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Clinicians who have used hypnosis as part of their practice for a long time sometimes will encounter patients who report or manifest experiences that are difficult to explain.
For example, patients may report information that they do not believe they have previously encountered such as a foreign language or poetry.
When this occurs, Western-trained clinicians typically identify plausible rationales that nonetheless seem far-fetched.
The same type of skeptical approach is encountered by people who report near-death experiences, past lives, encounters with otherworldly beings, or divine guidance.
For instance, consider the case of a 14-year-old patient who reported seeing demons. He explained that through his subconscious, the demons showed him complex Hebrew words that fit the context of our interactions, which I could translate because I am a native Hebrew speaker. However, the patient in question is a native English speaker and had no Hebrew language knowledge.
The arrival of the demons can be thought of as a metaphor that represents the patient’s fears.
The appearance of Hebrew might be explained as an example of cryptomnesia, defined as a memory based in a forgotten experience, and its reinstatement appearing as a new experience (Baker, 1992).
However, I find it hard to believe that this patient had exposure to different Hebrew words that were later manifested by his subconscious, or that he acquired complex knowledge of a foreign language outside of his awareness.
The patient in this case did not question the reality of the demons and wondered whether his subconscious knowledge of Hebrew came from a past life.
When a rationale cannot be provided, such as an explanation for how a subconscious can end up expressing itself through a demon with Hebrew knowledge, most Western clinicians state that they cannot provide an explanation within established psychological or neurological understanding.
They are unable to accept supernatural possibilities within their scientific framework, as these cannot be studied or proven by empirical methods.
Rather, they content themselves with the idea that someday we will be able to understand unexplainable phenomena, like how we now can explain events that seemed mysterious in the past.
Unfortunately, this logical approach leaves clinicians at a loss for how to support some of their patients with inexplicable experiences with integrity. In turn, some of these patients may feel incompletely accepted by their clinicians, which can affect the effectiveness of their therapy.
An Alternative Approach
An alternative approach to unexplainable phenomena is to acknowledge that we cannot analyze some of these with the logical scientific methods with which we study the physical world.
For instance, while we can explain how the brain processes information and responds to stimuli, we cannot fully express our internal experiences—our qualia. The subjective experience of color, for example, belongs exclusively to the person experiencing it and cannot be fully shared.
Philosopher David Chalmers named understanding subjective experience as the “hard problem” (1995) and argued that it resists explanation within our current scientific framework, since science is built on third-person, objective description, while conscious awareness remains first-person and subjective.
If the hard problem of consciousness resists current scientific explanation, comprehension of other types of human experience may similarly require an approach beyond objective science. I believe we may find answers within our emotional and spiritual experiences and thoughts, which for millennia have served as the basis of human understanding.
As opposed to the function of our logical conscious thinking process, our subconscious often thinks and communicates in subjective imagery, emotion, metaphor, and other nonlinear processes.
Within the subconscious realm, we can easily suspend logical thinking. For example, in a hypnotic state, when my conscious mind was quieted, I imagined being on the Atlantic-facing East Coast of the United States and watching the sun set over the Atlantic Ocean, which is an impossibility because the sun sets in the west. This did not bother me at all and is an example of “trance logic” (Orne, 1959).
Another very common example of trance logic can occur in a dream state that is orchestrated by the subconscious. For instance, I saw my father in a dream soon after he died in his 80s, and accepted with equanimity that he was alive and appeared to be in his 30s.
Further, as a clinician who regularly uses hypnosis with his patients, I keep in mind that imagery that cannot exist in real life can have a profound beneficial effect on my patients’ mental and physical well-being.
For instance, I can suggest to a patient that they imagine placing their headache in a helium balloon and letting it go, which can relieve their headache. Thus, I am comfortable working with patients using unrealistic imagery.
In working with patients who manifest inexplicable phenomena, I have found that accepting their subjective experience as being real for them is as comfortable as the use of trance logic. Perhaps we can term this approach “acceptance logic.” In this framework, clinicians can keep in mind that accepting a patient’s report is not the same as accepting the patient’s interpretation.
From a clinical standpoint, if I can hold two irreconcilable realities as simultaneously true without distress in trance (e.g., being on the East Coast and viewing a sunset), why should I ask a patient’s subconscious experience to resolve into a single, scientifically defensible narrative?
As a clinician, I can validate the patient’s experience, without needing to decide whether his report originated from the subconscious, an interpersonal process, a spiritual source, or something else we do not yet understand.
Thus, on an emotional and spiritual level, acceptance logic provides a way to support patients with unusual experiences comfortably for both the clinician and the patient.
I believe it is possible that some (but likely not all) of my patients’ inexplicable experiences do reflect reality that as humans we may never understand fully.
Takeaway
Acceptance logic does not mean that we consciously believe that patients’ extraordinary experiences are real but it does let us work comfortably and effectively within their world.
References
Baker, R. A. (1992). Hidden memories: Voices and visions from within. Prometheus Books.
Chalmers, D. J. (1995). Facing up to the problem of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2(3), 200–219.
Orne, M. T. (1959). The nature of hypnosis: Artifact and essence. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58(3), 277–299.
