"Would You Like Some Hypnosis with Your Rope?"

I recently had a chance to combine hypnosis with rope bondage, and it went great. I was spending the afternoon with a few friends in a casual, kink-friendly setting, and I was talking with the couple that was there, who are in a D/s relationship that involves a certain amount of rope. They also enjoy hypnosis, and we decided to do a scene where I would be co-topping with the dom: I with the hypnosis, and the dom with the rope.

First, I hypnotized the sub, using the wonderful kinaesthetic induction I learned at Deepmind Darkwood. Then I gave her a post-hypnotic suggestion that she would sink into trance as her dom tied her up: the more rope she felt on her body, the more entranced she would become.

It took quite a bit of discussion to decide on the tie, a simple rope harness with arms in front, since it had to be something that she could let her body go limp in and stay safe - besides falling over, there was the risk for cutting off circulation or other such rope problems, which a hypnotized person might not be as good at noticing or reporting on (this is probably the biggest hurdle for combining hypnosis and rope).

It was a real treat to watch the sub close her eyes and slump as her dom sensuously pulled the rope around her, while kneeling behind. Then when the tie was done, they told her to open her eyes and stand up, and she had a deliciously sleepy stare. We brought her up quickly after that, because we were eager to hear about the experience. She said that one of the most pleasurable aspects, that helped her to go into trance, was the vibration of the hemp rope sliding against itself. If there was anything that was different than I envisioned, it was that she went into trance almost immediately when the rope first touched her (she confirmed that the rest of the tying had only deepened her a little) - but this is just a testament to this person's talent for going into trance.

I'm eager to explore the combination of rope bondage and hypnosis further, since rope bondage is extremely popular in my subcommunity in Boston. So this is a way that I can combine my favourite type of play with a type of play people already know they like. Also, my rope skills probably won't go far beyond the low plateau they are at now, but they can be more interesting with hypnotic enhancement. Plus it felt like a natural and low-key way to participate in a scene between two other people, e.g. a skilled rope top and their partner, with me also getting my hypno kicks.

There are plenty of different possibilities for combining them. At the hypno munch on Saturday, @PhotoJoseph told us about his favourite approach, not so different from what I did, in that he uses a tie as an induction. He links tying a single column tie on someone's wrist to going into trance, and then simply ties and unties it, creating a deeper trance via a process of fractionation. There's a powerful overlap between "rope space" and trance (not to mention subspace), although I certainly don't know enough about it to explain exactly what. The bottom from the scene I described above said that she experiences something not unlike trance when she comes into any contage with bondage rope.

There is also rope bondage that is purely in the mind, which has given me excellent results. People who are used to being tied up are often good at reproducing those sensations, and also the feeling of helplessness. Wiseguy has a good script for that in Mind Play. One of the nice things about it is that price or availability is no object when it comes to the material: silk, coconut, gold chains, etc. In fact it doesn't have to be cords either, since in the realm of hypnosis someone can just as easily be restrained by magnets, superglue, teams of keebler elves, or anything else you can imagine. However for people who love the feel of rope, nothing can compare, and even someone with limited rope skills can have fun tracing lines of rope all over someone's body with their finger, perhaps pressing to indicate where a knot is placed.

It should also be possible to modify the way real rope feels with suggestions: make it warm up, make it tingle, make it pulsate.

I think it would be too dangerous to put someone who was in a rope suspension into a trance, for more than a few seconds anyway. However, suspensions are huge in my friend group, so I'm going to keep thinking about other ways it could be enhanced or evoked with hypnosis.

Finally, one idea I had is that it might be weird and funny to hypnotize someone to believe they weren't tied up. When it's pointed out that they can't move their arms, they might insist they just don't want to at the moment, or are too tired. A variation would be to forget they've been tied, and gradually realize all their movement restrictions.

This is just a sweep across the surface. Almost all of these approaches are combined in this gorgeous scene log by someone who is, I think, the most talented writer about the hypnobottom experience out there, @sleepingirl. (also where the title of this entry comes from) That's @mephki as the top, with @OneEyeStranger assisting - by the way, how happy am I that I have now met all three people in person! Anyway, one day I would love to be able to create an experience incorporating both rope and hypnosis that is that seamless and that powerful.
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Good things are already coming out of having written this, in particular @Guilty pointing me to this incredibly cool-looking short book, HYPNOBARI (like hyno and shibari)! Really looking forward to reading it. 

Ms. Mesmer's 10(+) Sexy as Hell Days of Hypnosis

Someone named Ms. Mesmer has been killing it on her hypnokink blog lately, especially starting with Day Five of her "Ten Day Journey to Getting My Kinkified Groove Back." From that entry on she describes working with a number of different hypnotists online, most of them known to me, and the very hot, very D/s-flavoured erotic trances they guided her through.

Together they're a great first-hand introduction to the fun that can be had even over Skype, and the wild and sexy things that are possible for the hypnotized mind, from bimbofication to hypnotic bondage to trying to resist a brainwashing machine. (That last is a perfect example of the "hypnosis + story" variety of roleplay I learned about this week.) It's a joy to read about a true hypnofetishist getting her wishes fulfilled, and explosively reconnecting with a neglected side of her pleasure-seeking self.

Hypnosis for Roleplay (Boston Hypnosis Study Group)

This month's hypnosis study group was a must for me, since it was a presentation by a couple who have developed a fascinating use for hypnosis: to enhance long term sexual roleplay scenarios. They had really prepared for it too, with a powerpoint slideshow and various planned activities. So we had two bespectacled engineers tag-team-presenting heavily bullet-pointed slides, clicking through them with a remote. But in contrast to the usual talks I see, the content was about fun sex games you can play. One of those moments of incongruity that make me smile.

(on a related note, have been amused by how my life exploring kink and going to secret sex parties has turned out to involve plenty of Excel, Word, and now powerpoint... really the whole office suite... not to mention e-invites and updating Wordpress pages. Lots of work that is essentially identical to running a college club.)

As someone with no familiarity with LARPing or online roleplay, they really got me hooked by talking about the similarities between hypnosis and roleplay. They both need active and willing participants. So they both involve adults committing to unusual scenarios, and not getting too self conscious. Here as in many areas of kink, you realize that sidestepping the impulse to laugh at a practice not only lets you relate to the practitioners better, but also allows the possibility of it expanding your own life and repertoire.

Also like hypnosis, roleplay requires plenty of clarity of communication, and negotiation. The fantasy is that it just happens, but in reality there needs to be plenty of talking and outlining.

