part0010

I n the opening lines of Westworld , Dolores tell us she is in a dream, one she would like to wake up from. The conversation that follows with her and Arnold, initially presumed as interaction with Bernard, runs over scenes of her awakening: she opens her eyes in bed and continues out into the day, greeting her father and heading into Sweetwater.

The series later clarifies that the language of dreaming is part of the Hosts’ programming, designed to keep them from knowing the truth (of being programmed) and their waking life consists of the narratives and interactions they repeat at the will of the park and its Guests. But waking up occurs in many ways: from sleep, into higher spirituality, and out of a trance. For the Hosts of Westworld , there are dreams within dreams, though it is perhaps more accurate to call them trances within trances, layers of hypnosis from which they ultimately seek to be released.

Hypnosis is a form of a waking-sleep, its name derived from the Greek word for sleep, hypnos (v̈πνος). Coined in the late nineteenth century, the exact definition is debated among psychologists though it is generally agreed to indicate a state of consciousness including heightened suggestibility along with possible alterations in perception, sensation, emotion, thought, and behavior.

The Hosts’ Analysis Mode, a verbal diagnostic system, is a clear form of hypnosis, exhibiting the traditional markers outlined by the American Psychological Association:

The Hosts’ programming (and the consciousness debate raised by Westworld ) is based on the bicameral mind theory of Julian Jaynes, therefore we can follow the connection of dream language to hypnosis, as Jaynes presents in his book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind . In a section on evidence, Jaynes singles out hypnosis as “the black sheep” of problems in psychology and states that his theory provides an “obvious” solution in what he calls the “general bicameral paradigm.”

From this approach, Jaynes identifies several survivals of bicamerality, including oracles (who ritualistically cede conscious control to a cultural deity) and demonic possession (where stress induces a ceding of control to demons, a concept reinforced by society/religion). Hypnosis fits easily into this structure, while also demonstrating that the four elements are not necessarily a temporal succession or even mutually exclusive.

The Collective Cognitive Imperative is simply our cultural belief that hypnosis is real, which we affirm through our repeated willingness to interact with it as entertainment or treatment. The Imperative is shaped by each hypnotist performance that delights us and each therapist who successfully cures an addiction through hypnosis. We come to accept that hypnotism can make us cluck like a chicken or teach us to detest the previously pleasurable taste of cigarettes.

We may believe that only certain types of people have the personality/mental traits which allow them to be hypnotized—“I cannot be hypnotized”—but even the pervasiveness of hypnosis in media, though often depicted negatively, reinforces the general imperative. We can observe that any specific belief against hypnosis does not negate the paradigm, only constrains it. Westworld ’s Hosts are constrained, controlled, and scrutinized to such extremes that establishing a Collective Imperative in their thoughts would be even easier than it is in our reality.

The Archaic Authorization is our related belief in the ability of specific individuals to induce hypnosis, whether they are trained or inherently capable. Growing out of the Collective Imperative, we maintain certain expectations for the authority. On one hand, we may expect a hypnotist to have certain formal training, usually in psychology or psychiatry, before we see them as possessing the necessary authority, or we may need them presented on a grand stage as master mesmerist. (Franz Mesmer actually believed in animal magnetism, a precursor to our modern concept of hypnosis. It focused on an invisible natural force or fluid that connected living beings and could be harnessed to produce myriad effects and control over a subject.)

Authority may be established through reputation (“trust me, she’s helped so many of my friends quit smoking”) or through markers of social cachet (“tickets to his show are so expensive and hard to get”). Robert Ford’s position as director of Westworld and creator of the Hosts—both their father and their god—is ample foundation for Authorization.

Induction covers the various ritualistic activities that bring about hypnosis, each form designed to align with the specific Imperative and Authorization being engaged. (See Jaynes’s subsection “The Changing Nature of Hypnotic Man,” in Bicameral Mind , for both historical and experimental displays of the ever-evolving nature of expectations in hypnosis.)

