Mind Play Bonus Bits
Hey - ever wanted a friend in your back pocket, telling you what to do and every single little detail you missed? Me either - but that’s the spirit of this guide.
Mind Play is a great introduction to hypnosis, as well as my first recommendation for starting hypnokink, but it ends up being the only guide people read, and that’s where it falls short. There’s no way this amount of nuance could be covered in a kink-oriented book without being so boring that it glazed over the reader’s eyes like week old donuts. In this doc, I’ll be rambling on about some wider perspectives that may not fit well in this otherwise excellent introduction.
The intent of this guide is not to say “Hey look at all the stuff that’s wrong in here,” it’s supposed to be a big nerdy “uhm ahktshully” to fill in details that are likely unnecessary in a kink book.
(I’m currently asking a few folks to take a look over this guide - but changes from this point should be relatively minor unless I seriously brain farted something.)
Make sure you have the 2017 edition of this book.
After recommending Mind Play to a friend, they immediately (and rightfully) ranted about some transphobic language in the book. I won’t repeat it, but there’s this apology right at the start of the 2017 edition.
But it was not without, shall we say, issues. The most (in)famous of those was a list of Rules for Ethical Hypnosis Play, which I’d quoted from a post on the MC Forum. That list contained some transphobic language that I should have removed, but didn’t. I failed to realize at the time how harmful that language was. It took the help of a couple of very good people, patiently explaining and guiding, to help me understand the harm done by letting that sentence stand. In the process they became very dear friends, and I still go to them when I need my social compass checked.
Wiseman, Mark. Mind Play . Kindle Edition.
If you have anything before the 2017 edition, you’ll run into this aforementioned language. You can at least know that it’s been corrected, cleaned up, and learned from.
Okay - with that out of the way - let’s get started.
Light Switches, Doms and Subs
Generally in passing, I’ll crack a joke about playing with “Switches not Bitches.” In the normal hypnokink community - it looks like there’s an abundance of hypnotists, and a shortage of willing subjects. That’s very much flipped 180 in the furry community. It’s very easy to become swarmed with eager subjects and get burnt out. So… whichever field you’re playing in, it’s important to know what you want.
For me - it’s important to have a partner I can go back and forth with. My ideal hypnosis session is probably two gay wizards yelling at each-other to take naps. That’s probably not your ideal - and that’s the point. You should know what you’re looking for, and what brings you satisfaction.
Mind Play mentions the traditional D/s roles of Dom, Switch, and Sub - which is a reasonable place to start. However, this creates identities that people can slip into. EG - I don’t need to do any work because I’m a subject and the hypnotist always asks for what I want, or the subject should always do what I want to please me, otherwise they’re not an ideal subject. Both ideas are flawed.
It’s become a problem. For example, from a hypnosis community I’m a part of:
We are trying to dissolve the attached hypno roles to traditional BDSM roles. Hypnotists can be submissive, subjects can be dominant. They can also simply be neither. Be mindful & respectful of this distinction, thank you.
-@RaeRaq
Before you write a label on your arm, be aware that you really don’t need one. It’s valid to just have a recreational interest in hypnosis and have fun sticking your friend’s arm to their leg, and then receive a relaxing induction back in return.
Hypnosis 101
The book kicks off with a classic state-based approach to hypnosis. This is great for hypnokink! But, since you’re here, I can ramble off on some other models and perspectives, all of which I don’t understand fully, but I can at least mention their usefulness and existence.
The Fuck is Hypnosis
While the book suggests that hypnosis is a state of focus, I think that’s missing the wider view of what hypnosis can entail. My preferred way of putting it is from a leading researcher in hypnosis and phenomenological control.
“Volitional actions are experienced as involuntary… and imagination is experienced as reality.”
-Zoltan Dienes (Lecture Available Here)
Or - if you prefer something less clinical, Binaural Histolog has a solid way of explaining it.
Hypnosis is a combination of guided meditation and the children’s game Simon Says.
(This gets a bit rambly - if you don’t want to get into the weeds, feel free to skip down to Being a Hippotist.)
Okay Seriously - What is It?
Honestly - we don’t really know. However, most of us aren’t academic researchers, so we don’t really have to strictly define what hypnosis is. Even academics and clinical researches have not arrived at a clear definition. In 2015, Division 30 of the American Psychological Association took a crack at nailing it down, and they proposed the following…
A state of consciousness involving focused attention and reduced peripheral awareness characterized by an enhanced capacity for response to suggestion.
