002 - Safety
While there’s a lot that can go wrong, here’s what I think is most likely to come up “early” in your journey.
Emotional Outbursts and Abreactions
Sometimes you hit a nerve. This can go all the way from causing discomfort to a complete outpouring of emotions, or even regression. Abreactions in a more general sense mean any weird response during hypnosis (EG: twitching, signs of discomfort,) but in recreational hypnosis we usually mean an unexpected outpouring of emotion.
The best way to deal with an abreaction is to avoid it in the first place. Do a vibe check with your subject, make sure they have their shit together for the day, and discuss the overall content of your session before you get started so you don’t step on a trauma button.
Abreactions very rare in recreational hypnosis, but since it’s happened to me, I want folks to be just as calm and prepared as the friend who took care of me. If you can - run a few drills of these suggestions so you come off as smooth and confident.
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.
🦈 A few more pointers...
- Remain calm. - Remind and reassure your subject they’re safe. - When bringing them back, keep talking, and *don’t give them space to think*. - Don't attempt therapy. - Don't tell them they need therapy or what to do - they probably fucking know. - Do put a pause on further play for the night.Expect to stick around for quite a while as your subject calms down. It’s a fuck of a ride.
If your subject abreacts - stick around for a bit and just talk to them as a friend. If you think your subject will abreact, it’s not ideal but you’re not obligated to keep playing with this person. Absolutely be supportive - but it’s not on you help them through their problems as a hypnotist. If you’re already friends, this is where you stick around and help them within the boundaries of your relationship.
Transference and Frenzy
This is a surprisingly big one. This applies more to hypnokink than recreational hypnosis, but it’s very easy for the tiniest amount of mutual infatuation to manifest into a full blown crush or obsession. It’s also impossible to describe how intoxicating it is to hear someone’s soft voice in your head as your own. Moreover, seeing your helpless subject under your control can stir up intense feelings of care and affection, to the point of wanting to shower them with tender touches and teasing. (I’m definitely not speaking from experience.)
If you feel things may head this direction, or you’re doing any sort of session that includes themes of dominance, submission, or ownership, a quick conversation about how you’d like the relationship to look after you’re done can help clear things up. Do this before your session, not after. On your awakener, you can suggest your relationship is returning back to normal - wiping any feeling of reverence or infatuation on the way out the door.
Being the hypnotist is fun as fuck - even addicting. In my own frenzy, I got blackout plastered and woke up with a pile of messages from subjects thanking me for the time they had. Thankfully, everything I did in that state was tame, consensual and playful. I still don’t think my obsession is healthy, and I now treat alcohol as a hard drug, but I’m not proud of myself in those moments.
Unresponsiveness and Bratting
Unfortunately, on multiple occasions, I’ve heard of a subject that refused to come back up out of trance. While they’ll either get bored and come out on their own, or fall asleep and wake naturally, this can be alarming (even terrifying) to a newer hypnotist. This can lead to behaviors where a bratty subject can demand care and attention for being ‘stuck’ in trance. There are also unfortunate instances where manipulative subjects will lie about their experiences, or maliciously modify suggestions to get attention.
While I feel you, as the hypnotist, have a responsibility to do your fair share to provide aftercare, nothing obligates you to continue play. For any reason - you can say no to working with someone in the future. You have just as much right to stop mid-session as your subject does. In the end, your subject is responsible for their own mind. You should absolutely be upset if your subject was not forthcoming about their mental state going in.
This isn’t to say bad rides and surprises don’t happen - they do. I’m saying leave your bullshit detector on if you see a pattern.
You can read about more of this in the book Mastering Erotic Hypnosis. I’ve taken some short-form notes on it here, but once you’ve got a few months of experience, the book is worth a read, even if I disagree with the model they use for how hypnosis functions.