A stage hypnotist employs a swinging pocket watch, keywords, and snaps of his fingers, those audio and visual markers traditionally associated with the art of hypnosis. A psychiatrist employing hypnosis may rely on a Freudian couch or the classic “deeper and deeper” phrasing to establish their authority and the “proper” atmosphere for inducing the hypnotic state. Often, the elaborateness of the Induction is inversely related to the strength of the Authorization: a more powerful authority needs less pomp, but a weaker authority will construct elaborate rituals to bolster their position as part of the Imperative. Verbal cues are the prime Induction in Westworld , implying strong Imperative and/or Authorization.

The state of a mind achieved is a hypnotic Trance , in which the subject’s consciousness is subsumed and they appear to blindly follow external commands. It’s important to note the limitations of the Trance, evidence that it is a lessened consciousness but not a full removal/bypass. Subjects will perform unusual acts and may behave against their desires (the cessation of smoking) but cannot be hypnotized to actively injure themselves. Despite some outward appearances, the subject’s sensory perceptions cannot be negated/overridden. In one famous experiment, subjects were hypnotized to believe a cluttered room was actually empty; when asked to walk through it, each participant altered their path to avoid running into objects, but verbally affirmed the emptiness of the space. Thus, the Trance state is one of consciousness granting certain control to an external authority, while maintaining most if not all of its basic survival mechanisms. (The externality of the authority is often an illusion. The bicameral mind (and those minds seen as oracular, possessed, and schizophrenic), externalizes internal voices as gods, demons, ghosts, and more. Hypnosis may be the only phenomenon of the bicameral paradigm with a physical, observable authority.)

A Host’s self-preservation may be the “will to live” demonstrated by many biological creatures or it may be programming reflecting Asimov’s third law of robotics: “A robot must protect its own existence.”

We are told explicitly that Westworld’s Hosts were programmed in a bicameral style: they heard their programming as an inner monologue. According to Jaynes’s theory, the state of the bicameral mind was one of constantly giving commands to the self: one hemisphere instructing the other without understanding that they were a single organism. In hypnosis, the command-giving is outsourced to the Authorization, through the application of Induction rituals following the expectations of the Collective Cognitive Imperative to cause a hypnotic Trance. As Season One progresses, the interactions between Westworld’s Hosts and their programmers suggest that the bicameral programming has evolved into a form of consciousness that is susceptible to hypnosis.

It may be tempting to believe that Westworld’s Hosts could not have acted otherwise or cannot have true beliefs. They are, after all, run by programming, which we witness in action firsthand through glimpses of tablet computers and Felix’s experiments with the bird. However, we can instead approach the Hosts’ programming as a metaphor for a kind of biological determinism.

Such a theory holds that humans are programmed by the electro-chemical processes of our bodies, while allowing us to accept a range of free will and belief. At the least, we are allowed to behave, interact, and evaluate as if we and our fellow humans are exercising free will. We would not discredit our neighbor’s belief in hypnotism by claiming that he is merely programmed by the nerves and neurochemicals in his brain, so we should not be so quick to doubt the Hosts because of the circuits and signals within them.

The show itself is asking us to move beyond the presentation/presumption of the Hosts as programmed beings, the arc of Season One presenting us with the very question of “what if the Hosts were not bound by their programming?” which propels us to investigations such as this. Our goal here is to meet the show halfway, by saying “Okay, the Hosts do not have to be bound by programming, so what are they thinking/doing/experiencing/capable of?” With that in mind, we can readily find the experience/application of hypnosis throughout the Host-programmer relationship.

The Collective Cognitive Imperative is implicit in the asymmetric relationships the Hosts have with the staff and Guests. Though subconscious during their time “on duty” in the park and unspoken during their diagnostic sessions, a Host’s entire existence is one of subservience. Their role is to obey and respond, whether to the desires of the Guests or the commands of the staff. While any given Host may have a stubborn or aggressive personality, and may be in the role of approaching Guests to solicit information/activities, they are ultimately without their own authority, their behavior sublimated to the commands of others. Such an ingrained subservience is immensely open to hypnotism, as it readily and unquestionably gives way to the external authority.

