04 - About Safety

Safety should be part of your approach, not something you read about. Moreover, being aware of a risk does not mitigate it. Going slow and gradually escalating is a lot more fun than reaching a new high and never being able to hit that point again.

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 it’s usually 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.

Barring that, if you’re lucky, you can catch these early. It’s always okay to check in with your partner if something feels off about their expression or the way their breathing sounds. While it can be annoying if everything’s fine, pausing for a moment is much easier to work with than accidentally pushing someone into a rough headspace.

Well Shit They’re Abreacting

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 can be a stable anchor.

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.

Binaural Histolog - Risks

🦈 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 you run in to one of these, it’s ideal to drop the hypnotist/hypnotee roles as soon as possible, and look at it outside of the lens of hypnosis. Your partner is reacting emotionally - treat them as a person, not a subject. Be as straightforward as possible. They could just be having a bad day.

Stick around for a bit and just talk to them. If you think your subject will continue to abreact, 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 assist within the boundaries of your relationship. It should go without saying but if you end up in this situation, it’s a good idea to put things on hold for the night.

Transference and Frenzy

This is a surprisingly big one. It 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 gifts, 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.

Problematic Behaviors

While there are countless diatribes about abusive hypnotists, there’s very little out there mentioning play partners acting poorly or behaving irresponsibly. Outcomes are often worse when a subject gets in bed with an ill-intentioned hypnotist, but this doesn’t mean you can’t run in to a fair bit of trouble yourself, through no fault of your own. These range from mere annoyances that can be communicated through to truly damaging patterns.

Hypnotists are certainly not without their flaws. They are, however, by definition in a position of power. This makes it doubly important for you to both stay safe and act responsibly. If something goes wrong, the deck is not stacked in your favor.

Making Plans with Dick in Hand

We all know the Amazon rainforest would be a dangerous place to waltz in to without a guide. However, after two drinks, even Amazon.com becomes a hazard. It’s understandable to place an ill-thought-out order online, or in a subject’s case, ask to hand over control where it may be inappropriate.

Do your best to ensure your subject is sober and in a safe and stable frame of mind. Sometimes, individuals will ask for treatment that they can handle in discussion, but not in application. Or, worse yet, some people will be dishonest about their relationships, exploring hypnosis without letting their primary partner know.

By the way - this goes for you too. Don’t stick your dick in crazy. It’s up to you to figure out if you’re too impaired to do a session.

A Means to an End

In general, I encourage subjects and play partners to be “greedy.” It makes it a hell of a lot easier to give someone something they want when it’s made clear. Even if it’s not in your wheelhouse, it’s much easier to negotiate around.

Problems arise when you’re seen as a hypnotic gumball dispenser. Someone going around spray-and-pray style looking for sessions may not be the most supportive if something goes poorly during the session. Some individuals have unreasonable expectations of your abilities, or will be incredibly demanding for ‘follow-up’ sessions, ignoring your boundaries and time limits.

Similarly, your heartstrings are not off the table. It’s common to hear complaints about how long it’s been since someone’s had a session. This is merely an annoyance, but it becomes uncomfortable and unsettling when someone trauma dumps on you, attempts to bond, and then immediately afterward asks for a session. A particularly egregious example of this is from Mastering Erotic Hypnosis where individuals ”…Insist on follow up sessions to ‘fix’ problems that lie outside the framework of the actual suggestions in the initial session.” See the Troubleshooting chapter, under “Bratting or Self-Guiding. It’s worth a read.

*It’s worth noting that ‘bratting’ in this context is separate from it’s style of play, which is generally agreed upon beforehand, and the brat has consent to push their hypnotist’s buttons for funishment.

If you self-identify as a subject, it’s possible reading through this list of things going wrong will make you a bit queasy. It’s perfectly fine to ask for sessions, even if it’s a bit awkward. It’s just not cool to badger your potential hypnotist. Most of these issues are rarities in the community, but I want to make sure newbies are prepared for the potential worst.

Summer Vixen, a professional recreational hypnotist puts it this way:

“…almost all of my clients and prospective clients have been good, polite and respectful- but the most frustrating thing i’ve ever experienced was probably ‘I want to be hypnotized so badly that I’m okay with anything and I’ll say yes even to things I don’t understand’”

- Summer Vixen

So please, don’t feel this is about you as a subject. These are just things we need to look out for.

Not Taking No for an Answer

Some people just don’t take no for an answer. The worst of this comes if they react poorly when you draw the line. I’m not sure how to handle this one - I just want to let you know if this happens to you, you’re not alone.

Top Drop

While top/sub drop (NSFW link) is a relatively well known phenomena in kink circles, it’s not spoken much about in the context of recreational hypnosis. Any intense or meaningful experience can lead to negative physiological and emotional shifts either immediately afterwards or days later. If you kick it up a few notches, keep an eye on yourself and your partner. It’s customary to check in with each other both immediately afterwards, as well as after a few days.

Wrapping Up

Trust your gut, not what sounds good in the moment. After reading through these, it’s unlikely you’d still trust your pet hamster. Many of these patterns may be unintentional or simple circumstantial. While don’t want to make you paranoid, I do want to encourage you to be contextually selective.