Why You Want to be Hypnotized by a Hypnofetishist

I love kink parties, but I'm still trying to figure out my place in them. The ones that I go to tend to be primarily bondage and impact play (spanking and hitting). I'm fairly interested in the former, but still a fumbling beginner for all but the basics, but the latter is a foreign country. I have spanked partners before, even with paddles (and a long shoehorn), but I know there's a lot to learn about how to make a great scene for someone. Also, and this might be illogical, but the fact that it's not my kink also makes me insecure about it. None of the porn I seek out involves spanking or other types of pain. On the other hand, I do admire the intensity of the experience for the bottom, which is hot in itself, especially now that I understand just how much some people adore the sensation of getting hit.

At any rate, whatever interest I have in bondage and impact play is just a shadow of how much I love hypnosis. And last night at the party realized I'm experiencing a new wave of shyness in asking people to trance with me. I saw a number of instances of friends bravely propositioning people last night, often with very good results. But when I'm not worrying that people will think it's creepy, my brain is telling me that hypnosis needs a private space, and some kind of existing trusting relationship to work. I don't really believe that's true; I think those are excuses I use to chicken out.

But it does bother me that compared to the other wild things that are going on (many of which require more special accomodations than hypnosis), hypnosis is not very exciting to watch, and nowhere near as whole-body, at least how I've practiced it in the past. (future blog post idea: whether it's a problem that being the hypnotist can be such a cerebral pleasure, and if there's a way to bring it more into the body) It doesn't leave fun bruises or rope marks for people to show off.

Not everybody is into public play, I don't have to go in that direction. But these kind of parties can be great spaces to meet and do things with new people, as well as where people can let their hair down in general and make time to play.

Anyway, these are my ramblings. But I hope that I can make a little corner for erotic hypnosis in the public Boston scene before I leave, including figuring out how to have some fun scenes of my kink at kink parties. And that will just take some thought, and some boldness (as well as consideration for how some people find hypnosis to be triggering based on past trauma). But I certainly have a great time at these parties no matter what.

To psych myself up, and as an entirely self-serving PSA, here's why, if you're intrigued by hypnosis in a kink context, you want hypnofetishists like me doing it:

• No need for gratitude or reciprocation. Hypnofetishists get off on putting you in a trance, and so it's as much a pleasurable (and possibly sexual) experience for them as for you.
• They have a motivation other than to get some kind of hold. The idea of people learning how to hypnotize in order to get people to sleep with them, or be submissive to them, makes my skin crawl. You want someone who's into it for its own sake (or else wants to enhance an existing D/s relationship).
• They have a motivation other than trying to fix you. Might this be even creepier? The people, often male, who get off on the idea of curing the problems of people they're attracted to? AmHypnotic just wrote a great blog post about the icky behaviour this can provoke. I am not into this (see rule #1 here)
• They're highly motivated to practice hypnosis. Imagine how good I would be at guitar, or any of many other skills I've abandoned, if I got turned on every time I practiced it! Hypnofetishists consume huge amounts of material related to hypnosis, and relish every trick they can pick up. (because they masturbate to those things.) And this interest is going to be pretty steady over time.

There's some people who are interested in hypnosis, but might be uncomfortable about their hypnotist getting turned on. And that's cool. There are professional hypnotherapists out there, some of whom even do recreational hypnosis, and stage hypnotists (both of these groups, of course, overlap with hypnofetishists, but there is also the money motivation, and the fact that they have professional constraints). But I hope that in a consent-valuing subculture, and one where hypnofetishists identify themselves as such, people can negotiate those asymmetries, and feel safe within the limits that have been discussed ahead of time.

Reinduction Triggers are the Greatest

One of my favourite things to do with hypnosis, and which seems to be one of the easiest post-hypnotic suggestions for hypnotees to pull off, is the reinduction trigger. That’s a word, phrase or gesture that causes the trance partner to go from a state of being completely awake and not hypnotized at all, immediately back into a trance. Why I think it’s so easy is that most people’s minds really enjoy the feeling of being in trance, and if the mind knows the way to get there, it’s more than happy to go back (as long as it’s safe to do so, which I also explicitly say when I give the trigger suggestion). It saves time, and it’s also just a massive power trip to create that effect in someone: to watch their eyes close and their head and body slump all in a moment.