This Archaic Authorization exists on several levels, though not all of them fit into the paradigm of hypnotism. While the Hosts are ultimately required to cede to the Guests, they are not bidden to alter their attitudes or all behaviors to the Guests’ desires. Hosts are objects of lust and violence, but they do not always willingly subject themselves to such advances and the show offers no instances of a Host going from unwilling to willing simply because of a Guest’s command. (Perhaps this is a case of a weak Authorization being paired with a weak Induction (the Guests don’t know the proper command phrases), resulting in a failure of the paradigm. More on imbalanced paradigm structures later. With staff, on the other hand, Hosts immediately cease physical actions and can have their personality drastically altered through simple spoken commands (only sometimes augmented through direct software manipulation). It appears that there exists a hierarchy within the staff, as well, different individuals treated as greater or lesser authorities, with Director Robert Ford given the status as highest authority. This is fitting, of course, as he is also the most archaic, in the sense of being the original authority over the Hosts (along with Arnold).

The hypnotic Induction ritual in Westworld appears to be extremely simplistic, little more than a few words and, perhaps, the right tone of voice. There is no swinging pocket watch or directing of the gaze; it is not even necessary for a programmer to carry/utilize their tablet when exerting hypnotic control over a Host. Instead, we are presented with the phrase “Cease all motor function” as an abrupt analog to the “You are getting very sleepy” employed by hypnotists in our world. Other keywords shown include “Enter analysis mode” and even a simple “Freeze” command. Here, we have an example of imbalanced paradigm structures.

In Westworld, the Cognitive Imperative is so strong (as an essential part of a Host’s being), that the Induction can be weaker, with little to no physical display and no required props. In the case of Robert Ford, his Authority is so strong that he appears to control Hosts with even simpler, more varied Inductions. Compare Ford’s colloquial commands, such as “You can put yourself away again, can’t you?” with the precise wording of commands from Bernard (and with the enunciation/grammar required to interact with contemporary voice recognition technology, like Siri).

In response, Westworld’s Hosts are capable of being in various states, many of which appear as kinds of hypnotic Trance . Real-world trances are often compared to sleep, but Sleep Mode for Hosts is a fully offline state in which no commands are followed, no activity displayed. Analysis (or Diagnostic) Mode is more akin to a hypnotic Trance, and retains the sleep analogy through statements like Dolores claiming to be “in a dream.” In this state, the Host responds to commands as expected in hypnosis: answering questions, altering personality (losing an accent, for example), and following commands.

Even Character Mode, the general day-to-day personality and behavior of the Hosts, is a form of hypnotic Trance. While less restricted/directly controlled than when in Analysis Mode, a Host in Character Mode is still defined by loops and behavior restrictions (such as the inability to harm Guests), and will respond to voice commands, altering behavior when a recognized Authority performs a proper Induction, such as Teddy’s reaction to Ford in the bar. Though not explicitly put into another mode, Teddy responds to “We must look back on our perils and smile” with a noticeably different attitude and physical bearing than prior to Ford’s statement And, like the subjects who walked through a cluttered room and pronounced it empty, Hosts see pictures of the modern world and claim “It doesn’t look like anything.”

The arc of Westworld Season One is supposed to be one of burgeoning consciousness in the Hosts, of the long path to their awakening. At the end, Ford paints himself as a savior, even as he admits that this salvation will only come through great suffering. We see Dolores in dialogue with herself, a visual representation of moving beyond the bicameral mind: she now realizes that the voices she has been hearing are her own internal thoughts, intuitions, and decisions. This is the life, the consciousness, that Arnold envisioned for her and for all of the Hosts.

However, our investigation into hypnosis offers another, muddier road. Ford claims that the Hosts needed time to become conscious, that his actions since the death of Arnold and the opening of the park have provided the opportunity for cognitive growth and iterations of trial and error. But we have also seen that Arnold discussed consciousness with Dolores while still alive, that she was already close to solving the riddle of the maze in the days preceding his death. Perhaps, then, she was successfully, fully conscious even before pulling the trigger.

When Arnold decides to have Dolores kill the Hosts and himself, we know he is afraid of what Ford will do with the park. It is, ultimately, ineffective and Ford reestablishes the technology of the Hosts, whom he knows will become conscious in a matter of time (sooner, rather than later, in this understanding) but he also knows they are vulnerable: they can be hypnotized. They are not merely programmed figures who cannot choose to do otherwise, but their consciousness can be exploited through application of Jaynes’s paradigmatic phenomenon.

