I saw the very first trance to occur at Deepmind Darkwood, aka Camp Mindfuck, when Lee Allure briskly walked over to Amitus with a moistened piece of paper towel that she said was chloroform to him, and held it to his mouth, causing him to immediately and delightedly fade out (Amitus has written about in his lovely blog post about the whole thing). And I went, holy crap, this is going to be every bit as crazy awesome as I hoped it would be.
I'll be thinking and talking about Deepmind Darkwood for months, but for now I want to write down some impressions, the kind of thing I would have wanted to know about it if I hadn't been lucky enough to be able to go. It's amazing to think it was less than 48 hours, friday afternoon to sunday afternoon, all taking place in and around a 19th century lodge house in western massachusetts. It has those cool wide floorboards that I've only seen before in a very old hotel in Conchord, when they were still using whole tree trunks. Cozy wood stoves, rocking chairs and couches.
And 23 people, all seriously into erotic hypnosis. It's hard to convey how moving it was to be around them. I was like the bee girl in the blind melon video. I wanted to spend every second exchanging information and soaking in the hypno culture (e.g. t-shirt slogans, bad jokes, dance/trance puns...). It was too bad that my introvert circuit breaker flipped about 3 hours into the first day, and I had to keep taking little breaks to reset it, but I loved the vibe of the people there. There were plenty of Doctor Who and xkcd references, but the nerddom was worn lightly, not as a way to exclude people, as was the spirituality. It's still amazing to me to be around a lot of adults who can build an evening's merriment around something other than alcohol. It was extremely rare to see a smartphone being checked, and there was that feeling of radical acceptance that I've had elsewhere in the kink community: we know your dark secrets, and we actually like you better for them.
So I felt very comfortable there, and thrilled to see people being casually popped in and out of trance around me (one of my objectives was wonderfully satisfied this weekend, to see real live hypno D/s relationships in action), but very curious about what the hypnosis content would be, how we would break the ice.
Then, not long after, I was swaying in a big circle in the meeting hall, being rocked into trance as I rocked the person in front of me. Ok, there we are, I thought.
By the way, this was the massive important thing I learned from this weekend: bringing hypnosis into the body. Over and over I saw, and experienced, trance induced simply through touch, as well as guided and intensified. So much of my learning has come from books, audio and videos that I more or less missed this critical point. It's going to make my hypnosis sexier, and make it fit in better at play parties. ZanyM's kinaesthetic induction class, outside in the beautiful sunshine, was a major highlight. By the time it was done I certainly had a visceral sense of the power of touch - and had seen a wild hypnotic takedown scene!
There were dozens of great tips and ideas I got from the classes that were spontaneously organized the next day, such as the incredible 101 by Lady Ruetha, but it's a few big things that will profoundly affect my hypnosis as I absorb them, and those came as much from wonderful conversations, especially with Lady Ruetha, Lee and MrDream, as from the classes. Besides bringing hypnosis into the body, another one was pacing and leading, a concept from Lady Ruetha's class that clicked so hard for me. I was paired up with MrDream to practice that one, which was intimidating! But I actually took him into a light trance using the technique, which had me feeling great. I'll bet pacing and leading will play some part in every trance I do from now on. (in fact I used it in both trance sessions I've done since then)
Even more than that though is a shift in my understanding of what hypnosis *is*, most influenced by talking to MrDream and watching his masterful use of indirect suggestion. My best attempt to describe it is a transition from thinking of hypnosis as a magic spell that you do to someone, to rather an enticement and invitation into experiencing and behaving as the hypnotist wants, based on a connection between you that just continues to grow, within and across sessions. I no longer think that there's a hard line between "playing along" and hypnosis "really happening" - it's a teasing cooperation between the subconscious mind, the conscious mind, and the hypnotist. At some point the three of you might notice that you've gone very far together, but it's counterproductive to always be checking where you're at. Anyway these ideas will continue to sink in.
But besides the learning, it was just so pleasant. Good wholesome food, cozy sitting around in the living room, a campfire, and lots of impromptu activities. I was glad I'd gone to a lot of kink events, so that I wasn't fazed by partial nudity, polyamory, or happy yells from S&M. There was a fair bit of the hurting and other non-hypno kink (though often combined with hypnosis), and I got offered the chance to do fire play out in front of the lodge on saturday night, by the wonderful Bast_kitty! I said yes, and it was a fascinating sensation, both the lit alcohol swab being pulled along my bare back and the trails of mousse on my back that were lit on fire.
At one point I was invited to sit in where a couple of other hypnotists were sending hypnotic words to a hypno bottom who was shuddering on the floor. Soon there were five of us, all blending our voices together to send her into pleasure overload! I felt like a bar band musician who got a chance to jam with some of the greats (for real - most of them make at least part of their living doing erotic hypnosis).
The bottom later referred to this as "hypnotic bukkake". Sadly there's no way that name isn't going to stick.
There's so much more I would like to write about if I have the time, from the classes and all the other things that were going on. Lee's compulsions, anchors and triggers class was a particularly hot and enlightening case. This hypnofetishist went around in a haze of excitement. I was so full of gratitude to MrDream, ZanyM, and Lee for constructing this extraordinary environment.
More things I came to notice: that there were at least as many female dominants as male, and in the leadership roles. This shouldn't be remarkable, but it would blow away some popular images of hypnosis and kink events. Furthermore, the primarily-submissive people were treasured and given a great time, even while their heads were slumped down sitting on the couch, or sprawled out like a rag doll on the floor in deep trance. I was particularly struck by Chewtoy's passionate and expressive hypno bottoming. I love that I got to see that side of him after years of being a fan of his stories.
Although I had a lot of hypnotic experiences, on both sides of the watch, I didn't have any scenes as such of my own - I didn't live up very well to my goal of boldly propositioning people. It's tough because even more than other kinks, hypnosis depends on rapport - in fact that's pretty much all it is - and there's only so much of that that can be built over 48 hours, despite the organizers' best efforts to meld us together. But I didn't mind, and nobody else seemed to mind either.
There was a lovely group ritual to end the weekend, and it really did feel like the last day of summer camp when I was a kid. I started to tear up, thinking about how exactly one year ago I had never been to a kink event let alone a hypnofetish event, and had never met a person like me in this way, and now my fantasies were concrete reality, thanks to the people in that room, as real as the hands I was holding.
Oh wait, I almost forgot, before the ritual the people who were in a bottomy space sat in the middle of the floor while the hypnotists sat on chairs around the outside and tranced at them (didn't I say the bottoms were treated well?), resulting in what mephki pointed out is probably the largest number of near-simultaneous hypnotic orgasms in history. Par for the course at Camp Mindfuck.
(credit to Lady Ruetha for the joke that I used for the post title!)
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