So how can hypnosis and roleplay enhance each other? The presenters gave us three ways:

1. Hypnosis + story. Providing some context for the hypnosis that takes it out of the ordinary, like you are an evil hypnotist who is going to bend the mind of your tied-up captive. One neat thing they point out is that all the things the books say hypnosis can't do - hypnotize someone against their will, make them do  something they don't want to do, be "stuck" in a trance - you can pretend are happening through (negotiated) roleplay, if those scenarios turn you on.

2. Roleplay with hypnotic assistance. Taking a sexy roleplay scenario - like cop and person who's been pulled over, or say two dark elves having a nude wrestling match in a glade - and using hypnosis to make it seem more real, and help people get into character. It can also provide "special effects", like a potion that really does make you sleepy when the wizard forces you to drink it.

3. Immersive hypno environment. This one took me a little while to understand, but I think what they meant is that the hypnotist creates a complete interactive environment for the hypnotee, much like a dungeon master (of the dungeons and dragons, not the play party, variety). So while the hypnotee sits in a chair with their eyes closed, the hypnotist invokes sensory imagery and perhaps portrays different characters, and the hypnotee makes choices and interacts with the world. This takes plenty of preparation, just like an RPG campaign, and can be enhanced with actual sensory stimulation, like sound effects, giving the entranced person an object to hold, or for instance holding fresh meadow dryer sheets in front of their face if they're supposed to be in a meadow.

The couple giving the presentation are into the latter, and have elaborated some of their scenarios for *years*, with dozens of characters and complex evolving relationships. They are both heavily invested in stories, especially of the fantasy/science fiction type, and in exploring alternate possible worlds, like one where mind control powers are ubiquitous, and complicate sex and class and gender accordingly.

So this is where we tried to get them to tell us more about their long term fantasy play, or what they called "shared headcannon", which caused plenty of blushing and assurances they didn't want to make our ears bleed. Of course, this is perfectly reasonable, since it is such a private and intimate thing for them (while one of them has written many of their scenes out as stories, the stories are never shared with anyone but the two of them).

I did ask, how much are you motivated by cool story ideas and worldbuilding, and how much by working backwards from some hot sexual scenario? And the answer was 1000% cool story ideas and worldbuilding. And then they try and work sex in somewhere. Very cute.

Our imaginations were definitely stimulated by the props they passed around, such as a beeping metronome that can double as a fake heart monitor (slowing it down will actually relax the person), and a bottle of "mind control pills", that they had made a delightful custom Rx label for.

Some more tips from the session:

• Planning involves "roadmapping": agreeing on a simple plot together, along with key details.
• "No god mode": you don't get to control what the other person chooses to do - unless that's part of the scenario.
• In addition to the regular kink scene safewords, you can have a "break character" safeword. A common one in the world of LARPing is apparently putting your fist to the side of your forehead.
• If you're having trouble getting into the headspace for in-person roleplay, try going into different rooms and starting with online chat roleplay, if that's what you're comfortable with. (by the way, delighted that MUDs are still in use for such roleplay! Got to love technology that I knew at the dawn of the internet still being perverted.)
• There is no copyright in private sex play, so you can exploit whatever fandoms you love.

Obviously I can't capture it all, from a fun example they elaborated of a "hypnotic face slap" storyline (my favourite variation of which involved the phrase, "Sir, you have offended my hypno-honour!"), to brainstorming roleplay scenarios, to the repeated invocation of "sex jail".

The evening ended up being something like 4 1/2 hours, which is long even for a hard core hypno enthusiast like myself, but I was so glad the presenters shared their unique type of play. It's opened up my imagination to new kinds of fun that can be had, when the hypnotist evokes not just thoughts and sensations, but character, environment, and even the surrounding society (I pictured a super-repressed THX 1138 society, where any kind of sex is an incredible act of deviance!) At one point one said that roleplay activates some percentage of your imagination, and hypnosis some percentage as well, so that together they can make the most use of your imagination possible.

Milton Erickson: Would You Shake this Man's Hand?

Milton Erickson invented a special hypnotic handshake. He describes the beginning like this:

The letting loose becomes transformed from a firm grip into a gentle touch by the thumb, a lingering drawing away of the little finger, a faint brushing of the subject's hand with the middle finger - just enough vague sensation to attract the attention. As the subject gives attention to the touch of your thumb, you shift to a touch with your little finger. As your subject's attention follows that, you shift to a touch with your middle finger and then again to the thumb.

After more mysterious steps, the other person's hand is left suspended in mid air, and they are paralyzed in general, occasionally being guided to other phenomena. And it doesn't take much reading between the lines to see that the person shaking his hand usually didn't exactly agree to be hypnotized by him. Erickson notes in passing:

There are several colleagues who won't shake hands with me, unless I reassure them first, because they developed a profound glove anaesthesia when I used this procedure on them.

Running into Erickson, in the faculty lounge say, how keen would you be to accept his friendly handshake offer?

Milton Erickson was a clinical psychologist who died in 1980, having enormously influenced psychiatry, psychology, and the understanding of hypnosis. His hypnotic handshake is symbolic of both sides of Erickson that I got from reading his book, Hypnotic Realities (1976): Erickson had eerie insight into the workings of the human unconscious, and he sometimes used it in ways that are disrespectful of people's autonomy.

Hypnotic Realities is an extraordinary book. It was recommended to me by MrDream, and I can see why it might be the best way to encounter Erickson: rather than glowing stories of patient cures and his outsized personality, most of the content is transcripts of actual hypnotic sessions by Erickson, integrated with detailed discussions and deconstructions, sometimes literally line by line, by Erickson and his colleague Ernest Rossi. Even without Erickson's striking manner of speaking and personal aura, I could feel the power of some of his formulations:

Now physical comfort exists, but your don't even need to pay attention to your relaxation and comfort.

Please let me know when that feeling of warmth develops in your hand.

Do you think you're awake?

Something has happened to your left hand.

Now the important achievement for you is to realize that everybody does not know their capacities. (pause) And you have to discover these capacities in whatever slow way you wish.

Eveyrone has had the experience of nodding their head "yes" or shaking it "no" even without quite realizing it.

That's a little taste of Ericksonian language, although they're even more compelling in the flow of the transcribed session. You notice that the language could not be more different than a stage hypnotist, and in fact the flow is utterly different too: there is often nothing that resembles a traditional induction - he just talks for a while - and trances most often take their own course, gently nudged along by his masterful indirect suggestions. As one example, he will encourage visual hallucination, without telling the hypnotee what to hallucinate. So what they report afterwards is a complete surprise to him.

