Dissociation and neodissociation in laboratory hypnosis
Hilgard used dissociation for splits in cognitive control under suggestion. That is a laboratory account, not a clinic package and not a DSM label.
Last reviewed 27 August 2026
Dissociation, in Hilgard’s laboratory sense, is a split in control: one part of the person carries out a suggestion while another report is possible. It is not a fluid, and it is not automatically a psychiatric diagnosis.
Key evidence
A 1975 PNAS paper tested whether hypnotic analgesia behaved like opioid analgesia. In that design, naloxone did not reverse the hypnotic analgesia. That is a laboratory question about mechanism, not a clinic offer. The history page is Ernest Hilgard.
Hilgard later called his account neodissociation: hypnotic phenomena as divisions of cognitive control rather than Mesmer’s fluid or only social compliance. This page does not re-tell Divided Consciousness chapter by chapter; the 1975 paper is the citable experiment in hand.
Trance is the looser folk word. Response expectancy is the main rival laboratory story.
Limitations
“Dissociation” in trauma clinics and “dissociation” on a Stanford item are easy to confuse. This wiki does not treat them as one finding.
What we don't know yet
How far hidden-observer reports generalise beyond high-hypnotisable student samples is still argued.
This page is informational only.