“10 Things an Electromagnetic Field Can Do to Your Brain” — Io9

Not real­ly any­thing about hyp­no­sis but cer­tain­ly verg­ing into areas of out­right mind con­trol, this arti­cle in the Io9 web­site is a bit light but still at least inter­est­ing read­ing and maybe a lit­tle thought-pro­vok­ing. The arti­cle lists ten dif­fer­ent ways elec­tro-mag­net­ic fields can affect brain func­tion­al­i­ty, usu­al­ly to the detri­ment of the per­son affect­ed. These ways are: 

10. Shred its DNA

9. Stim­u­late its Growth

8. Train you off food and water

7. Make you spin in circles

6. Paci­fy you completely

5. Alter your morality

4. Take out your pow­er of speech but leave your abil­i­ty to sing

3. Induce pan­ic, dis­ori­en­ta­tion, and deep fear

2. Cause Seizures and Death

1. Make you see ghosts

Sound far-fetched? In real­i­ty, research is already under­way in ways to make use of elec­tro-mag­net­ic fields (and sim­i­lar ener­gy pro­jec­tion meth­ods) in com­bat or crowd con­trol sit­u­a­tions. There is already in use a high-fre­quen­cy, high deci­bel sound pro­jec­tor that has been in use for crowd con­trol sit­u­a­tions in recent years. Not to men­tion the alleged secret gov­ern­ment exper­i­ments into sim­i­lar mind con­trol­ling devices in the past. 

Now can this be applied to hyp­no­sis? Well, hyp­no­sis is a com­pli­cat­ed state but one that is def­i­nite­ly affect­ed by the men­tal state of the sub­ject. Could the brain be so stim­u­lat­ed through elec­tro-mag­net­ic fields that can induce a trance-like state that can be used to effect a hyp­not­ic state? Giv­en that sev­er­al MRI stud­ies have shown which parts of the brain are in oper­a­tion dur­ing hyp­no­sis (stud­ies which show that the brain in sleep uses dif­fer­ent areas, demon­strat­ing that hyp­no­sis is not a form of sleep) these areas could be tar­get­ed for stim­u­la­tion in induce that effect. 

Of course, the arti­cle here needs to be treat­ed with a cer­tain lev­el of skep­ti­cism, but the idea is worth keep­ing in mind.