Hypnotism as a Social Construct:

Generally, under hypnosis people become more receptive to suggestion, causing changes in the way they feel, think, and behave. This suggestibility has led some psychologists to believe that hypnosis does not actually correspond to any underlying mechanism of the human mind, but is merely a social construct so well-known that strong social expectations are played out by subjects, who believe they are in a state of hypnosis, behaving in a way that they imagine a hypnotized person would behave. This would, if true, tend to denigrate hypnosis to the status of a purely social phenomenon.

Popular Culture:

The notion of hypnotism has elicited many presentations in popular culture. Intrinsically, the notion that people are succeptible to commands outside their conscious control can be an effective way of representing the notion of the fallible narrator.

Treatments:

The typical uses of hypnotism in fiction concentrate on one of the major abilities of hypnotism. As mentioned in the introduction, hypnotism can be used to

Recollect knowledge - Take Command of a Subject

Implant suggestions that the subject will obey while free of the hypnotic trance. The recollection of knowledge has inspired use in detective fiction, as a tool for witnesses to examine details (such as license plate numbers) that could not be recalled while fully conscious. This appears in many television series, such as Law & Order or Homicide: Life on the Street. In addition, it has been expanded to the notion of remembering "past lives", that is, previous reincarnations of the subject, in such movies as Dead Again. In real life cases, recollection of knowledge via hypnosis has helped solve many cases, oftentimes corroborating with physical evidence which would have been impossible to obtain otherwise. However, its use on victims of rape or attempted murder to help them jog their memory in identifying an accused has caused controversies including sentences doled out to the wrong person. This is because the hypnotist might make suggestions that are more likely to be remembered as "truth". Much like a lie detector it is used to glean more information rather than as the smoking gun.

The notion of implanting suggestions is probably the most thoroughly explored; ranging from comedies such as The Naked Gun trilogy to dramas such as The Manchurian Candidate. These films usually center around the concept of brainwashing or mind control. A couple of cases have been recorded where the defence arguing the accused had committed the murder under hypnosis. It was later used as the plot in movies.

Stage hypnotism

Stage hypnotists will put on a show, usually comedic in nature, that centers around the use of hypnotism. Typically, they will select a subject from the audience and have him or her perform acts that he or she would normally be very reluctant to perform in public, usually slightly humiliating or embarassing acts, such as dancing, singing, or pretending to be someone else. Very often, the subject will claim to not remember having performed these acts.

The response to these acts from people who consider themselves legitimate practitioners of clinical hypnotism as well as skeptics of hypnotism is that the performer will select those from the audience that he or she feels already have exhibitionist tendencies, and use hypnotism to relax the inhibitions away or to give the person an unconscious excuse to violate his or her own inhibitions.