This is a lot of power to have over someone, potentially for the long term, and I feel very lucky that a few people have trusted me enough to give me that power. I think it helps that I am deeply not a sneaky person - I would be very bad at being sneaky even if I wanted to be - and I care about people’s mental autonomy. There’s plenty of out-of-trance negotiation that happens before I give the trigger suggestion, to make sure they’re genuinely ok with it, and I also ask for permission within the trance, as Wiseguy suggests (this is of course not the real permission). I’m sure these both help the trigger to be more effective. Besides the physical safety suggestion, I have suggested that it only works “as long as there’s a trusting relationship between us.” I just realized I haven’t always been consistent about that part, because from what I’ve read I’m pretty sure that’s how it works anyway (also I forgot), but it’s probably a good idea.

I get permission each time before I use a reinduction trigger, which some people would say makes it less fun, but is necessary for my ethics and respect for the other person. However I have an exception: I can ask my hypnotee, “Would it be ok with you if I playfully used your reinduction trigger from time to time this evening?” This still requires checking in occasionally, but it allows for that silly/mean/dominant playing with my partner’s state of consciousness that we might both enjoy a lot. There’s the potential for more blanket permission in a long-term D/s hypnotic relationship, but I haven’t gotten into that territory yet.

Once that's been figured out, the fun begins. I’ve only been hypnotizing people in real life for a short period of time, but I’ve already gotten to see some amazing and arousing effects of reinduction triggers on my hypnotees:

• Falling into trance in the middle of a sentence.
• Going from sitting up on the bed to falling back limp on the pillow.
• Me holding up an index card with her reinduction trigger written on it in sharpie and her head immediately slumping, without my having suggested that the written form would be effective.
• Requested to resist the reinduction trigger (which she really wasn’t keen on doing!) and apparently winning for a little while, holding her eyes very wide, and then falling down into trance. I really didn’t know how this one would go, and if she had succeeded I would have been happy too, since it would be an additional layer of safety. I know for a fact that reinduction triggers are not so irresistible for every hypnotee, especially on their first few times experiencing it.
• Me accidentally mentioning the trigger phrase while talking about the trigger phrase, and her going down, to my surprise. Rookie mistake! But cool!
• Going into trance on a bench in a graveyard.
• Going into trance on a bench beside the Charles River at dusk.
• Using a reinduction trigger during sex, and having her go limp with her legs over my shoulders, and me still thrusting into her. I’m not into the fantasy of fucking an unresponsive person (though there’s nothing wrong with that fantasy) but she really got off on the feeling of helplessness, and I loved the fact that it still had a strong effect when her mind was well occupied.
• Counting someone out of trance during a hypnotic blowjob. At which point the blowjob got about 1000% better. That’s not using a reinduction trigger, but it’s a nice mirror image of the previous occasion!

(please note that in particular the last two were discussed and agreed upon ahead of time. In fact I believe they were her idea.)

Now something I can share about making reinduction triggers effective. I recently had the opportunity to do my first hypnosis demo, as a last minute replacement (for someone with an electro machine!). So I didn’t have much prep time. But I wasn’t nervous because it was with my wonderfully talented hypnosis partner Cassi (not her real name or handle). We had a chance to do some planning and pre-negotiation off in a corner as the party was just getting started, and a chance to revisit her reinduction trigger. I had given her the trigger at a previous party in private, and we had a lot of fun with it - Cassi was the one who tried and failed to resist the trigger. However, when we tried it again only three days later, at the NEHG Hypnosis Study Group, it had no effect. Cassi was so disappointed! It was adorable. But we decided to leave it for the time being.

Now it was nearly a month later, but I told her I had a powerful hunch that I could make that trigger work again. I told her to get into a relaxed position on the couch and take a few deep breaths, just as before any induction. Then I started telling her to remember how good it feels to be hypnotized. Then I told her to remember a time when that trigger had been powerfully effective, thinking back to that party. Perhaps the time when you tried and failed to resist it. Her eyelids were already doing some serious flickering at this point. The last thing I did was to mention that when touch is added, triggers are much more powerful (I think this is probably true, but I said as though I knew it for a fact!) Then I put my hand heavily on her shoulder and gave her the trigger phrase in a commanding voice. She went right down, and got to a very good depth as I rocked her and kept up the flow of deepening suggestions. I was thrilled, and so was Cassi when she came back up!

