Ipnosi, Teoria Polivagale e Liberazione Somatica/en

Page title: Hypnosis, Polyvagal Theory, and Somatic Liberation

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Hypnosis can be understood as a relational regulation process in which the operator's presence helps reorganize the other person's attention and bodily state, primarily through non-verbal signals. Seen through Stephen Porges' Polyvagal theory, this regulation reveals itself as the targeted mobilization of evolutionarily conserved autonomic circuits: the ventral vagus organizes social engagement, the sympathetic system organizes mobilization, and the dorsal vagus organizes immobilization. Hypnosis is not an isolated technique: it is the discipline that establishes the safety conditions under which these circuits can flexibly recombine.

This page presents the integrated vision of the Paret Method on the relationship between hypnosis, polyvagal theory, and somatic liberation, and introduces the six character types that organize the clinical and didactic practice of the School.

I. Why hypnosis exists — an evolutionary and functional perspective

States comparable to hypnosis appear in daily life: the driver who misses a highway exit without noticing; the spectator absorbed in a movie with unblinking eyes; the liminal state between sleep and wakefulness. In all these cases, a reduction in activity of the Default Mode Network (DMN), the brain network of rumination and self-referential inner speech, is observed.

Hypnotic states can also be traced back to stillness — both the freezing that occurs in certain situations and the calm achieved in some yoga postures. More broadly, any situation where a person "does not feel like themselves" falls into this family of states.

Hypnosis can be seen as a thread connecting very different situations. If it is a natural capacity of the human organism and not an exotic addition, it must have adaptive value — just as sleep serves recovery. The School's proposal is that hypnosis offers an on-demand adjustment of autonomic set-points and attention, allowing the organism to conserve energy, move effectively, or remain safely immobile when the context requires it.

This capacity is modulated by relationship. The human being is wired for connection, and a specific neurophysiology supports connection. Polyvagal theory reformulates the "why" of hypnosis with two simple ideas:

mammals have a context-dependent system, wired for social engagement and safety (ventral vagus);
mammals also carry a context-dependent pathway capable of disconnecting and immobilizing as an energy-conserving defense (dorsal vagus).

Hypnosis can recruit both pathways; the operator's task is to stage safety so that immobilization — if present — remains tonic, chosen, and reversible.

II. Definition of hypnosis in the social and physiological context

In hypnosis, the way the mind thinks changes. The human being thinks almost continuously — even when thought is not needed for the immediate task. Neuroscience links this background activity to the Default Mode Network. In accessible terms, the DMN approximates the continuous flow of the "conscious mind."

The operator's soft gaze, stable posture, predictable rhythm of breath and movement trigger a state of calm, reducing DMN activity. In traditional hypnotic jargon, it is said that the hypnotist "bypasses the conscious mind"; in physiological language, it means the operator offers non-verbal instructions that the organism registers pre-reflectively as safety signals. Safety shifts the autonomic set-point and lowers the weight of the DMN, opening access to a more direct bodily discernment — what in hypnotic jargon is called the "unconscious" — and to practical abilities: learning, cooperation, choice with less rumination, but also the concrete possibility of changing the bodily state.

The central mechanism is co-regulation. Just as an infant on the mother's chest experiences physiological stabilization through another regulated being, so the operator's regulated state can stabilize the client's nervous system. Hypnosis is therefore not a mysterious imposition: it is the clinical use of innate regulation processes.

This framework also explains why the question "can anyone be hypnotized?" tends to receive a positive answer. The determining factor is less the subject's trait than the quality of the relational field: where there are safety signals, most people can enter hypnotic states; when difficulties arise, they are more often relational than individual.

The same principle applies when techniques seem "physical" or "procedural" — for example, work with the breath. Breath regulation alone modulates autonomic tone, but a calm, attuned operator adds a dimension of safety that makes the same exercise significantly more effective than solitary practice.

III. Socio-neurological analysis of hypnosis

Hypnosis can be seen as a socio-neurological discipline: a certain type of relationship activates a mutual neurology between two nervous systems and creates what tradition calls absorption.

Absorption is a perceived narrowing of attention, accompanied by ease of following. It arises from three ingredients:

relational safety (warm voice, mobile face, predictable rhythm);
attentional narrowing (a single channel: the breath, a finger, a spot on the wall);
relevance (images or tasks that make sense to that person).

Classic research on hypnosis recognized only two branches of the autonomic nervous system — sympathetic and parasympathetic. Polyvagal theory proposes a finer distinction: the ventral vagus organizes social engagement and regulation, the dorsal vagus enables protective immobilization. In this framework, hypnosis is a process of vagal activation, facilitated both by the non-verbal encounter between the two nervous systems and by specific techniques that mobilize attention (gaze inductions, body focusing, paternal inductions, magnetic fascination).

