knorke wrote:looks more like playing dead to confuse predators
so in fact its probally very stressfull
The rabbit is likely to be a bit stressed out, but it's not exactly the same thing as when it's in danger or being chewed on by a predator. Like playing dead, its reaction an instinctual behavior activated by a stimulus (in the case of playing dead, fear). However, unlike playing dead and like hypnosis, the rabbit is in a trance due to how it was being held and the way its cheeks were being rubbed. Usually, when playing dead and then snapping out of it, a creature would try run away quickly and some animals would even attack the predator, then run away. This rabbit was not trying to do that, so I think that this reaction is more like a trance, but is not the same thing as what humans experience when they undergo some kind of hypnosis treatment. Despite this, I would think that it is not generally a good idea to risk stressing out the rabbit like that if you can possibly avoid it. Rabbits are often times such nervous creatures.