It was neat because I don’t think the other partygoers knew that I put Cassi into three successive trances in the living room while they were chatting in the kitchen. When the demo began, I was very confident the trigger would work, and having her go into a trance instantly on my command made a dramatic introduction to hypnosis for the people watching! Reinduction triggers are just the greatest.

Guest Post: I Hypnotized Divney (Erotically)

I thought it would be cool to invite my hypnotist from this entry I posted today, about my first experience being hypnotized, to describe the experience from their point of view. And I loved reading this. I was surprised by how moved I was, not to mention turned on, to read the genuine enthusiasm for hypnotizing (me) that's in here.

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I am (probably) not a hypnofetishist, but I do find giving my partners pleasure to be a complete turn-on. It is tremendously empowering knowing that I am the one in control of their arousal. Hypnosis, with its potential for a variety of erotic experiences and the perception of control (even if that isn’t an entirely accurate perception), adds a new dimension to those more frequently explored aspects of my sexuality. Divney at some point in our conversations about hypnosis mentioned some interest in bottoming. While not specific about his interests, it certainly gave me a lot to fantasize about.

Something important to note is that I haven’t really done much research into hypnosis. Mostly out of a bad case of insomnia, I have watched a lot of hypnosis videos on Youtube (with some success). Out of those scripts I found useful and my experiences with Divney as a bottom myself, I managed to jumble together an improvised hypnoscene.

Within the context of our usual interactions, I thought it would be of mutual interest to experiment with heightened sensation and an orgasm while hypnotically immobilized. I started with an induction that had worked well for me in the past, then some passive progressive relaxation and suggestions that his senses would be heightened. To my delight, he seemed to quickly fall into trance and was visibly aroused with each touch. Seeing his cock move when I touched a totally asexual area (like his forearm) was incredibly hot.

However, by the time I was trying in earnest to get him off, something seemed off. I wasn’t sure if he was feeling anxious about the lack of control or if I wasn’t quite doing what he needed. First I tried to relax him further, which didn’t seem to fully solve the issue. At that point, I took a risk and suggested that his orgasm was unavoidable. Soon-thereafter, he came and I was jittery with excitement. I counted down to bring him out of trance, eager for feedback and a little concerned that I had overstepped with that seemingly crucial suggestion. Luckily with some discussion, I felt assured that I hadn’t done something inappropriate.

It was particularly interesting for me to hear feedback in terms of intrusive thoughts (something I have a hard time with too) and potential areas of exploration that I hadn’t considered a possibility before. In retrospect, I should have at least made a list of things I wanted to be sure to touch upon within the scene, as I entirely forgot to use a deepener which would probably have helped make the suggestions more powerful and the intrusive thoughts less of an issue.

If I were to give Divney a rating, it would be “two thumbs ups -- would hypnotize again.” He is a much better hypno-bottom than he gives himself credit for and I am excited to continue exploring with him, both as a bottom and sometimes top.

I Got Hypnotized (Erotically)

Out of nowhere in a texting conversation: "Can I try to hypnotize you sometime?"

My reply (the timestamp says in the same minute): "Oh yeah totally!" It was a surprise, coming from a hypnotee who had not expressed an interest in it before, nor had I suggested it.

But as soon as I heard the idea I was excited to be on the other side of the swinging watch, with a partner I trusted and found damn sexy.

I propped myself up at the end of the bed and got comfortable. My hypnotist started by getting me to try to stare at a point on my own forehead (looking up through my skull). This was uncomfortable, and I had to keep correcting myself, but it did the trick. With their steady flow of suggestions my eyes started to want to close, and then closed.

My partner gave me lots of suggestions that my body would feel heavier and more relaxed, and it felt very good. My head lolled to the side.

The hypnotist gave me the suggestion that when they caressed me, it would feel much better than usual. I didn't think I felt that, but the fingertip was delicious as it stroked my body - I got a full-strength erection when it ran along my thigh. So maybe I was more sensitive than usual, or else I wouldn't have moaned and shifted when they did that. But maybe that same effect could be attributed to the buildup of anticipation for the touch.

Sad to say, I had some of these thoughts during the trance. I have a highly analytical and self-reflexive brain, with a particular interest in observing hypnosis, so that got in the way a little. But the neat part was that I had about 70% fewer of those thoughts than under normal circumstances. The train of thought would only get a little way out of the station, and then I could come back to the hypnotist's voice. That reduction in busyness, the quieting down, is a wonderful gift for people like me.