If there's any hypnotist in history that today's recreational hypnotists can name and explicitly claim as an influence, it's Erickson. My understanding is that he made at least two enormous contributions:

1. He argued that depth of trance and suggestibility are not the same thing. Someone can be completely zonked, and not respond to a particular suggestion for a whole variety of reasons. And someone could respond well to a well crafted suggestion even when not really in a trance. The important thing is knowing how to speak to the unconscious mind.
2. He discovered how to talk to the unconscious mind. A huge host of principles and tactics and even bits of phrases that hypnotists use today can be traced back to him: truisms, leading questions, double binds, and many others. (which  also formed the foundation of NLP, I believe)

I had heard of Erickson, originally from a section in Wiseguy's book that didn't clarify much, but I first started to get an idea of what he was about when MrDream used one of his techniques on me at Deepmind Darkwood, when I was not in a trance. (with my consent) He simply sat across from me and began with, "Which of your feet feels more stuck to the ground?" Then when, after a few more words, he told me my feet were free, I felt like they really had been stuck! The opening is what Erickson called a double bind, and appears in this book almost word for word.

I'm so excited about this book. It's answering so many of my questions. For example, how to achieve good results with people who aren't particularly suggestible. Well unlike stage hypnotists, Erickson set himself to hypnotize everyone who wanted to be (and some who didn't). And direct suggestions don't work for everyone. So he comes at the hypnotee from the side, making statements that seem innocuous to the conscious mind while they have the intended effects on the unconscious: "Suggestions are statements that the patient cannot possibly argue with." There's a recognition that hypnotees are different in infinite ways, and that the hypnotists must take a great deal of trouble to attend to every microreaction and tune in, since "hypnotic suggestions are effective only to the degree that they can activate, block, or alter the functioning of natural mental mechanisms and associations already existing within the patient."

Since Erickson is already an important teacher for me, it's important to examine what kind of attitudes I might inadvertently absorb along with the technique. Erickson was potentially more dangerous than the proverbial ethically-challenged online hypnotist douche for one reason: his shit worked.

I have to say, though, that he doesn't come across as the patriarchal nightmare I was expecting from my glancing knowledge of other oldschool psychologists. It helps that his actual therapeutic approach is based on the idea that the therapist doesn't necessarily know better than the patient what they need, and that the therapist's role, whether using hypnosis or not, is to help them break themselves out of self-defeating patterns they're stuck in, or "depotentiating habitual frames of reference" (got to love the jargon). So that calls for playful, open-ended trances, with the hypnotee doing much of the guiding. Not much room for therapist as god, or anything like the power imbalance of the stage or fictional hypnotist.

But as might be expected from someone who goes around giving non-consensual hypnotic handshakes, there are a few things even in this book that were red flags to me. He loves to initiate trances and amnesia without warning or discussion, including one instance of inducing amnesia for an educational hypnotic session he did with a fellow psychologist when it was in fact against her wishes. He simply decided it would be better if her unconscious, rather than her conscious mind, worked away at the lessons. In another case, he gives a hypnotee the sensation of being topless, without it having been discussed, or any kind of sexiness being established between them. It's notable that every one of the five or six hypnotees is a woman.

The situation gets worse with his wikipedia page (which shows clear signs of ideological editing warfare), as in his own case report:

"Now you need to know how to undress and go to bed in the presence of a man. So start undressing." Slowly, in an almost automatic fashion, she undressed. I had her show me her right breast, her left breast, her right nipple, her left nipple. Her belly button. Her genital area. Her knees. Her gluteal [buttock] regions. I asked her to point where she would like to have her husband kiss her. I had her turn around [naked]. I had her dress slowly. She dressed. I dismissed her.

This and other anecdotes hint that he might have been a stealth hypnofetishist, and one without a lot of respect for boundaries or consent. At the very least, there's a lack of recognition of the power position he puts himself in as the hypnotist and influencer. Other anecdotes talk about him influencing his students' and colleagues' lives, as well as his patients', with prescriptive suggestions intended to make their lives better. It's clear he got off on that, at some level, which is what bothers me about practically all famous, influential psychologists I have read about.

The great gift the kink world has given me is learning that it's ok to want to feel powerful and have strange influence over your partner's thoughts and actions, as long as that person is in on it, and properly consents. You don't have to be sneaky about it - and in fact if you are feeling sneaky, that probably means something is very wrong.

But even though I have no interest in therapy - or nudging the lives of the people around me via hypnosis for what I consider to be their own good - studying Erickson will be extremely important for my progress. Since my focus is erotic hypnosis, my goals fall somewhere between the stage hypnotist and Ericksonian nearly undirected healing trances (though some of that is an illusion, as he subtly exerts control). I do want to achieve specific effects, but there are a wide range of effects that please me, and already I've experienced plenty of surprises delightfully arising from my trance partner's mind. Where I can learn the most is about how to work with the inexperienced and doubting person, building that person's hypnotic capabilities cumulatively over time and carefully avoiding giving the impression of having "failed". I saw MrDream achieve startling effects in that realm (including with me!), and in other Deepmind Darkwood trances, and now that I've read this book I'm convinced that Erickson holds the key to truly understanding and communicating with the unconscious.

Hypnosis Scene Preflight Checklist

Here is the preflight checklist I am currently trying to use before each hypnosis session. I have it on my phone, so I can actually check it. As of my most recent Christmas travel, where I forgot one of the few things I absolutely couldn't do without,  I'm convinced of the need for written checklists rather than trying to keep it in your head.

* How do you feel now?
* What is your timeframe?
* Bathroom trips
* Cellphones turned off
* Two glasses of water

It was important to me to keep it very short and very relevant. Here's a checklist for the first time working with a new person:

* Phobias
* Allergies
* Language to avoid [real example: someone who did not like the word "relax"]
* Physical problems

More questions for an experienced hypnotee:
* Do you feel confident you can bring yourself out of trance if something is bothering you?
* What you don't like and like in hypnosis.
* What kind of aftercare do you need?

Finally, a checklist for the end of the session that I plan to start using:

* Suggestion of remembering everything from the trance.
* Cancel all suggestions.
* Give an opportunity for feedback, particularly about things that rubbed them the wrong way.
* Allowing time and supervision to come back to reality.

Again, keeping it simple and short with an eye to using it, though I may find more things to add over time. You will notice that there's almost nothing relating to negotiation, which is always a part of a hypnosis scene, even when quick and mostly implicit between longtime partners. That's because I think checklists are not very helpful for negotiation, which I will be writing about in a future entry.

