Hypnotizability reflects a broader trait called phenomenological control, which allows people to create subjective experiences in nonhypnotic contexts to fulfill goals. This control operates as a metacognitive process where intentional actions occur without awareness of specific intentions, known as cold control. Laboratory phenomena such as vicarious pain, mirror-touch synesthesia, and the rubber hand illusion may partly result from phenomenological control. A new theory of intentional binding measures the absence of conscious intentions in hypnosis. No evidence suggests cold control confers abilities beyond changes in metacognitive monitoring, and a negative correlation exists between mindfulness and cold control, viewed as a lack of awareness of intentions.
People vary in their ability to deliberately construct subjective experiences—such as feeling that a movement is involuntary, perceiving something that is not real, or believing something they do not actually believe—a trait called phenomenological control. These constructed experiences are accompanied by genuine neural and physiological activity. The ability works by intentionally creating a first-order mental state while maintaining a higher-order thought that one is not intending to do so. Phenomenological control can be used to demonstrate shared group values, produce hypnotic responses, or generate phenomena in psychological experiments that are suggested by demand characteristics.