Then I felt my cock being stroked, and the excitement was overwhelming. Again, I had enough thoughts left to critique that it didn't feel twice as good as usual, in contrast to the suggestions I was getting. In fact the angle was subtly off, and I couldn't tell them about it. A good reminder of one of the difficult things about erotic hypnosis, that it makes fine-grained communication during sexual acts impossible.

Then they started jacking me off in earnest, and said something like, "You're going to have an orgasm, and there's nothing you can do to stop it." And that just about made me lose my mind I was so turned on. Of course you wouldn't have known it to look at me, since my body was completely limp (except for my cock). A couple of times they put their hand on my shoulder and said "RELAX", and that was great - I felt my body go even more limp than before, and my head roll around a little.

So my body was completely immobilized when I came, and I felt a little bit of guilt that I wouldn't be able to help clean up right away. But mostly I felt great. When they brought me out of the trance, on the count of 3, my arms and legs in particular felt good, tingly and awake. I was extremely spacey for the rest of the night, but I think less lethargic than I normally am after an orgasm.

Now I know why people get hooked on being hypnotized. It is a luxurious, decadent feeling. So much so that I almost felt guilty for all that pleasure, and needed reassurance that my partner had gotten something out of it too. I was a bit mixed up about enjoying bottoming that much, giving up control, but if so many of my friends are comfortable with developing both their top and bottom selves I should be too. The part about making me have an orgasm had a real D/s flavour, and I found myself wishing for more of that, such as a countdown or command before I came. However I was glad they checked in with me afterwards about spontaneously introducing that flavour.

My hypnotist did wonderfully, especially as a first timer. For my first time, I read out a Peter Masters script from a Kindle in a nervous and squeaky voice, and barely got my partner into a trance at all. Whereas they improvised it, and smoothly too. And they had a difficult trance partner - they didn't try any intense suggestions or tests, which is just as well (because I think many of them would have failed for me, at least without employing deepeners). This certainly reinforced my belief that hypnotic paralysis is one of the easiest and most reliable erotic hypnosis games for beginners. All the hypnotee has to do is nothing, which is easy when you're so relaxed.

Anyway, this is what I can recreate from my somewhat jumbly memories (another good sign). This was a novel experience, and powerfully sexy. I still identify it as a top, but I'd try it again with someone I trusted in a heartbeat.

Script to Make a Partner Feel Pleasure in a Strap-on Dildo Like a Cock

(Begin with a deep trance, and with stroking all over their naked body accompanied by suggestions of heightened sensitivity.)

When I count to three, you’re going to open your eyes, but stay in trance. When you open your eyes, you’re immediately going to find that your gaze is helplessly drawn to your purple strap-on dildo. The harder you try to look away, the more you find you just can’t stop staring at that dildo. You can blink as normal, but when you’re not blinking your eyes are stuck looking at it.

Now I want you to bring to mind that time earlier when I was touching your clit. You can let the memory come back of how good that feels. Maybe you’ll think of a particular instance, a way I was touching it that felt very good.

Now I want you to imagine the feeling when I’ve stopped touching it, but have my finger poised over your clit, ready to touch it again. Your clit is erect and engorged with blood, begging to be touched and stroked, but I’m not touching it yet. It wants so badly to be touched. It wants to feel my finger on it, but my finger is just hovering above it.

(Hover your finger above the tip of the dildo.)

When I stroke the tip of the dildo, I wonder if you can imagine that I’m stroking the tip of your clit, that clit that wants so badly to be touched. And now as I stroke and circle the tip of the dildo with my finger, you can imagine that same touch on your clit. It feels so good, so arousing, exactly what your clit was begging for.

And as I continue to stroke the tip of the dildo, you can imagine that feeling getting stronger. More vivid, more arousing, as I continue to stroke and circle the tip of the dildo. Stronger and stronger, more and more arousing, each touch feeling just the way you like it to feel, as I run my finger around the tip of the dildo.

If you are feeling the pleasure at your vagina, I wonder if you can imagine that feeling actually moving now, as if your clit is travelling up the shaft of the dildo, until you can feel those pleasurable feelings of a clit being stroked right at the end of the dildo.

And even as the pleasure continues to build and build, your body continues to relax and sink into the bed, your arms and legs feeling heavy, your mind staying so deeply entranced even while your eyes stay open.

