Into the (Dark) Woods

Tomorrow I'm heading to Deepmind Darkwood, also known as Camp Mindfuck (according to its own event page), a three day recreational hypnosis retreat at a campground in Western Massachusetts, spearheaded by Lee Allure (whose appearance at the Boston Hypnomunch I've written about). This is my gift to myself after missing every hypnosis event this summer and fall that required travel (e.g. Fetfest, WEHU, many awesome NYC workshops). There's only so far I can get with videos, books and my own inconsistent experimentation.

I'm a little nervous about how intense this is going to be (one of the listed activities for friday night is "cult-building", which I believe to be at most half a joke), but very excited. From the guest list I know there will be a number of heavy duty hypno tops there, a few of the most high profile folks in North America whose names I keep encountering across the internet. (I'm only familiar with one or two of the people who primarily bottom) I've met a couple of them in Boston, but never in an environment where they can totally cut loose. Besides any workshops or seminars that might be happening, I'm really looking forward to just watching how they interact with their subs/bottoms, and how all the hypnotists and hypnotees in attendance create an alternate sexy hypno world together for this weekend.

Besides spending time with awesome hypnokinksters, I'm there to learn, learn, learn. There is so much I'm dying to ask people about, and so many possibilities I'm sure I haven't even dreamt of. I once heard the conference advice that it's good to choose one question to consult everyone about, and for me it's this: without intending to, I've started to mentally categorize my trance partners into "high suggestibility" and "low suggestibility". The former are often people who have sought out the Boston hypnosis community and already have an interest and aptitude for it, whereas the latter are more often people I've met in the mainstream kink (or non-kink) world and developed a relationship based on other things too. Many of them had their first hypnosis experience with me; definitely their first erotic hypnosis. My experience with "low suggestibility" folks so far is that hypnotic paralysis and relaxation inductions work very well, as does visualizations, sensitization, and sometimes reinduction triggers. But some of the more controlling types of suggestions that I'm interested in, like post-hypnotic triggers, illusory sensations, and compulsions, have a much lower success rate than with the first group.

As I write this, I sound a little ungrateful to myself! I find just those "basic" things so compelling and erotic, and it's wonderful and amazing that there are people willing to do those things with me - and they're people I'm attracted to as well. Even more wonderful, and unexpected, my hypnokink seems to be contagious! It's the biggest thrill in the world to hear a partner come back to me with their own hypnotic sexual fantasies that they have been brewing, when it wasn't a part of their fantasy life before.

But getting back to my conference question, I am looking to not get trapped by these classifications, and learn how to introduce "low suggestibility" people to a greater range of hypnotic phenomena. Thanks to Wiseguy I know there's a lot more to it than depth of trance. Experience of the hypnotee and trust are a part of it, but just as much is my own attitude and technique, and improving that is my major objective. I will definitely be looking for stepping stones and exercises that can strengthen the power of suggestions for particular hypnotees without giving them unpleasant feelings of failure.

There are about a hundred other topics I want to know about, from instant inductions to nonverbal cues to hypnosis and D/s, as well as my ongoing study of ethical and consent practices of hypnosis (since my last entry I have been pointed to people who are doing excellent work on this, on the Ethics of Hypnosis and Mindcontrol fetlife group and fetlife writings by someone called Professor-X). But my biggest goal is to be as open as possible and sponge it all in, and to be bold about hypnotizing people, even in front of the master hypnotists - when I screw up, the wisdom I get from that will be burned the deepest of any lessons.

I really need to start packing.

Consent Culture and Hypnosis

My first lesson in consent culture came from my first private kink event: the presenter was demonstrating a chest harness, and asked the volunteer, "I might brush against your breasts when I bring the rope down the front, is that ok with you?" This really struck me at the time - asking specific permission for something from someone who had already volunteered to be an erotic rope bondage model - and it cued me in to the greater emphasis on consent in the kink community. When people are being tied up and beaten, among the great variety of things that kinky folks do, there's too many ways for things to go wrong without a strong foundation of consent. But I believe the concepts apply very urgently to vanilla sexual encounters too - and to hypnosis, whether sexual or nonsexual.

Consent culture, in my understanding, is an agreement that a high standard of consent is needed for anything that occurs between people in romantic/sexual encounters. When it comes to new partnerings in particular, this means that a critical component is explicit consent, that is, discussing things with words. Even when both partners are acting in good faith - i.e. taking each others' boundaries seriously - nonverbal signals are just too easy to misread, since we carry with us all the assumptions from our past partners and from the broader culture.

I remember there being a wave of anxiety in the 90s about explicit consent, manifested for example in comedy sketches spoofing it, but thanks to essays I've read in the last year, mostly recommended by my friends, I know that explicit consent, and consent culture, does not ruin sexual encounters - in fact it makes them better. These are great because rather than telling harrowing consent violation stories (though those are important too), they tell true stories of consent going right. And it's hot.

Disrupting Dinner Parties: Modeling Consent

Queer Guess Code: Un-memorizing the Silence is Sexy Date Script

Kinkopedia: Consent in Action: I Didn’t Kiss a Pretty Girl This Weekend

Research to be Done: Tips for Consent-Conscious Dating and Fuckery

Charlie Glickman: How to Ask for Sex
 
Pervocracy: Rescripting Sex

For someone like me, a cautious person who has sometimes been romantically crippled by fear of crossing invisible lines and creeping out the people I'm trying to attract, the explicit consent model is incredibly exciting as a way to make moves confidently and non-oppressively. And when consent culture is the standard, as it is in the mainstream kink world (at least as an ideal), and my partners know that I am serious about it and not into pushing limits, they can feel in control of what happens, and safe to explore things they want to try or that I suggest that appeals to them. Basically, more sexy things can happen, and crazier sexy things, the more solid the consent is.

