![]() Despite his scepticism about the reports, Gilles de la Tourette decided to hypnotise a hysterical patient, Blanche, to see if it might be possible. At the time, newspapers reported tales of criminals “mesmerising” innocent people to carry out nefarious deeds. They soon veered into less reputable territory, however. ![]() Both doctors believed that the disorders might share certain characteristics with hypnosis – a hypothesis they tested by showing that people with hysteria are more susceptible to suggestion than healthy subjects. They studied cases of “hysteria” – in which patients were suddenly unable to feel or move their limbs, for instance, despite no observable injury. The researchers in question were two of the most prominent doctors in France at the beginning of the 20th Century: Jean-Martin Charcot, now considered the “ founder of modern neurology”, and Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who is most famous for the disease that bears his name. ![]() Hypnosis research has a somewhat murky history one early experiment very nearly ended in murder. I confess that I was a little nervous when I entered the lab earlier that day. It’s a bold idea, but can it possibly work? And what does it feel like to lose total control of your mind? “It’s not flaky, it’s not for entertainment – we’ve got carefully specific research goals,” says Mitul Mehta, who collaborates with Walsh on these studies. The scientists are understandably keen to distance themselves from stage hypnotists. The idea is to turn healthy subjects into ‘virtual patients’ suffering full-on delusions, such as being possessed by a paranormal entity, allowing the scientists to understand the underlying illness in a new way, and potentially find treatments The man who will soon take control of my thoughts is Eamonn Walsh, a psychologist who uses hypnosis to investigate psychoses at the Institute of Psychiatry in London. You will soon be aware of the engineer inserting his thoughts.”Ī strange serenity descends as I realise that soon, my will won’t be my own. He is doing this to advance his research into mind control. He does this because he is fascinated by mind control, and wants to apply the most direct method of controlling your thoughts. “The engineer has developed a way of taking control of your thoughts from the inside. A few moments later, the light dims, and as the man speaks, my thoughts begin to fade. In my mounting claustrophobia, I ask myself why I am here – but there is no way out now. There is a strange mechanical rumbling in the background, and I hear footsteps padding around the room beyond. I am lying on my back and trapped in a gleaming white tunnel, the surface barely six inches from my nose.
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