-Yapko, Michael D; Yapko, Michael D.. Trancework: An Introduction to the Practice of Clinical Hypnosis (p. 7). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
Hundreds of years of research have not been able to clearly nail down a stable definition of what hypnosis is and it’s functional components. You probably shouldn’t fret about it too much yourself.
Look I Asked You a Question…
Hypnosis models can roughly be divided up into state, non-state, and ‘other.’
Very helpful.
(This is where I start fucking up my understanding of hypnosis.)
Mind Play describes a general overview of the hypnotic state model. This is what Erickson and Hilgard believed in, that there’s a state of trance, that suggestibility increases when the brain is in that state, and suggests a state of hypnosis is observable. This fits very well into hypnokink - you’re ‘hypnotized,’ so your will is to some degree compromised or eroded, and you can experience all sorts of cool stuff.
All the way on the other side are non-state models. These (from my understanding) attribute the control to The Hypnotist. Reactions still feel non-volitional, but this is a byproduct of trust and social pressure, to the point of being unable to monitor your internal processes and correctly attribute your actions to your own choice. Subject’s aren’t “faking,” it’s just the underlying mechanism.
And then we get into the cool stuff - things in the ‘other category.’ These generally focus on metacognitive processes - like being dissociated from the control of your own actions. A particularly useful one is cold-control, which suggests that there are higher order thoughts (HOTs.) A HOT is the thought that others eventually stem from. If the HOT is forgotten, this gives explanation to the feeling of automaticity.
For example:
- 1st order thought - The object in front of me is black (possibly missed in interoception in some cases)
- “Lift the left arm”
- 2nd order thought - I see that the object in front of me is black (likely aware, but not always)
- “I am intending to lift my left arm”
- 3rd order thought- I am aware that I’m seeing an object that is black (aware by requirement)
- “I am aware that I am intending to lift my left arm”
Holy Shit - Get to the Point
Use everything to your advantage. Put your subject into a trance and zone them through the floor, following state theory. If you’ve got the charisma, use the presentation of your hypnotic swagger to create an appropriate amount of pressure, following socio-cognitive theories. Read Hypnosis Without Trance and start messing around with things that feel a hell of a lot like cold control.
On the flip side, understand that there is no literal ‘subconscious’ that you can talk to. It’s tempting to anthropomorphize it, and it’s a useful way to present suggestions. (EG: You may find that if your unconscious wants to eat a Dorito chip, your right arm will slowly begin to rise. ) However, if you’re having trouble with a suggestion the problem is not how well you’re “speaking to the subconscious.”
It’s worth noting that while you’re not actually speaking to the subconscious, it does create a useful dissociation between voluntary and involuntary responses. If you’re picky about language, you can replace subconscious and unconscious with ‘some part of your mind’ or ‘the back of your head.’
Wiseguy also mentions Hilgard’s concept of the hidden observer. The hidden observer was more intended to be a convenient label for being able to be objective observing yourself in hypnosis, while still enjoying the ride.
Hilgard described it this way: “The ‘hidden observer’ was intended merely as a convenient label for the information source capable of a high level of cognitive functioning, not consciously experienced by the hypnotized person” (1992, p. 77). This dissociative characteristic of hypnosis allows the client to attend to and respond to suggestions with a “believed-in imagination” (Sarbin, 1997), while at the same time observe him- or herself go through the experience more objectively. The implication of the hidden observer is that even in deeper hypnotic experiences the client typically knows what he or she is doing and what is going on.
Yapko, Michael D; Yapko, Michael D.. Trancework: An Introduction to the Practice of Clinical Hypnosis (p. 104). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
Being a Hypnotist
The book shares a few tips on improving your hypnotic voice, but really, the thing that improved mine the most was spending a few rounds being a subject. I learned very quickly what seemed ‘off’ and found a love for allowing someone else’s voice into my head. It’s fun! Ride the other side.
I feel it’s important to mention everything surrounding your session matters. Wordweaver coined and created CREAM (reddit, substack) , an excellent teaching and troubleshooting tool for tuning up your sessions. In short, note your social and hypnotic Context, your Rapport with your subject, the Expectations you’ve built, their ability for Absorption, and their Motivation.
