Ernest Ropiequet "Jack" Hilgard (July 25, 1904 – October 22, 2001) was an American psychologist and professor at Stanford University.
A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Hilgard as the 29th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.
[7] Hilgard is specifically known for his theory that a so-called "hidden observer" is created in the mind while hypnosis is taking place.
His research on the hidden observer during hypnotic pain management was intended to provide support for his neodissociationist theory.
This theory held that a person undergoing hypnosis can still observe his or her own pain without consciously experiencing any suffering.
The phenomenon of the "hidden observer" was controversial and critics claimed it could be manufactured by suggestions, indicating that it was possibly no more than an artifact of the instructions given to the research participants.
In one of his books, Hilgard described a classic test demonstrating how this hidden entity is part of our consciousness.
In order to deal with the boredom of being deprived of both sight and sound, he had decided to work on some statistical problems in his head.
One of Hilgard's subjects made the following interesting statement about what she experienced, making particular reference to what she sensed was her higher self: The hidden observer is cognizant of everything that is going on ...
The hidden observer sees more, he questions more, he's aware of what is going on all of the time but getting in touch is totally unnecessary ...
(Hilgard, 1977, p. 210) The hidden observer protects us from doing anything in hypnosis that we would not do under any circumstance consciously, such as causing someone else physical harm.
[9] Drawing themes from Pierre Janet, Hilgard viewed hypnosis from this perspective as a willingness to divide the main systems of consciousness into different sectors.
In other places he mentions the concept of coconsciousness, wherein two or more states of consciousness may be equally receptive or active, as, for example, in some types of dissociative personalities.
Doubt is cast on this assumption by psychophysical studies in normal subjects and those with blindsight showing the simultaneous dissociation of different modes of reporting of a sensation, and by clinical studies of anosognosic patients showing dissociations of awareness of their own states.
[12] The organizing principles that constitute human consciousness and other mental phenomena may be described by analysis and reconstruction of the underlying dynamics of psychophysiological measures.