Beneath Awareness Editorial Team
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Do Subliminal Messages Work?
This article looks at what subliminal messages are, how they are said to work, and what research suggests about their effects. It explains the difference between brief, hidden cues and more direct forms…
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George du Maurier, “An Incubus”, from Trilby (1894). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.Hypnosis and Crime: Famous Cases and Controversies
In 1894, a novelist drew a hypnotist as a spider in a web, and the world has feared hypnotic crime ever since. From a Paris murder trial to a Copenhagen bank robbery, here’s…
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Une_lecon_clinique_a_la_Salpetriere, André Brouillet, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsFamous Hypnosis Experiments and What They Found
This guide looks at well-known hypnosis experiments and what researchers learned from them. It covers studies on pain control, suggestion, memory, attention, and how people respond differently to hypnotic techniques. The article may…
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CIA, “Hypnotic Experimentation and Research, 10 February 1954” (Document 00428251)MKUltra and Hypnosis: The CIA’s Search for a Programmable Mind
This article looks at MKUltra, a secret CIA program that studied drugs, suggestion, and hypnosis during the Cold War. It explains what is known from declassified records, how hypnosis was explored, and why…
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Famous Examples of Subliminal Messages
This article looks at well-known claims and cases involving subliminal messages in advertising, film, music, politics, and self-help media. It explains what subliminal messages are, why they became controversial, and which famous examples…
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Tommy, the Monster Slayer
Tommy was eight, terrified, and about to be hospitalised for schizophrenia. Then a team of therapists behind a one-way mirror asked him to draw his monster, and gave him the power to destroy…
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The Cactus Cure
Milton Erickson sent a man with a drinking problem to look at cactuses. Thirty years of research on craving, attention and if-then plans suggests he was onto something.
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Michael Gazzaniga: the mind’s interpreter
The man in the chair had no idea his brain was lying to him. He stared at a dot in the middle of a screen while two pictures flashed on either side, too…
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Meeting the Person You Used to Be
Roger talked in circles. Not the ordinary kind of dwelling that anxious people do, but something tighter and more exhausting — the same three or four thoughts, looping back on themselves, no matter…
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The Woman Inside the Trance
In 1962, Milton Erickson’s wife went into trance in front of a room of doctors, and described exactly what it felt like, while it was happening.