Being Hypnotized
I don’t consider myself a great subject. I help out and pull myself deeper into trance, I disassemble suggestions on the fly, and I don’t know what I want half of the time. However, Sleepingirl wrote up this guide on becoming a skilled subject, and even if you’re primarily interested in saying the funny words, it’s worth a read.
Safety and Ethics
Safety Third and Ethical Whatevers…
Negotiation and Consent
Negotiate to Negotiate…
Instead of going right in to negotiating a scene, negotiate to negotiate. It’s polite to leave people a comfortable out if they’re not interested, so I like using this structure:
“If (soft out), then (request)? Because (reason.)”
“Hey, if you’re free later, would you like to talk about doing a session at some point? I overheard you were in to memory play and I could use some practice.”
This gives your conversation partner the option to politely decline comfortably. I’ve been cockblocked by seen the reverse of this, too.
Hypnotist: “Ah, sorry, can I leave? I need to go do a session.”
Subject: (In a cheery voice) “Sure! But only if you promise to give me a session afterwards.”
I was surprised that I had to lay out why this was a shitty move. The cheery voice provides a context where it’d be difficult to emotionally match the position while saying no, while simultaneously strong-arming them into handing out sessions like a gumball machine. Don’t do this, don’t give in to this.
Safe Words
On safewords, ‘Safeties,’ and Subject Agency…
In my tiny view of the hypnosis community, there’s a lot of talk on Subject Agency. The nuance in this is not you empowering the subject to make their own decisions, but reinforcing that you didn’t need to empower them in the first place. Some use this as an argument against safewords and safeties.
From personal experience, trying to hammer home subject agency alone hasn’t always done the trick. In a negotiated scene, as an experiment I asked permission to do everything I could to manipulate a hypno partner into accepting a memory play trigger they didn’t want. The idea was that they would just reject my suggestions when the time was right. Go figure - after 45 minutes of buttering them up they felt comfortable enough with me to simply accept the trigger.
So, I’ll make an argument for stacking both approaches. When providing safeties or safewords, I’ll also suggest that they’re like a keyboard shortcut - safeties are handy, but you’re the one that decided to reject the suggestion in the first place, as well as you’re the one that took agency to use the safety. I can recommend this (free) file, Aurora on Agency, that both talks about this and provides a testing ground for this idea.
Another way to approach this is to have your subject make their own safeties. The idea is that it’s all right to guide them, but in the process you’re empowering them to empower themselves. If they’re new, it would be kind to provide a safe space for them to test these out, and reinforce their agency while you’re at it.
A bonus tip - I like adding ‘blue’ on to the list of stoplight colors. I like having an easy way for someone to say ‘green’ where everything is all right to keep going, and ‘blue’ where they have permission to ask for more.
Handling the Unexpected
OH FUCK! My Subject’s Doin’ an Ugly Cry…
Prepare ahead for abreactions! An abreaction can either mean any unexpected reaction, or having an emotional breakdown, depending on who you ask. Either way, if things get weird, I like Binaural Histolog’s approach.
Abreactions can be handled by remaining calm and giving disassociation suggestions, i.e. “The scene is fading, you focus on your breath. Feel your weight on the chair, know you’re safe.” Repeat this phrase until they’re completely calm and there’s no trace of discomfort.
Know Your Limits
Therapy vs Therapeutic…
Wiseguy’s take on not doing therapy as a recreational hypnotist is pretty reasonable. However, I think there’s more nuance to consider. There’s nothing wrong with giving a kinky friend a backrub if they’re sore, listening to them vent, or handing them an Advil. On the flip side, if you’re not equipped to help with an issue without hypnosis, you probably aren’t equipped to do it with hypnosis. I’ll leave you with quotes from Mastering Erotic Hypnosis and Tranceworks, but you should arrive at your own conclusion for this one instead of regurgitating something you heard.
Should we have a prescription for aromatherapy candles? Should the local day spa require a medical professional on board? Should partners who have problems refrain from sitting down to work them out until a qualified relationship counselor is in the room? The very concept of therapy is malleable.
Gordon, James; Doll, Rebecca. Mastering Erotic Hypnosis: A Comprehensive Manual for Erotic Play, Fetish, and Kink (Comprehensive Mastery Book 1) (pp. 188-189). Comprehensive Mastery. Kindle Edition.