And this of course applies to hypnosis. I've written before about how shitty I consider a lot of the mainstream models of consent for hypnosis, such as stage hypnosis where volunteering to go up on stage is often considered blanket consent for anything that happens, including potentially very humiliating things. As kinky hypnotists, with all these great models around us from other edgy forms of kink, and the risk of playing into rape culture, we have to do better.

My goal is the same as the goal for all consent, for my hypnosis partners to not feel like boundaries have been crossed, and to feel good about what happens both during and in retrospect. All the tools of explicit consent and beyond are helpful with that. Both the Wiseguy and the Peter Masters book have good little discussions about it, but there's a lot more work to do. The starting point, I think, is that everything that happens in every single trance has been negotiated, at least the category of suggestion, and that the standard is an enthusiastic "yes".

This entry was originally a longer guide to the subtler points of getting consent right, and the special issues for hypnosis, but a conversation with a friend convinced me that no way am I ready to to write such a guide. In particular, I need to talk much more to the hypno bottoms I know about their experience with consent, not just the bad experiences but the good ones too.

The point though is that I am already striving to live up to consent culture, and it is already making my sex/hypnosis life better, beyond making it less likely that there will be a serious disconnect. I have used these actual words, "Would you be comfortable with taking the hypnosis in a sexual direction?" When the answer is no, or anything but a strong yes, I try to make it instantly clear that I am cool with it and that there are plenty of other places to go if the hypnotee wants to continue.

But... sometimes the answer is yes!

Ranking the Erotic Hypnosis Books

So far I've found only three substantial books specifically about erotic hypnosis, that ring of real knowledge. I want to find more, but to be honest I haven't waded into the pool of shady Amazon e-books to see if there are some hidden hypnosis treasures - maybe when I've completely exhausted these will I start investing in the riskier ones, and reviewing them here. But here is my buyer's guide based on reading these three cover to cover!

1 MIND PLAY by Mark Wiseman

This is it. This is The Book. If you are interested in learning to do erotic hypnosis, you should buy it right now. It only came out four months ago, but I have bought it three times (one e-book and two paper, because I know I'm going to lend one and not get it back). I feel strongly that this will be the start of erotic hypnosis being a thing, in the way that there are a couple of books that can be found on the shelves of every person I know who's into rope.

A few things are special about it. First, it is clearly from a kink community perspective. This is someone who's done a ton of erotic hypnosis play, at events such as Fetfest, and it's refined his practice and given him a good idea of how to make things actually work (Mark Wiseman is not his real name, but his mcstories handle is Wiseguy, or Wiseguy35 on FL). And you can feel the pleasure he takes in sharing fun tricks and games he and the hypnosis community have developed. Many of which have a BDSM slant, which is so much more represented than in the other two books. You can also see the influence of presenting a lot on the clarity and accessibility of the presentation.

Second, there is an emphasis on explaining why things work, and giving you the building blocks to innovate and customize techniques yourself. Excellent chapters on such topics as fractionation, safety precautions, modalities, and indirect suggestions make this a pretty comprehensive first handbook for understanding what's going on. There's a particularly eye-opening discussion of the concept of depth, which directly contradicts the traditional view.

I've read this book so many times, and had so much success with his techniques, often practically word for word  from memory, that it will take me quite a while to develop my style that isn't just a clone of Wiseguy's. Apart from an unfortunate passage saying you have an obligation to disclose "your true biological sex" to your hypnotist, which was removed in the 2nd edition (so make sure to buy that one), my only complaint is that I wish the Kinky Human Tricks portion of the book was three times as long. But I guess that's what I will have fun filling it in myself.

2 LOOK INTO MY EYES by Peter Masters

This was the first erotic hypnosis book I bought, and I will be forever grateful that it facilitated my first ever time hypnotizing someone. It is a gentle and friendly introduction to hypnosis in an erotic context, and quite thorough and sensible, although all the basic information is also available in Wiseguy's book. This book is so 101 that it does not even assume that you have heard of BDSM, and takes some time to explain what the appeal might be, and why it's ok. That's kind of nice, but you can probably guess also means that it doesn't get so deep into the kinky possibilities.

What it does offer that the Wiseguy book doesn't is a couple of detailed sections on very simple, high-hit-rate erotic hypnosis activities, such as enhancing the feeling of touch, and creating a feeling of being too relaxed to move (hypnotic paralysis). Then a lot of the book is long writeups of sexual fantasies to guide a partner through while in trance. These read as amusingly square (sex on the beach, sex in a doctor's office), but something simple and sensual like that might feel great from a first person perspective, and it's nice to see it written out in full to get an idea for the pacing and the basic, literal language that would work for a hypnotized mind.

The book also has long scripts consisting of instructions intended to have long-term impacts, such as to help your partner feel less inhibited. While the examples here seem pretty harmless, I'm skeptical of whether hypnosis is effective in this way (just telling people they don't have to be inhibited) and it also sails close to therapy.

