Festive Emplacements: Burning Man and Goa Trance

Festive medical myths.

In the pursuit of scientific truth, even widely held medical beliefs require examination or re-examination. Both physicians and non-physicians sometimes believe things about our bodies that just are not true. As a reminder of the need to apply scientific investigation to conventional wisdom, we previously discussed the evidence disputing seven commonly held medical myths. The holiday season pre...

Festive flu delay . . . and other stories.

A recent Minerva article (BMJ 2017;356:j54, doi:10.1136/bmj. j54) on antihypertensives and acute kidney injury inaccurately stated the results. The statement should have said “Compared with patients without chronic kidney disease, having stage 4 chronic kidney disease increased the risk of acute kidney injury by a factor of 6-8 times (independent of antihypertensive use).” Although the risk of ...

Slipping into trance

It has been hypothesized that highly hypnotizable people spontaneously slip into trance when given imaginative suggestions without prior induction of hypnosis. We tested this in two studies. In Study 1, we examined state reports from ten highly suggestible students following the administration of a suggestion for altered colour perception. The suggestion was administered twice, once with and on...

Habitat: a festive air, serious business.

Trance logic in hypnosis and imagination.

In 2 experiments we investigated trance logic, or the tolerance of logical incongruity, in age regression and hallucination. Experiment 1 tested 21 hypnotizable and 19 unhypnotizable subjects in an application of the real-simulating model of hypnosis. Experiment 2 tested 26 high and 19 low imagery ability subjects in an adaptation of the model to the imagination context. Subjects' experiences w...