How can someone with questionable or inadequate training feel it’s perfectly fine to provide treatments that hold the potential for harm when he or she doesn’t know what he or she doesn’t know? How much of what kind of training is enough to call oneself qualified? It is not at all unfair or overdramatic to point out how someone can learn just enough to be dangerous.
Yapko, Michael D; Yapko, Michael D.. Trancework: An Introduction to the Practice of Clinical Hypnosis (p. 188). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.
Related Ramblings
While the book provides enough safety information to get started, it’s worth reading through the risks page on Binaural Histolog’s guide. Specifically - transference came up a few times when I was starting out. I ended up almost sabotaging one friendship, and absolutely disappointing and making another individual miserable for about a month. If you’re not going to go down Histolog’s page, here’s some musings on the topic:
- Falling off a chair is funny. The hospital bill, or nerve damage from being hypnotically encouraged to sit uncomfortably isn’t.
- I had a hypnotist drug my drink once. It was hot as fuck but that cost me a pair of glasses when my legs gave out.
- If you fractionated the fuck out of your subject - maybe have them avoid major life decisions for a while… or at least put the credit card away for the night.
- Until you have a lot of experience, don’t do hypnosis if you or your subject is in a bad mood. (Or - if you’d be uncomfortable with a drug drip that night.)
- Negotiate aftercare beforehand. On that note, talk about what you’d like your relationship to look like after the session.
- Don’t underestimate a ‘posthypnotic crush.’ You’ve been in their head, they’re probably going to be pretty in to you for a while. On the flip side, if you’re new and you’re head over heels for a subject, keep yourself in check.
- As hypnosis is a great tool for therapy, it’s also a great tool for manipulation.
Blah Blah Consent Blah
I’ve read 31 flavors of the negotiation talk - and you probably have too. It’s up to you and your partner(s) to figure out how you want to handle consent. Whatever some rando wrote in a guide on the internet is less important than what you two have worked out. That being said, there’s a few short tips.
FRIES (Freely Given, Revocable, Informed, Enthusiastic, and Specific) helps hone in that the context matters, and consent can change and be rescinded. PRICK (Personal Responsibility in Consensual Kink) is also handy. While you’re going to do everything you can to keep your subject safe, ultimately your subject is responsible for their own mind.
Another favorite of mine is Mexican Dinner Consent.
Wait. Mexican Dinner Consent? The fuck are you talking about?
This goes back to your consent being contextual to your relationship. Sometimes, a friend or a partner really wants to eat at a restaurant you’re not feeling. “Yeah sure, okay” is a perfectly fine response. You don’t have to force yourself to say WOO YEAH I AM HELLA DOWN FOR MEXICAN FOOD in order to give a congruent OK to whatever you’re doing.
There and Back Again
Finally - we can get started.
The techniques and advice in the book are plenty good for getting started in hypnokink, and unless you really want to dig into the details, the nuance likely doesn’t matter much once you get some experience. With that, I have a few thoughts before diving in.
After getting consent, experiment with starting the induction without explicitly saying you’ve started. Stop after a bit, and do a check-in, then go back to it. For example - start with a PMR, go through a few lines, ask them to open their eyes and chat for a bit. This is a great coaching tool.
Many inductions and “hypnotizability tests“ rely on a physiological advantage (like your arm will be stiffer if you stretch it with your fingers pointed out.) This stuff is fun but cheesy. At your discretion, you can absolutely talk about how there’s a physiological component to some of this, and how things work. This isn’t a magic trick where knowledge will ruin it. The trick (ha) is to attribute how effective it is to their automatic response and imagination.
“And you may already know that, if you stick your arm straight out like this, it becomes slightly more difficult to bend. But what we are about to do is take that feeling and make it stronger and stronger so that it feels automatic, almost as if your powerful mind was taking control.” This way, you build rapport, avoid an awkward “of course that worked,” and you don’t insult their intelligence.
Directlyish into your Brainish
The book mentions suggestions slipping directly into the unconscious. I’m still not sold on this - but I don’t have much backing for this being explicitly false other than ‘this feels silly.’
I’d rather you have a well rounded perspective - even if it’s just to know what people are talking about. Here’s a few pages supporting this reaction… And hey, if you’re doing hypnokink, there’s nothing wrong with keeping the fantasy.
