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Alexa, Hypnotize Me
Wall Street Journal ^ | Dec. 28, 2020 | Betsy Morris

Posted on 12/29/2020 1:07:34 PM PST by ransomnote

Kelley Cutler was deeply skeptical when she took part in a monthlong pilot test of Reveri Health, a new digital hypnosis program, at Stanford University last year. The San Francisco social worker needed help quitting smoking, and only joined the program at her doctor’s urging.

“I was thinking it was nonsense and was never going to work,” says Ms. Cutler, 44, who had smoked for 25 years. Her first hypnosis session, which took place in person with a clinician, was so anxiety-producing that she had to have a cigarette afterward.

Reveri Health, one of a new generation of hypnosis programs and apps that make the practice easily accessible at home, then required her to take part in interactive, self-hypnosis sessions at home for a month. After two of the digital sessions, she was shocked to discover that she no longer felt like smoking. “The craving was really gone,” she says. “I can’t explain it. It doesn’t make sense.”

She hasn’t had a cigarette since. “This hypnosis is some crazy-ass voodoo,” she says. “And I mean that in a good way.”

Hypnosis is no longer considered crazy in the medical field, doctors say, but many patients, like Ms. Cutler, still are leery. The practice has increasingly gained acceptance in the medical community, and in the last two years, the research into how and why it works has accelerated, with new studies on the use of hypnosis to alleviate anxiety; ward off pain; and successfully inhibit the fear circuitry structures in the brain.

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and investors have started to take notice, creating new apps that aim to popularize hypnosis in a similar way to meditation, which until recently was also considered fringe.

MORE AT LINK


(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: hypnotherapy; medical
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Allowing unknown online entities to hypnotize you every day? What could possibly go wrong?

I've read many times over the past 5 years or more that Silicon Valley is CIA on the West Coast. They fund DARPA projects and Silicon helps the consumer adopted them. *shudder*

1 posted on 12/29/2020 1:07:34 PM PST by ransomnote
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To: ransomnote

Time to break out the Ouija Board.


2 posted on 12/29/2020 1:10:17 PM PST by BipolarBob (Money can't buy you happiness but it can buy you ammo. That's pretty much the same thing.)
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To: ransomnote

“This hypnosis is some crazy-ass voodoo,” she says. “And I mean that in a good way.”

You mean there’s a bad sort of crazy-ass voodoo out there?


3 posted on 12/29/2020 1:24:57 PM PST by Quality_Not_Quantity ("...behind every blade of grass...")
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To: ransomnote

Parents of stoner kids get idea.


4 posted on 12/29/2020 1:25:36 PM PST by Vaduz (women and children to be impacIQ of chimpsted the most.)
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To: ransomnote

If you know what’s good for you, you will get rid of all your smart devices now. Ask yourself whose eavesdropping?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h31oYJN6bJ8


5 posted on 12/29/2020 1:27:08 PM PST by iontheball
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To: ransomnote

Run away from hypnosis. It does far more harm than good. Plus, who knows what the operator is going to plant in your subconscious? “Vote Rat.” “Sign up for my expensive (and worthless) treatment program.” “Go crazy and kill your family” so we can demand more $ from the govt to “solve” societal violence.


6 posted on 12/29/2020 1:32:15 PM PST by Seruzawa (TANSTAAFL!)
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To: Seruzawa

Once someone allows someone to hypnotize them, they can easily be hypnotized again. That is a fact, no my opinion. Very dangerous.


7 posted on 12/29/2020 1:35:35 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: ransomnote

8 posted on 12/29/2020 1:39:56 PM PST by knarf (The Constitution protects the right to peaceably assemble, not to protest)
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To: Seruzawa

I tried hypnosis for smoking about 7 times.

The last one was this “Hypno wizard” in Leesburg VA, who everyone claimed was undefeated and could fix *anyone*.

