The way I view hypnosis is probably a little different to most people:

I regard Hypnosis as the process of guiding people into any kind of state, that produces an unconscious response.

A book hypnotises you to feel and picture the content of the book (it is just white paper with little black dots on, but it still creates a sense of realness)

Think of this…

Even though the hypnotist didn’t get you to do perform his suggestions. He still managed to elicit an unconscious response (the laughing for “no reason”).

I see this quite often if people are not entirely comfortable with the process. And the more you try to control it the more energy you feed in to the unconscious response. If the hypnotist had been really clever he could have utilised this response to deepen your trance.

Recently a there have been studies measuring pain relatively in and out of trance state/hypnosis and then cross referencing it with brain scans…

http://ping.fm/k5htM