Hypnosis and Meditation: Two Paths Through the Mind

The Noise Inside Your Mind

Right now, even as you listen to me, there is probably some kind of noise inside your mind.

Maybe you are thinking about something you need to do later.

Maybe you are replaying a conversation from yesterday.

Maybe part of you is listening to this video while another part is planning for dinner, worrying about tomorrow, or reminding you of something embarrassing you said five years ago.

Our minds are filled with thoughts, worries, memories, future plans, and a nearly constant stream of self-talk.

Sometimes that mental activity is useful.

It helps us solve problems, prepare for the future, and make sense of what already happened.

But sometimes the volume gets a little too loud.

Now, psychology does not have one magical switch that can turn every thought off.

But researchers have studied different ways that we can redirect attention and change how strongly that mental noise affects us.

Two of those methods are hypnosis and meditation.

At first, they may sound like complete opposites.

Hypnosis might make you think of swinging watches, stage performances, and someone being told to bark like a dog.

Meditation might make you picture someone sitting silently with their legs crossed, trying very hard not to think about anything.

But neuroscience suggests that these two practices may have more in common than we once thought.

And to understand why, I want to take you somewhere.

Today, we’re going on a field trip up a mountain.

Two Paths Through the Mind

Imagine you are standing at the bottom of a mountain.

There are two paths leading to the top. And beside those paths, two guides are waiting for you.

The first guide stands beside Path A.

The guide looks at you and says, “Follow my voice. Focus where I direct your attention.”

The second guide stands beside Path B.

And that guide says, “Follow your breath. Notice where your attention goes and practice bringing it back.”

Which path would you choose?

Don’t worry. You will not miss anything.

Today we are taking both paths.

Along the way, we are going to discover what hypnosis really is, what meditation may do to the brain, why these methods do not work exactly the same way for everyone, and why both paths eventually lead us toward the same brain network.

Welcome back to The Psychology Notebook.

I’m Desiree, and this is lesson seventeen in our Psych 101 series.

Now, let’s begin with Path A.

Hypnosis: Beyond the Stage

You join the first group of travelers.

At first, Path A looks surprisingly easy.

The trail is clearly marked. There are signs pointing forward, and the guide seems to know exactly where everyone needs to go.

But before the group gets very far, you reach a strange roadside attraction.

There is a large stage.

A watch swings back and forth beneath a bright spotlight.

Posters promise complete mind control.

One shows a person dancing like a chicken.

Another claims that the hypnotist can make anyone reveal their deepest secrets.

A few travelers stop to watch.

One of them whispers, “Is this what we signed up for?”

The guide shakes their head.

“This is the version of hypnosis that most people recognize.”

Stage hypnosis is designed to entertain an audience.

The people chosen to participate are often willing, responsive, and comfortable performing in front of others.

Clinical hypnosis is different.

It is used in a more controlled setting, sometimes as part of psychological or medical care.

And despite the way hypnosis is often portrayed, a hypnotized person is not unconscious.

They have not surrendered ownership of their mind.

They are not completely powerless.

Instead, hypnosis generally involves focused attention, reduced awareness of some competing information, and an increased ability to respond to suggestion.

This is a notebook moment. Get out your psychology notebook and write this down:

Hypnosis is a condition of focused or narrowed attention combined with increased responsiveness to suggestion.

The Narrow Canyon

The guide turns away from the stage and leads your group further up the mountain.

Soon, the trail enters a narrow canyon.

The walls block most of the view.

The sounds from the bottom of the mountain grow quieter.

The guide asks everyone to focus on the sound of their voice.

“Watch the path directly in front of you. Notice the rhythm of your breathing. Let the other sounds move into the background.”

As the group continues, something interesting happens.

One traveler becomes completely absorbed in the guide’s instructions.

They barely notice the wind, the birds, and the other travelers around them.

Another traveler follows the instructions but still notices the sounds outside the canyon.

A third traveler keeps looking around.

