Some people can read in a noisy room and hear nothing. They cry at films, feel music physically, and as children had imaginary friends who seemed entirely real. Others have never lost themselves in anything and find the idea slightly baffling.
Psychologists have a name for this difference. It is called absorption, and it is the personality trait most often linked to hypnosis.
What absorption is
In 1974 Auke Tellegen and Gilbert Atkinson described a trait they called openness to absorbing and self-altering experiences. A person high in absorption readily gives their whole attention to something, so completely that their sense of themselves and their surroundings temporarily changes.
They built a questionnaire to measure it, the Tellegen Absorption Scale. Its items ask about experiences such as:
- Becoming so involved in a film or play that you forget yourself
- Being deeply moved by a sunset, music or poetry
- Finding that sounds evoke colours or images
- Recalling a past experience so vividly it is like living it again
- Feeling the presence of someone who is not physically there
- Losing track of time while absorbed in a task
- Being able to wander off into your thoughts while doing something routine
Absorption is not the same as intelligence, and it is not a disorder. It is a normal dimension along which people vary.
The link with hypnosis
Tellegen and Atkinson showed that people who were more hypnotizable were more likely to have these experiences of total attention.
It makes sense. Hypnosis is, in essence, deliberate absorption in a suggested idea. Someone who slips easily into absorption in daily life can do the same on request.
Later research added a caution: the link is real but modest. Plenty of people high in absorption are not especially hypnotizable, and the reverse. Some studies found the link stronger when people knew the questionnaire was connected with hypnosis, which suggests that expectation plays a part.
So absorption is a hint, not a test.
The fantasy-prone personality
In the early 1980s the psychologists Sheryl Wilson and Theodore Barber interviewed 27 women who were exceptionally good hypnotic subjects. Twenty-six of them turned out to share a striking set of characteristics. Wilson and Barber called it the fantasy-prone personality, and estimated it might apply to about 4 per cent of people.
The women they described:
- Spent a large part of their time fantasising, often while carrying on normal activities
- Had rich imaginary worlds and companions as children
- Experienced their fantasies as vivid as reality, with sights, sounds and physical sensations
- Had intense memories, reliving events in detail
- Often reported experiences they interpreted as psychic or out-of-body
- Could produce physical responses through imagination alone
Most led ordinary lives and kept this side of themselves private.
The study was small, and all its subjects were women chosen for high hypnotizability. Later research confirmed that fantasy proneness exists and is related to hypnotizability, but found the link weaker than this first study suggested. Many highly hypnotizable people are not fantasy-prone.
More than one route
Researchers now think there are different kinds of highly hypnotizable people. Some get there through vivid imagination. Others seem to respond through a capacity for dissociation, a detachment from their own actions. Others again respond mainly through strong expectation and motivation. The same score can come about in different ways.
The upside
High absorption brings real pleasures and abilities.
- Deep enjoyment of art, music, nature and stories
- Creativity
- Empathy, from being able to imagine another person’s experience
- Capacity for flow
- Good response to hypnosis, imagery and meditation
The downside
There are costs too.
- Vulnerability to suggestion, including unhelpful suggestions
- False memories. Vivid imagination makes it harder to tell what was imagined from what happened. This is the main reason memory-recovery techniques are dangerous.
- Stronger nocebo responses: feeling the side effects one has read about
- Being overwhelmed by distressing films, news or other people’s emotions
- Daydreaming that crowds out daily life, in a few people
High absorption is not a problem in itself. But if you have it, you have particular reason to choose carefully what you expose yourself to, and to be cautious with any practitioner who works with memory.
If you are not an absorber
You are not excluded from hypnosis. Most therapeutic suggestions are simple, and expectation, motivation and practice all contribute. You may do better with:
- A more direct, practical style
- Short sessions
- Physical methods such as breathing or muscle relaxation
- Active or “alert” techniques, with eyes open
- Approaches like CBT, if imagery leaves you cold
A quick self-check
How many of these are true of you?
- I lose track of time when reading or watching something good.
- Music can give me physical shivers.
- I can replay a memory as if it were happening.
- I had vivid imaginary play as a child.
- I can picture a lemon so clearly my mouth waters.
- I sometimes do not hear people speak to me when I am concentrating.
Several yeses suggest higher absorption. It is not a diagnosis, just a pointer.
The bottom line
Absorption is the capacity to become completely caught up in an experience. It is the best-known personality link to hypnosis, though a modest one. If you have it, hypnosis and imagery are likely to come easily, and it is worth being selective about what you let in.
Next in the series: Group Hypnotherapy: Does It Work as Well as One-to-One?
This article is for general information and is not medical advice.