Hypnotic hallucinations: towards a biology of epistemology

Abstract In a positron emission tomography (PET) study of hypnotic auditory hallucinations (Szechtman, Woody, Bowers and Nahmias, 1998), we found that activation of the right anterior cingulate seems to be critically implicated in the experience of a hallucination. Here we discuss two alternative interpretations of this result, consistent with the known functions of this region. First, hallucinations may occur when affect drives the generation …