“Eyes Reveal True Hypnotic State” — New Scientist

Over the past sev­er­al years, there has been sig­nif­i­cant research in deter­min­ing the state of the brain dur­ing hyp­no­sis, includ­ing prov­ing the dif­fer­ence between hyp­no­sis and sleep. 

Now, this study from report­ed in New Sci­en­tist and ref­er­enced here at Io9, describes a phys­i­cal sign that a per­son is in a state of hyp­no­sis, and, of course, it hap­pens to involve the eyes. In hyp­no­sis, accord­ing to this research, peo­ple have dif­fer­ent eye reac­tions, includ­ing blink rates and pupil response, things that are impos­si­ble to fake or dupli­cate, things that are caused by changes in the brain activ­i­ty under hypnosis. 

“We found that dur­ing hyp­no­sis, the frontal area was almost per­fect­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the rest of the brain,” says Kallio. “There are usu­al­ly lots of con­nec­tions but dur­ing hyp­no­sis they were almost gone.” 

More than just an addi­tion­al proof that hyp­no­sis does exist, it also con­firms the stereo­type of the blank-eyed sub­ject. The old say­ing “The eyes are win­dows to the soul” also comes to mind here.