Both clinical and experimental views of hypnosis are social constructions that reflect the biases and interests of practitioners and scientists. Each perspective offers useful metaphors for hypnosis. Underlying clinical uses of the term hypnosis are states of mind associated with imaginative reverie and automatic behavior based on procedural knowledge. Social discourse and narratives shape hypnotic experience, but they are themselves influenced by mechanisms of attention and automaticity. Study of hypnosis must proceed on both social and psychological fronts to account for the experience and clinical efficacy of hypnosis.