On my fourth and final visit, after sitting there listening to her rambling “hypnosis chant” *again* for over an hour, she paused and snapped her fingers, to see if maybe I was “under”, *this time*.

And that point, I observed, “you know, you have a really nice library of books, many of which I also own”

[for all the sessions, I’d been sitting there looking at the titles and mentally comparing them to my own library, noting which ones I had and which ones I thought I’d like to add, later]

She told me to go home and not come back...just like the others did.


9 posted on 12/29/2020 1:42:23 PM PST by Salamander (Invisigoth)
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To: iontheball

A few months ago, I was driving with my wife, and we were discussing outdoor furniture for the new place. Her phone was turned on but not in use. I mentioned that Adirondack chairs were more comfortable than they looked. I hadn’t even thought of Adirondack chairs for years, much less talked about them, still less searched for them online. Within days, we were getting ads from Wayfair for, you guessed it, Adirondack chairs.

Yeah, they’re listening. All the time.


10 posted on 12/29/2020 1:54:04 PM PST by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: Salamander

I tried hypnosis a couple of times many years ago and was also unable to be put under. It probably had something to do with the fact that I kept thinking, “Damn, this is stupid” the whole time.


11 posted on 12/29/2020 1:54:47 PM PST by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation has ended! Fight the Return of Biden the Demented!)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

I am unable to be hypnotized as well. I just can’t relax enough to let the suggestions seep in.


12 posted on 12/29/2020 1:59:06 PM PST by LottieDah (If Biden/Harris wins, America loses.)
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To: Salamander

Some people cannot be hypnotized under most clinical conditions. These are often people who prefer to remain in control of everything that happens to them.
Something in them refuses to go along with the suggestions.
Something that does not trust readily.


13 posted on 12/29/2020 2:00:58 PM PST by lee martell
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To: ransomnote

I went to a hypnotist. Good news is I quit smoking, bad news is, I no longer have free will. - Norm McDonald.


14 posted on 12/29/2020 2:01:51 PM PST by FroedrickVonFreepenstein
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To: ransomnote

My mother, now aged 87, went to a hypnotist when she was 41 in attempt to stop smoking. It worked.


15 posted on 12/29/2020 2:02:16 PM PST by bella1 (I voted for the Alpha male)
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To: ransomnote

So, if I say, “Alexa, just shoot me?” how long can I expect to wait for the ambulance of po-po be at my door?


16 posted on 12/29/2020 2:12:37 PM PST by Pilgrim's Progress (http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/BYTOPICS/tabid/335/Default.aspx D)
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To: ransomnote

We all spend the early years of our lives in what is essentially a hypnotic trance. It is a mental state that allows us to be programmed and learn. This is mostly done in response to parents but also is the case for other trusted (though not always deserving) authorities such as school teachers.

As adults our minds drift into trance-like states all of the time. Usually we are in control of our own faculties, but we are more suggestible at these times. Also, the suspension of disbelief required to enjoy a fictional story, such as a movie or novel, is a form of hypnosis.

The problem comes when people attempt to hack this human (and animal) trait for nefarious purposes. Or, sometimes even well-intentioned purposes could be harmful.

Hypnotic control is very real, and don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that it cannot be used to harm you just as much as help you.


17 posted on 12/29/2020 2:30:15 PM PST by unlearner (Be ready for war.)
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To: BipolarBob; ransomnote

18 posted on 12/29/2020 3:31:45 PM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: bella1

A neighbor went to a hypnotist for weight loss.
It worked, and a year or more later I ask if she was still going for it?
She said no and she still had a dislike for potato chips, a major downfall.


19 posted on 12/29/2020 3:47:03 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT ("The enemy has overrun us. We are blowing up everything. Vive la France!"Dien Bien Phu last message.)
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To: ransomnote

I guess they could have subliminal suggestions playing in the background all day and night too.


20 posted on 12/29/2020 5:36:38 PM PST by BeauBo
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