Activation of the ventral vagus is the organizer. With the ventral vagus active, sympathetic activation becomes playful focus and dorsal activation becomes soothing stillness. Without the ventral vagus, the same sympathetic shifts towards panic and rigidity, and the same dorsal shifts towards collapse and compliance.

IV. The three relational doors of hypnosis

In clinical practice, three main doors can be opened towards the hypnotic state. None is intrinsically superior; each adapts to different stories, cultures, and moments.

The maternal door (receptive, V)

Prosodic voice, gentle rhythm, responsive eye contact. Creates an evident field of co-regulation. People who have experienced haste or scrutiny relax easily here.

The paternal door (directive, V+S)

Clear structure, short concrete tasks, visible success indicators. Stabilizes practical, results-oriented people.

The mental door (non-intrusive, V+D)

Symbolic and self-guided approach; the operator leaves even more space, follows the person's internal associations with minimal shaping. Reduces pressure for those who fear invasion or judgment.

The operator mixes these doors as needed, shifting style to keep the person within a window of tolerance. The non-verbal grammar that supports them all is the same: a voice that signals friendliness rather than scrutiny, eyes that soften rather than pin down, timing that respects the breath, a posture that shows aisance rather than rigidity.

V. The three classic hypnotic states and their animal roots

The discoveries of Charcot on the three classic hypnotic states — catalepsy (tonic rigidity), somnambulism (acting as in a dream), and lethargy (deep relaxation) — find a precise echo in comparative ethology. Three evolutionary demands recur across species, each paired with an animal analogue and a human-daily one:

Catalepsy — remaining immobile with tone

When pausing is safer than acting. Physiologically: ventral-vagal braking with intact postural tone.

Animal: the bird sitting perfectly still on its eggs; the primate dozing on a branch while maintaining its grip.
Human: the archer holding the shot at full draw; the tightrope walker freezing mid-step to regain balance; the sustained yoga posture as aisance rather than effort.

Somnambulism — acting automatically

When procedural action is safer than deliberation. Movement preserved with reduced self-awareness.

Animal: the salmon swimming upstream; migratory birds in night formation.
Human: the pianist performing a studied piece without explicit thought; the experienced driver on a familiar route.

Lethargy — protective disconnection

When energy conservation is safer than anything else. Deep immobilization with global reduction of tone.

Animal: the opossum "playing dead" before a predator; hibernation.
Human: deep restorative sleep; surgical analgesia achieved in deep hypnosis.

Clinical hypnosis reuses these conserved blocks within a socially safe framework, where what in nature would be an emergency response becomes a chosen and reversible resource.

VI. Simple states and mixed states

Beyond the three simple states (pure ventral vagus, pure sympathetic, pure dorsal vagus), the autonomic nervous system has the capacity to mix states. This is the great discovery of polyvagal theory compared to the classic two-branch model. The three most relevant mixed states are:

Play (V + S) — mobilization with safety

Interweaving of ventral (safety, co-regulation) and sympathetic (mobilization). Creates energy and vitality. It is the state of childhood play: children can move very fast in full sympathetic mode if safety falters and someone gets hurt or scared.

Intimate stillness (V + D) — immobilization with safety

Interweaving of ventral safety with dorsal calm. The system is designed for deep relaxation, intimacy, the fully satiated experience of life. Focusing and deep experiential therapy have their place here. It is also, in another key, the state in which the Mesmeric crisis manifests, protected by the operator's magnetic field.

Fixation and dependence (S + D, without V)

Interweaving of sympathetic and dorsal without the organizing presence of the ventral. When trauma or emotional dysregulation compromises the ability to regulate via social engagement, the system shifts into survival mode and seeks relief through fixation behaviors — including addictions. It is the state of pathological Ordinary trances.

There are therefore six states (three simple and three mixed). There is then a seventh: the Integrated state, which hypnosis and meditation reach as a goal condition.

VII. The integrated state as the seventh configuration

The integrated state is a systemic configuration in which autonomic, interoceptive, and cortical control networks synchronize around safety signals, producing flexible, goal-oriented behavior without defensive rigidity.

Neurophysiologically, it reflects a high ventral-vagal set point (robust vagal tone, pronounced respiratory sinus arrhythmia) that allows co-activation — and not alternation — of sympathetic resources for action with parasympathetic braking for stillness. In this configuration, the organism can ascend towards precise mobilization or descend towards receptive stillness while maintaining postural tone, prosody, and social engagement.

