Daydreaming and imagery skills as predisposing capacities for self-hypnosis

A growing body of empirical literature suggests that daydreaming and related forms of waking reverie are natural-occurring, common experiences in normal individuals. Specific experiments relating daydreaming and the stream of ongoing thought as an alternative source of stimulation to external cues are described. It is proposed that everyday waking consciousness has many features of internal absorption in imagery and adaptive but non-sequential processes that resemble fantasy, hypnosis, and night dreaming. Experiments linking daydreaming, imagery vividness, and hypnosis are cited as suggesting that individuals may develop capacities for control over the stream of thought and that such capacities are closely similar to the skills needed for self-hypnosis.