They hear every bird. They notice every loose rock.

And they finally raise their hand and ask, “Am I doing this wrong?”

The answer is no.

Hypnotizability

People differ in something researchers call hypnotizability.

Hypnotizability describes how strongly a person tends to respond to hypnotic suggestions.

Some people experience vivid changes in perception, sensation, or movement.

Others experience smaller changes.

And some people respond very little.

These differences are not a measure of intelligence.

Being highly hypnotizable does not mean that someone is weak-minded or gullible.

Being less hypnotizable does not mean that someone is stubborn, broken, or refusing to cooperate.

People’s levels of hypnotic responsiveness simply vary.

Researchers suggest that hypnotizability remains relatively stable across adulthood.

It behaves more like an individual trait than a skill that everyone can dramatically increase through practice.

This means that the guide’s voice may have a powerful effect on one traveler, a moderate effect on another, and very little effect on someone else.

So Path A is not a magical shortcut.

The guide can provide directions, but the experience also depends on the traveler.

And that brings us to an important question.

Does hypnosis actually do anything useful, or is it simply an interesting experience?

What Can Hypnosis Help With?

Farther up the trail, your group reaches a small shelter built into the side of the mountain.

Inside, the walls are covered with medical charts, research studies, and patient reports.

This is where the mythology around hypnosis begins to separate from the evidence.

Researchers have studied clinical hypnosis for several different concerns.

Some of the more promising evidence involves pain, discomfort during certain medical procedures, and irritable bowel syndrome, also called IBS.

For example, gut-directed hypnotherapy uses focused relaxation, imagery, and suggestions related to digestive functioning.

In one long-term study of 204 patients with IBS, 71% initially responded to hypnotherapy.

Among those who responded, 81% reported that they maintained their improvement over time, with follow-up periods extending as long as six years.

Now, this does not mean that hypnosis works for every person with IBS.

It does not mean that hypnosis should replace medical evaluation or necessary treatment.

But it does show us that hypnosis is more than a stage performance.

For certain problems in certain people, it may become one useful part of care.

The evidence is less consistent for some other popular claims, including weight loss and smoking cessation.

And that distinction matters because hypnosis is not a cure-all.

It does not work equally well for every condition.

It does not work equally well for every person.

And good psychology requires us to avoid both extremes.

We should not dismiss hypnosis as fake simply because stage performers use it.

But we should not treat it as a mysterious power capable of solving every problem, either.

The research shelter has one final sign hanging above the exit.

And it reads:

“Suggestion can redirect attention, but not every mind follows suggestion in the same way.”

Your group steps back onto the trail.

Your guide’s voice continues to lead you upward.

For some travelers, the rest of the climb feels deeply absorbing.

For others, the effect remains subtle.

Eventually, the group reaches a ledge near the top of the mountain, but the summit is still hidden by clouds.

The guide stops.

Path A has taken us a long way, but it cannot explain the whole picture.

To understand what may happen through practice rather than hypnotic responses, we need to return to the bottom to meet our second guide.

Now, we are taking Path B.

Meditation: The Practice of Returning

The second group gathers at the trailhead.

Path B looks very different.

There are fewer signs. The trail is wider, and dozens of small paths branch away from it.

The second guide gives one simple instruction:

“Begin by noticing your breath.”

So the group starts walking.

For a few seconds, everyone follows quietly.

You notice the breath moving in.

You notice the breath moving out.

Then one traveler remembers an email they forgot to answer.

They step onto a side trail labeled “Things I Need to Do.”

Another traveler begins replaying an argument from last week.

They follow a trail labeled “What I Should Have Said.”

Someone else starts worrying about an event that has not happened yet.

They disappear down “Everything That Could Go Wrong.”

And another traveler becomes distracted by a completely random question:

“Do penguins have knees?”

Within a minute, nearly everyone has left the main trail.

The guide does not panic.

They do not criticize anyone.