The real weakness of the book is the inductions. It has essentially one induction, which is a sort of combination of fixation and progressive relaxation. If you have only one, this wouldn't be a bad choice in terms of success rate, but there's nothing about confusion or rapid inductions, or any of the other methods Wiseguy discusses and prefers for giving the hypnotee more mobility (since their body isn't over-relaxed). And the induction material is curiously spread out around two chapters, rather than reading like a script. Another quirk of the book is that it connects going into a trance with the head sinking down and remaining there. And I can confirm Wiseguy's claim that this gets uncomfortable for the hypnotee after a while. Wiseguy adds suggestions to keep the head stable on the neck while the neck still remains relaxed.

3 HYPNOTIZE YOUR LOVER by Wendi Friesen

Of the three I'm talking about, this is the only one with a high "ick" factor, since it's written as an old-school pickup manual, complete with gender assumptions that wouldn't be out of place in Mad Men. The whole first third of the book is about men seducing women via hypnosis, in general without their consent, and I probably would have put it down and never picked it up again if it didn't have a woman's name on its cover (its extremely sleazy cover).

But reading it carefully from the beginning, I found myself developing a fondness for Wendi Friesen, who describes herself as "the daughter of a Southern Baptist minister, (yup, I’m the preacher’s daughter)", who now makes a full-time living doing sexy hypnotherapy (and shilling her CDs and DVDs, which she does throughout the book). You can see her in action in this clip from the Penn & Teller Bullshit episode about hypnosis at the 9:30 mark. That's her, speculating that hypnosis could cure cancer, or increase the size of your penis.

Yes, the flakiness is off the charts in this book, whether she's claiming that in retail stores, "what seems like the pulsing hum of an air conditioner, may actually be a well planned recording cycling at a beat that will place you into a more suggestible mindset" or devoting a chapter to something called "Remote Seduction" which appears to be shooting sexy thoughts at another person across the room without talking to them or interacting with them in any way (and of course, "without their knowledge or permission"), in hopes that they will come over. I would take every factual claim in this book with an enormous grain of salt.

So why do I still recommend it? First of all, it's only $5 as an e-book, and even if you don't trust them, the many scripts in the middle can spark fun ideas. But I really do believe Friesen has done a ton of hypnosis, both from the video clip and from what I know about hypnosis. And hypnosis is something where you do get immediate and reliable feedback - not about whether someone's T cell count is going up, but how deep of a trance and how good the person feels afterwards. Furthermore, while the 70s new agey approach is not so good for establishing facts (or boundaries), it can be strong on the intuitive "right brain" stuff, which is where the hypnotized mind lives. And strong on the mysterious sex magics.

I do feel a sexy power and rich imagination in many of the scripts she prints in the middle section (which is something of a disorganized dump, written by different authors with quite different styles). And I can confirm that two of her things, Hand Breathing (which she reprints from Terrence Watts) and the hand stroke (which she invented but is actually not described here but in Mind Play, and you can see it in the video), are dynamite. If even one of the additional wild things she describes, like five-minute-long orgasms, or mutual trance, actually works for me, it will be worth plenty more than the cover price.

Just stop before you get to the super irresponsible third section, that prescribes easy hypnotic cures for everything from impotence to vaginal pain (yikes). But this book is a good lesson that you can learn tidbits even from materials where the quality control and ethics are largely out of whack.

(for the record, not all of the seduction advice is terrible - for example, the idea that you should wait a beat after the other person has finished talking before you start to say something. If some poor schmo has to believe he's using "hypnosis", to learn not to interrupt people, then that's a good thing she's done)

In conclusion, buy them all! In this order!

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.

---

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

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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.

First Skype Hypnosis

Yesterday I had my first experience trancing with someone via Skype. A lot of people I've met do much or even most of their hypnosis remotely, whether by text chat, voice, or video. (one friend of mine is trancing with one hypnotist in France, and one in Australia!) At this point in my development I'm not interested in text or voice - too little feedback for this beginner, and not so rewarding - but video seemsed like a better prospect. My partner was Chel, and it was nice to connect with her in this way remotely, so soon after our last visit.

It took a long time to get the connection set up, the lighting good, and the laptops in position (I told her on her lap wasn't going to work!) By the time we had chatted a little bit to get used to it, it was at least 40 minutes in. I got started on the induction she had enjoyed before, progressive relaxation plus metronome, and soon she was on her way into trance.

Overall, she said the trances were not as deep, and the sound-based reinduction trigger I gave her during the first trance (the same phrase plus a finger snap) did not work the first time, as it did when I was with her on the bed and put my hand on shoulder. This demonstrated to me how a lot of hypnotic power is gained by the hypnotist's physical presence, and touch. The reinduction trigger did begin to work after that, but at least the first few times she said it felt like she had to "get behind it and push".

More hiccups. Chel was able to feel the sensation of a paddle on her backside the first time I suggested it, and it was gratifying to see her whole body flinch. But that amount of movement took her much of the way out of trance, since she associates immobility with being in a trance. So even though she flinched with the subsequent strikes (including both cheeks at once, try that in real life without a friend to help!) they felt fainter - an interesting demonstration of a direct relationship between focus and strength of sensation. She was also distracted by the conflict between feeling her bottom on the chair and the paddle sensations.

Then came something I most certainly should have prepared for: Skype crashing while Chel was in a trance. I frantically redialed. She picked up, and I found that all was well: she said she had felt nervous at first, when she realized we were cut off, with the thought that she would be "stuck in trance", but the idea was so absurd that she laughed herself out of trance. I got lucky this time - someone else could have experienced more distress. I must have special suggestions for this eventuality.

