So You Want To Use A Crystal For Hypnosis in VR

Hey look! That’s a shiny new crystal asset that just came out. Aren’t your eyes naturally drawn to the hyperlink? Hand moving automatically? Finding the buy button irresistible? Almost as if its power is drawing you in through an unknown force?

No? Ah. Okay. Well, it was worth a shot.

For me, props and crystals land firmly in the land of cartoon mischief. I generally treat this hobby way too damn seriously, and I miss out on a lot of fun and antics because of it. Having a toy to improvise around affords a lot of flexibility in your approach, and if you’re playing with someone that’s there to enjoy your company, you’d be remiss to dismiss them in their entirety like I had for years.

However, knowing this doesn’t instantly unlock their INCREDIBLE HYPNOTIC POWERS OF INFLUENCE AND PERSUASION. For recreational hypnotists with a less conversational style, it usually just leaves them feeling like they’re holding a failure-prone distraction in their hands, and can even reveal the insecurities of their own persona. So let’s grab a comb and cover up that bald spot.

Pocket Watches, Dangly Bits, and Expectations

Frankly, I have no clue where the humble and unabashedly hipster pocket watch became ubiquitous with hypnosis. I do know that a hypnotist whipping one of these out and asking you to stare at it is a common trope. Often, they have associations with persuasion, mind control, magic, and misdirection. We’ll get to more flexible applications later, but if you’re brand new, you might have an easier time doing an induction by the numbers.

You can follow these steps for something that feels formal:

• Pull out your pocket watch / crystal / prop.
• Ask your partner if they’d like to be hypnotized.
• Hold the prop maybe a foot away from their face, in front of their eyes.
• Ask them to allow their focus to drift into the watch. Request they notice all the details, its movement, the colors, the look, how it changes in the light, whatever you can think of. If you don’t know what to suggest, look at it yourself, and ask them to notice those things.
• And yeah - staring at something close to your face does indeed cause eye fatigue. There’s kind of an expected attempt misdirection here - where the subject is waiting for the hypnotist to take credit for their tired eyes. We’re going all in on the cheese, so suggest their eyes are heavy, tired, and want to close.
• Suggest as this happens, and as they focus, they can begin to relax. Point out any signs of relaxation that you can see from your point of view.
• Start suggesting that they’ll begin to relax more and sink all the way “into trance,” drifting off, deeper and deeper with whatever flair you want as you slowly lower the prop.
• If you want, you can wave your hand across their eyes with the classic “eyes closing now.”

If you’d like to see how simple this is in action, go watch the (excitedly titled) How to hypnotise someone with a Pocket Watch!!!.

This really isn’t any different than any other eye fixation induction, and just about any prop will work. Historically, James Braid would use the tip of his lancet case. (And thank fuck he stopped sticking corks to his patients’ foreheads.) It’s pretty much “look at thing, stare, become absorbed, relax, and close your eyes.”

But That’s Boring

You’ve likely seen all that before. It’s effective, straightforward, and doesn’t take a lot of work. It also leaves you locked into a methodology that doesn’t allow you to improvise or play around. This formal style, while appealing to some, can leave you stranded if you get out of sync with your partner. Why not use this as an excuse to apply some conversational techniques?

The steps:

• Get the OK to do some hypnosis if it’s not already expected and welcome.
• Strike up any conversation. It doesn’t even have to be related.
• Pull out your prop. Ask them if they’re interested.
• Continue your conversation - we’re going to let the hypnotic context do a lot of the work. Hold the prop in front of their eyes as mentioned before, still talking about something unrelated for a few moments.
• Ask them what they notice about the prop. Feel free to throw in a “what’s that like” and “what are you noticing?”
• Ask them what they’re feeling in their eyes. Get them talking about it.