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Edited to add: I should have said that this is a bare bones checklist for the situations I most often find myself in. Which is trancing with people who I know at least a bit socially already - so for example, I already know their pronoun preferences, and have a good idea about what kinds of casual touch are ok. (I'm thinking of whether there's going to be a sexual aspect to the trance to be part of negotiation, a separate thing) You can check out this much more complete checklist for ideas for one that might apply to broader situations. And you should read this too while you're at it, 10 Hypnosis Safety Suggestions Everyone Should Use.

Hypnosis and Spirituality

I was recently in a new age bookstore for the third time in my life, which is three more times than I ever thought I would be in a new age bookstore. The first 2,000 times I'd passed that place I missed the sign in the window that said, "CRYSTALS", and it turns out that this store is a great source for inexpensive glittery eye fixation objects.

Since I was in there, I had a hunch that that might have some hypno-themed books, and asked the proprietor, "Where might I find the books on, um, expanding the potential of the human mind?" After not seeing much in that section that looked promising, I had another inspiration: "What about books on trance?" and he went, "Oh! Trance is over here!"

Since I come to hypnosis from the hypnofetish side, a land of gifs of anime catgirls with swirley eyes, it was surprising to me to realize that probably the vast majority of hypnosis material out there is in the category of personal growth: at best self-help advice, and at worst what is referred to as "woo" (short for "woo woo", aka pseudoscience and mysticism).

Looking at a shelf of book titles, I was a little stunned by that much malarkey in one place. The formula seems to be a spoonful of misunderstood physics and eastern mysticism, stirred into a tall glass of American-style positive thinking and hucksterism. And sometimes there's aliens. And yet it was worth my time. I don't believe that trances can put you in touch with your past life selves, or beings from other dimensions, but when it comes to changing yourself and having profound and enriching experiences, maybe I can learn something. A book that has a lot of parts that are silly and annoying (not to mention dated), like Mind Games: The Guide to Inner Space, can still have inspiring ideas.

I believe that literally all of the benefits you can get from things in that book store are due to the placebo effect, but I don't scoff at the placebo effect (which now seems like a very dismissive term), now that I have concrete, firsthand evidence of the power of the unconscious.

I know from things I have done in my own hypnotic sessions that the unconscious, with the aid of a hypnotist, can produce: vivid sensory experiences including the sensation of being in another place and time; hands-free orgasms; illusions of paralysis or uncontrollable movement; a profound sense of peacefulness; an unbelievable focus and lack of self-consciousness; and mental compulsions. It is really not a stretch from there to think that the unconscious can create many other powerful changes. Maybe what the new age bookstore people have to offer, with their crystals, mandalas, and appeals to the authority of ancient cultures, is strategies for eliciting the strongest possible placebo effects. After all, if they weren't successful at creating, at a minimum, the impression that *something* had happened, then they wouldn't be in business. You may think of it as a collection of confidence tricks, but sometimes confidence is what someone's unconscious needs for a helpful suggestion to really stick.

A few months ago I was contacted out of the blue on Fetlife by someone involved in the shamanism community in Boston, and we had a fascinating coffee talking about the differences and similarities between hypnosis and shamanic ritual. I can now easily see a function for every part of a ritual, starting from the painstaking work that the recipient does with the shaman to craft it. It all is directed towards the unconscious. Another thing that got me thinking along those lines was just this week, when due to a missed flight I was having dinner in an airport hotel with a middle aged native craftsman and an elderly catholic priest. They began discussing their respective spiritual practices, with the native guy talking about how the Great Spirit had helped him overcome alcoholism, and the priest discussing how he uses a brief ritual with daubing annointed oil on people at the hospital and rehab clinics he works at in Brockton - accompanied by a lot of compassionate talk I'll bet. All this would have seemed quite incomprehensible and uninteresting without my new understanding of how the unconscious mind "thinks".

These experiences and others have made me think about how many of the things that plague us in life are at root spiritual problems, rather than problems with our bodies or situations. I think the word "spiritual" is valuable here rather than "psychological": I use it without assuming any "spirit", but specifically to mean a whole range of deeply human concerns. How we feel about the future. How much the past weighs on us. Whether we feel aligned with our surroundings, including the physical environment and the community of people around us. How in control of our lives and minds we feel. Whether we feel a sense of growth and progression. How we deal with anger and various types of frustration. Whether we feel that we are a good person, and putting our energy into the right place. How we feel about the way the world is going. How much of the time we are free of distress. I really believe now that spiritual health is directly tied to other types of health. I know that when I'm lonely, or hopeless, or freaking out about something, all my other problems seem worse, and actually do get worse. When I feel cared for, hopeful, and calm, it's the opposite.

Is hypnosis spiritual? From my own experience being hypnotized, and from what my partners have said, it can be a profoundly moving experience just to have a period of peaceful relaxation. Giving up executive control and vigilance feels wonderful. And it can be so powerful to not feel like yourself for a while - that's what Being John Malkovich is about (and so are S&M, D/s and various types of kinky roleplay).

But like I've talked about, I'm extremely averse to attempting to fix people's problems with hypnosis, especially since I have no therapeutic training. However, I believe there's room for exploring positive spiritual experiences. Without planning it that way, I've already been involved in two experiences that I don't think the hypnotee would hesitate to call spiritual - one in an art gallery, and one in a cemetary. While hypnosis is not risk free, it is certainly safer than going out into the desert to take peyote, and yet could possibly give similar feelings of activation of fresh parts of the mind, and release from everyday constrictions, with at least temporary effects. I don't know what a feeling of transcendence really signifies, but I do think it's important in some way.

But I'm not so interested in spirituality through hypnosis - for me it's about fun and sexiness, almost exclusively. However, the arrow goes in the other direction: what I am learning about in hypnosis, the power of the unconscious mind, is making me so much more interested in spiritual practices. I want to learn about meditation and ritual, not to mention therapy and having more community and nature in my life. Anything that can help influence my unconscious mind for the better. I expect that I will remain a rock solid materialist and atheist for the rest of my life. But, especially as I get older, I appreciate the infinite complexity of the mind and the spirit, including all the ways they can go out of whack. I feel the need to be so much better equipped for the challenges that are bound to come.

The Either/Or Construction for Asking for Consent

I bought this delightful erotic hypnosis video by Lex of entrancement.co.uk, and there was a nice moment towards the end that showed a smooth way to ask for consent. His model, Ziva Knight, had been having a very sexy shower where she had gone in and out of trance and the shower gel, by his suggestion, was arousing on her skin. She was obviously getting turned on. After a while (and when she was not in trance) he asked:

Tell me, do you want this to feel sexual - do you want a climax - or do you want to cool down now and just enjoy the rest of your shower?