Mike Mandel Hypnosis - The Ultimate Guide to Hypnotic Inductions over at “What about Instant Hypnotic Inductions?”
NLP Mentor - Pattern Interrupt stating in general confusion can make you more suggestible.
(If someone has some better resources on this, please ping me! I’d love to add them here.)
Modalities
Or, complaining about how NLP modalities can limit your options…
A decent way into my hypnosis journey, I’m ironically still weirded out that other people’s brains work way differently than my own. Not everyone has an easy time imagining visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory senses. It’s less important to know about your subject’s VAK preferences, and more important to ask them to experience things in a way they know how. In the same way you wouldn’t ask someone with a weak visualization affinity to imagine how a duck looks, it’d be wise to avoid asking a midwestern American to imagine the taste of Vegemite.
There’s also a lot more going on in your subject’s experience than just VAKog. There’s experiences of balance, interoception, awareness, chronoception, agency, and emotion - all of which I’ve lazily ripped off from Binaural Histolog’s Blog . Rotating around VAK for your suggestions is great, but there’s no reason to skip out on these other areas.
Aphantasia - I’m Tired of Apples
So, what do you do if your partner has no ability to visualize in the VAK system?
Give up.
By which I mean - don’t insult them by asking them to do something they said they have difficulty with. If they have difficulty working with visual suggestions, use auditory or kinesthetic suggestions.
(Seriously - I’ve heard some pretty entertaining, frustrated rants from a few aphantasics - going all the way from mocking MMHA instructions to “well just imagine you can” to thick and heavy insults pointing at ineptitude. If you plan on saying “try harder” you’re probably going to piss them off.)
But what about folks that have ‘full’ aphantasia? That lack an internal visual, kinesthetic, and auditory sense? It’s very rare, but it shouldn’t be difficult to work with. If they’re all right with it, ask them to imagine things in whatever way they’re comfortable with, or whatever sense they prefer. Substitute imagine with things like conceptualize, experience, or even just think of. Instead of describing how ice cubes would look as they melt, you could talk about how they’re changing from a solid to a liquid, taking less space and volume, how they’re melting or flattening, becoming smaller, or how their temperature is equalizing with the air surrounding it.
In addition, you can just avoid the problem entirely. Ask them to focus on almost imperceptibly tiny changes in how their body feels, or to think of times when the sun sets and the ocean becomes calm, naturally becoming still. You can also ask them to bounce their attention between concepts or subtle feelings inside their body.
This study compared phenomenological control to a subject’s ability to create imagery. Aphantasics experienced slightly less vivid phenomena. The interesting bit is that the effect was minor - what had a much larger effect was the blind vs aware groups of aphantasics - or put more clearly, people who knew they had aphantasia, and those who didn’t. Since I’m not a researcher, I’m going to speculate that the blind group had an easier time finding ways to follow suggestions, while the self-reported group was aware of their difference in processing, therefore just giving up instead of finding another way to experience the suggestion.
TLDR: just work with them and see if they have preferences on how they like their suggestions - if not, offer a few options or coach them how to work around something that’s difficult or incompatible.
Paulina Trevena has a Cheat Sheet for working with aphantasics, and I hear sleepingirl has additional information on her Patreon . (I haven’t verified sleepingirl’s article - it feels gauche to subscribe for one month and binge their content. 😬 ) I did find this post containing a few tips.
Pre-talk
I’m gonna pre-talk your pre-talk, so we can pre-talk your pre-talk, so you can pre while we talk…
I’m going to go against the grain here. I think it’s fine for someone to say they’re willing to ‘try’ hypnosis. What’s more important is to create an environment where the subject is actively interested in giving this thing a spin and is prepared to take an active role.
The book Hypnosis Without Trance has some fantastic guidance on coaching your subject and how to handle your pretalk. I’d also recommend giving Wordweaver’s Notes on HWT a read - specifically the sections on building The Hypnotic Partnership, A Note On Failure, and Managing Buy-In and Establishing Focus. If you can’t be arsed, ensure your subject knows that they’re on your team, you’re building a skill together, and this is an experiment - where we get data to help build a skill. Your other job is to coach them into being absorbed into the experience.
Another Method - Guiding and Coaching
Put Me In, Coach!
Speaking of absorption and coaching, here’s a few ideas on how to do this:
- “I don’t want you to fight or force anything, I just want you to experience what you experience with your mind.” (A riff on an idea from Graham Old.)
