Among hypnotists, the Esdaile state has an almost legendary status. It is the level at which, it is said, the body is so deeply relaxed that it feels no pain and the person is so content that they will not respond to anything. It is also the doorway to techniques such as Ultra Depth and the Simpson Protocol.
The name
James Esdaile was a Scottish surgeon working for the East India Company near Calcutta in the 1840s. Before chemical anaesthesia, he reported carrying out hundreds of operations, including amputations and the removal of very large tumours, on patients in a mesmeric trance, with a death rate far below what was normal at the time.
Two points of history are worth stating plainly:
- Esdaile never used the term. He practised mesmerism, and his patients were prepared with long sessions of mesmeric “passes,” often lasting hours and carried out by assistants. It was not a quick verbal induction.
- Dave Elman named the state. A century later, Elman encountered a very deep, unresponsive condition in some of his subjects, worked out how to produce it deliberately, and linked it to Esdaile’s surgical patients. He called it the Esdaile state, or the “hypnotic coma.”
“Coma” is a misleading word. The person is not unconscious in any medical sense. They can hear, and they can come out of it whenever they choose.
The reported signs
Hypnotists trained in the Elman tradition look for:
- Spontaneous anaesthesia — no response to a pinch or clamp, without any suggestion of numbness having been given
- Catalepsy — a limb stays wherever it is placed
- No response to ordinary suggestions — the person will not move or speak when asked
- Euphoria — afterwards, people often describe a blissful sense of peace that they did not want to leave
How it is reached
In outline, the client is first taken to somnambulism, usually with an Elman-style induction, and is then guided down through further levels of relaxation, often using the image of descending floors or basements, each far more relaxed than the last.
Bringing someone out
Because people in the state are reluctant to leave, Elman taught a simple method: the client is told that unless they open their eyes when asked, they will not be able to reach this state again. Since they do not want to lose it, they come back. Left alone, a person would in any case return to normal alertness or drift into ordinary sleep.
What it is used for
- Pain control, including dental and minor procedures
- Deep rest
- As a platform for the Simpson Protocol and Ultra Depth work
The caveats
- It has not been scientifically validated. No published research establishes the Esdaile state as a distinct condition. The description comes from Elman and those who followed him.
- Hypnotic anaesthesia is real, but it is not unique to this state. Research shows that highly hypnotizable people can achieve substantial pain reduction through suggestion, and that responsiveness matters more than any named level.
- Not everyone gets there. Reports from practitioners suggest that it comes easily to some people and not at all to others, which fits what is known about hypnotizability.
- It is not a substitute for medical anaesthesia outside properly supervised clinical settings.
The bottom line
The Esdaile state is best understood as a practitioner’s term for a very deep hypnotic experience that some people can reach. The experience is real to those who have it. The explanation remains open.
Next in the series: Ultra Depth and the Sichort State: Hypnosis at Its Deepest?
This article is for general information and is not medical advice.