Another tip is that if you want someone to hallucinate hearing a song, make sure they actually have it memorized: Chel was quite frustrated trying to remember how "Blue Monday" (a very long, complex song) went. It definitely woke her up trying to piece it together.

The last trance we did was where things got sexy, but she felt barely in a trance at all (which would mean that she made it sexy herself!) For example she didn't at all feel the illusion that her hands were a stranger's hands moving on her body. Apparently something I had noticed, a churning sound caused by Skype feedback, was also on her end and had made it difficult to focus. Two takeaways from that: I did a poor job of picking up on her level of trance, and you should use headphones or at least external speakers to avoid feedback.

On the one hand it was a chance to do hypnosis with someone I'm very close to, and where we had some sexy times towards the end. On the other, apart from the technical bloopers, I really missed many things I wouldn't have even thought of: the tiny changes in facial expression that skype didn't capture, and the almost-subliminal breathing sounds, and other small things that both help me to monitor the trance, and serve as my reward even when suggestions don't work out. And of course touch - it was a real letdown to not be able to cuddle or even hug at the end (literally the first time I haven't hugged my trancee after a session). Afterwards I felt further from her than I expected to. (I also felt exhausted - I'm sure when I'm better than this I'll use much fewer words) I realize a lot of the things I'm bitching about are just part of cybersex, but I guess I've never gotten into that.

As my skills develop, I'll have more flexibility and resourcefulness to make online trancing go better, not to mention avoiding these beginner mistakes. I also might find more motivation for doing it, but for now it doesn't have much appeal to me.

Serious Scientific Proof of the Reality of Hypnosis

I don't have any lingering concerns about the reality of hypnosis, now that I have had firsthand experiences. First and foremost, all those hours I've spent hypnotizing people and being hypnotized would be extremely boring if nothing was happening. Second, I've seen people respond to suggestions completely unselfconsciously, in a way that would be out of character for them to fake. And then there was this experience.

But before I had any experience of hypnosis, I longed for objective proof of its reality, taking a particular form: showing that hypnotized people can do something unhypnotized people can't. This is more convincing than showing that a hypnotized person can't do something, since they just might not be trying hard enough. But if someone not in a trance can't do it, then it can't be faked.

I recently ran across a paper by chance that has that very evidence, Kallio et al. 2013. Luckily it's in an open-access journal, so you can read it easily. This paper shows that one highly-hypnotizable participant can make eye movements, while in a trance, that unhypnotized people, and herself out of trance, can't make. In one task, participants look at a dot in the center of a computer monitor, while their eye movements are recorded. Then the central dot disappears, and another dot appears, and they must look at this new dot. Their hypnotee, TS-H, when hypnotized, instead of moving her eyes right to the new target, would move her gaze in intermediary short jumps towards it. The control subjects were told to mimic this pattern as well as they could. They absolutely could not. Most of the time their eyes went right to the new dot when it appeared. And the same thing went for TS-H, in those trials where she wasn't hypnotized. You can watch videos comparing the hypnotized eye movements with the unhypnotized.

The second thing TS-H could do while hypnotized that unhypnotized people couldn't imitate was to avoid responding to sliding black and white vertical bars with what is called an optokinetic reflex. This is a pattern of eye movements where even though you are trying to keep your eyes still, they still slide with the background, then jump back into place. You can see it in action in the movie of the control subjects (who were, again, consciously trying to imitate the hypnotized eye movements), and then be amazed at the movie of the hypnotized TS-H with the grating, showing a reduction or elimination of this reflex. And again, she was unable to reproduce the result herself while not hypnotized.

There were a couple of other dramatic observations they made of the hypnotic state which don't fall into this unfakeable category. TS-H's blink rate slowed down to 10% of normal, and her pupils were actually slightly - but significantly - smaller. All these results are making me want to experiment more with what they call the Hypnotically Induced Stare - I generally don't have my hypnotees open their eyes, and when they do I haven't been paying so much attention to the blink rate and eye movements. It's not clear whether all hypnotized people are supposed to have this phenomenon, in fact they make some muddy statements about this.

The subtext for me is the fact that they found someone with such a powerful, reliable hypnotic state that they could do precise experimentation with it. TS-H is literally off the charts hypnotizable, and able to go in and out in a split second. In the experimental trials where she was supposed to be hypnotized, all they did was to give her the post-hypnotic trigger word "hypno" immediately before. You can watch the intriguing video of her going in and out of trance on command. She also has spontaneous amnesia of all of her trances, which seems to be quite unusual - and useful in another cool study from Kallio's lab, where she is meant to be blinded to which hypnotic condition she is operating under (conditions such as "the square shapes will appear blue". Success with posthypnotic visual hallucinations are another rarity!)

Yes, they have done at least a half dozen studies with this one participant, often with all the hypnotized data coming only from her. A strange relationship, reminding me of many long term scientist-case-study relationships. While it's hard to say how applicable her behaviour is to the hypnotic states most people experience, I find this evidence objectively convincing that it is a distinct state. And it would sure be fun to trance with someone that insanely hypnotizable.

Why Keep Trying with Someone Who is Hard to Hypnotize?