And, notably, she said, "Cool down". And he launched into his "cool down" patter.

I like this either/or construction, because it gives someone an easy out, which I think is so important for meaningful and easy negotiation. Women in particular are trained that it's a big deal to say "no", and if Ziva was asked only, "do you want a climax?" and wasn't skilled at deflecting the question, they might have felt pressured.

And how it was done was just as important as the form: he spoke in a neutral voice, giving both possibilities equal emphasis, and so conveying that he didn't care whether it went one way or the other. I know Lex is into hypnotic orgasms, and has included it in shoots where the model is comfortable with the idea, but he did a good job of hiding it. And then when she chose the "cool down" option, he accepted it immediately and without discussion, like she had just chosen between his offers of toast or waffles. (also a good reminder that even if someone is visibly turned on, that doesn't mean they necessarily want to have an orgasm, or even continue with the sexy sensations, and it shouldn't be taken as consent to escalate)

The either/or approach takes a little bit of practice and care, since you have to project that both choices are equally ok, and the "escape route"  should be something that actually is in the other person's mind (which might take a couple of tries). Often it can be something simple like, "or do you just want to keep enjoying this trance for now" or "would you like to come out of trance and take a break". Even though it's very tricky to as for permission from someone in a trance, as well as in the spacy state of mind between trances, and it certainly shouldn't be done for the big things, during a particular session, I think the either/or approach is an effective tool for tuning into what someone is in the mood for, even while hypnotized. All of Lex's videos that I've seen do a great job of modelling erotic hypnosis consent, with frequent use of either/or and many other techniques to make his models feel comfortable and in control.

Don't Pressure People to Have Hypnotic Orgasms

This valuable essay has been showing up on my Fetlife friends feed, Don’t pressure me to come. by Vonka. She writes:

It’s hard to tell your partner over and over “No, its okay, I’m good without one” when they take it as a challenge. You know they’ll be sad or disappointed if you don’t come. It can be way too much pressure. ... Even if I’d like an orgasm, when I tell you I’m not going to for whatever reason, please don’t insist I do anyway. It’s not about your ego. It’s not about a challenge.

(The comments are extremely valuable too) This makes me think how grateful I am that I read similar advice more than 10 years ago, before I had any sexual experience to speak of, in an entry on the amazing blog Why Your Wife Won’t Have Sex with You. Because it takes that long to absorb the lesson: that people, especially people with vaginas, have a huge amount of variance in how easy it is for them to have orgasms, and how important orgasms are to them. Looking back on my sexual history, it might be the most important piece of sex advice I ever had. Not respecting this reality will lead to anxiety, frustration, and a pulling away.

(Another good analogy is pressure on people to squirt, as described in this Fetlife writing by Ferrett Steinmeltz)

I think it’s important to bring up here, because I don’t always see this acknowledged where erotic hypnosis is discussed. For example, Wiseguy provides excellent tips for encouraging hands-free orgasms, but doesn’t bring up the possibility that some people might never have them. Considering that some partners I have had require quite a bit of intense physical stimulation, that seems like something that should be considered. He then goes on to describe many fun things to do with hypnotic orgasms, like “orgasm pills” or using them to reinforce suggestions, which seems like jumping up several dozen levels in terms of aptitude. And Wiseguy’s stuff is on the high end of grounded and trustworthy - many less careful teachers and performers make hypnotic orgasms look like something that should be easy, and a necessary part of erotic hypnosis play. (Peter Masters is the exception, although I think he goes too far in advising to stay away from orgasm talk altogether)

We as hypnotists get advised to speak with more confidence than may be justified, and I understand why: the unconscious understands confidence, and the unconscious is what will be making the suggestions work. By acting like you have no doubts, it increases the probability of success. But this is a case where it can actually hurt the situation. Pressuring someone to have an orgasm when it's not going to happen can kill their buzz, make an orgasm or other kinds of pleasure harder to access, and, if in a trance, bring them out of it. Making someone feel bad for not responding the way you want isn’t just shitty; if you’re a heterosexual man, it’s shitty in a very typical way.

Of course, I love it when a partner has an orgasm with me. It makes me feel reassured that I’m doing something right, and I’m into it aesthetically. If it’s a hypnotic orgasm, in a D/s context, it can give me a power thrill (I’m very into the idea of controlling someone’s pleasure). What the mind turns into during the moment of orgasm is not so far from the overwhelmed mush that I find so appealing in deep hypnosis. But there are lots of other things I love in sex and hypnosis too. And you will note those were purely selfish reasons. It’s not just about me, and it’s not about achievements or checking off boxes: what it should be about is pleasure and connection, and creating unique and amazing memories in the time you have together.

I will say that hypnosis is about expanding what the hypnotee thought their mind was capable of. To that extent I don’t think there’s anything wrong with experimenting with orgasmic response. IF - and only if - your partner is into the idea. Although I’m against the idea of hypnotic suggestions to change or “fix” your partner long term, when it comes to individual orgasms, relaxation and focus are things that might help, and things that hypnosis is good for. With the help of techniques from the likes of Wiseguy, and especially with practice by the hypnotee, more people are able to have hands-free orgasms on command than thought they could. But it should be presented as just one of many activities that are available. And if you run out of sexy things to play with when hypnosis is in the mix, you are seriously lacking in imagination.

Here are my guidelines for hypnosis and orgasms, which I wish I had always followed - I have screwed up with partners in the past, which is why I’m thinking so much about this. It shouldn’t need to be said, but these are in the context of a hypnotic relationship with an agreed-upon sexual dimension, as per rule #7 of my hypotist ethics.

1. Don’t bring up hypnotic orgasms until you have gotten to know your partner’s orgasms. Ideally by learning, firsthand, how they like to get off outside of trance. You also want to understand how much they care about orgasms, how many and when they like to have them, and whether they have insecurities about them - maybe from a past partner who pressured them. You also might want to ask if they have had bad or good experiences with orgasming on command (not just a hypnosis thing as I have learned recently). Of course it’s different if your partner brings up the topic! In the case where this happened with me, it wasn’t a big surprise that she turned out to be talented at hypnotic orgasms.

2. If you have the go-ahead, especially in the early occasions use permissive, open-ended language. That is, phrase your hypnotic suggestions without a specific expectation, that it will definitively happen at a certain time. Instead merely introduce the possibility of having an orgasm, phrases like, “as your arousal grows you might find that your body wants the pleasure of an orgasm, and it can have it, at any time it wishes.” If you do it right, then it will plant the seeds that can lead to an orgasm if one is within reach, and not make it a big deal if not.

