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pruning-the-minds-garden · 1 year

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Layered Best Practices in Erotic Hypnosis

To start with, a lot of people have called erotic hypnosis inherently risky - said that there is always risk of abreactions, of unintended consequences, of things going awry even if everyone does everything right - and I tend to agree with them. The point of learning and practicing safe(r) play is not to take hypnosis from a place of risk to a place of safety, but to reduce the risk.

With that in mind, lets talk about how to do erotic hypnosis better. Lots of other people have, lots of other people will, but talking about it again can't but help so lets. This list is geared toward scenes that do not feature things like consensual non-consent or its technical cousins, by the way. Those are perfectly valid forms of play not meant to be cast aside by this, they just aren't what I am talking about right now.

Best practices are divided into four broad categories, in my mind. They are:

Preliminaries - things you do before a scene ever begins that make it possible to do things more safely

Preliminaries

Most of these boil down to being up front, being honest, and making sure that both hypnotist and hypnotee have the same understanding of and expectations from a scene/trance before it ever begins. Not doing those things may make you feel like mind controlling super-villain, and may even work as well (or, occasionally, better) some of the time, but Ipromiseyou that over the long term they are not to your benefit. If you want to buildgenuine rapport, which is ultimately the Coin Of The Realm when it comes to hypnosis, you want to build trust, and the only way you do that is by being trustworthy.

((Oh, if you are the kind of person who responds to that by saying that your subject is probably going to be discarded in a month anyway when you are done with them, that you can just make a good first impression and that's enough... well that's a pretty fucked up thing to say,innit? Might want to think about your life a bit harder. Oh, and do please contact me so I can warn people about you. You are why we can't have nice things.))

Here are some ways you can do that:

Take time before a scene ever starts, and in plain (non-hypnotic) language describe the things that are going to happen during the trance.

Go over the broad kinds of language (permissive/seductive versus authoritarian/Dominant) you are going to use, the techniques employed (progressive relaxation, eye fixation, confusion, fractionation, etc) and the triggers and.or post-hypnotic suggestions given.

Ask for - and make sure you receive - their straightforward, unreserved consent before the scene ever starts.

Thishasto follow a description of the scene, obviously. If they don't know what they are consenting to, then their consenting to it is pretty pointless (see the note about CNC above). Aside from that, it is useful to get their preliminary consent for two reasons - it will make it easier for them to drop into trance for you, and it will giveyouconfidence before the scene ever starts. Getting them to say, with their conscious mind and full critical faculties intact "Yes I want this" is a powerful signal to their subconscious mind. It means that when you start swinging the pocketwatch, you'll already be halfway there. It is also a powerful signal toyouthe hypnotist, that you are doing something they want and they want you to do it the way you are - so go full steam ahead! That makes everythingloadsbetter.

Do not stray from the plan/description

I know that it's tempting sometimes to go off-script during a trance, to respond to their droppingsowell by taking the next step in whatever plan you two have... but don't. Really. Just don't. They agreed to a certain set of things, a certain list of suggestions and topics and language. They invested their trust in you to not try to slip in some other stuff while their conscious mind is impaired. Violating that trust is anassaultupon them, even if it doesn't seem at all violent (again, see the note on CNC above). Violating their trust is pouring poison in the well, and even if it doesn't ruin this scene or trance, even if it doesn't undermine their trust in you or ruin your relationship... it's an awful, shitty, terrible, fucked up thing to do. Even if you mean well.

If things are going so well that you want to change the plan, then youhaveto get their conscious consent to the change. Bring them out of trance, give them a few minutes to return to themselves / get a drink of water (pro-tip: offer them a drink they don't like, and see if they say no. If they can't say no to you,give them more time), and then ask them to consent to the change in plan before taking them back down. That is time well spent, and if you think I'm lying about that go Google "fractionation".

Extrinsic Safeties

When people use the word "safeties" this is often what they think about. These are the special things that people do to enable them to do everythingelsemore safely. These are things like...