Watch as I run my finger along the top of the shaft of the dildo. As I do this, you can imagine feeling that finger running along the top surface of your vagina, from the front to the back. As I stroke my finger up and down, you can feel me stroking the top surface of your vagina, back and forth. Now when I stroke the sides you can feel that on the sides of your vagina, and a touch on the bottom side you can feel on the bottom surface of your vagina. When I stroke it with more than one finger at a time, you can feel all those places on your vaginal walls being stimulated, and it feels absolutely wonderful.

As I rub the tip of the dildo more and more you can feel the pleasure building up, building and building. If I keep this up long enough, you know that you can have an orgasm this way, just as good as the one you had earlier. Remember how good it felt earlier when I made you come with my fingers.

As I run my finger around behind the ridge of the dildo head, you can imagine you feel my finger running around the entrance to your vagina. And as I stroke the shaft with my fingers you can feel it all the way along your vaginal walls.

(Then just keep rubbing the tip, and stroking up and down the shaft, and anything else you can think of. I improvised this, and it is a reconstruction from my memory. It is of course just one of many approaches that could be taken to create this effect. But I can say that the results were powerful and amazing: the pleasure was obvious and intense, and it was a completely novel sensation. The feedback later was that my hypnotee had felt the pleasure external to their body, and like it was really their cock. Apparently the suggestions related to the shaft were the most helpful in that last sensation.

Two things I wish I had done once I established the mapping of pleasure onto the dildo: direct my hypnotee to touch and stroke the dildo; and lick the tip of it myself. It was already a lot for me to handle, to be manually pleasuring my very first cock that wasn’t my own, but come on. Put it in your mouth.)

Early Indications: Books

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Dinner with an Evil Hypnotist

Last week the September Boston HypnoMunch got a serious buzz from the presence of Lee Allure (twitter link), someone with a unique perspective as a professional, full-time erotic hypnotist. The first one I've ever met (although her friend and collaborator who came last month, Chewtoy, is working on it). She's put together a sizable following with her sexy mp3s and live sessions, and it was clear that her passion for and fascination with hypnosis must play a big part in this success. She's someone who's always learning, and always getting excited about new ways to make her partners feel helplessly controlled. I feel comfortable calling her an "evil hypnotist" because that's how she referred to herself at dinner. She's also a moderator of the League of Ethical Evil Hypnotists group on Fetlife (their amusing "Muhahahahaha test"  clarifies what they mean by "evil" - it's the fun kind).

At dinner at the Bertucci's we talked about Lee's love of getting people who insist they aren't really hypnotized to take photos of themselves holding notes that say "I am hypnotized" that they later can't remember taking (which I was delighted to learn was Chewtoy's inspiration to write one of my favourite stories, Wish You Were Here). We talked about good and bad ways to give positive feedback to the trancee, and how hypnosis resembles stage magic in the culture of sharing techniques and flourishes. A real highlight for me was listening in as Lee compared notes with one of our most avid hypnotees about the trickier points of achieving short term amnesia. It really made me excited for how this little community can inform each other. With another of our members sharing notes about therapeutic hypnosis training he'd received, this was the best munch for me yet in terms of information.

Despite my efforts, we didn't manage to line up a post-munch practice space (though we will have one next month), and the park was out of the question at that time of night. Inspired by Lee's confident assertions about being willing to hypnotize people in public, I suggested we move to a nearby coffee shop, where I was hopeful we could find a private corner in the large space. Nearly everyone from the munch came, at least 12 people! Although there were a couple of other people in the vicinity, Lee pointed out that people don't pay too much attention to what others are doing, and this turned out to be completely right. They were too busy with their own conversations or studying to notice any hypnotism that was going on, let alone be bothered by it.

After a little bit of group conversation, Lee started drawing the palms of her hands together, and capturing the attention of the two members on either side (who, by coincidence or likely not, were two of the most responsive hypnotees in the group). As her hands got closer together, and she kept up the flow of hypnotic words, two heads sank down on either side under the bright cafe lights. That was impressive! Her eyes closed too and she began to giggle at a certain point, which reminded me of how two people I had worked with had giggled as they went into trance for the first time, expressing some discomfort with the novel sensation. Afterwards she said that she had indeed been practicing going into trance a little herself while hypnotizing others, so that made sense.