I only get to see Chel (not her real name) at long spaced intervals - she lives over 700 miles away - but whenever I do there's a powerful emotional and sexual connection. She's the first person I ever hypnotized, tremblingly and poorly (from Peter Masters' book). When I saw her recently I was so excited to show her how my skills had grown.

It didn't go well. She busted out of the fixation induction before it was done, and found the Elman induction annoying. I got her just barely under with 7 +/- 2, which I thought would be good for her highly analytical mind - but she said later that even while trying to monitor 8 things at once, she still had left over capacity to question to herself whether anything was happening! None of the deepeners I tried had much effect. I set myself to talking her hand into feeling light and lifting up off her leg, which it did eventually, but not for many, many minutes and only a little way. Then I suggested she would feel frozen in place for 30 seconds when she woke up. This didn't work even a little bit.

Hypnosis play is always sexy for me, and so was this, but at that point I was ready to set it aside for the rest of the visit, and focus on the many other hot and kinky activities we had available to us. But later Chel came to me and said she wanted to try it again.

Why keep going with someone who had told me from the beginning she scored low on tests of hypnotizability - and certainly hadn't had much success with my (still immature) hypnotic skills? I realized that Chel actually has many wonderful qualities for a hypnotee: she has sharp self-insight and a commitment to honesty (she always told me exactly what went well or didn't work at all), and she has a powerful imagination. Most importantly, we have a close, trusting relationship - and she's excited about doing hypnosis.

So we tried it again, but with a very important change: I listened to what she'd been trying to tell me all along, about what she wants out of hypnosis. In fact she had given me a hugely important roadmap, that I had ignored, in her description of her self-hypnosis episode, in the hot-and-heavy email exchange leading up to the visit. She had described lying on the bed and imagining her body becoming heavy and immobile, and how much she'd enjoyed the mental place of being out of control. She had repeated the hypnotic mantra we'd chosen together, and felt helpless and submissive.

Wiseguy doesn't like the progressive relaxation induction, and one of his objections, that it makes it impossible to do active things, certainly seemed to be true with the floating arm test (she later told me she had felt resentment about having to move). But clearly it was called for at this time. I had her undress and lie down, and also started a metronome sound on my phone, since she is auditory and had enjoyed that in the very first trances we'd had. I relaxed the muscles in her body from her feet up to her scalp, repeating suggestions that her body parts would feel heavy and sink into the bed. Finally,  Chel was deeply and pleasurably entranced.

I gave her plenty of the suggestions she enjoys, of being helpless and unable to move, which made her moan in pleasure. I also suggested that her skin would become more sensitive, and she gasped at my hand stroking her body and tweaking her nipples. I took a risk and decided to introduce a reinduction trigger (we had negotiated this as a possibility), something that hasn't worked with every hypnotee I've tried it with. The language I used kept coming back to her trust in me, and how falling into trance is a way that she can submit to me. I also used a touch association, my hand on her shoulder, which I haven't done in the past but which I think can add a lot of power. I also told her to take all the time she needed to incorporate it deeply into her mind, and to give a nod when she was ready (she later said this had been a big help).

I didn't give myself too much time to think about it when she came out of trance, but gave her the trigger quickly. She seemed to consider it for a moment, and then her eyes shut and her head relaxed to the side. I'll never get tired of seeing that. I brought her up and she was just as pleased and amazed as me. We kept going, over and over, in and out of trance, with me quickly deepening her with a stream of relaxation suggestions whenever she responded to the trigger. That busy analytical mind turned out to be a great ally, since it loved to instantly let go, when it felt trusting enough to do so. And it loves the feeling of trance: "I feel so pampered," she said.

Although the suggestions we worked on all had in common that they did not require much body movement, there was still an incredible amount of fun to be had with just a reinduction trigger. So paralysis, sensitization, guided imagery, and repetition of the mantra (her own mind decided that it would get harder and harder to say clearly the more hypnotized she got, which was exciting to listen to) And then later on, the trigger allowed for her to go into a trance sitting in a cemetary, on a bench with my arm around her. This trance turned out to be one of the most beautiful and moving experiences I've ever had. If we don't decide it was too personal, I will probably write a separate blog entry about that.

Every time I get to do an extended hypnosis session with someone, that's my school, more than any workshop I could ever take. There's a lot of lessons I learned from trancing with Chel, but the biggest one is that anyone who is drawn to hypnosis can be a good hypnotee: it's only a matter of listening, experimenting, and tuning into what they want and expect out of hypnosis. And that like D/s, the deeper the trust gets, the more powerful and amazing the hypnosis gets. And that kind of extraordinarily deep trust, where things start getting amazing, is something you're only ever going to get with a few special people over the course of your life.

The Hypnotee Guides the Way

Had an interesting experience which underlined for me how paying attention to the hypnotee's experience is all important. I was guiding her through the "floating in space" deepener, describing how she was drifting out of her body, up through the ceiling of the house, and into the sky. I described Boston from the air, then the whole northeast, then all of the united states, ending up with the image of peacefully floating way up there above the world with a gentle night wind brushing past. 

After the trance, my hypnotee told me that she had struggled with it, because my words weren't matching up with her imagination. She was floating up very quickly, and when I said, e.g., "you can see the lights of the skyscrapers of Boston", she thought she had blown past that height a long time ago. She experienced a readjustment - maybe even a drop! And that disrupted the trance a little. How strange is the subconscious, that it accepted my suggestion that she would float up out of her body and into the air, but insisted on picking its own velocity?

