Behavioral sleep, physiological sleep, and hypnotizability

Abstract

A sleep-induction procedure requiring manual response to a repetitive auditory signal was administered to 52 Ss who had clear alpha activity in their waking EEG and whose hypnotizability was known. The occurrence of sleep was defined by physiological, behavioral, and subjective criteria. Neither the tendency to develop EEG sleep nor the ability of some Ss to respond while in EEG sleep was related to hypnotizability. Hypnotizability was related to a type of dissociation between EEG sleep and both behavioral and subjective sleep shown by 5 Ss, all highly hypnotizable.