3. Before giving someone a direct command to come, be very sure they will. I will ask, “Are you ready to come?” or “Nod your head when you’re ready.” This seems to work - even in trance people know where they’re at. Of course as you get to know a partner better, you can get to the point of feeling confident you see the signs without asking. But I think it’s so important to avoid giving someone the feeling of failing at an orgasm suggestion.

4. Mention that hypnotic orgasms may feel different than you expect (thought clearly identifiable), just as clitoral and g-spot orgasms feel different. And just like the different types of physical orgasms, it may take practice to find your hypnotic orgasm, and more practice to start having really good ones.

I will share with you another reason this issue is personal for me: I have trouble having hypnotic orgasms. At one time I was listening to two mp3 files repeatedly from different web-based hypnotists that were intended to produce hands-free orgasms. It was always a pleasant and very sexy experience, but when nothing happened at the end I would feel like a failure. Now I know that there are a lot of things more personalized hypnosis could do better, and I’m not ruling out that it might happen for me some day (fortunately I don’t think of it anymore as “the ultimate test” of whether hypnosis is real). But I don’t want my partners to suffer from the same thing, of a few seconds of suggestions ruining the afterglow of a very hot time.

Guest post: Kinetic Sculptures and Trance

Now it can be told (a year and a bit after the original post): this occurred at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, MA, and we tranced in front of a bunch of different kinetic sculptures. The lovely one my partner wrote about, and which gave me the whole idea when I saw it on a previous trip, is called Ialu by John Douglas Powers. Here's a video of it.

This was my first "art trancing", and the first I've ever heard of, so I'm pleased I got to do it some more at the MFA, and even inspired my friends djpynchon and Lee Allure to do it at the Art Institute of Chicago, which also has an awesome writeup.
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I'm always dying to know what my trance partner is experiencing during hypnosis, and so I always enjoy the post-trance chat almost as much as the hypnosis itself. But it's rare that I get a beautiful description, in writing, of how it felt. The backstory is that I had the idea of taking this partner into trance while she was looking at a kinetic art sculpture, and letting her lose herself in it for an extended period of time. All kinks have pluses and minuses (not that we get to choose our kinks), and while hypnosis is hard to do in noisy environments, and often isn't too exciting for others to watch, unlike say flogging it has the plus that it can easily be done outside and in public places without getting into trouble. Or disturbing others at all: to anyone giving us a second glance it would just have looked like someone who was really, really into the art. As was her far less still companion, who sometimes leaned over to murmur into her ear. We began by finding a quiet corner and doing a few short trances, using her reinduction trigger, which included practicing standing while in trance (in heels!) and staying in trance with eyes open. Then we sat in front of the sculpture and I gave her the trigger. On her request, we went back for seconds later, meaning that she might have stared at it for as much as 20 minutes in total - that has to be some kind of record for appreciating that piece of art!

Here is my trance partner's Fetlife post about the experience, reprinted with her permission. This was so compelling, not to mention immensely gratifying, for me to read. What a great way to spend an afternoon.

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Kinetic Sculptures and Trance

My body is relaxed. It's beyond relaxed. It's weight, it's matter, it doesn't belong to me anymore. It's on the ground and I am in the clouds. The reeds swayed back and forth, back and forth, the clouds rolled through the sky dark then light. Rolling clouds, swimming through tall, tan reeds. My eyes rarely blinking, engulfed in the sculpture. The passers by don't phase me, they don't disturb my trance. I was in the reeds, I was in the clouds. I could feel my body sway with them, trusting my subconscious to keep me upright. I felt the storm coming, the darkness approaching, the birds chirping wildly to warn me. I felt the reeds swish along my skin, enveloping my body. I was in a field somewhere far away.

Most intense, full body hypnosis experience to date. Incredible.

Now You’re Playing with Power (A Hypno Freeze Scene)

"The game is very simple. I ask you to do something, and you do it."
 - Slow Surrender, Cecilia Tan

I'm completely confused about what D/s is at the moment. I've read books about it, talked to people in long term D/s relationships and watched them interact, and had a fair number of what you could call D/s scenes of my own, but everyone seems to have a different definition, and many I don't relate to. All I have to go by is what sends an electric current up my spine and down to my cock, and the common denominator seems to be power and control. For many years, my kinky fantasies were all about mind control: making women do sexual things, usually through some fantastical means like telepathy, and shaping their perception and responses. (Now I know that many of those fantasies fall under the heading of con-noncon rather than D/s - that's something for a future entry.)

Then I found out that there are women who enjoy being given orders in a sexual context, and that changed everything. It took one particular partner in my late 20s to make me understand, way deep down, that she got a massive sexual charge from the idea of obedience, from having responsibility taken away, from having demands placed on her and earning praise by living up to them (or “punishment” when she doesn’t fulfill the challenges - usually rigged ones). With her I learned that I could inspire a wonderful squishy altered state of submissiveness, and my dominant side grew as I learned how to push those buttons more and more skillfully and take what I wanted. It was incredibly exciting to, say, demand that she strip naked and suck me off, knowing that not only was I getting exactly what I wanted at that moment, but that she was getting off on being directed in that way.

Although this felt intense, even dangerous, for both of us, it was a far cry from a 24/7 master/slave relationship: every scene had a beginning and end with an explicit return to being equals, and we also had hot non-kinky sex. I don't have many models for this, whether in books or blog posts, besides Slow Surrender by Cecilia Tan - a book I wish I could forcibly swap for 50 Shades of Grey whenever I see someone holding it (and I have read every word of that messed up book). Though it has the same premise as 50 Shades, as mandated by her publisher - young handsome billionaire courts a female grad student he randomly met - the emphasis is on consent, with the heroine being invited and enticed into power games ("Are you bored? Tired of the rat race? Looking for a little adventure?") but always given an explicit out ("If you don't want to play, that's fine," he added. "I'll leave and never come back if you say no.") I love the early scenes such as that one, where he's essentially teaching her how exciting and comfortable it can be to follow instructions and be sexually controlled. Even though the instructions aren’t explicitly sexual at first, the fact she is carrying them out means that she has willingly stepped into another world, that looks like ours on the surface but is full of dark and delicious possibilities.

That’s a digression. Anyway, although it's not as big of a commitment as full time Dom/sub relationships, to have these type of scenes still requires plenty of trust and mutual comprehension, which doesn't come right away (well, except in fiction) - not to mention the difficulty of finding people who have that interest. So I've only experienced flickers of that over the last couple of years. But now thanks mostly to the Boston kink scene it's happening again, more play with submissive partners. I try to keep acutely aware that each person's kink is a unique fingerprint, and each person has a different view of D/s and what they want from a dom, some of which I can't fulfill - for example, anyone who's met me knows I'm not about to dominate or intimidate my partners physically in any but the most symbolic ways. However, I'm finding overlap with some partners when it comes to mental domination, and that's fantastic - and in particular the eroticism is turbocharged for me by the newfound incorporation of hypnosis.