This was great feedback, because then for the second trance I first of all, took into account that she would rise up much more quickly, and second, added language that she would pick her own pace, and hit certain heights when it felt natural for her. The deepener was much more effective for her without the distraction of the height mismatch.

So, listening is 90% of how you get to be a good hypnotist for a particular hypnotee. Later I guided her through a hot hypnotic bondage visualization, which I based entirely on repeating imagery from a specific bondage scene she had just told me about. (and luckily the sound of someone receiving a good spanking just outside the door was something that her subconscious mind could actively incorporate into her experience!) I think this approach can be a reliable standby: listening to a treasured sexy memory, and then using hypnosis to help the hypnotee reexperience it vividly. The more details from the interview I can incorporate, the better. The hypnotee guides the way.

Beautiful Inductions by Jukebox

My friend pointed me to this writing, which is part of the weird and fascinating branch of hypnofetish that is written inductions. The idea is that just by reading the text, you can find yourself falling into trance, and even following suggestions.

Could such a thing possibly work for you? The only way to find out is to try it:

Zero (this contains an induction, suggestion to masturbate to orgasm, and then wakeup; no permanent triggers)

I think this must be a particularly powerful and beautiful example, and unusual for its use of math concepts, in a way that isn't jarring. Although I'm not a very skilled hypno bottom, or inclined to trust my mind to a stranger on the internet, I still feel the pull of the words in this file - with masterful use of indirect language patterns - and parts of it give me chills. Like the part where he uses zero like twelve times in a sentence.

Is this something I could use in my face-to-face trancing? It's not a good idea to read scripts while hypnotizing, and the full structure of this seems too intricate to memorize. These kind of scripts have to be tight to keep the reader enraptured, with more of a demand for originality and artistry than an in-person induction. Still, I can steal ideas and phrases from this, and maybe construct a streamlined version. In a broader sense, I think this is a welcome corrective to me starting to think of inductions in very utilitarian terms: what is the shortest distance to get a particular hypnotee into a trance. It's a reminder that inductions have different flavours (addressing one of my obstinate questions!), with unique pleasures, and that you can make much more of them, either to make your suggestions more effective, or for their own sake. And there's powerful imagery in here, and excellent mind tricks. I hope to eventually get to the level of skill as a hypnotist that I can write them myself.

The author, Jukebox, I already know well as this incredible geyser of creativity on the Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive. Literally dozens of my favourite stories turn out to be his, as some of the cleverest, best executed, and hottest on the site - and fact, if everything but the Jukebox stories was deleted, there would still be enough to keep a hypnofetishist satisfied for years. Now this is a delightful new dimension of his writing talent for me to explore. I always skipped the inductions when this was all fantasy, but now that I'm learning to be a hypnotist for real, there's plenty to learn.

Actually, upon reading a few more, I'm not at all sure that these are necessarily meant to entrance the reader - for example the scripts that suggest closing your eyes, which would seem to pose real difficulties. And some of them have posthypnotic triggers tied to the hypnotist, who of course is not present. I actually think that contrary to what I wrote above, hypnofetishists would very much enjoy having these read to them, or, more likely, to read and enjoy the fantasy of falling into trance. But I still put in warnings just in case. There isn't any other junk in these besides what I mention.

I'm most impressed by the different themes and moods of these inductions. For example, here's one based on falling snow:

Winter Wonderland (undressing, masturbating to orgasm)

And another based on falling leaves in autumn and the general theme of changing of the seasons :

Changes (orgasm)

This one is based on taking a journey :

The Long and Winding Road (masturbating to orgasm)

Here are links to the rest of his induction scripts that I found, since there's no easy way on the site to just select them:

Deeper and Deeper (orgasm)

Every Breath You Take (masturbating to orgasm, orgasm)

Here Comes the Rain Again (undressing, masturbating to orgasm)

Imagine (undressing, orgasm, amnesia for the session)

Relax  (undressing, masturbating to orgasm)

Surrender (undressing, masturbating to orgasm; heavy D/s theme)

You're the Inspiration (masturbating to orgasm, rereading the story)

(I'm noticing a theme here! You could argue that if someone points their browser to the EMCSA they are probably looking to get off anyway, but I'm still uncomfortable with the idea of highly hypnotizable people possibly being drawn into a sexual experience they didn't consent to)

Hypnotic Orgasms are Real

It's a bit silly that I was still asking the question of whether hypnotic orgasms are possible. That is, considering the amount of time I've spent reading first-hand accounts and watching videos (not purely for academic interest I must confess), not to mention seeing it in person at Wiseguy's amazing Boston-area event. But like with non-hypnotic orgasms, the first hypnotic orgasm I made happen felt like a very big deal, and obliterates that question for me once and for all.

That's really the message of the post ("HURRAY!!!"), but I'll give a few more details. There was a lot of fooling around beforehand, some hypnotic and some not, which probably helped. I asked my hypnotee if orgasms were something they struggled with, or that had been a point of contention in relationships - for some people just the concept of a partner wanting you to have an orgasm can be tied to a lot of anxiety or annoyance, and I wouldn't want to even try for it if that was the case. They said no. I had consent to go as far as an orgasm, but I didn't mention this was my plan for this particular trance. I knew it would feel good no matter what, and wanted to avoid pressure to perform a certain way.

