Scientists report that people who are high on nitrous oxide (laughing gas) have more vivid imaginations and are also more open to hypnotic-like suggestions. The researchers from the University College London were spurred to conduct their study based on reports from dentists that "patients under nitrous oxide sedation are particular suggestible. A number of investigators, they write in the journal Psychopharmacology, also "have noted the clinical advantages of using a hypnotic voice when administering nitrous oxide." One of the authors of the current study is psychologist Matt Whalley, who maintains the fascinating Hypnosis and Suggestion site. From Mind Hacks (image of 1839 laughing gas party from general-anesthesia.com):
The researchers randomised patients at a dental surgery to either receive a nitrous oxide and oxygen mix, or just oxygen, with the patients not knowing which they were receiving. Two weeks later they were invited back and given which ever type of gas mix they hadn't already had.While inhaling each gas mix, the participants were asked to complete a measure of imaginative ability, rating the clarity and vividness of their visual imagery, as well as being given various suggestions – without the hypnotic induction – from the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale.
This includes suggestions that your hands might move of their own accord, to suggested temporary paralysis, to a suggestion to experience hallucinated sounds – to name but a few.
"Laughing gas increases imagination, suggestibility" (Mind Hacks), "Enhancement of suggestibility and imaginative ability with nitrous oxide" (Psychopharmacology)