So I want to give an example of how D/s and hypnosis go together. I like hypnosis without D/s plenty, but together it’s like chocolate and peanut butter, or frozen montreal  bagels and a toaster. In an earlier entry http://deeperforme.blogspot.com/2013/10/reinduction-triggers-are-greatest.html I talked about the sexy power kick I get from reinduction triggers, taking partners into trance at a moment's notice, and how much I enjoy when I have permission to do that in a playful, surprising way. Recently I experienced a spin on that, with a very submissive partner  (she not so subtly hinted her interest in submission on an early date by casually kneeling on the floor beside my chair) who shall be Michelle on this blog. We got a strong "freeze in place” post-hypnotic trigger working for her. I benefitted from watching MrDream masterfully work with a freeze trigger for a novice hypnotee at Deepmind Darkwood, which also helped to convince me that there is an enormous amount of fun to be had with such a simple posthypnotic standby.

The nature of the trigger was that Michelle would find herself aware but unable to move, except for breathing and blinking and adjustments for her own safety (e.g. balance), whenever I said the word "freeze", and this would continue until I said the word "melt". When I would touch a body part, it would temporarily melt so I could reposition it, and then freeze again when I let go. When I brought her out of the trance, my heart was racing. She was sitting in my armchair, looking centered and normal, and I was sitting facing her. After we exchanged a few words, I couldn’t stand postponing finding out, so I said, "FREEZE."

It would have looked very unremarkable from the outside, but I was elated watching Michelle sit there very still. After only a few moments I said, "MELT", and she immediately started to shift in the chair. She smiled and said, "That was cool!" My previous attempts to get freezing in place to work (both as a hypnotist and as a hypnotee!) had failed, so I was incredibly pleased. It felt at least partially real for her. Both a game, and not a game. She could have broken the spell at any time, but chose not to.

So we played. While she was in the armchair I had her put her arms and hands in different positions, and repeatedly froze her and melted her. I stroked her breasts and the side of her neck while she was frozen and helpless. Then I had her stand up, and put her hands behind her on her ass, and froze her in that position. I walked around her and admired her form from every side. I stood in front of her and melted her, and we made out passionately, losing a lot of clothes in the process. While we had our arms around each other I said “freeze” into her ear, and extracted myself, leaving her arms circling the air. Then I hugged her from behind and melted her again.

I had Michelle kneel on the floor and lace her hands behind her head. I froze her in that position, and took more time to admire her and feel her up. Then I froze her on her hands and knees, and I flipped up her skirt and ran my hand over her ass and mound. When I melted her she bucked against my hand. We were both wildly turned on - I felt like I was vibrating. I said, “I’d like to fuck you right here,” and she caught her breath and said, “Maybe you should.”

The power games didn’t stop while we were fucking. I called out “FREEZE” a few minutes in, and her hips immediately stopped pulsing and pushing back on me. I gripped her and pumped in and out, with her unable to reciprocate or resist. When I melted her a few seconds later, she was even more desperate than before. I still have scabs on my knees from the friction on my cheap carpet.

There was more to that night, but that was a unique and mindblowing experience for me as a dominant and a hypnotist: it might be my first time truly being both at once. When I was waiting with Michelle for her train, as a train roared by in the opposite direction I leaned over to her ear and said “freeze.” I left her that way for less than 10 seconds, but to see her outside of my bedroom and fully dressed in nice overcoat, gloves and handbag, but frozen helplessly in place on the platform, under my control, with no one around the wiser, was incredibly hot to me. And to her too: when released she said, “are you trying to turn me on for the ride home?”

Maybe you don’t find something interesting or sexy in this game. Your brain has to be bent in a very particular way. But mine is, and I’m so happy that it’s not the only one.

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)

Random Tips and Phrases from Deepmind Darkwood

The time since Deepmind Darkwood has been packed with amazing erotic hypnosis experiences, including plenty of firsts, and some of the sexiest things ever. But I haven't figured out yet how I want to talk about them - even though myself of 12 months ago would be dying to read every detail, I'm hesitant, not just because of my partners' privacy but also mine. And when I try to write them in my head it comes out as gross bragging. I think progressing to the state of mind where I don't particularly want to brag is what is allowing these ridiculously hot experiences to happen, e.g. not thinking of people as "conquests", and doing things for inherent pleasure and excitement rather than approval. (though clearly I'm not yet evolved beyond wanting to allude to the existence of such activities!) Which is ironic, in a zen paradox way, and makes me infer that the craziest sexual things that are going on everywhere are things you will never hear about. In any case most of these scenes and milestones will probably come out in some form in posts about particular topics.

Every scene has been enhanced by things I learned at Deepmind Darkwood, and now that I've typed my random notes (many of them from Lady Ru'etha's class) I thought I would share them here, many in the form of great little phrases I want to incorporate into my practice.

• "I wonder if you can imagine..."
• "The sound of your own hypnotized voice can send you deeper"
• "If you allow yourself to accept that suggestion"
• "I would like to invite you to realize"
• "If you're so deep you don't feel like talking, squeeze my hand once."
• People who work with numbers don't like letting go of the numbers
• "You can allow the numbers to slow down"
• Encourage people to say "green" if something really works for them. (Lady Ru'etha promoting use of green-yellow-red safewords in hypno)
• Lady Ru'etha about her experience of hypnosis: I know every fucking thing that's happening, I just don't care.
• Three knobs to go deeper: one that's how deep you can go by yourself, turn it all the way up. One that's the two of us together. One that's the hypnotist: let your hand drop and go as deep as I can send you
• Share your happies with your hypnotist (your hypnotist will use them, e.g. if you like rollercoasters, she will always incorporate them)
• "It's too much like work to open them"
• "Even though your eyes are closed, you can still see my eyes"
• Other voices sound like the parents voices in Charlie Brown
• "Even though you know rationally..."
• Always say "that's right", other lavish reinforcement.
• Use the phrase "I give you permission" a lot
• Cuddling after sex but still in trance - a great time for praise and feedback

This One Time, at Camp Mindfuck...