Safeword Suggestions

One suggestion I recommend you nearly always start with is a safeword that someone can use in trance to stop the scene. The standard "yellow/red" works fine here, with "yellow" being a suspension of the suggestions/scene and "red" being a complete deactivation/removal of them. The advantage of going with something common is that there is already an association formed in their mind, and that will make the suggestion stronger. Make sure to emphasize that if either their conscious OR sub-conscious mind objects they can call out that safe-word while in trance, and have it take effect.

Just like a safe-word in any other BDSM context, this is not so much a new scene-stopping super-power as it ispermissionfor them to use powers they already had. Their sub-conscious will already stop a trance in many if not most scenarios where they'd call their safe-word, but you taking the time to set this up gives them implicitpermissionto use it if they feel uncomfortable. I recommend after you install this suggestion, you get them to use it several times to feel the effects - just make sure that they don't "red" themselves out of their own safeword.

Adjusting yourself into trance

One thing that can really mess up a great trance is your leg falling asleep, or cramping, or that old knee pain or back pain flaring up. Some hypnotees pride themselves in being able to "work through" this, in being so entranced that they are able to respond to suggestions even while they hurt... but hypnotists, don't be that guy. Don't ask them to do that. There is a better way.

Instead, saying something as simple as "if you feel uncomfortable, if something hurts or falls asleep, then move to eliminate the barrier to you falling more deeply, and notice yourself disappearing farther and farther into trance" can eliminate the problem entirely. Tying moving or adjusting yourself to falling more deeply, tying comfort to trance, makes your hypnotee more comfortableandmore entranced - everybody wins!

... and isn't that what hypnokink should be all about? ;)

Intrinsic Safeties

There are two main elements to making your suggestions/triggers more safe - avoiding open triggers, and hypnotic word choice. There are some issues adjacent to these as well, but since they generally fall under this umbrella then I think you can reasonably extend these lessons as necessary to encompass other situations.

Avoiding Open Triggers

I read a story on Literotica once that involved the trigger that the subject would get more aroused every time she saw a plane flying overhead. It was a great story, and that suggestions was totally hot.

Well... real life is not Literotica. You should not dothatthing in real life, because it is as likely to end disastrously as stupendously. You might come home to a totally wet, horny, sex-crazed girlfriend/wife/(insert non-female pronouns here also) and that might be the point... or you might come home to a furious partner, a partner crying their eyes out, or something even worse. It's a risk that - unless you can controlallthe variables - is not worth taking. That's where the concept of "open triggers" comes in.

Open triggers are post-hypnotic suggestions that can be (and often will be) invoked by anyone, anywhere, regardless of context. You may think that something is properly controlled by making the key word "papaya"... but what if she goes shopping and there are papayas? You might think only you will touch her left shoulder and right hand at the same time, then whisper in her ear... but for a lot of people, that's called a hug and word of comfort. Be careful with the triggers you set, and if there isanydoubt whether they can wind up being misused, rephrase them. The easiest and best way to do that is simply to add a situational/circumstantial note like this:

"Every time I say/do (x) you will do (y). If you are in a situation that doing so would make you profoundly uncomfortable, put you in danger or risk something bad happening to you, then this will fail. If someone other than me says/does (x) then this will fail."

It pays to take the time to CY(sub's)A.

Hypnotic word choice

There are some words that the sub-conscious just does not process well. The most well-known example is negatives - no, not, won't, don't, etc - and that is often used to craft double-binds or other NLP language tricks for conversational hypnosis. In my experience, some of the others can vary with the subject. For instance, some subjects do not understand high-dollar, 34-point-SAT words while in a trance. Others, whose first language is not English, might revert to an even more basic understanding of the language when some of their conscious faculties are off the table, not grasping things like idiom or even metaphor. You have to watch out for these.

Negatives are easy to deal with - you simply remove them where you can, and where it pays to do so. Include them withintentand with the understanding that your subject may not hear that one word in your sentence. Craft your induction and hypnotic language, including your suggestions, around that notion (Notice how, in the above example, I didn't say "will not work" but instead said "will fail"? Like that).