- “And of course, you could open your eyes right now. But that’s not why you’re here. I want you to try and open your eyes and show me that you can’t.” (I think this one’s from Mark Wiseman.) An MMHA variation on this is “but you could open your eyes any day.”
- “Imagine X is happening. Now, imagine that X is happening, and you’re not making it happen.” A riff on the CSTP by Binaural Histolog
Inductions
There’s a lot of hate in this section for PMRs. I really don’t think there’s a problem with them! Sure there’s zero flex factor in it, but if your subject could use the chill equivalent of a brain massage, go for a PMR.
In addition, the section on the Elman induction is fine as well - but Graham Old wrote an entire book on it (aptly titled - The Elman Induction: Unpacking the Theory and Practice of One of the Most Popular Hypnotic Inductions in the World.) It goes much deeper into the hows and whys and also has a few troubleshooting tips.
Also, a nice treat from this section was the Generic Ericksonian induction. Even if you don’t use it, you can absolutely steal bits and pieces of language from that knowledge nugget and stick it in your own hypnotic work.
While I like Mind Play, I disagree that the book CRUCIAL! is worth your time. It has the fabled seven plus or minus two induction in it - and… Really I don’t think it’s all that special. The rest of the book is mostly full of mildly hypnotic imagery and stories. Save your money.
Confusion as an Induction Component
Hypnotists regularly talk about ‘confusion inductions,’ but this oversimplification really misses the point by a fair margin. Confusion can be a component of an induction, but it isn’t an induction on it’s own. There’s a few types of ‘confusion’ that you can use:
- Overload - stacking more and more things up for the subject to think of to help dissuade analysis.
- Fixation - giving your subject something so boring to do that they just give up and start listening.
- Attention Bouncing - much like overload. Ask your subject to move between sensations or thoughts without giving them enough time to process any of them completely, eventually slipping into suggestions that you’d like to provide.
You can read more about these concepts at Binaural Histolog - Dissociation Inductions or get a more detailed look in the book (Jesus Graham shorten your book titles) Graham Old - Hypnosis with the Hard to Hypnotise: How to do Inductions with Resistant Clients, Analytical Subjects and Others who may be Difficult to Hypnotise.
TransderivationalhowdoIspellthatagain
Speaking of that book - Wiseman mentions a TDS in passing - but it’s handy to have a better fleshed-out definition.
If you haven’t come across this delightfully grandiose term before, a transderivational search (TDS) takes place when someone is presented with vague or ambiguous content, leading them to look inside their mind for the meaning and understanding.
Old, Graham. Mastering the Leisure Induction: A Powerful, Efficient and Simple Approach to the Induction and Deepening of Hypnosis (The Inductions Masterclass Book 1) (p. 47). Plastic Spoon. Kindle Edition.
Hey, uh, are you hypnotized yet? (Testing)
I didn’t have a lot to say about this section other than definitely use the posthypnotic full-body-freezing suggestion. It’s pretty great.
Deepeners
Like Wiseguy says - deepeners are generally unnecessary. But - they’re definitely a fun ride. Just think of these as suggestions that you’d normally give.
Also - you can ask your partner what trance feels like to them - then suggest that back to them as a deepener. If they’re not sure, you can ask your partner what they’d like to feel in trance, and start hammering on that after the induction.
Having an explicit fractionation deepener and trigger is useful - but you can have a lot of fun doing this covertly. This is where I’m going off my own experience - but conversationally bringing someone slightly into trance, then interrupting them with a question can be pretty fun. Just bounce back and forth until you can tease them about how much of a hard time they’re having staying out of trance.
Emerging
Everyone loves a good comeback story…
Awakening your subject from trance is pretty easy! But - ask your subject for their preferences. One person I know likes to be built up rapidly with more and more energy - like building up tension before leaping out of the ocean. Another will get headaches if they’re brought up too quickly, so pacing them out very slowly is part of the deal.
After awakening - ask a few ‘exit interview’ questions:
- “Did anything bring you out of the experience?”
- “What was your favorite part?” (Stolen from a Pepsi-loving friend.)
- “Did anything surprise you during your session?”
The Power of Suggestion
This section’s fine! I’ve rounded up a few thoughts on delivering suggestions, but I feel like the advice in here is quite good.