I saw the very first trance to occur at Deepmind Darkwood, aka Camp Mindfuck, when Lee Allure briskly walked over to Amitus with a moistened piece of paper towel that she said was chloroform to him, and held it to his mouth, causing him to immediately and delightedly fade out (Amitus has written about in his lovely blog post about the whole thing). And I went, holy crap, this is going to be every bit as crazy awesome as I hoped it would be.

I'll be thinking and talking about Deepmind Darkwood for months, but for now I want to write down some impressions, the kind of thing I would have wanted to know about it if I hadn't been lucky enough to be able to go. It's amazing to think it was less than 48 hours, friday afternoon to sunday afternoon, all taking place in and around a 19th century lodge house in western massachusetts. It has those cool wide floorboards that I've only seen before in a very old hotel in Conchord, when they were still using whole tree trunks. Cozy wood stoves, rocking chairs and couches.

And 23 people, all seriously into erotic hypnosis. It's hard to convey how moving it was to be around them. I was like the bee girl in the blind melon video. I wanted to spend every second exchanging information and soaking in the hypno culture (e.g. t-shirt slogans, bad jokes, dance/trance puns...). It was too bad that my introvert circuit breaker flipped about 3 hours into the first day, and I had to keep taking little breaks to reset it, but I loved the vibe of the people there. There were plenty of Doctor Who and xkcd references, but the nerddom was worn lightly, not as a way to exclude people, as was the spirituality. It's still amazing to me to be around a lot of adults who can build an evening's merriment around something other than alcohol. It was extremely rare to see a smartphone being checked, and there was that feeling of radical acceptance that I've had elsewhere in the kink community: we know your dark secrets, and we actually like you better for them.

So I felt very comfortable there, and thrilled to see people being casually popped in and out of trance around me (one of my objectives was wonderfully satisfied this weekend, to see real live hypno D/s relationships in action), but very curious about what the hypnosis content would be, how we would break the ice.

Then, not long after, I was swaying in a big circle in the meeting hall, being rocked into trance as I rocked the person in front of me. Ok, there we are, I thought.

By the way, this was the massive important thing I learned from this weekend: bringing hypnosis into the body. Over and over I saw, and experienced, trance induced simply through touch, as well as guided and intensified. So much of my learning has come from books, audio and videos that I more or less missed this critical point. It's going to make my hypnosis sexier, and make it fit in better at play parties. ZanyM's kinaesthetic induction class, outside in the beautiful sunshine, was a major highlight. By the time it was done I certainly had a visceral sense of the power of touch - and had seen a wild hypnotic takedown scene!

There were dozens of great tips and ideas I got from the classes that were spontaneously organized the next day, such as the incredible 101 by Lady Ruetha, but it's a few big things that will profoundly affect my hypnosis as I absorb them, and those came as much from wonderful conversations, especially with Lady Ruetha, Lee and MrDream, as from the classes. Besides bringing hypnosis into the body, another one was pacing and leading, a concept from Lady Ruetha's class that clicked so hard for me. I was paired up with MrDream to practice that one, which was intimidating! But I actually took him into a light trance using the technique, which had me feeling great. I'll bet pacing and leading will play some part in every trance I do from now on. (in fact I used it in both trance sessions I've done since then)

Even more than that though is a shift in my understanding of what hypnosis *is*, most influenced by talking to MrDream and watching his masterful use of indirect suggestion. My best attempt to describe it is a transition from thinking of hypnosis as a magic spell that you do to someone, to rather an enticement and invitation into experiencing and behaving as the hypnotist wants, based on a connection between you that just continues to grow, within and across sessions. I no longer think that there's a hard line between "playing along" and hypnosis "really happening" - it's a teasing cooperation between the subconscious mind, the conscious mind, and the hypnotist. At some point the three of you might notice that you've gone very far together, but it's counterproductive to always be checking where you're at. Anyway these ideas will continue to sink in.

But besides the learning, it was just so pleasant. Good wholesome food, cozy sitting around in the living room, a campfire, and lots of impromptu activities. I was glad I'd gone to a lot of kink events, so that I wasn't fazed by partial nudity, polyamory, or happy yells from S&M. There was a fair bit of the hurting and other non-hypno kink (though often combined with hypnosis), and I got offered the chance to do fire play out in front of the lodge on saturday night, by the wonderful Bast_kitty! I said yes, and it was a fascinating sensation, both the lit alcohol swab being pulled along my bare back and the trails of mousse on my back that were lit on fire.

At one point I was invited to sit in where a couple of other hypnotists were  sending hypnotic words to a hypno bottom who was shuddering on the floor. Soon there were five of us, all blending our voices together to send her into pleasure overload! I felt like a bar band musician who got a chance to jam with some of the greats (for real - most of them make at least part of their living doing erotic hypnosis).

The bottom later referred to this as "hypnotic bukkake". Sadly there's no way that name isn't going to stick.

There's so much more I would like to write about if I have the time, from the classes and all the other things that were going on. Lee's compulsions, anchors and triggers class was a particularly hot and enlightening case. This hypnofetishist went around in a haze of excitement. I was so full of gratitude to MrDream, ZanyM, and Lee for constructing this extraordinary environment.

More things I came to notice: that there were at least as many female dominants as male, and in the leadership roles. This shouldn't be remarkable, but it would blow away some popular images of hypnosis and kink events. Furthermore, the primarily-submissive people were treasured and given a great time, even while their heads were slumped down sitting on the couch, or sprawled out like a rag doll on the floor in deep trance. I was particularly struck by Chewtoy's passionate and expressive hypno bottoming. I love that I got to see that side of him after years of being a fan of his stories.

Although I had a lot of hypnotic experiences, on both sides of the watch, I didn't have any scenes as such of my own - I didn't live up very well to my goal of boldly propositioning people. It's tough because even more than other kinks, hypnosis depends on rapport - in fact that's pretty much all it is - and there's only so much of that that can be built over 48 hours, despite the organizers' best efforts to meld us together. But I didn't mind, and nobody else seemed to mind either.

There was a lovely group ritual to end the weekend, and it really did feel like the last day of summer camp when I was a kid. I started to tear up, thinking about how exactly one year ago I had never been to a kink event let alone a hypnofetish event, and had never met a person like me in this way, and now my fantasies were concrete reality, thanks to the people in that room, as real as the hands I was holding.

Oh wait, I almost forgot, before the ritual the people who were in a bottomy space sat in the middle of the floor while the hypnotists sat on chairs around the outside and tranced at them (didn't I say the bottoms were treated well?), resulting in what mephki pointed out is probably the largest number of near-simultaneous hypnotic orgasms in history. Par for the course at Camp Mindfuck.

(credit to Lady Ruetha for the joke that I used for the post title!)

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.