I took them into a trance lying down on their side, with only a little bit of deepening. I used the approach from the "Come on command" section of Wiseguy's book (minus the long-term trigger), which involves directing the hypnotee to remember a specific, powerful orgasm, and to immerse themselves in the memory. Then I just kept repeating suggestions that the memory was getting more powerful, and the arousal and pleasure was growing, stronger and stronger, and that they were capable of having that orgasm all over again - but not until I said so. After a little while of this, perhaps even only a couple of minutes - I lose track of time myself when I'm guiding someone in a trance - it looked like they were close. I asked them if they were ready to come, and got a nodded "yes". I put my hand on their shoulder and told them to come now. Afterward, I told them to just enjoy the sensations, and bring themselves out of trance as slowly as they wanted. I would say the trance from beginning to end was probably less than 20 minutes (not counting cuddles afterward).

I'm happy to be familiar with the sights and sounds of an orgasm, especially when there's an obvious come-down afterward, so I was quite sure it had happened. But I still did the ungentlemanly thing of asking them afterwards ("it's ok," they said, "it's for science"). Confirmed - though it wasn't as strong as the one they'd had in mind. But they enjoyed it.

I made someone come just by talking to them. No touching at all, until I put my hand on their shoulder. That was such a powerful sexual experience for me, and stood out even among all the other very excellent moments of that evening. It's just the beginning, but I'll never forget it.

My Hypnotist Ethics (version 1)

By posting my rules publicly, I know that they can be used to critique me, but that's actually a feature since I believe in everything in here, and should be called on my mistakes. I expect that it will evolve over time, in particular that new things will be added, but I think most of these will hold.

I only include things that I think are both possible, and conceivable that they might come up for me (e.g. I don't need to say, no commanding people to be my assassins, or to only be able to go into a trance with me)

The principle underlying all of these is this: Hypnosis is play, and everything besides a simple trance-and-test is heavy play on the order of flogging, bondage, or serious D/s, that requires a high level of trust and consent. Trust consists of two things: belief that the other person knows what you're comfortable and uncomfortable with, and belief that they won't intentionally do things that you're uncomfortable with. There’s room for fucking up on the first point, but not the second.

Here are my current rules:

1. No hypnotherapy, with the sole exception of helping someone to calm down in the moment or take a mental vacation.
2. No suggestions that the person wouldn't feel comfortable with if they heard them while not in a trance.
3. No hypnotic amnesia lasting beyond the current session. With that exception, actively helping the hypnotee to remember every part of the trance every time.
4. I will always do a pretrance check for phobias and other aversions, and do my best in general try to discover any areas that might be uncomfortable to go into (while being prepared to deal with unexpected ones that might come up).
5. Each new class of suggestion must be negotiated out of trance, as well as major escalations in them. For the first few trances, I will describe the suggestions in detail and get consent for all of them.
6. Any long term hypnotic triggers must be extensively discussed out of trance, and also negotiated with any committed partners of the hypnotee.
7. No sexual, humiliating, or dominating suggestions unless those are established parts of our relationship out of trance.
8. In particular to be sensitive to what each partner might find humiliating, which may be context-dependent, and never to push on that limit.
9. No using hypnosis to seduce. It has an inherently seductive aspect, in that it's intimate and shows off a skill, but no attempting to use suggestions to change the way someone feels about me.
10. No attempting to change anything about a partner (at most, adding bonus features, e.g. hypnotic triggers).
11. Never to make a trance partner feel bad for lack of response to a type of suggestion, or for not wanting to try a type of suggestion.
12. No hypnotizing people without consent, e.g. using sneaky language, or using my partner's reinduction triggers without asking permission first. Exception: if we have negotiated that type of relationship.
13. I will stay tuned in and focused on the person I have hypnotized, looking for any signs of discomfort. Over a long trance I will check in verbally on a regular basis. I will never leave the hypnotee alone for more than a minute or so. If I see another hypnotist not paying attention, to first look out for their hypnotee, and then confront them about it.
14. I will actively police my local community of hypnotists online and offline, and confront people about behavior that I see as unethical (not necessarily to the extent of this ethics)
15. I will keep tabs on my hypnotees for a period of time after the trance, and check in with them, to see what they need.

NEHG Study Group Meeting

This week I went to my first meeting of the New England Hypnosis Group study group (their 2nd), which is another great initiative by Photojoseph to promote hypnosis in Boston (along with the HypnoMunch). The idea is that everyone reads a couple of sections from Mind Play by Wiseguy, and then we have a presentation and discussion focusing on specific topics.

There were 12 people in a private apartment, including a good mix of people who were primarily hypnotists and who were primarily hypnotees.

The topics we talked about were myths about hypnotism, abreactions (the rare negative emotional reactions people can have during hypnosis) and how to deal with them, the eye fixation induction using shiny objects, the floating-in-space deepener, and a little bit of short term amnesia (the pop quiz). So we covered a ton of ground - it went a little long, but I certainly got a lot of education value. Some of the interesting things that came up:

•  Good questions to have in any pre-chat are phobias, allergies (which are things that are fearful for very real reasons), and anything else that should be avoided to have the most pleasant and awesome trance experience.
• Probably a good idea to get those negative questions out of the way first and then discuss the positive things the hypnotee wants out of a trance, so the phobias etc are not the last things on the hypnotee's mind when they go under.
• In discussing how the subconscious mind does not process negatives very well, one attendee suggested a very poor suggestion would be, "You're in a room, and there's no snakes." (hilarious)
• One attendee had actually had an experience of having a bad reaction under hypnosis - underlining how rare it is, that she was the only one in the room with firsthand experience -  and described how well the hypnotist had calmed her down and led her out of it.
• One attendee suggested that we reread the section on dealing with abreactions every time we refer to the Wiseguy book, so as to always have the steps close to the front of our mind.
• The floating in space deepener posed obstacles for the minds of some of the people in the room: one was concerned about the lack of oxygen up there, while another was nervous about burning up on reentry. I reflected that while you can't control what your hypnotee's mind will bring into the mix, the more you learn about the idiosyncracies the better an experience you can create.

