**1. Introduction**

Considering the many positive effects of hypnosis, such as relief from chronic pain [1, 2], the ability to enhance hypnotizability has considerable clinical utility. Hypnosis can be defined as an altered state of attention, receptivity, and concentration during which the hypnotized person is immersed in a suggestion [3–5]. Hypnosis can modulate perceptual, motor, emotional, and cognitive processes by producing changes in subjective experience and in behavior, such as greater relaxation, changes in perception of the body and/or of the environment, and increased imagination [6–8]. While neurophysiological data may not completely resolve the debate around hypnosis as an altered state of consciousness (ASC) [9, 10], they do offer interesting clues regarding the role that intentionality and specific types of attention may play in hypnosis. Furthermore, the debate about hypnosis as an ASC could benefit from a reframing in light of current theories of consciousness, particularly the Sphere Model of Consciousness (SMC).

The Sphere Model of Consciousness developed by Paoletti [11–15] suggests that every experience of consciousness can be phenomenologically described as a movement within a spherical matrix. As will be illustrated in Section 4, the model provides that intentionality could be a means through which one can move from Narrative to Minimal Self and this, in turn, could allow deeper hypnotizability as well as other phenomena related to hypnosis, such as a reinterpretation of the nociceptive input underlying pain [16].
