Most likely, yes. The vast majority of people can be hypnotized to some degree. Across standardized testing, only about 15 to 20 percent of people score in the “low hypnotizability” range, while 10 to 15 percent are highly hypnotizable and everyone else falls somewhere in the middle. So roughly 80 to 85 percent of the population responds meaningfully to hypnotic suggestion.
That said, how deeply you can be hypnotized varies a lot from person to person, and certain traits make some people naturally more responsive than others.
What Hypnotizability Actually Means
Hypnotizability is a stable, measurable trait, similar to how people vary in their ability to visualize images or focus on a task. It refers to how readily you respond to suggestions while in a hypnotic state. Someone with high hypnotizability might feel their arm float upward on its own when told it’s getting lighter, while someone with low hypnotizability might hear the same suggestion and feel nothing unusual.
This isn’t about willpower, intelligence, or gullibility. It’s a genuine cognitive trait that researchers have studied for decades using formal scales. The most widely used is the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, which involves a hypnotic induction followed by a series of tasks: your head falling forward, your eyes closing involuntarily, your fingers locking together, your arm becoming rigid, and several other physical and mental challenges. You’re scored on how many of these suggestions produce a real response. A score of 0 to 3 out of 11 places you in the low range, 4 to 7 is medium, and 8 to 11 is high.
What Makes Some People More Hypnotizable
Researchers have spent years trying to pin down what separates highly hypnotizable people from everyone else. The personality trait with the strongest link is called “absorption,” the tendency to become deeply immersed in experiences like music, movies, daydreams, or nature. People who lose track of time while reading a novel, or who feel emotionally transported by a film, tend to score higher on hypnotizability scales. A related trait, openness to experience, also correlates with absorption, though it doesn’t predict hypnotizability as directly on its own.
Age plays a role too. Hypnotic suggestibility tends to be highest in late adolescence, gradually decreases through the twenties and thirties, and then interestingly begins to rise again after about age 40. Children are generally quite hypnotizable, which is one reason hypnosis is sometimes used in pediatric settings for pain or anxiety.
Scientists have also looked for a genetic explanation, particularly involving a gene that affects dopamine levels in the brain. The theory was that people with higher brain dopamine might have attentional traits that make them more suggestible. But after multiple studies with inconsistent results, the most thorough analysis found no clear association between this gene and hypnotizability. The genetics of hypnotic responsiveness, if they exist, are likely complex and still poorly understood.
What Happens in the Brain During Hypnosis
Brain imaging studies have revealed three distinct changes in highly hypnotizable people during hypnosis. First, activity drops in a brain region responsible for monitoring and evaluating what’s happening around you. This is the part that normally keeps you aware of context, helping you decide what to pay attention to and what to worry about. When it quiets down, you become less self-conscious and less likely to second-guess the experience.
Second, the connection strengthens between areas involved in focused attention and a region that processes body awareness and internal sensations. This likely explains why hypnotic suggestions about physical experiences, like feeling warmth or numbness, can feel so vivid and real.
Third, the link weakens between the brain’s executive control network and regions involved in mind-wandering and self-reflection. In practical terms, this means you stop thinking about yourself and what you’re doing and simply experience the suggestions as they come. Highly hypnotizable people show all three of these shifts clearly, while people with low hypnotizability show little to no change.
Does Hypnosis Actually Work for Anything?
The clearest evidence is for pain relief. A large meta-analysis of 85 controlled trials found that hypnosis with direct pain-reducing suggestions produced clinically meaningful results. Highly suggestible individuals experienced a 42 percent reduction in pain, while those with medium suggestibility saw a 29 percent reduction. These are significant numbers, comparable to some medications, and they help explain why hypnosis is used in settings ranging from dental procedures to burn treatment to childbirth.
For people in the low suggestibility range, the pain relief effects were smaller and less consistent. This is an important point: your hypnotizability level directly influences how much benefit you’ll get from clinical hypnosis. It’s not a one-size-fits-all tool.
Can You Test Yourself?
There’s no reliable at-home test for hypnotizability. One quick physical test that gained popularity, the eye-roll test (looking upward while closing your eyelids and checking how much white shows), was once claimed to predict hypnotizability with 75 percent accuracy. But when researchers analyzed data from thousands of cases, the actual correlation was just 0.22, far too weak to be useful. The test is essentially no better than a rough guess.
The only reliable way to know your hypnotizability level is through a formal assessment administered by a trained professional, or simply by trying hypnosis and seeing how you respond. Many people who assume they can’t be hypnotized are surprised to find they respond well, particularly if they work with a skilled practitioner and approach the experience with genuine curiosity rather than trying to analyze it as it happens.
What Helps and What Gets in the Way
While your baseline hypnotizability is relatively stable over time, a few factors can shift your experience in either direction. Trust in the hypnotist matters. If you’re skeptical or uncomfortable, you’re more likely to resist suggestions, not because you lack the trait, but because your guard is up. Motivation also plays a role. People seeking hypnosis for a specific goal, like managing pain before a procedure, tend to engage more deeply than those participating out of idle curiosity.
Trying too hard actually works against you. Hypnosis involves a kind of effortless focus, more like letting yourself get absorbed in a good book than concentrating hard on a math problem. If you’re constantly checking whether “it’s working,” you’re activating exactly the self-monitoring brain regions that need to quiet down for hypnosis to take hold.
The most practical answer to “can I be hypnotized?” is that you almost certainly can to some extent. Whether that extent is enough to be useful depends on what you’re hoping to achieve and how responsive you turn out to be. The only real way to find out is to try it.