001 - What Is Hypnosis
So What’s Hypnosis, Anyway?
Who the fuck knows.
For me, it’s a fun obsession that lets me melt people with just my words, a way to let go to another hypnotist, and even an intense and vibrant community.
But that’s just me. Here’s some other definitions that I like - my favorite is from Binaural Histolog.
Hypnosis is a combination of guided meditation and the children’s game Simon Says.
Or, for the more academic…
“Volitional actions are experienced as involuntary… and imagination is experienced as reality.”
-Zoltan Dienes (Lecture Available Here)
Optional Reading - More on what hypnosis is.
Already want to dig deeper? Cool!A social psychologist griped about the number of different ways hypnosis could be approached. In this paper, he later tries to propose a solution to allow hypnosis easier to study, removing the presupposition of the existence of trance.
Hypnosis… has been treated as a social construction, a form of discourse, a set of practices, a belief system, and a form of therapy. Forecasts of the future would follow one path if I defined the subject matter, for example, as a set of practices designed to influence psychological change and a different path if I focused on the mentalistic construction of hypnosis as an altered state of consciousness.
-Theodore R Sarbin https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/10282-004
As a social dynamic, Anthony Jacquin defines hypnosis with this…
For practical purposes as The Hypnotist, think of it this way:
The Hypnotist presents suggestions to the subject and the subject experiences the effect of those suggestions with a sense of involuntariness.
Understand—your job is to turn a doing into a happening.
-Jacquin, Anthony. Reality is Plastic. The Art of Impromptu Hypnosis. (p. 36). Anthony Jacquin. Kindle Edition.
Rambling on, state theorists will say hypnosis is an observable state of focus and suggestibility, and people coming from a cognitive-behavioral perspective will say that all we’re doing is phenomenological control, directly suggesting feelings, and the trance is a subjective experience.
If you’re not a researcher, pulling this apart is like trying to scientifically make the purest cookie. In searching for the purest application, you’re going to remove all the flavor and fun from this ritual of suggestion.
So, my suggestion to you is to spend some time as a subject and experiencing hypnosis. It’s fine to just be straight-up and explain your curiosity at a meet. A lot of folks in the VR hypno community will be happy to give you a first session - especially if you present yourself with an open, respectful, and appreciative attitude.
If you want some DLC, I rant even more about what hypnosis is in the Mind Play Bonus Bits guide, The Fuck is Hypnosis.
What’s it Like?
This differs from person to person! For most people, trance itself feels like a profound state of dissociation, relaxation, and comfiness. For others, their thoughts slow down as they find it easier and easier to listen to their hypnotist’s voice. Working with a street hypnotist, it can be pretty entertaining to experience a “WTF my hand stuck to my leg?!”
But, for the hypnotist starting out, it’s a fucking nerve-wracking ocean of anxiety.
That’s why you’re here! To step right into that anxiety and fucking do it anyway.
(Don’t worry - I’ll be ranting all about what trance is later.)
A Disclaimer
Nobody knows for sure how this all works.
While clinicians and academics are doing an excellent job at pulling apart the specifics, in the end for you and your trancee this is a subjective experience. The effects of hypnosis are applied psychology, while hypnosis itself is a social context and ritual of suggestion. Both of these are important for a solid understanding.