Lex's Many Flavours of Trance

I found this gem on the personal blog of Lex, who sells very sexy videos featuring real hypnosis, with almost everything left in (including failures!) so you can actually learn from it, at entrancement.co.uk. It's in a very valuable post on How to hypnotize others. He's making the point that there are a lot of ways that someone might want trance to feel, and it's your job to be sensitive to that so you can "be the hypnotist of their dreams." Flavours of trance:

Safe & Protected
Aroused & Erotic
Blank & Mindless
Dazed & Drugged
Playful & Naughty
Captive & Helpless
Detached & Passive
Disarmed & Seduced
Beautiful & Sensuous
Emotionless & Empty
Empowered & Focused
Submissive & Obedient
Energised & Meditative
Objectified & Impersonal
Brainwashed & Mind Controlled

A similar terrific resource is his Hypnotic Induction Questionnaire, a survey for how people like to feel in trance and how they want their hypnotist to behave (e.g. "Protective & Benevolent", "Evil & Controlling"), plus a selection of settings ranging from "Lying on a sun-drenched beach" to "Brainwashed through technology".  (the results are interesting: yay to programmed and controlled, boo to both drained and energized)

At this point, I'm not really skilled enough to be in control of the feel of my trances. I'm using everything I've got to achieve liftoff and make some sexy things happen. But what these are great for is sparking the imagination of potential hypnotees and uncovering potential hypnofetishism they never knew - it's fun to send them the list and ask them, "which of these sound good to you?" And for those with some experience, these can help them to become critical consumers of trance and able to articulate what they like. I do aim for that kind of control over the flavour of the trance someday, so that the hypnosis I do with one partner might appear radically different than that with another. This is happening organically to a great extent, as I carefully learn what each of my partner's respond to and what they enjoy, but I want to stay aware of the full palette.

As a postscript I'd like to share two things that amused me from last week's post-Boston Hypnomunch practice: "Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors and you will go to sleeple." (from MST3k) "The number 4 has been replaced by the number cheese." (that's due to oneEyedstranger)