Hypnosis for Roleplay (Boston Hypnosis Study Group)

This month's hypnosis study group was a must for me, since it was a presentation by a couple who have developed a fascinating use for hypnosis: to enhance long term sexual roleplay scenarios. They had really prepared for it too, with a powerpoint slideshow and various planned activities. So we had two bespectacled engineers tag-team-presenting heavily bullet-pointed slides, clicking through them with a remote. But in contrast to the usual talks I see, the content was about fun sex games you can play. One of those moments of incongruity that make me smile.

(on a related note, have been amused by how my life exploring kink and going to secret sex parties has turned out to involve plenty of Excel, Word, and now powerpoint... really the whole office suite... not to mention e-invites and updating Wordpress pages. Lots of work that is essentially identical to running a college club.)

As someone with no familiarity with LARPing or online roleplay, they really got me hooked by talking about the similarities between hypnosis and roleplay. They both need active and willing participants. So they both involve adults committing to unusual scenarios, and not getting too self conscious. Here as in many areas of kink, you realize that sidestepping the impulse to laugh at a practice not only lets you relate to the practitioners better, but also allows the possibility of it expanding your own life and repertoire.

Also like hypnosis, roleplay requires plenty of clarity of communication, and negotiation. The fantasy is that it just happens, but in reality there needs to be plenty of talking and outlining.

So how can hypnosis and roleplay enhance each other? The presenters gave us three ways:

1. Hypnosis + story. Providing some context for the hypnosis that takes it out of the ordinary, like you are an evil hypnotist who is going to bend the mind of your tied-up captive. One neat thing they point out is that all the things the books say hypnosis can't do - hypnotize someone against their will, make them do  something they don't want to do, be "stuck" in a trance - you can pretend are happening through (negotiated) roleplay, if those scenarios turn you on.

2. Roleplay with hypnotic assistance. Taking a sexy roleplay scenario - like cop and person who's been pulled over, or say two dark elves having a nude wrestling match in a glade - and using hypnosis to make it seem more real, and help people get into character. It can also provide "special effects", like a potion that really does make you sleepy when the wizard forces you to drink it.

3. Immersive hypno environment. This one took me a little while to understand, but I think what they meant is that the hypnotist creates a complete interactive environment for the hypnotee, much like a dungeon master (of the dungeons and dragons, not the play party, variety). So while the hypnotee sits in a chair with their eyes closed, the hypnotist invokes sensory imagery and perhaps portrays different characters, and the hypnotee makes choices and interacts with the world. This takes plenty of preparation, just like an RPG campaign, and can be enhanced with actual sensory stimulation, like sound effects, giving the entranced person an object to hold, or for instance holding fresh meadow dryer sheets in front of their face if they're supposed to be in a meadow.

The couple giving the presentation are into the latter, and have elaborated some of their scenarios for *years*, with dozens of characters and complex evolving relationships. They are both heavily invested in stories, especially of the fantasy/science fiction type, and in exploring alternate possible worlds, like one where mind control powers are ubiquitous, and complicate sex and class and gender accordingly.

So this is where we tried to get them to tell us more about their long term fantasy play, or what they called "shared headcannon", which caused plenty of blushing and assurances they didn't want to make our ears bleed. Of course, this is perfectly reasonable, since it is such a private and intimate thing for them (while one of them has written many of their scenes out as stories, the stories are never shared with anyone but the two of them).

I did ask, how much are you motivated by cool story ideas and worldbuilding, and how much by working backwards from some hot sexual scenario? And the answer was 1000% cool story ideas and worldbuilding. And then they try and work sex in somewhere. Very cute.

Our imaginations were definitely stimulated by the props they passed around, such as a beeping metronome that can double as a fake heart monitor (slowing it down will actually relax the person), and a bottle of "mind control pills", that they had made a delightful custom Rx label for.

Some more tips from the session:

• Planning involves "roadmapping": agreeing on a simple plot together, along with key details.
• "No god mode": you don't get to control what the other person chooses to do - unless that's part of the scenario.
• In addition to the regular kink scene safewords, you can have a "break character" safeword. A common one in the world of LARPing is apparently putting your fist to the side of your forehead.
• If you're having trouble getting into the headspace for in-person roleplay, try going into different rooms and starting with online chat roleplay, if that's what you're comfortable with. (by the way, delighted that MUDs are still in use for such roleplay! Got to love technology that I knew at the dawn of the internet still being perverted.)
• There is no copyright in private sex play, so you can exploit whatever fandoms you love.

Obviously I can't capture it all, from a fun example they elaborated of a "hypnotic face slap" storyline (my favourite variation of which involved the phrase, "Sir, you have offended my hypno-honour!"), to brainstorming roleplay scenarios, to the repeated invocation of "sex jail".

The evening ended up being something like 4 1/2 hours, which is long even for a hard core hypno enthusiast like myself, but I was so glad the presenters shared their unique type of play. It's opened up my imagination to new kinds of fun that can be had, when the hypnotist evokes not just thoughts and sensations, but character, environment, and even the surrounding society (I pictured a super-repressed THX 1138 society, where any kind of sex is an incredible act of deviance!) At one point one said that roleplay activates some percentage of your imagination, and hypnosis some percentage as well, so that together they can make the most use of your imagination possible.