Optionally - if you have a playful relationship, tease them. For example, usually you’d use a line like “as you notice the tension in the eyelids, how your eyes move automatically, and a heaviness begin to grow, you may become aware of an urge that your eyes just want to close.” And this is fine, but if you’re flirting, it’s a hell of a lot more fun to point it out with “Ah, it’s so cute to watch your eyes become heavier.” Or, if they don’t have eye tracking like most folks on VR, you can use something similar to “And I don’t know exactly how heavy your eyelids are becoming at this moment, but I love watching you begin to relax, and all those little motions of your head that you’re barely aware of.”

You could go with the standard “eyes closing now” bit with waving your hand down when you feel they’re sufficiently cooked, but you can make things feel even more intimate. Perhaps “And even as I watch you, your head swaying slightly, following along to the [prop] and my words, already following along so easily, you might not be aware of how this feels for me. How enjoyable it is to watch all your little expressions, hear all the sounds you make, or to know that you’re handing over control, moment by moment. It makes me want to gently hold you, your mind, your thoughts, and everything about you, to just take you on a short ride, a calm experience, to know you’re going to be right in my hands and my words this whole time…”

Say anything you want about the situation that’s turning you on or making your dynamic hotter. (If this is a new concept for you, read “Female Gaze” Hypnosis from sleepingirl. It’s made almost every session I’ve done since feel more engaging.)

And - congrats! You’ve just done conversational hypnosis. The big mystery unveiled of it being asking questions to direct experience rather than just telling someone what they’re feeling. Simple.

But what if it doesn’t work?

No big deal! Seriously.

Even if you’re trying the more formal, direct approach, the worst that’ll happen is it’ll feel a bit like you were caught with your pants down for a moment, and you’ll both get over it. Take it in stride, ask about your partner’s experience, and decide if you want to give it another go.

What I’d really like you to take away from this write-up is that you can improvise around your partner’s experience, provided you’re sufficiently in sync with them. For example, if you have a playful, cat-coded partner that keeps bapping the toy with their paws, chuckle, and let them. You can still ask them what they like about it, and if they’d like to try being hypnotized. In addition, you can also just ask them to “be good and put their paws down.” If you have a pet dynamic with them, withdraw the toy, and tell them you can try again later. They probably want to be zonked, and even if it’s adding a bit of a delay to your session, your reinforcement of the dynamic will likely be appreciated.

To be forthcoming, I usually don’t use props in most of my hypnosis. I was, however, confident enough in my ability to improvise that I was talking smack along the lines of “how the hell do people not know how to use this?” It came up after someone complained that their partner could swat at the crystal and play with it. How the hell could a hypnotist not know how to handle that situation?

You can imagine how I felt, when, the first time I pulled it out to show a friend, the exact same thing happened to me.

My friend, after pulling out the crystal, started swatting right at it like a dog. I chuckled, telling them I just got the asset, and I was trying to get comfortable with using more props. They continued playing with it, and as they mentioned they liked the look of it, I brought it closer to them so they could inspect it. Without hesitation, they started nosing up against it, toying with it.

“Ah hey, let’s see if you can balance it on your nose!… Good girl! Focus!… Focus!”

Snap!

And that was that. I led right into a rapid induction, gave them a quick zonk, and we chilled out and chatted about it.

Let’s say that didn’t go as planned. We’re both awkwardly staring at each-other, the magic was broken, and your dreams of using a rapid induction were dashed. Firstly, I’d start by asking how my partner was doing and how that felt. They might have changed their mind, found it too goofy, or even on the finger-snap gave all their focus to you. Put the prop away for a second and chat it out. Ask what they were noticing before you attempted a rapid induction. Acknowledge it, and see if they’d enjoy something a bit gentler - perhaps they felt pressured or rushed. Maybe today’s just not a great day for hypnosis for them. Or - maybe some of your suggestions weren’t landing earlier.

It’s all right. This is either a lead-in to try something else, try again, or put hypnosis and the prop back on the shelf for the night. The worst that will happen is you’ll learn something about your partner, yourself, or how to enjoy your time with them. There’s also a decent chance that your partner is used to other types of inductions, or is brand new to the scene. In that case, you’ll want to take your time with them, checking in on what they’re noticing and building it up slowly.

Hope this helps!