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One element of misdirection used by magician Derren Brown is to apparently place subjects into a catatonic state with the use of flashing lights or physical manipulation of the hands or arms. For example, in this video, at about 2:10, Brown appears to make someone lose track of several hours of time by pulling their arm.

In essence, Brown gives the impression here that he is using a technique that hypnotherapists call "handshake induction", which supposedly will put the subject into a cataleptic trance.

Catalepsy or catatonia can be induced with the use of drugs, but I have been unable to discover any medical evidence that either can be induced without drugs.

Is there any evidence that so-called "handshake-induction" or a similar technique has, or can have, a pronounced physical effect?

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philosodad
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    We have already established that [what Derren Brown says he is doing, while on stage](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4812/how-does-derren-brown-do-what-he-does), is not really a notable/reliable claim. We've also covered [stage hypnosis](http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/1417/are-participants-in-stage-hypnosis-part-of-the-show). If you have another source of this claim, edit it in. Otherwise, I would suggest this is a duplicate. – Oddthinking Jul 29 '12 at 16:14
  • @Oddthinking this is not a duplicate. I'm not asking what Derren Brown is actually doing, I'm asking a specific scientific question about the misdirection that he's using, I.E. is it even plausible that he *could* use flashing lights or physical manipulation to induce catatonia. – philosodad Jul 29 '12 at 22:12
  • Sure, catatonia is a [well defined state](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatonia). Not sure if flashing light can induce it. – nico Jul 29 '12 at 22:41
  • perhaps the person who downvoted this question would care to comment about why, and what could be done to improve it? – philosodad Jul 30 '12 at 02:32
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    The DSM-IV (via Wikipedia) says catatonia exists. Brown says he can put people in a catatonic state, but that is irrelevant. So, who is actually making a claim you are skeptical about? Does anyone else claim that flashing lights leads to catatonia? If not, there's no notability here. – Oddthinking Jul 30 '12 at 03:35
  • @oddthinking Hypnotherapists claim to be able to induce catalepsy by the use of handshake induction. I think that an extremely popular skeptic making that claim *as if it were plausible* makes it notable even without that added fact, but ask and ye shall receive. – philosodad Jul 30 '12 at 03:40
  • Re: Handshake induction: Cool! Re: Brown: We know he uses hokum on stage. He even says he does. – Oddthinking Jul 30 '12 at 03:43
  • @Oddthinking The point isn't that he's using hokum. Of course he is, no one should doubt that. But he's a well known skeptic, so his *patter itself* has a ring of respectability, even if we know he's not actually using the techniques he describes. For example, Brown would never claim to have telekinetic powers, because it wouldn't be plausible enough to his audience to serve as effective misdirection. – philosodad Jul 30 '12 at 04:03
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    Surely Derren Brown is a distraction: the core question is whether there are non-drug related ways to induce catalepsy. – matt_black Jul 30 '12 at 08:12
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    @matt_black: Does a handshake interrupt that takes a few seconds put people into catalepsy is a different question then: "Are there non-drug related ways to induce catalepsy"?. I think this question would be improved if it would focus on one claim. - If you wanted to focus on the handshake interrupt it would be better to leave Derren Brown out of it and instead take something like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OewGqijOsA | It's a seminar where the instructur wants to teach the handshake interrupt and isn't doing it for a show effect. – Christian Jul 30 '12 at 09:58
  • @Christian The question title has been changed and the *specific* question highlighted. I think Brown is famous enough that it makes sense to use him as an example: people are more likely to have seen him than a random youtube video. And I disagree with your premise: if the question answer is in the negative, *anyone* who is using it will be doing it for show effect. It's just famous vs. not famous at that point. – philosodad Jul 30 '12 at 12:40
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    @philsodad: Dentists are a profession with a need to get their patients into a state where they don't feel the pain. Dave Elman produced a method that a bunch of dentists use for that purpose. As a patient in a dentist chair will follow the verbal instructions of the dentist anyway, there's no need to use something like an handshake interrupt. A Dave Elman induction takes a few minutes. A show hypnotist doesn't have a few minutes. A dentist or anyone who uses hypnosis for therapeutic ends has those minutes. What do you care about? Workings of show effects? Therapeutic effects? – Christian Jul 31 '12 at 23:11
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    @philosodad: Derren is famous but he doesn't actually go around and claim that handshake interrupts do something. He's an illusionist. That makes him a bad example. It also creates problems. If Derren demostrates that people lose time for an hour but in real world instances people usually only lose time for a minute then it gets tricky to answer: "Does the thing, that Derren does, work?". It's Derren's job to exaggerate the effect. – Christian Jul 31 '12 at 23:25
  • @Christian I disagree with everything you said. – philosodad Aug 01 '12 at 12:56

1 Answers1

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The handshake method, I believe, originates from Milton H. Erickson. Here is an excerpt from The Letters of Milton H. Erickson:

Relation to catatonia: Briefly, so far as I can tell, there is no real relationship between self-induced trances and catatonia.

A recovered catatonia in excellent remission, trained to be a good hypnotic subject, impresses upon one most effectively the profound difference between catatonia and the trance state in the same person. If that recovered catatonic, now trained as a hypnotic subject, is made to relive a previous catatonic state in the hypnotic trance, the hypnotic elements drop out of the picture as soon as he begins reliving the catatonic state and rapport is lost, and he ceases to be amenable to suggestion until he makes his own spontaneous recovery from this new induced catatonic state. If, however, one succeeds in maintaining hypnotic rapport with the subject, it is impossible to get him to relive the catatonic period except in an obviously false way.

In other words, Brown's use of the word 'catatonic' is probably misdirection. I hope that answers your question!

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