First of, there’s some use of NLP (neurolinguistic programming.) NLP is in a weird spot in hypnokink - we’ve mostly agreed it’s bullshit, but we all seem to find it useful and effective. Use it like you would a fun tool to form suggestions and smooth out your phrasing.
There’s another mention of safeties in here, but I’ve already hammered on about that previously here talking about agency.
The tell me something you need to know trigger is handy - but as the book suggests, be careful who you use it with. You’re not going to get any automatic response from the unconscious, but you will alleviate ‘guilt’ from the subject to tell you something they may want. Just don’t take it as consent to do anything.
Also - I love the Simon Says trigger. It’s fun from both sides! Give that one a spin.
Suggestive Language
Suggestion Suggestions… A few tips on giving suggestions.
Using and modifying an existing experience is much easier than trying to make one from scratch. Consider imagining pressure on your shoulder. Now instead, notice the pressure and all the little sensations where your legs and butt meet your chair, and NOW try to imagine how that would feel on your shoulder.
Build experiences in components. Instead of “feel the goo covering your body,” try having your subject chew a piece of gum. Then, have them notice the feeling of the gum, how it oozes, it’s texture, and how it begins to move throughout their mouth, becoming even more intense as they involuntarily swallow their saliva…
There’s more to experience than the VAKog system. Binaural Histolog’s suggestion guide is bomb. Hell - you probably could’ve just read their whole guide and been better off. 😅
Direct and Indirect Suggestions
Directness in Language vs Suggestion…
There’s a small difference between indirect suggestion and indirect language. The part we’re examining in the suggestion is italicized.
Direct Language, Direct Suggestion:
Take in a deep breath, hold, and exhale, and as you do, relax your body.
Indirect Language, Direct Suggestion:
Take in a deep breath, hold, and exhale, maybe noticing that, as you do, your body begins to relax, all in it’s own time, perhaps imperceptibly small changes to your relaxation… could be taking place…
Direct Language, Indirect Suggestion:
Take in a deep breath, hold, and exhale, imagining what a cube of ice does on a warm day, dripping… oozing… flattening out… coming apart… (We want our subject to relax but instead we’re talking about an ice cube.)
Indirect Language, Indirect Suggestion:
Take in a deep breath breath, hold, and exhale, perhaps finding your mind wandering and letting go… and as time passes, maybe noticing any changes that may take place in your body as that happens (We could’ve just told them to relax, but nah.)
Talking about this difference is some serious antfucking - don’t call anyone out on this nuance.
My Own Ramblings
The next few sections don’t directly link up to the book - but I decided to throw them in here anyway.
Hipster Trigger Hacks
This is some folk knowledge here, but did you know you could use any trigger as a drop trigger? It’s hot AF. Here’s an example:
Hypnotist: Gesturing around the subject’s neck with their hand. “Subject, Yank.”
(The subject has a ‘yank’ trigger, causing them to be caught off guard, moving involuntarily closer to the hypnotist.)
Subject: very cute bottom noises
Hypnotist: (In a deep growl next to their neck) “Drop!”
Subject: more cute bottom noises as their head goes slack
Also, sometimes you’ve got the task of reinforcing an older trigger that hasn’t been used in a while. You don’t need a full trance to do this, just go ham on it as if you were already in trace. For example.
Hypnotist: “Subject, Bubblebath.”
Subject: Lets out a soft rumble of relaxation, but not quite the reaction we want…
Hypnotist: Affectionately and gently petting their subject’s forehead. “And as you feel that, you’ll find that each time we use that trigger… it becomes a bit stronger. Maybe you feel more of that comfort… more of that relaxation…
(with intent) Bubblebath. (pause)
And again and again, we can build this up… more and more… How does that feel? Have you noticed just how nice it is to let your mind melt? To let your thoughts float away?
Bubblebath. (Pause)
That’s right… Calmer… more intense… more irresistible each time… (Etc…)
Matching Tone
This is completely up to you and your subject - but depending on what you’re setting up, consider how your suggestion style matches what you’re saying, and how you’re saying it. (Also make sure your partner vibes with this style of authority!)
