic Age Regression and Recall

The first development, the use of hypnotic techniques, including age regression, to enhance recall of past events experienced by the individual, was primarily led by psychologists, who used hypnosis to, “exhume memories of incest, sexual abuse, and trauma.” It was also used in more unusual cases, such as recollections of alien abductions.^[4] But, there is no scientific evidence that supports these practices. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that discounts it.

Hypnosis also appears to increase false recollection. Whitehouse and fellow researchers found that hypnosis also increased the confidence that people felt about their ability to recall items, without increasing their actual ability to recall the items correctly.^[6] It seems that hypnosis can create a suggestive atmosphere that interacts with memory reconstruction and retrieval to give people the illusion of correctly remembering. ^[7] So, in the absence of independent corroboration, there is no reason to think that any hypnotically refreshed recollection is an accurate representation of the historical past, and, in fact, every reason to doubt it.^[4]

Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus went even further than saying that suggestion was the root challenge. She believed that the fundamental understanding of memory that underpinned the practice was wrong. Earlier researchers had compared memory to a tape recording or a reel of film. Loftus tested that idea directly. She showed people films of real events, such as a traffic accident, then asked questions worded in different ways. What people remembered shifted depending on how the question was asked. Memory turned out to be far less like a recording than anyone had assumed.^[3] This study, among many others that she performed, served to illustrate the fact that the concept of memory, as it was culturally understood, was wrong. And that the very act of recollection could change the memories.

Forensic Hypnosis

The second important event that occurred in the history of hypnosis and memory was the development of forensic hypnosis. Due to the challenging issues of false recollection and believed-imaginings, forensic hypnosis had a fairly short lifespan in the legal field. The courts followed the evidence. There was no scientific support for hypnosis producing accurate recall, and there was evidence it increased distortion. Most state supreme courts that examined the question placed heavy restrictions on hypnotically obtained testimony.^[2] A lack of independent and objective corroboration proved to be a major factor in dismissing hypnotically-induced testimonies as nothing more than suggested representations of memories and events.

These two developments, hypnotic age regression and forensic hypnosis, were, by most measures, resounding failures. And their significance continues to impact further scientific study on the subject today. But it gets even worse, as Lifshitz and fellow researchers summarize: Two things damaged public understanding of hypnosis and memory in the late twentieth century. The first was a sharp rise in diagnoses of dissociative identity disorder, then called multiple personality disorder. The second was a growing legal argument about whether testimony obtained under hypnosis should be allowed in court.^[8] Both of these events served to discredit hypnosis as a reliable recall tool. This is because it was found that many of the diagnoses of DID were made based on people remembering imagined past events. And many of the witness statements made in court were inaccurate.

Since these popular misconceptions about the use of hypnosis live on in many people’s systems of belief about hypnosis and memory, they have had a negative impact on the advancement of research in this specific area.

Scientific Evidence about How Hypnosis May Help with Memory Improvement

Hypnosis for Procedural-Based Sequence Learning

Now that we have cleared up a few common misunderstandings about hypnosis and memory, let's look at how science now sees hypnosis as a possible aid to memory. In recent years, there has been some important experimentation involving hypnosis and memory improvement. Nemeth and fellow researchers analyzed the connection between human learning and memory and how, in particular, hypnosis allowed for reduced engagement of the frontal lobe-mediated explicit attentional processes, leading to improved performance in striatum-related procedural learning. In other words, they looked at how hypnosis can enhance our ability to focus on completing procedural (step-by-step) tasks.

It turns out that we use several parts of our brain when it comes to memory and learning. And they don't always work well together. As the researchers put it, Learning and memory do not run on one system. Several separate brain structures handle different parts of the job. They work together, and sometimes against each other, to produce what you end up remembering.^[9] Everything sounds good, except for the competitive part (different parts and processes in our brains competing against each other). So, they used hypnosis as a tool to reduce the competition between two types of systems: (1) The frontal lobe-related explicit hypothesis testing system and (2) the striatum-related procedural-based system. “The main question of the study was how the disruption of frontal lobe functions by hypnosis affects performance in procedural-based sequence learning.”^[9] The study wanted to see if hypnosis impacts human attention processes enough to improve our ability to complete procedural tasks. They discovered that hypnosis may be able to help us complete these types of tasks. By blocking some parts of the brain’s attention systems (eliminating the competition), hypnosis may actually increase our ability to focus on procedural tasks and how quickly or well we complete these tasks.

The results of this study were impressive. Nemeth and his team found that, “hypnosis greatly boosted procedural-based sequence learning,” meaning that, with hypnosis, participants were able to learn how to complete step-by-step tasks more quickly and efficiently. This result sheds light not only on the competitive nature of brain systems in cognitive processes, but could also have dramatic implications for developing new methods to improve human skill learning and increase procedural-based memory functioning.^[9]

The Effects of Hypnosis on Three Important Brain Networks (DMN, ECN and SN)

Let's now turn our attention to three brain networks and how they relate to hypnosis, memory and learning. Jiang and colleagues furthered Nemeth's line of research in their work, stating, Jiang and colleagues built on Nemeth’s work. Their finding, put plainly: hypnosis appears to quiet the default mode network — the set of brain regions active when your attention is not on the outside world — while strengthening the links between the networks that handle focused thinking. People who score high on hypnotizability show more of that connection. In their words, the effects may come from “separation of certain brain functions as well as integration of others.”^[10] I'll explain more about these three networks in a moment, however, for now, realize that this research advanced the idea that hypnosis affects both the systems within the human brain and the ways in which the systems communicate with one another.

