220.04 - Fractionation

Fractionation is a friend with benefits! It’ll fuck you up. It’s pretty much bringing someone in and out of trance more rapidly than usual.

Here’s what we get from learning how to do fractionation:

This can be used as a general (fast and effective) deepener.
This also works as a reinduction trigger.
It can build a lot of expectancy (and possibly even dissociation) rapidly. Feeling someone hit you in the face with fractionation for the first time is a hell of a ride.
If you have a hypnosub that just wants to be melted - this is a great way to get cute bottom sounds out of them. Just fractionate them until the lines between trance are ‘blurry.’ (With consent.)
A practical application - fractionation is useful for helping people stay in trance, or at least get comfortable with going back in. Depression, anxiety, ADHD, and pain all suck and get in the way - fractionation can be a tool to quickly bring someone into trance, bring them back out, chat for a bit, and work on increasing that ‘trance time’ if you’d both like.

Get Comfy, Get Melty

Okay - so… Fractionating someone (or using a drop trigger) can be kinda shocking! Not just from the intensity of the experience, but the physical movements as well. Make sure they’re seated comfortably and those cute nerd glasses aren’t going to go flying if they drop like a rock.

There’s no scientific backing to this - so I’m on the edge of superstition, but the subjective experience of rapidly and repeatedly being fractionated can leave you feeling pleasantly fucked up. Some people call this “hypnodrunk,” and experience leaves you or your subject in a suggestible state. I know you’ve wanted to put in that order for $4000 of stuff from SeriousKit, but hold off until tomorrow and you can think with a clear head. (Also holding off on driving until you’ve got your shit together is a good idea.)

Doing the Thing

Some people make this too damn complicated. Hell, I’m doing this right now.

This deepening technique, also called “fractionation,” is the deepening technique of choice with those clients whose attention spans are diminished by their symptoms. That includes clients who are deeply depressed, highly anxious, in pain, and suffer attention deficit disorder. Fractionation can help such clients build a better attention span.

The technique involves doing a brief induction then giving the client already in some degree of hypnosis a posthypnotic suggestion that “the next time and each next time we do hypnosis together you can go into hypnosis both more quickly and deeply.” The client is brought out of hypnosis, then after brief discussion about his or her experience is invited to go back into hypnosis, ideally going into hypnosis more quickly and deeply as suggested. The procedure is then repeated at least a couple more times, but each time for just a little longer. In this way, the client starts to build focus and maintain it for longer and longer periods of time.

Yapko, Michael D; Yapko, Michael D.. Trancework: An Introduction to the Practice of Clinical Hypnosis (p. 268). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

So - how do we do it? Any way you like!

Suggest when you say awake, they’ll come back up to the surface. Sleep sends them back down each time.
You know that number awakener? Be an asshole and send them back down after hitting 9, suggesting they go deeper and more quickly each time.
Have your subject follow your finger in the same way.
Bring them out, and ask them to try to imagine what it’d be like if the next time you snapped your fingers, they’d go twice as deep. Wait until you see an understanding and snap away.
Check out the fractionation section on this Elman Induction demo.

It’s a bit of a trope to say “deeper each time,” but that doesn’t mean it’s ineffective. You can also ask what it felt like to them, and try to figure out how to increase this feeling. In the end, your secret sauce for suggesting fractionation does not matter much - almost anything will work.

Doing it Gently

Working in a recreational setting, or just want to be nice to your subject? ~~Sounds boring~~ I mean that’s great! Here’s a few comfy recommendations.

Just use the suggestions you used earlier for creating trance. Deeper, more relaxed, finding your voice easier to listen to, thought slowing down… whatever. Suggest they take as much time as they like to return to the surface.
Warn them beforehand, but use the number method from before.
Have them take themselves back in when they’re ready. Graham Old has a nice method for this (called PHRIT,) and it’s super cozy. Suggest that they take four deep breaths, and on the fourth breath out, they can release slowly, saying the word ‘relax’ in their mind, drifting all the way back down, perhaps even deeper.

Doing it Weirdly

These techniques and ideas are almost exclusive to hypnokink.

If your subject is into it - start slipping into your hypnotic voice. Do all the silly sneaky hypnotist things you’ve been tempted to - occasionally highlight words like deeper and relaxing, and then just go back to normal conversation. Keep looping through this until you can tease them about how close they are to trance, but when you switch to your ‘normal’ voice their focus returns. What a shame. (Of course, after a bit, give it your all to take them all the way in. It’s cute when they’re along for the ride and can only manage a few words in between your sentences. It’s great if you’re feeling the vibe of a villainous hypnotist for the night.)
Pause in the middle while fractionating with a cue - leaving them halfway in. Set up a trigger to bring them right to that state.

Other Tips

If they have trouble going deeper - bring them back to the surface, and give them some time for them to figure out what deeper would feel like them. Then take them there. This is important for suggestions like “doubling your relaxation” so your subject can actually like - figure out what that’s like. (Although, I prefer not to use numerical values. Twice as deep can be a buzzkill if you’re like ‘ah man I’m only a little more melted.’ Unfortunately that buzzkill also reduces expectation for all your following suggestions.)
The idea is not to bring someone all the way out of trance, but to just bring them to the surface if you’re going rapidly.
“Eyes Open. And close… that’s right… twice as deep… double it again, every single time.”
If you’re working with an experienced hypnotist as a subject, maybe crack a joke about going “Five Million Times Deeper… or eh, maybe just double it.”

Examples

Here’s some inductions off the top of my head that use fractionation in them.

Dr. Flowers - honestly, I think this is a great induction for beginners to learn due to it’s simplicity.
Elman Induction - say what you want about MMHA - but their approach to the Elman induction is top tier and slaps. (You can also read more about it from Graham Old for a less authoritative style.)