催眠

1. Origins, structure, and basic meaning

• Structure: The spelling is 催眠, read さいみん, and it combines 催, meaning induce, with 眠, meaning sleep.
• Basic usage: 催眠 is hypnosis, the induction or state of altered attention and responsiveness associated with focused suggestion.

2. Common pitfalls and similar expressions

• A subject of study and the condition of being hypnotized
  • Both examples use the form 催眠. A lecture treats it as a phenomenon with a history and research methods, while a novel depicts someone pretending to be in that state.
• Historical research in a lecture and a detective's pretense
  • 講義で催眠の歴史と研究方法を学んだ。 — In the lecture, we learned about the history and research methods of hypnosis.
  • 小説の探偵は催眠にかかったふりをした。 — The detective in the novel pretended to be hypnotized.