Hypnosis: The Modern Scientific Version of a Timeless Healing Technique
Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal January 25, 2025 Enrico Facco, Ennio Foppiani, Paolo Granone
Shamanic rituals, incubation, meditation, lucid dreaming, and hypnosis share common features—eye closure and mental imagery—that enable a shift of attention from the outer to the inner world, fostering absorption, introspective activity, and metacognitive control over mind and body, including the neurovegetative system and pain. Western rationalist thought historically dismissed mental imagery as worthless, but recent neuroscience has recognized its cognitive and metacognitive value. These mind-body techniques, despite cultural differences, have been used for healing across all cultures since ancient times, and hypnosis is a validated but underused therapeutic tool.