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Demystifying the cognitive processes involved in hypnosis.

When most people hear the term "hypnosis," they think of stage magicians, swinging watches and B-movie twists. Not so for Joel Weinberger, PhD, professor in the Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology, and doctoral student of psychology Gavriel Knafo. Together, with Knafo as senior author, they published "Exploring the Role of Conscious and Unconscious Processes in Hypnosis: A Theoretical Review" (Brain Sciences, April 2024).¹

Hypnosis is a "controversial, long-studied phenomenon," according to Dr. Weinberger, an expert in the field of unconscious processes. But rather than "some kind of mystical state of consciousness, or connection to an ineffable higher order," hypnosis is actually a manifestation of the brain's regular unconscious processes.

One of the "mystical" draws of hypnosis is the assumption of a "unitary experience" during our waking lives, which hypnosis is seemingly able to split into two. One part of the participant's mind is "listening" to the hypnotist, while the rest is unaware of what's happening. "The reality is that the mind is not unitary," Dr. Weinberger said. "We're doing a million things at the same time, which is called parallel processing, and most of that is unconscious. Hypnosis is just another way of demonstrating those parallel processes that happen all the time."

He cites the example of a conversation. "You speak to another person consciously and presume they're conscious of you speaking to them. But where did your understanding come from? Where did the words you just verbalized come from? You have no idea, and yet it's happening. We have no conscious access to the parts of our brains that are creating words or understanding what others say."

Dr. Weinberger and Knafo wanted to demystify the cognitive processes involved in hypnosis through a comprehensive review of various explanatory theories. Their article covers the practice's Western origins; related psychoanalytic and neurocognitive theories; and theories centered on conscious cognition, social factors and the interplay of conscious and unconscious attributions. "Due to the number of neurological theories around hypnosis, both modern and from the last two centuries, we thought the review would be helpful in teasing out what is really the role of the unconscious in hypnosis," Knafo said.

It was clear to both that hypnosis involves a genuine unconscious aspect. Knafo explained that "people under stage hypnosis don't do things they would in their everyday lives, and it would be hard to self-hypnotize without training for that." Their analysis draws on Sigmund Freud's conception of the unconscious, which contains both the unconscious itself and the preconscious (on the verge of becoming conscious).

Throughout the literature, "relaxed states"-such as hypnosis, dreaming and the moments before sleep-were seen to allow preconscious processes to open their proverbial gates, allowing freer access to unconscious processes. To help describe this recurring idea, Knafo and Dr. Weinberger coined the term "gatekeeper."

Under hypnosis, the gatekeeper mechanism guides and modulates between nonconscious and conscious information, determining which elements of experience are brought to full awareness and which remain unconscious. "Understanding this dynamic interplay is crucial for comprehending the complex nature of hypnosis," Dr. Weinberger and Knafo note in the paper. Their review found that the gatekeeper's selective nature profoundly influences not only how hypnosis participants process the cues that shape hypnotic experiences, but also their interpretation of the experience afterward.

Much like Dr. Weinberger's example of conversational parallel processes, hypnosis illuminates the degree to which the unconscious and conscious parts of our minds are in constant interaction. "Nothing is purely conscious or purely unconscious," the paper maintains. "Moreover, there is no firm line that differentiates the two."

Through their review, Dr. Weinberger and Knafo reframe hypnosis as an extension of standard mental functioning-and, ultimately, an aspect of cognitive science that can sustain further study. Or, as Dr. Weinberger said, "We just tried to make sense out of something most people see as mysterious."

Read more in the 2025 issue of Academic & Creative Research Magazine, where we highlight the innovation and imagination shaping Adelphi's academic community.

1 Knafo, G., & Weinberger, J. (2024). Exploring the role of conscious and unconscious processes in hypnosis: A theoretical review. Brain Sciences, 14(4), 374. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14040374

About Joel Weinberger, PhD

Joel Weinberger, PhD, is a professor in the Gordon F. Derner School of Psychology. His primary research interest over the past 20 years has been unconscious processes, which is the subject of a book he co-authored, titled The Unconscious: Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications.