04 - Over Time

While people are usually concerned about improving their overall suggestibility and response - I think this sets the wrong goal. If hypnosis is a skill as a whole, then we should look at it as a skillset.

Phenomena Types

Trance

Trance is usually the component of hypnosis people are are most concerned with and excited about. If you follow through with the concepts on the previous guides, I’m sure that your ability to dissociate and be absorbed will improve quickly. For me, it only took a few days worth of short sessions to improve, and I could reach pretty strong feeling of ‘depth’ after two weeks.

If this doesn’t work out for you - don’t stress it, keep at it, but also explore the plethora of other options hypnosis has to offer you. As Irving Kirsch explains and demonstrates, trance has very little, if anything, to do with response.

Motor Suggestions

Motor suggestions (heaviness, lightness, inability to move) are low-hanging fruit. You should improve quite quickly at responding to these. I feel these are more about letting them happen and noticing small differences than anything complicated.

Cognitive (EG - Amnesia)

These suggestions can be a sticking point for - well. Even experienced hypnotees and hypnotists. Your best bet is to start to break them into components:

Forgetting by remembering that you don’t need to remember something.
Remembering something else in it’s place.
Remembering that you don’t need to remember.
Remembering, then remembering that you can let go.
Adding on the ‘feeling’ of the ‘tip of the tongue’ sensation.
For forgetting something like your name - start by just finding yourself being unable to say your name, your mouth being unable to expel the sound, having the feeling of forgetfulness, and slowly suggest the name becomes more difficult to reach for.

These take some practice! If these ideas don’t work right out of the box, don’t stress it, it’s expected.

Fake It ‘till You Make It

This is heresy - but if something is getting in the way of you having a good time you can just comply with the suggestion. You can work on making the suggestion both feel and be more real later. It beats stopping a good night in it’s tracks. Besides - submitting to a suggestion is a lot more fun than feeling like you’re role-playing.

Overall Thoughts

Be patient and flexible with yourself improving your phenomena. You’ll have a better time reframing the phenomena you do have than struggling with creating something new every time.

It’s normal for your ability to create phenomena to fluctuate from day to day. You could be tired, stressed, uncomfortable, distracted, or just not be in the groove. Just come back to it later. There’s a lot of things that can contribute to a positive response - but frustration has never been cited as being helpful.

(Just have fun! It’s not a contest.)

Bonus Tier

If you really, really want some extra homework - you can learn to do self hypnosis. Unfortunately, most of the writing is around change-work and pain management, but with some creative thinking you can apply these techniques to your recreational antics. I can’t wholeheartedly recommend Alter Your Experience - it’s full of a lot of fluff… but it’s not a bad place to start, and most of the science is reasonably sound.

Another option is to learn to - you guessed it - do hypnosis. The only “downside” with this approach is you’ll start to analyze what your hypnotist is doing on the fly. I put downside into quotes since after a while, you’ll catch on to their intentions and be able to help their suggestions along. (You’ll be a bit harder to guide, but I’d hardly put that in the realm of bratting.) You could either start with my guide here, or my favorite book for beginners - Hypnosis Without Trance. Besides - when I was starting out and had trouble finding sessions, I was a hell of a lot more of an appealing partner when I could offer to switch.