They simply call out, “Notice where you went.”

The travelers look around.

Some of them are surprised at how far their thoughts carried them.

The guide continues, “Now return.”

Everyone walks back toward the main path.

They begin again.

Breathing in. Breathing out.

Then someone starts planning dinner.

Someone remembers something embarrassing from middle school.

Someone else begins wondering whether they are meditating correctly.

And once again, the group drifts away.

And once again, the guide says, “Notice. Return.”

An Empty Mind Is Not the Goal

This is one of the most misunderstood parts of meditation.

Many beginners believe that successful meditation requires a completely empty mind.

They sit down, notice that thoughts are still appearing, and assume they have failed.

But meditation does not usually require you to stop every thought.

In many forms of meditation, the practice is noticing when attention has wandered and intentionally bringing it back.

This is another notebook moment.

So get out your psychology notebook and write this down:

Meditation is a practice that trains attention and awareness.

Depending on the type of meditation, a person might focus on breathing, bodily sensations, a repeated phrase, an image, or the flow of thoughts themselves.

In this lesson, we are focusing mainly on mindfulness and focused-attention practices.

The important word here is practice.

Path B is not a straight climb.

It’s a repeated cycle:

Focus. Wander. Notice. Return.

Focus. Wander. Notice. Return.

Every return becomes another step up the mountain.

This is why a wandering mind does not automatically mean that meditation is failing.

Noticing the wandering is part of the exercise.

Why Meditation Can Feel Hard

As your group continues, the trail becomes steeper.

Some travelers become frustrated.

One says, “I thought this was supposed to be relaxing.”

Another says, “I think noticing my thoughts made them louder.”

The guide explains that meditation is not always immediately peaceful.

Sometimes slowing down makes us more aware of mental activity that was already happening.

The noise did not necessarily appear because you began meditating.

You may have simply started noticing the broadcast.

But each time the traveler returns to the main path, the climb becomes slightly more familiar.

This is where meditation differs from hypnotizability.

Hypnotic responses tend to function more like a trait.

How Meditation May Change the Brain

Meditation is a skill that can be practiced.

And repeated practice may be associated with changes in how the brain functions and potentially how certain areas are structured.

This brings us back to a concept from our earlier lesson, lesson nine on neuroplasticity.

The brain adapts in response to repeated experience.

When you repeatedly perform a physical movement, practice an instrument, learn a new language, or direct your attention in a particular way, the brain systems involved in that activity may change over time.

Researchers have explored whether meditation practice is associated with similar changes.

In a well-known study led by neuroscientist Sara Lazar, researchers compared experienced meditation practitioners with people who did not meditate.

They found greater cortical thickness in several regions among the meditators, including parts of the prefrontal cortex and the right anterior insula.

The prefrontal cortex is involved in several higher-level processes, including attention and regulation.

The insula helps process information from inside the body.

That internal awareness is called interoception.

Interoception includes noticing sensations such as breathing, heartbeat, tension, temperature, or discomfort.

So when a meditation guide asks you to notice your breath or scan the sensations in your body, the insula is one of the regions that may help process the information.

The researchers also found that differences in prefrontal cortical thickness were especially noticeable among older participants.

That raised the possibility that regular meditation practice might be associated with less age-related thinning in certain cortical regions.

But we need to be careful with that conclusion.

This study found an association.

It did not prove that meditation can reverse aging or guarantee that someone’s brain will remain thicker simply because they meditate.

People who choose to meditate may differ from nonmeditators in other ways.

And one study cannot control for every possible difference.

Still, the findings gave researchers an important reason to continue studying meditation as a form of mental training.

Recognizing the Side Trails

As the travelers continue climbing, something begins to change.

They still wander.

They still notice memories, worries, plans, and random thoughts.

But they begin recognizing the side trails sooner.

So instead of traveling a mile down “Everything That Could Go Wrong,” they notice the turn after only a few steps.

The thoughts have not disappeared.

