A hypnotist from Great Britain underwent a surgery without anaesthetic, opting instead to hypnotise himself to not feel the pain.

Mr. Lenkei has a long experience with hypnosis, and is also a registered hypnotist, so his feat might be hard to achieve by someone who does not have such an extensive experience with hypnotising. But in any case, hypnosis worked for him - the big issue here is that he reprogrammed his mind to ignore the pain signals.

As Mr. Lenkei says:

“It took between 30 seconds to a minute for me to place myself under hypnosis, and from that point I felt a very deep relaxation. I was aware of everything around me, from people talking and at one stage a hammer and chisel was used as well as a surgical saw, but I felt no pain.”

No matter what the mechanisms and reasoning are behind (self-) hypnosis (or self-suggestion), it just seems to work in practise. That makes it a highly interesting phenomenon and a valuable tool for someone interested in reprogramming the brain. Expect more posts concerning hypnosis to appear in the near future.