Dunno where to put this thread, MPSIMS seems about right.
I’ve recently gotten into recreational hypnosis as both a hypnotist and a subject. While I am relatively new to it (have been doing it for a few months, whereas some of the people I’ve been in contact with have studied hypnotherapy professionally and have been doing this for decades), I’d argue I’m at least a halfway decent hypnotist.
Anyone else interested in hypnosis, on either side of the equation? Any other active hypnotists here interested in swapping advice?
(And no, recreational is not the same thing as erotic. Erotic is merely a subcategory of recreational. A very popular and fun subcategory. )
I remember a hypnotist being a big part of the first week of college (he came every year) and I think he would talk about “tracks” from time to time. Is there music involved? Some kind of subtle lower-that-we-can-actually-hear kind of thing?
Popular views of hypnosis are, 99% of the time, utter bunk. That is including much of the hypnokink work written by people who actually know better - a fantasy, little more. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw hypnotic trance portrayed in anything resembling accuracy, outside of certain specialists, usually people speaking of their own experience.
Limits and scope… hard to say. I’m still relatively new to this, and haven’t spent too much time chewing through the theory (and, indeed, part of the problem is that much of the literature surrounding hypnosis is steeped not in the language of science and research, but the language of spiritualism). Maybe I’ll just start by offering some of the things you can do…
Offer a tranced subject a vivid hallucination on any or all senses
Adjust feelings and thoughts in ways that do not fundamentally contradict with a person’s understanding of themselves
Reinforce certain mental associations (for example, linking a certain smell to thoughts of submissive obedience)
Help people form and create both tulpas and secondary personalities (warning: the latter is dangerous for the subject, and the former is very easy to mistakenly turn into the latter)
Make the entranced party perform certain actions - albeit nothing they would be fundamentally opposed to doing
Use post-hypnotic suggestions or triggers to get subjects to perform certain actions, seemingly independently of their control
Induce mild amnesiac effects, such as making their memory of what happened during the trance fuzzy, or making it so that they just can’t read certain things you write - especially useful when combined with a trigger that makes them think what they just read was something they just thought
Get someone off
There is a lot you can do, but it’s not really possible to do anything to a subject that they fundamentally oppose. There are pretty clear limits to what is possible, although you can do quite a lot by trying to gently nudge a subject towards being okay with something.
It’s also possible, if done unethically or very carelessly, to cause serious harm, but as long as you avoid certain points (like, say, splitting someone’s personality), it’s fairly safe to do.
From what I understand, the key thing is bringing someone into a state of focused relaxation, where they are concentrated but extremely relaxed. This can be achieved in multiple ways, but the important thing is not relaxation or sleep, but rather suggestibility - so while some inductions focus on achieving this relaxed state through “progressive relaxation”, where the hypnotist just gradually talks you down, slowly making you more and more relaxed until you are in that state, others involve finding some point where you are very suggestible (such as “pattern break” interruptions, where the hypnotist does something with a strong learned response, like going for a handshake, and then does something entirely different, leading to a moment of confusion where you are susceptible to suggestion), then use suggestions and deepeners to bring you to a more relaxed state. There are lots of different ways to bring someone to a trance state.
Keep in mind, I am an amateur. I have a few tricks up my sleeve that work quite well, including several which work, but where I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why. Like, why does this induce hypnosis? I have no idea.
What the hypnotist in question is probably talking about is hypnosis audio files, like what Vive or Isabella Valentine* produce. They often use different tricks to help invoke a state of focused relaxation and suggestibility - echoing voices, background noise, multiple layered tracks… They can be helpful, but they’re not necessary. I can (and usually do) trance people entirely through text chat.
*Note: Isabella Valentine went crazy after a while, and does quite a lot of things considered quite unethical within the community, like trying to get the subject “hooked” on her work and buying her other files. I recommend giving her a wide berth.
Masochism, insomnia, or a crappy work schedule would by my first guesses.
Let me tell you about an experience I had, perhaps you can comment on it.
I had a chance to be one of four people in a room for a half-hour or so. One of them was Kresin, the other two were colleagues of mine, whom I knew quite well. Kreskin’s accomplishments, of course, were the topic of discussion. Just out of the blue, Kreskin says to one of us “hold out your two hands, and put the tips of your index fingers together.” He does. “You can’t pull them apart,can you?” He laughs, an says no. Kreskin sayd “OK, now you can”. And he does.
Afterwards, I asked him why he couldn’t pull his fingers apart, he said “I don’t know, I just couldn’t”.
What was happening there? There was no stage audience to impress, Kreskin had no handlers to set anything up. He was on our turf.
I continue to maintain that this is fundamentally a non-expert opinion, but what I see happening here is setting up an expectation. You guys know who Kreskin is - he’s a mentalist, a hypnotist, and he’s good at this stuff. Out of the blue, he asks one of your friends to follow a command, and then suggests that he can’t do something. He’s basically primed your friend by his reputation to accept a waking suggestion, and your friend just went with it. Having asked a more experienced hypnotist, he said much the same. I personally know from reputation that there are some people that can do this to me.
I’ve always wondered, but I think the answer is obvious. In your experience does the subject need to be receptive to hypnosis? Put another way, if the subject is mentally saying to themselves “This is hooey and I won’t fall for it.” will hypnotism be effective?
I remember talking to my psych professor during a class break about this. I mentioned that I had difficulty speaking impromptu in front of a group. He said “Do you mind if I try something?” I agreed. He placed his index finger about six inches in front of my eyes, asked me to focus on it, then told me to follow it upward, even after in disappeared from view, i.e., trying to see it through the top of my head. Next thing I knew, he told me to open my eyes and he was standing about six feet away. “Very interesting”, he says. “We’ll try something later in class, if you agree.” (I didn’t)
What do you suppose the “Very interesting” comment was about?
It’s one thing if they’re not sure if it will work on them but want it to work, but if they reject the concept outright, if they don’t want to fall into trance, there’s really no way to force them.
Years ago I was doing research on hypnotism and recall/recognition at a University as a grad student. We recruited volunteers from campus, some happened to be non-traditional students.
One, a burly 40-ish guy, came into the lab area claiming “none of this stuff will work on me”, he didn’t believe in it, and was only doing it for the psych extra credit.
We used the Stanford Scales to gauge each subject’s susceptibility to hypnotism. One of the early tasks has the individual hold their arm straight out horizontally, and imagine the limb was immobilized, as if in a cast, so that they “couldn’t” bend it. Most people found it difficult to bend their arms, as this is low on the scale. This gentleman could not bend his arm, though he tried mightily.
At the end of the session, after being brought back to full “wakefulness”, he stated, “I told you it wouldn’t work,” all the while massaging his arm.
Budget Player Cadet: What convincer(s) have you found to be most effective with a general population? I tend to use either the balloon-and-book or individual swinging weights/pendulums, but both generally have an efficacy of roughly 50% of any random group I’m hypnotizing.
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