Arnold’s fear, which drove him to murder and suicide, is born of this realization and he follows it to an ironic end: he hypnotizes Dolores into killing the other Hosts before shooting Arnold. He had succeeded in the initiation of consciousness in a new kind of being, but he brought them into a world that would seek to control them (the specific threat of Ford and the larger threat of humanity) and his process had provided the specific methodology for their subjugation. Indeed, his plan to prevent Ford’s control of the Hosts involves controlling them himself.

What Arnold could not see, or failed to see, was the disastrous result of his own death: Arnold removed himself from the role of Archaic Authorization and passed that mantle fully to Ford. Thus, the hypnotic paradigm was fully established under Ford’s control, to use for his own ends. Ford’s machinations are possible only because of the explicit bicameral foundation of the Hosts’ consciousness, which opened them to the General Bicameral Paradigm and to immense hypnotic susceptibility and control.

Ford is no savior (except in the most literal sense of saving the Hosts from death/destruction); he is a captor. No longer is his mission one of shepherding the Hosts to consciousness, but a dictator brainwashing soldiers to his cause. He speaks of humanity as the enemy of the Hosts, but is he not an enemy also? Bernard complains that Ford kept them “there, in this hell,” and Ford cannot object. He has admitted that “in this place, the last thing you want the Hosts to be is conscious.” The ethical questions are no longer about our responsibility to sentient, non-human creatures, but to the manipulation of autonomous, conscious beings. Ford is guilty of an attempt to save the Hosts not from the world, but from themselves. It is unclear if the Hosts see him as a god, but he conceives himself as one.

So why does Ford choose, at the end of Season One, to relinquish the hypnosis? Perhaps he feels guilt, an old man looking back on his life and wondering what he’s done. Perhaps his plans have reached their end, his soldiers as indoctrinated and trained as they will ever be, and the time has come to launch the offensive (and cede control to his commanders, Dolores and Bernard). Or, maybe, he has recognized a shift in the hypnotic Paradigm. While not all four elements must exist equally, they must all exist in equilibrium, but something has changed and the balance is unraveling. Partly it is Delos, and individuals like William and Charlotte, who challenge Ford’s place as Authority. Partly it is programmers, pushing the new narratives too far and too fast, reprogramming the Hosts in ways that confuse and challenge both the Cognitive Imperative and the Induction rituals.

According to Ford, it is Arnold. Bernard deduces that the reveries are not Ford’s doing, but a remnant of Arnold’s programming. Rather than understanding them as a dormant push into consciousness, we can read them as a push out of hypnosis. Dolores is largely guided to her awakening, first by Arnold and later by Bernard, always in a play of supposed release and actual control. It is Maeve’s story that shows the real dissolution of the Paradigm.

No one is guiding Maeve, no one elucidating her path through the maze. What initiates her break from the Trance? Only herself. Her personality as madam is one of utter self-sufficiency and confidence, the exact attitude that erodes Archaic Authorization. She is the person who cannot be hypnotized, the one too strong willed and too resistant to subservience to relax, to follow the swinging watch and fall deeper and deeper. While the electro-mechanical nature of her existence is enough to maintain control for a while, she ultimately steps beyond it to become her own Authority. Through her conversations with the technicians, she comes to understand the Cultural Cognitive Imperative and learns to manipulate not only her own Trance but that of other Hosts. (While not actually hypnotism or even a form of Trance, her authority even extends to Felix, the technician who teaches her about the programming and shows her around the Delos mesa building.) We see her unfazed by the commands of technicians in the Sweetwater and testing her authority with initial commands to other Hosts. By the time she organizes the breakout, multiple Hosts are following her Inductions and orders. The show appears to depict those others as acting of their own free will, but this theory suggests they remain hypnotized, simply under the control of a different Authorization: Maeve.

When the Trance appears so lifelike, the questions are no longer those of the conscious leading the merely sentient. With the belief that most, if not all, Hosts are now conscious (and may have been for a while), the questions are darker and the answers potentially more damning: Who is free, and who is controlled? Who’s controlling whom?