The travelers are becoming more aware of where their attention is going.

And just ahead, the clouds begin to clear.

For the first time, your group can see part of Path A on the other side of the mountain.

The hypnosis group is approaching the summit.

This raises the mystery we began with.

One group followed suggestion. The other practiced awareness.

One path depended partly on an individual’s hypnotic responses.

The other depended on repeated training.

So why are both groups arriving at the same place?

The Default Mode Network

Both paths lead to a large observatory at the top of the mountain.

The two groups enter from opposite sides.

Inside, there is a map of the entire mountain.

From the bottom, Path A and Path B looked completely separate.

But from above, you can see that the paths cross some of the same territory.

They moved through the same valleys.

They passed over some of the same underlying systems.

And beneath the mountain is a network connecting them.

It is called the default mode network, or DMN.

Here’s another notebook moment.

So get out your psychology notebook and write this down:

The default mode network is a group of connected brain regions associated with self-referential thinking, mind-wandering, remembering the past, and imagining the future.

The DMN tends to become active when we are not fully engaged with an outside task.

You might experience it when your mind wanders during a lecture, when you replay a conversation, when you imagine what could happen tomorrow, or when you think about who you are, what other people think of you, or what an experience means for your life.

This is why we can think of it as part of the brain’s background self-talk system.

But the default mode network is not a villain.

We need it.

It helps us reflect on our experiences.

It helps us connect the past to the present.

It also helps us imagine possible futures.

It contributes to our personal story and our sense of self.

The problem is not that the network exists.

The problem begins when self-focused thought becomes repetitive, distracting, or difficult to disengage from.

A useful reflection can turn into rumination.

Planning can turn into constant worry.

Remembering can turn into replaying the same painful moment again and again.

Cousins, Not Opposites

This is where hypnosis and meditation begin to look like cousins rather than opposites.

Research has associated hypnotic absorption with changes in activity involving the default mode network and attentional systems.

Meditation research has also found changes in default mode network activity and connectivity, particularly when people redirect attention away from mind-wandering and back toward the present focus.

That does not mean that hypnosis and meditation are doing exactly the same thing.

They are not interchangeable.

Hypnosis uses guided suggestion to narrow and redirect attention.

Meditation trains the person to observe attention and repeatedly guide it back.

One guide says, “Follow my voice.”

The other says, “Notice and return.”

Different instructions. Different experiences. Different paths.

But some overlapping brain territory.

From the observatory, the meaning of the mountain finally becomes clear.

The destination was never a perfectly empty mind.

It was never about destroying every thought, memory, worry, or piece of self-talk.

The destination was gaining a better understanding of attention.

Which thoughts become loudest?

Which ones automatically pull us away?

Which ones do we follow without realizing it?

And can the brain learn to respond differently?

What the Journey Revealed

At the beginning of this lesson, you were standing at the bottom of a mountain with a noisy mind and two unfamiliar guides.

Path A showed us hypnosis.

Hypnosis involves narrowed attention and increased responsiveness to suggestion.

It can be clinically useful for certain people in certain conditions, but people differ in how strongly they respond.

Path B showed us meditation.

Meditation does not require a completely empty mind.

It trains attention through a repeated cycle of focusing, wandering, noticing, and returning.

With practice, the training may be associated with changes in brain function and structure.

At the summit, we discovered the bridge between them.

Both hypnosis and meditation can influence attention and appear to interact with systems involving the default mode network.

They are not the same practice.

They do not produce identical experiences.

But they are not complete opposites, either.

They are cousins: two different ways of traveling through the mind.

And the next time your brain begins replaying the past, rehearsing the future, or carrying you down one of those familiar side trails, remember what happened on the mountain.

A thought can appear without becoming a command.

Your attention can wander without being permanently lost.

And returning is always part of the journey.

Keep Learning

Thank you so much for learning with me today.

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Until next time, keep learning, keep questioning, and keep paying attention to where your mind takes you.

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