She brought them back up, and we all stopped holding our breath and broke the silence, allowing the general discussion to continue. Talk turned to visual hallucinations, and Lee was willing to demonstrate with the gentleman to her right - who is a big fan of her videos, so it was great that the evening turned into basically a dream come true for him. She hypnotized him with the intriguing pendant featured in this video, getting him to focus on counting the holes in it. After some deepening, she suggested that every time he closed and opened his eyes, one of our member's scarves would appear to be a different colour. This was given as a post hypnotic suggestion, and it worked! He reported each colour as he closed and opened his eyes, clarifying that the colour appeared in the woven threads, not painted on or superimposed, with the pattern remaining the same.

A mini debate came up when Lee was musing about methods for making her trance partners more addicted to hypnosis. I and another member of the group objected to this, since I have a strong concept of addiction as something that is destructive and consuming - not part of the positivity I want to be the only result of messing around with hypnosis. The other member comes from a clinical background, and also had personal experience with observing addiction. Lee clarified that she was interested in creating the tantalizing feeling of being "addicted" for her clients with that inclination, not the real thing. I think it must be a risk that if you spend so much time with partners who love the "dark fantasy" side of hypnosis, that is, who love feeling trapped and enraptured by a powerful dominant female hypnotist, your language changes a bit to something that might sound disturbing, if it's not understood that this is all based on consensual fantasy. I imagine it's similar to people who spend a lot of time within a D/s, master/slave dynamic. I definitely think that some other online hypnotists lose track of this line, and for example try to implant suggestions that their clients will need to buy all of their mp3s, but Lee clearly labels her wares (as in her "Dark Side" mp3s) and provides plenty of warnings and safety measures.

In any case it was a treat to hang out with such a skilled and knowledgeable hypnotist, who also has considerable personal magnetism. Especially if you're a hypno submissive, you should check out her store, and if you're in the vicinity, events that she attends and teaches at such as the Dark Odyssey events and her own Deepmind Darkwood (aka Camp Mindfuck) in western Massachusetts. I'm looking forward to our paths crossing again.

Hypnosis Study Group: 100 Things To Do With Someone In a Trance

Nicely well attended study group today, even though we pulled it together at the last minute. I feel like this microcommunity within the kink community is gaining momentum, and that there's a real hunger here for learning and discussion and practice of erotic hypnosis. That's so exciting to me.

As one of the activities, I led a brainstorming session where as a group we tried to generate 100 ideas for hypnotic suggestions in as short a time as possible (in practice about 15 minutes). The rules were that there was no discussion of the ideas, and that I would write down anything to add to the list as displayed on the big screen tv, no matter how silly or weird, or even if they were repetitions of earlier ideas. At about the halfway point I even specifically asked for some unethical suggestions, to keep the creative energy high. So for that reason (that it could be accidentally or deliberately misinterpreted) I won't be posting the whole list. But here are some of my favourites, either because they sparked some thinking or just amused me:

10. Time travel

18. My magical ass

26. Modifying pleasure perception

30. One type of food into another

32. Modifying how you perceive fun

48. Singing on command

51. Converting someone to Jehovah's witness

56. Expanding erogenous zones

59. Tentacles

65. Imagine fucking every person when they meet them

68. Everyone in the room is speaking a different language

73. Fixation on David Bowie's crotch

77. Not see themselves in reflections

88. Mighty tantric carrot [?]

91. Incubus or succubus

99. Belief that you're a Star Trek character
 
(and one more that came up afterward: perceiving everyone around you as singing, as though you had stepped into the world of Once More With Feeling). I was really grateful that people got into the spirit of it, and felt my belief in brainstorming reaffirmed: that by generating a large volume of ideas, without regard for practicality, appropriateness or any other constraints, neat things are bound to come out, including a few ideas that perhaps no member of the group could have reached on their own.

More things that I got out of the meeting: Advice from PhotoJoseph that to install a post-hypnotic trigger, it's best to give people the effect of the trigger strongly in trance, and only then associate it with the trigger condition that will be used out of trance. New sensory associations usually accompany the real sensations, rather than replacing them (e.g. celery tastes like foie gras - still get all the celery sensations, with a foie gras overlay). It might work to suggest to someone that they have a particular dream, and that some of the group's members have had good effects from suggestions that they would wake up in the morning fresh and energized - two uses of hypnosis I had not considered.

The meeting got pretty chatty, and could have used more structure, but I think we did a great job of pulling together a worthwhile session despite both our first choice and our backup choice for presenter cancelling. And it's always great to spend time with fellow hypno fans.