Cortically, integration is marked by precise modulation (and not en bloc shutdown) of the DMN, accompanied by more efficient transit in the salience network (anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex) and lean recruitment of fronto-parietal control systems. In terms of predictive processing, hypnosis establishes a high-safety prior that optimizes the precision weight assigned to incoming sensory and interoceptive information; suggestions are then implemented as low-friction policy updates, minimizing free energy without triggering threat models.

Hypnosis and many contemplative practices converge towards this goal state by staging predictability (rhythm, gaze, posture), refining interoceptive accuracy, and exploiting short cycles of mobilize-under-protection → land-in-stillness. The result is superior homeostasis (allostatic efficiency): lower metabolic cost for a given task, faster transitions between modes, and a lived sense of embodied openness.

In the School's didactics, this state has its own name: Integral Presence. The Integral Presence™ protocol — articulated on the four elements of Charges, Reference Point, Stop, and attention to Hara and verticality — is the concrete practice through which the Paret Method student cultivates the recurrent return to the integrated state and progressively stabilizes its access. Presence is therefore not only an outcome of hypnosis in the clinical context, but the foundational competence that amplifies all techniques of the School's non-verbal tradition, from fascination to the Mesmeric crisis.

VIII. The six character types in the polyvagal map

From the six basic autonomic configurations, the School has derived six character types that organize non-verbal diagnosis and the choice of the hypnotic access door. They are tendencies, not diagnoses: people move between them over time. The operator's task is to stage the signals so that ventral vagus activation can organize whatever state presents itself.

ALTRUIST — ventral configuration (V). Fluid breath, soft facial tone, prosodic voice, easy eye contact, intact curiosity. Best door: ventral, "play" mode.
ALERT — alarmed immobility (D+S with low V). "Frozen but on edge." Reference animal: the mouse stopped mid-movement, still scanning the environment. Best door: non-invasive approach, ventral signals of predictability.
REALIZER — mobilization with safety (V+S). "Energetic and guided." Best door: paternal (clear tasks) with constant ventral signals of appreciation.
DREAMER — dorsal activation and dissociation. Best door: mental, non-invasive, with light ventral anchors.
PACIFIC — immobilization with safety (V+D). "Quiet and receptive." Best door: mental/non-intrusive (symbol, breath, body scan), with gentle ventral anchors.
CONQUEROR — threat mobilization (pure S). "All gas, no steering." Rigid effort, flat prosody, scanning eyes. Repair: restore ventral first (slower tempo, humor, permission to stop), then return to task in short windows.

The in-depth study of each type and the correspondence with historical traditions (Hippocratic humors, Wirth's planetary types, Jungian profiles, enneagram) are covered in the dedicated page I sei tipi caratteriali nella mappa polivagale.

IX. Ergic profiles and polyvagal mapping

A useful framework for distinguishing individual patterns of chronic reactivity is the concept of ergicity — the baseline level of autonomic and behavioral "gains."

Hyperergic profiles (hyper-reactive)

These systems mobilize quickly and maintain a state of high arousal. Clinically: tachypnea, cold extremities, fragmented sleep, elevated blood pressure, sensitized inflammatory responses. Advantageous for short-duration performance, but if prolonged predispose to exhaustion, burnout, and subsequent hypoergic collapse.

Hyperergia can be manifest (agitation, outward reactivity) or partially blocked — a special case where sympathetic energy clashes with dorsal inhibition and the system remains "on but stuck": anger or resentment that feels justified and even fortifying, but action cannot proceed. The physiological cost increases and chronic hostility becomes a metabolically expensive strategy.

Hypoergic profiles (hypo-reactive)

Systems that under-respond. Hypotension, reduced muscle tone, venous and lymphatic stasis, flat affect, diminished initiative. Chronic hypoergia overlaps with depressive phenotypes, where energy-saving strategies dominate and engagement is markedly reduced.

Normoergic profiles

Greater flexibility and adaptability, but still susceptible to dysregulation under chronic or contradictory demands. The animal analogue is the playful alternation of puppies: brief mobilization that quickly returns to grooming or feeding when safety is clear.

On the autonomic scale: hyperergia corresponds to sustained sympathetic drive (sometimes unopposed, sometimes counterbalanced by dorsal inhibition); hypoergia to dominance of the dorsal-vagal complex, conserving energy at the expense of initiative.