For example…
“Perhaps, as you sit there in that chair, you begin to notice something happening at your wrists… Maybe there’s the sensation of rope or leather beginning to wrap itself around, and you may even feel a small tingle. In fact, over time, your wrists may even begin to slowly begin to gravitate towards eachother… feeling them slowly begin to lift… that’s right… and begin to stick… just like that…”
This hits different than…
“In a moment, when I touch your wrists, you’ll feel an INTENSE pull between them, and they’ll SNAP right together like they were welded right in place. The more you struggle the harder you’ll find your wrists to move… so I encourage you to wriggle around all you want.
And then they just… touch… fingersnap SNAP right in to place. Snap locking harder and harder. Snap go ahead, try. Snap REALLY try to pull those apart… snap You’re trapped, aren’t you?”
Wordweaver has a great slide on verbal communication - going all the way from chill to spicy. The rest of their (Introduction to Hypnosis presentation is pretty solid too. I keep a chart based on their Ten Ways to Trance slide to make sure I rotate strategies regularly.)
Kinky Human Tricks
Or… Funny Animal Tricks… Depending on your vibe.
Hey - as a reminder - if the scripts and suggestions in this book don’t seem up your alley, don’t feel obliged to use hypnosis in any of these ways. It’s perfectly valid to enjoy hypnosis just as a fun, recreational thing.
Be goofy. Drop your friend that can’t stop spouting Amogus memes and suggest the next time he says it, he’ll drop right back into trance. Set it up so the next time someone is about to curse, it’s replaced with a nonsense word like ‘blub’ or ‘bark.’ Don’t do any of this and just enjoy guiding your friend through some imagery or a relaxation session. It’s all good.
Also - I didn’t know where else to stick this, but there’s some memory play later on in this chapter. It’s normal for this to take a few tries to get right - and I certainly haven’t nailed it down. If anyone’s got a good resource for this, let me know!
A Note on these Notes
The next few sections don’t line up with any particular recipes in this book. Just some overall ideas for you to consider and chew on.
Good Out of the Box
A few recommendations to try out from the menu:
- The Blank trigger is great in VR. Pop into a different world after triggering it, have them change avatars, adjust settings, you can go wild with this.
- Hypnotic roleplay is great! I like being direct and suggesting that they’ll still respond hypnotically for the rest of the session. Frankly, I kind of suck at ERP (or any other kind of acting,) so this helps me feel like I’ve still got a safety net.
An Interactive Approach
If you’re starting - it might be tempting to build a trigger or experience as if you’re reading a script. You’ll have a much better time if you watch your subject’s reactions as you go along, building gradually. State the overall structure, ask if they understand, use it, THEN reinforce the heck out of it. State it’s becoming stronger, more intense, or begin to highlight other effects that are happening, as you repeatedly use the trigger.
Kinky Ace? Here’s Some Tips
If you’re also on the ace spectrum, here’s a few ideas on how to make this section more palatable and useful. It’ll take a bit to learn how to bend these to your preferred proclivities, but the scripts in Mind Play are still worth a read, even if you’ve got no interest in vanilla sex.
- Use the Pleasure… trigger as a template for suggestions of good boy/girl/drone/dog/whatever.
- Give your drone a power switch or dial. Got a bratty toy? Give them a submission knob. Even though it’s cheesy, the hint of humiliation drives it in when they feel themselves responding.
- Use something akin to Sensitize/Desensitize for a non-existent limb - especially handy in VR. Even if they’re having trouble with phantom touch, you can still use the emotional components.
- Sensory hallucination is fun! Grow in some claws, get your TF fantasy on, just remember to hammer on the emotional side.
- You can re-brand Hypno-bondage in any way you like.
- The Voodoo Doll suggestion can just be fun on it’s own. Take an object, and suggest they can feel you touching it.
Hypnotic Orgasm
I am absolutely not the Hank Hill of orgasms or orgasm triggers. I’ve always heard that old-fashioned conditioning is the way to go for working with orgasms, and then use what you’ve conditioned in hypnosis. The book Mastering Erotic Hypnosis has some notes on doing this, and there’s a few notes from this book on my site.
I Guess That’s It?
This is where I’d phone it in and ask Gpt4 to write a closing statement - if it wasn’t so allergic to talking about kink. I might come back here and write a bit more later, but this is all I’ve got for now.
If you’d like some more ideas and inspiration, I’d recommend Wordweaver’s Guide to the Guides, or just go pick up a copy of Hypnosis Without Trance by James Tripp.