Jiang and fellow researchers used fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging - a measure of brain activity based on blood flow) to test activity and functional connectivity among these three networks while people were in hypnosis. Their findings showed that, The pattern of activity across these brain networks shifts under hypnosis.^[10] In other words, the scientists found that, in certain instances, hypnosis made certain brain functions work better together, and, in other instances, hypnosis caused brain functions to not work together at all. So, hypnosis can cause the brain to increase communication between key cognitive functions and decrease communication between other key functions.

The ability to choose when and to what degree the different networks communicate with one another could potentially lead to scientists being able to control how the brain works, or at least how parts of it work. If scientists discover how to control how our brains work, they may potentially be able to help us learn more quickly and thoroughly, influence our habits (encourage wanted habits and discourage unwanted ones) and even possibly allow our memories to function better. Additional investigation must be completed on this matter, but as the research stands, it holds great promise for the future of education, training, and rehabilitation programs.

Expectations Matter in Hypnotic Research

Although the historical misapplications of hypnosis for memory improvement have tainted the image of hypnosis as a useful tool for evoking lost memories, new collective evidence shows that judicious use of hypnotic techniques can actually improve recall and decrease memory inaccuracy.^[8] Expectancies and demand characteristics appear to play a primary role in determining whether hypnosis or other suggestion-based procedures will either improve or bias memory. Expectancies refer to a person’s expectations for the experience of hypnosis: What it will be like, as well as how one may feel afterwards. Demand characteristics are behaviors that a participant exhibits during a research study after having formed an opinion of what the experiment’s purpose is. People generally don’t intend to but instead subconsciously alter their actions to fit their idea of the experiment and its intentions. Both of these occurrences tend to skew the results of the experiment, because participants are not acting naturally, but are instead doing what they believe they’re supposed to be doing.

A series of experiments by Wagstaff and fellow researchers showed that instructing participants to expect that hypnosis will improve their ability to recall actually increased their resilience to misleading information and decreased their likelihood of false recall.^[11] This method works by educating subjects about the threat of false recall. This allows them to protect themselves against confabulation (false answers the mind creates to fill in memory gaps - these are not lies) throughout the hypnotic treatment. Measures such as these strengthen the possibility that hypnosis can be used as a safe and successful means of memory improvement.

Reminders Matter Too

Another precautionary technique that helps safeguard experiments is to ask questions or make statements during the hypnotic treatment that intentionally remind the participant to attempt to recall memories as accurately as possible. Their suggestion was practical: build the wording of the session so that it ties the procedure to accurate recall. Done that way, it may guard against confabulation and produce fuller, more accurate reports.^[8] So, in addition to intentionally framing the experiment and its purpose before the hypnotic treatment (called priming), there is also promise in refining the methods used during the hypnotic experience. These two methods, priming and reminding, may have potential applications, such as teachers helping students and police working with crime victims.

Hypnosis for Memory Improvement after Brain Injury

Another area in which hypnosis has shown potential is in improving the working memory performance of brain-injured patients. Working memory impairment is common in patients who have brain injuries from a variety of causes and at varying degrees of severity.^[12] Lindelov and colleagues showed in their 2017 study that, “Working memory performance can be effectively restored by suggesting to hypnotized patients that they have regained their pre-injury level of working memory functioning.” Their experiment was designed to measure not only short-term effects, but also long-term functioning of the working memory. In both cases, the researchers found that the patients' memory had improved and began operating at or above the performance level of non brain injured people. Lindelov and fellow researchers concluded that, Their conclusion was that hypnotic suggestion, framed the right way, improved working memory after brain injury. What struck the researchers was how fast and how consistently it happened. That speed suggests the injured brain may retain more capacity for normal processing than had been assumed.^[12] These findings are merely the first step toward revolutionizing how rehabilitation programs are designed, but are an encouraging sign that hypnosis is an overlooked resource when it comes to improving memory performance.

There is still a lot of research that needs to be done in the area of hypnosis for memory improvement. I'm excited to see where it will lead us. If you're interested in the benefits of what we now know, you can access them now. Below is a one-hour free memory improvement hypnosis session. It does not contain music or binaural tones (my memory enhancement hypnosis mp3 download does). To use either the free memory improvement audio/video below or the mp3 download, just listen to either as you go to sleep at night for 21 nights in a row. If you skip a few nights, that's ok. You may fall asleep while listening, but that's ok too. You will still gain the benefits. Enjoy!

Recent Research

The sources above remain valid; a study does not stop being true because it is older. Here is what the last five years have added.

A randomized controlled trial is testing hypnotic suggestion for working memory after brain injury, following earlier work that showed large effects the authors say need replication.^[13]

A 20-year review pooled the research on hypnosis across mental and physical health issues. It found moderate effects where trials were well designed, and admitted that study quality across the field has been uneven.^[14]

A three-week self-administered hypnosis protocol improved how fast college students fell asleep and how efficiently they slept. Those results were measured by wrist actigraphy rather than by asking people how they felt.^[15]

A randomized trial compared hypnosis with progressive muscle relaxation in students with high anxiety. It measured how anxious people felt and also where their attention settled when distracting material appeared. Hypnosis affected both.^[16]

An international survey of clinical hypnosis practice mapped what therapists actually treat and how. The steady finding is that hypnosis is used as one part of a wider approach, and that recorded sessions for home use are normal practice.^[17]

Frequently Asked Questions

Can hypnosis improve memory?

Hypnosis can improve the conditions memory depends on — attention at the point of encoding, reduced anxiety during recall. And sleep quality, since slow-wave sleep is when memories consolidate.

Can hypnosis recover lost memories?

No, and this is important. Hypnosis does not reliably recover accurate memories and can increase confidence in recollections that are not accurate. It should never be used to attempt recovery of forgotten events.

Does hypnosis help with studying?

It helps with focus during study and with retrieval anxiety during exams, both of which affect how much you can access of what you learned.

References