For over a century, hypnosis has been a popular theme in fiction – literature, film, and television. It features in movies almost from their inception and more recently has been depicted in television and online media. As Harvard hypnotherapist Deirdre Barrett points out in 'Hypnosis in Popular Media', the vast majority of these depictions are negative stereotypes of either control for criminal profit and murder or as a method of seduction. Others depict hypnosis as all-powerful or even a path to supernatural powers.
This article only lists stories in which hypnosis is featured as an important element.
Written works
Edgar Allan Poe, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar" (1845) about a mesmerist who puts a man in a suspended hypnotic state at the moment of death. Ambrose Bierce's story "The Realm of the Unreal" (1890) pivots on the idea of a very long hypnosis. The protagonist is supposed to be able to keep "a peculiarly susceptible subject in the realm of the unreal for weeks, months, and even years, dominated by whatever delusions and hallucinations the operator may from time to time suggest". Ambrose Bierce, "The Hypnotist" (1893), in which the narrator glibly relates his use of hypnosis in committing a variety of crimes. George du Maurier, Trilby (1894), in which a tone-deaf girl is hypnotized and turned into a singer. Bolesław Prus, Pharaoh (1895), in which a Chaldean is hypnotized in a circus act (chapter 33) and High Priest Mefres gives post-hypnotic suggestions to the Greek, Lykon, in chapters 63 and 66 and passim. Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician (1930), relates the effect of a hypnotist on a mass audience. The story is said to be symbolic of the power of Fascism. Cigars of the Pharaoh (1934) Richard Condon, The Manchurian Candidate (1959), in which an American soldier is put into a hypnotic trance to implement an assassination plot. There have been two film versions, in 1962 and 2004. Dean Koontz, False Memory (1999) Georgia Byng, Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotism (2002). Lucas Hyde, Hypnosis (2005). Donald K. Hartman, Death by Suggestion: An Anthology of 19th and Early 20th-Century Tales of Hypnotically Induced Murder, Suicide, and Accidental Death. Gathers together twenty-two short stories from the 19th and early 20th century where hypnotism is used to cause death—either intentionally or by accident. (2018) Donald K. Hartman, The Hypno-Ripper: Or, Jack the Hypnotically Controlled Ripper; Containing Two Victorian Era Tales Dealing with Jack the Ripper and Hypnotism (2021) Allison Jones, "A Hypnotic Suggestion" (2009), has a forensic hypnotherapist as the protagonist. Madelaine Lawrence, "Why Kill A Parapsychologist?" (2011), a sequel to "A Hypnotic Suggestion". Madelaine Lawrence is the other's real name. More books are expected in this series about a forensic hypnotherapist. Lars Kepler (pseudonym), The Hypnotist (2011), in which a hypnotist attempts to recover lost memories from the witness to a murder. David Stuart Davies, The Instrument of Death (2019), in which Sherlock Holmes battles master hypnotist Dr. Caligari, who controls a homeless man to commit murders.