Hypnosis is Not Mind Control

Things that can control your mind in fantasy: Magic spells, potions, subliminal audio tracks, electromagnetic waves, enchanted objects, mind control drugs, helmets with flashing lights in them, telepathy, nanobots, hypnosis.

Things that can control your mind in reality: There aren’t any.

I’m not 100% positive about that, although the history of people trying to develop mind control seems to suggest it’s the case.

But what I am sure about is that hypnosis is not mind control. It can’t be said often enough. Here’s my best understanding so far of what hypnosis is: it’s a very focused form of concentration, where your own imagination can make things real for you - including rules like “you can’t pull apart your hands” - that you would normally be too distracted to experience powerfully. But there is a part of you that is in control always, and suggestions it’s not ok with will be rejected. I have observed this firsthand, as a specific test with a very responsive trancee, where she was asked while in deep trance to cluck like a chicken (one of her hard limits). Absolutely nothing happened. The best way to reassure yourself is to experience trance, and discover that you mostly feel like yourself, and mostly feel in control.

Sometimes this is overstated: the so-called “hidden observer” that is ready to veto suggestions and potentially pop you out of trance has limits, is not your full conscious intelligence. It’s a little dopey. My current model is that the risks during trance are similar to when someone has a few drinks in them. A little more gullible, a little more uninhibited. Less prepared to physically resist an assault. But I think ethical judgments and risk assessments can be made on the basis of the alcohol analogy.

I think it’s also possible for a sociopathic person to abuse a trusting relationship with someone to use hypnosis, over a period of time, to help nudge someone towards doing things they’re not ok with or bad mental states. But this is true of any intimate trusting relationship, especially D/s relationships, and I would not see hypnosis as giving someone too much power beyond what a regular psychological manipulator (someone who plays “mind games”) could achieve. And if such a thing is tried, since hypnotic amnesia is not very effective or reliable - people usually remember what happens during a trance, and effective suggestions to forget things usually wear off at some point in the future - the person is likely to be caught.

I enjoy mind control fantasy. But if hypnosis was mind control, the ethical issues would be horrendous. I’m very glad it doesn’t work like that. For people whose subconscious likes the idea of feeling out of control, which is true of a lot of hypno bottoms, it can give them that experience, but it is an illusion. The ethical issues and trust concerns are much closer to those surrounding intoxication and psychological manipulation - which are serious, but ones that we already understand and have tools to deal with.