Other consideration are similar, but harder to predict in advance. That is why your first trance with a new subject should not be an immediate deep dive into their limbic system - don't jump to making them cum with a gesture, believe themselves to have different genitalia, or become a circus animal on command! Take them down, and explore a little bit. Ask them questions, see if they understand you... test the waters. Even after that first trance, it is worth taking things slowly and testing them as you proceed. When implanting triggers, make sure that your understanding of how they should work and their understanding of what they ought to be doing is, more or less, the same. If it's not, then find the problem and fix it before moving on. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to that, and that's precisely why you should be taking things slowly throughout.

Aftercare

Once the triggers are set, the suggestions given, and all your pieces are where you want them... then what? Do you just clap your hands and say "Wake up!" then get to business? Well, sometimes yes! Lots of other times, in fact most of the time... no. You need to ease your subject back to consciousness, and then make sure that everything worked well, that they are feeling alright, and take care of any needs they might have. If this sounds similar to how one acts at the end of a scene of suspension bondage or impact play or some other fairly racy form of bondage or sadism... there's a reason for that.

Like most of the other elements of this list, there are two main parts to aftercare: closing the trance, and checking-in afterward.

Closing the Trance

Nearly all hypnotic training manuals I have read talk about counting up at the end of a trance, and that's often an essential part of closing a trance. As a subject gets more and more experienced with trance it will usually become less and less necessary to do a long count-up, but you still should. It also becomes more important the more deep you go into trance, but depth is a funny thing and lets talk about that for a second.

Because the mind is an inherently subjective thing, "depth" of trance is all relative. Someone who has never been in trance will have, their first time, gone by definition deeper than they have ever gone before. Someone who has been in a thousand trances may only be going a tenth as deep as that time a hypnotist took four hours and a team of others, in an ideal setting, to get them suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper deep. The experience of the subject, the nature of the trance, and the relationship between the hypnotist and the subject will all influence the subjective experience they have of how deep they went. All of that will, in turn, influence how much cognitive recalibration (no don't hit them in the head! That was a joke, people!) they need before going about their business.

When in doubt, give them a count of five. If they still seem out of it, let them sit for a minute and give them another count of five. If you are unsure whether they are fully conscious yet, ask them if their name is something ridiculous - if they are able to tell you "no" then there is a good chance they have heard the Windows start-up sound play in their head already.

It is also a good idea to suggest to them that they are feeling refreshed, revived and ready to go about their day, or something similarly positive. Framing the trance in a positive way will help them to come out of it without feeling groggy or drained. Also, give them permission to move or stretch or do anything else they may need after sitting or lying down for what may have been some time.

Check-In

After the scene is done, after you've finished making them dance to your tune and cum their figuratively-literal brains out, it's time to make sure they enjoyed it. It's also time to see which parts you might change, to make the next one even better.

There is no guide to the questions you should ask during this check-in, but a good place to begin is to ask them to tell you how they feel about everything. Make sure to ask for positives, but also for negatives. Ask if the induction worked, was effective for them, if the language felt right, if the suggestions were fun and in keeping with their kinks. Ask if there was anything they'd rather younotdo in the future, and keep a note of that too.

(Also - a limit is not a thing to be pushed unless they give you permission to do it. Them telling you they hate clowns is not license to slowly introduce clowns, in the hopes that they'll fall in love with them because your voice is just that awesome. Don't be that guy. Respect their limits and listen to them when they tell you what they are.)

After all that is done, talk with them about your thoughts on what your next scene might entail. Ask them what they want to do, what sorts of things they'd find sexy or fun, and go from there. The core of any hypnotic partnership is rapport, and building rapport is about building trust. Trust has to be founded on mutual respect, in turn, or else it doesn't really mean anything.

That is, in purely practical terms, why safeties are important. By using them assiduously you prove that you are trustworthy. That's the best way to have people trust you enough so that they can put their brains in your capable hands, and have lots of sexy hypnotic adventures in future.

Included in my Index of Writings on Safety & Consent. Read more on the topic, by me and by others, at the link!

#hypnokink #safety #best practices #consent

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