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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

It isn't real hypnosis. It is the brain being hit with unusual or overwhelming stimulus and is basically blue-screening, locking up the entire system until something kicks it out of the loop and causes a reboot. Similar things happen to sharks if you put them upside down, or to deer caught in headlights at night. Unable to process what is happening, their brains just lock up.

Drawing the line probably forces the chicken's eyes to follow the object out of its stereo vision. Birds have amazing stereo vision right in front of their faces (so they don't smash their beaks when pecking at things). Trying to track an object moving directly out of this space might be just unusual enough to cause a system crash.

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Deer in headlights is probably a much simpler explanation - their eyes+pupils are adapted to the dim light, and sudden application of headlights is blinding.

If you were suddenly blinded, you probably wouldn't respond by running either.

It's more complex than that. If I shine a light at you in the dark it will hurt. You will close your eyes, look away or shield your face. The deer don't even blink, the most primitive response to bright light. They are transfixed like the chicken.

Because looking away may lead to death.

When does a deer naturally get suddenly exposed to blinding light? Ignoring the response of "ah it's bright, look away" avoids false positives accidentally getting the deer killed. Actual positives never occurred during night time until humans developed artificial illumination.

I think when climbing up a tree you're often exposed to sudden sun in the face. Deer don't climb trees.

Faced with a predator at distance, deer freeze and depend on camouflage. A completely stationary deer is damn hard to see in the hills during the day. It's even more difficult to see at night. Faced with an oncoming car, they go with their natural reaction to stay still, and it works every time, except the last.

It is definitely real hypnosis. The definition of hypnosis is so vague and nebulous that this absolutely falls within the umbrella of “hypnosis.” To be specific it is visual hypnosis.

as a child I always thought hypnosis implied a state in which you can program a person to 1) do things 2) even if they are against their own interest, 3) immediately or at a later time, without them remembering 4) the cause being hypnosis, or 5) anything about the period under hypnosis, or 6) to recall information that is inaccessible to the unhypnotised brain...

over time I have seen the claim being totally watered down to apparently just intimidating a creature with primal fear for fun and profit.

All those claims are proven to be incorrect. Not even the best hypnotist in the world can hypnotize someone into doing something against their will.

I agree “intimidating a creature with primal fear for fun and profit” is not that cool.

But the claims you once believed were never true in the first place.

I never believed in hypnosis, what changed was my understanding of what people actually claimed hypnosis could do, and this change was the only constant thing about hypnosis. My father (an engineer) was down-to-earth enough to explain me math, physics, chemistry, ...

I do believe though in the somewhat debilitating conditions that exacerbate for a person who is already tired, like seeing repetitive long period highway lights, or road markings ... and of course innate primordial fears and reflexes...

Hypnosis is real. No question. Learn it for yourself and you’ll simply be astonished what you can accomplish.

However, in many ways hypnosis is synonymous with “learning.” Your father hypnotized you into learning math, physics, and chemistry... as do all effective teachers.

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