X. The somatic liberation sequence

The observation linking clinical hypnosis to a vast family of body practices — from Reichian bicycle to Gerda Boyesen's biodynamic work, from the hesychast practice of tears to contemporary methods of Trauma Releasing Exercises — is that the nervous system, once it enters ventral-anchored immobilization, naturally re-emerges through a sequence:

Mixed stillness (immobilization with tone, anchored by ventral engagement)
Kinetic discharge (micro-explosions of sympathetic action that remain protected by social safety: tremors, spontaneous movements, brief "crisis"-type episodes)
Completion (interrupted defensive responses that finally conclude in the body)
Re-engagement (return to quiet orientation, broader breath, social presence)

Viewed through a polyvagal lens, these kinetic episodes are not pathology: they are the completion of interrupted defensive responses and pave the way for a return to flexible mobilization. The Mesmeric crisis described in the School's modern Mesmerismus corresponds precisely to this passage, experienced and accompanied within the magnetic field between operator and client.

Hypnosis, in this light, does not impose an artificial state: it recreates a natural sequence — from collapse, to buffer-relational care immobility, to sympathetic re-activation, and finally to re-entry into social engagement.

XI. Trauma, depression, and burnout on the same map

Depression and many forms of burnout can be understood as long-term adaptations on the autonomic scale: after months or years of over-mobilization, the organism economizes by descending towards low drive. Hypnosis contributes to both ends of the scale — calming hyper-arousal without sedating and re-introducing gentle micro-mobilizations out of collapse — because it is a method that puts state and safety first.

Trauma begins when life traps us: fighting does not fit, fleeing is not possible, the ancient system conserves energy through immobilization. If that trap repeats, the pattern can become fixed: chronic rigidity with tunnel vision, or oscillation between high alert and numbness. Hypnosis helps on both sides: it establishes stillness without turning the person into a rag doll, and re-introduces micro-mobilization without frightening them.

XII. Advanced training state and superior homeostasis

Repeated, accompanied exposure to the integrated state — through serious hypnotic practices, meditation, magnetic work, presence exercises — leads to a stabilization of the set-point in superior homeostasis: lower metabolic cost for a given task, faster transitions between modes, and a lived sense of embodied openness that the School's practice has recognized since its earliest texts.

The historical traditions that the Paret Method integrates — Paracelsian alchemy, Hippocratic medicine of the four humors, magnetic fascination transmitted through Donato, Caravelli, and Di Pisa, the hesychast tradition of the prière du cœur — described the same goal in different languages. Polyvagal theory today provides a physiological grammar that does not reduce those traditions to neurophysiology but reveals a remarkable convergence: distinct vocabularies, developed in different eras and cultures, arrive at the same recognizable experience and the same access practices.

Echo in the magnetic tradition and the hermetic tradition

The polyvagal reading of hypnosis and somatic liberation presented on this page does not replace the magnetic tradition from which the School originates: it is its contemporary translation. Porges' physiological grammar describes, in terms of ventral vagus, sympathetic, and dorsal vagus, the same phenomenon that Mesmer, Puységur, Lafontaine, Donato, Caravelli, Di Pisa have described and operated for two and a half centuries in the language of magnetic fluid, passes, fascinating gaze, and the Mesmeric crisis. The three relational doors of hypnosis (maternal, paternal, mental) correspond to configurations that magnetic practice has always known as calming, commanding, letting — three modalities of personal magnetism. The page Alchimia e Magnetismo documents the historical continuity between the magnetic and hermetic traditions as one discipline under two names.

The techniques of the Paret Method that work directly with the system described on this page include the Caduceo ermetico (tonic ventral-anchored immobilization via posture), the Magnetic Alignment (somatic co-regulation of nape-sacrum), the Tummo (sympathetic mobilization contained by the ventral). In all these techniques, the safety field that polyvagal theory describes as a ventral vagal reflex is what the hermetic tradition of the UR-KRUR Group calls the field of presence — the quality of being that the page La Presenza (tradizione ermetica) presents as the condition of every authentic magical operation. The page Integral Presence™ is the somatic protocol with which the School trains it, and Il Risveglio the dimension of stabilized fulfillment. All these pages describe the same place through different doors.

Sources

School publications

Marco Paret, Hypnosis, Polyvagal Theory, and Somatic Liberation — A Non-Verbal Approach to Healing (chapter for Springer publication, in preparation).
Marco Paret, Le Flux Magnétique et les Savoirs Anciens (2017).

Polyvagal theory

Stephen W. Porges, The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation, Norton, 2011.
Stephen W. Porges, «Orienting in a defensive world: Mammalian modifications of our evolutionary heritage. A polyvagal theory», Psychophysiology, 32(4), 1995, pp. 301-318.

Hypnosis and Default Mode Network

Herbert Spiegel, David Spiegel, Trance and Treatment: Clinical Uses of Hypnosis, American Psychiatric Publishing, 2004.
Killingsworth M., Gilbert D., «A wandering mind is an unhappy mind», Science, 330, 2010.

European body tradition

Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis (1933).
Gerda Boyesen, Entre psyché et soma (1985).