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| Sights, sounds, colors and motion help slots "hypnotize" players. |
Certain industries thrive because of the adoption of hypnotic techniques.
Think for a moment about the movie theatre experience. You sit in a comfortable chair, in a dark
room with your attention fixated on the screen.
It’s a situation conducive for becoming lost in the story.
Hollywood refers to this as the suspension of
disbelief. Yet, it is merely a form
of hypnosis.
This past Sunday, the Washington Post published an article
entitled Slot
Machine Sounds Can Manipulate Players, Researchers Say that overviewed
recent research about how our minds process the sounds and sights of slot
machines
Behavioral neuroscientist Michael J. Dixon of the University
of Waterloo in Ontario explained that slot machine noises can easily trick a
person into believing they have won, even when the outcome is lost money. As a result, a player is more inclined to
continue to thrust coins into the slot.
The gaming industry has perfected the practice of hypnosis
to stimulate risk taking. Bright rooms,
energetic sounds, no windows or clocks, and oxygen pumped in through the
vents.
When introducing hypnosis as a tool for stress management,
confidence, health and well being, I’m often greeted with a bit of skepticism. “I can’t be hypnotized,” some will say. “That will never work on me,” others will
argue.
It’s true -- all of hypnosis is self-hypnosis. For it to be effective, a person has to be
open and desire to achieve a deep level of focus, concentration, creativity and
relaxation.
We’re all hypnotizable though. It happens to each of us several times every
day when the conditions are right. Movie
studios and casinos understand that.