After the lecture/discussion, there was an opportunity to get some practice. I hypnotized Photojoseph, who was an unusual hypnotee in that he would make adjustments and occasionally speak as though not in a trance at all. But he assured me that he had gone some ways into trance - he just has so much experience that he has such a strong idea of what he wants to feel like at each point. He had a nice experience floating up into the sky, although I need to spend some quality time with Google Earth if I'm going to describe what you would see properly. He chuckled through trance at me mentioning Washington DC before we had covered New York City.

I also had the chance to test the reinduction trigger I had been working on with a partner. We were both a little disappointed that it no longer had any effect, despite it working very well in the initial session only 72 hours earlier. But I take it as valuable feedback, and I will be very curious whether certain things will make it more long-lasting, like simple repetition of the trigger-installation, the technique used for introducing the trigger, or the aptitudes of the partner - perhaps some are able to hold onto suggestions for longer than others.

I would recommend this series for anyone seriously trying to learn hypnosis, or to be a good hypnotee by learning about the hypnotist perspective. Unlike the munches, which are primarily about connecting people and giving basic information, the emphasis is on sharing our experiences on focused topics. Also unlike the munches, there's a chance to put these ideas into play in private. It is meant to be held on the 2nd monday of each month. The next event listing doesn't seem to be up yet, but you can check the listings on the fetlife New England Hypnosis Group page.

Early Indications: Film and TV

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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.

A Great Week of Hypnosis

This has been an incredible week. I've finally had a taste of the longer one-on-one hypnosis play sessions I've been craving, and it has been so gratifying. Really getting to know how someone responds, and what they like, is a powerful experience that is teaching me at an accelerated rate, especially with getting such wonderful, insightful feedback. The term "play partner" bugged me when I first got into the kink scene, but it's a useful one, for people that you are genuinely building a relationship with, although one with only very loose commitment on both sides. This is a third place, between brief trances with new partners at workshops and parties on the hand and a committed long term relationship with hypnosis in it on the other, and it's working for me now. I had an excellent discussion about such relationships with two popular Boston rope tops, which helped to set my head on straight.

I'm having a weird feeling of disconnection, that I guess everyone who gets the opportunity to dive into their kink gets. This thing that is occupying so much of my brain and time, and where I'm really excited about my growth and new experiences, is something I can't talk to 90% of the people in my life about. There's a giant redacted paragraph in the middle of my for-public-consumption life. But when I think about it, I'm sure that's true in general for plenty of people, if not the majority.

I've realized there are a lot of obstacles to posting detailed scene accounts, even though I have permission, but I wanted to mention a few interesting and/or hot things that came up this week:

• The sight of someone struggling against a trance trigger, and failing, is everything this hypnofetishist dreamed of. [to be clear, in these cases the trancee really wanted to go under again, and it was my request that she try to resist it, which she wasn't so happy to do.]
• Another thing I will never get tired of is the sound of women's voices while deeply in trance. Getting people to listen to how hypnotized their voices sound can be helpful in convincing them they're in a trance, and so relax into it.
• I got to try a number of tasty inductions and deepeners for the first time, including what Wiseguy calls Floating in Space, which creates a beautiful set of mental images for the visual trancee. This made me think about how there could be many more very poetic and vivid mental journeys trancees could be guided through, limited only by the hypnotist's imagination and understanding of their partner's imagination.
• One hypnotee said that she found the staircase deepener didn't work for her so well. Upon thinking about it, she realized it was because she had had an ankle injury for several years, and so stairs were associated with discomfort. So from then on I switched to a different deepener. A great example of the mental and physical diversity of hypnotees, and how important it is to have plenty of alternatives to turn to in your toolbox.
• A fun alternate take on hypnotic bondage was magnetic hands, that stuck to any nearby surface and could be turned on and off (I'm sure I stole this from somewhere). When one of my hypnotee's hands was stuck to her face, I pulled on her wrist and her head started to come with it!
• I was blown away at the hit rate for different types of suggestions, for which I credit the great aptitude of the partners I was working with. But in agreement with things I've read, eyes-open visual hallucinations seem to be really, really hard.
•  Right now I am deprioritizing flow, drama and masterfulness in favour of a very high standard of consent, particularly considering these are quite new relationships, and I'm still figuring out my approach to ethics. (as an example: I'm asking permission before almost every use of an induction trigger) Not to mention, flow, drama and masterfulness will take a ton more experience.
• Always impressed by how much it feels like I am truly in collaboration with my partner's subconscious, which often has plenty of ideas of its own. For example, I started to go to a blackboard deepener after a staircase deepener for one partner, and her subconscious spoke up, to my surprise: she said "there's no blackboard in the cellar!" She told me later she had clearly pictured a washer and dryer in there, but no blackboard! However when I told her to find a door in the cellar that led to a room with a blackboard, that satisfied her.