hypnosisliker

[hypnosisliker]

we should start making zines about cool research papers

[hypnosisliker]

Typo detected in your induction. I win the argument

[hypnosisliker]

Road Testing a Colloquial Explanation of Hypnotic Fractionation

I've been reading through some conversations about what hypnotic fractionation is, and I wanted to try my hand at explaining it in a way that makes sense to me. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

While fractionation is a concept discussed among hypnosis practitioners, it isn’t native to the space. It’s actually better known as a chemistry term. For instance, blood fractionation refers to the separation of blood into red blood cells and plasma. We do this by inducing the plasma into a ‘phase transition,’ changing its state of matter into something more solid by affecting its temperature or acidity.

Fractionation in hypnosis, colloquially, has less to do with the ‘dividing one thing into multiple things’ part and more to do with the ‘phase transition’ part. But the states being changed aren’t states of matter, but ‘states’ (perceived or otherwise, don’t get me started) of ‘trance’ (or the experiences we associate with the concept, don’t get me started here either).

Time for an abbreviated history lesson! Fractionation was introduced into the hypnosis meta (lol) by Dave Elman in the 1960s as part of his Elman Induction—a notably fast and direct path into trance. Part of the induction involves asking the person being hypnotized to repeatedly open and close their eyes, suggesting that their relaxation doubles each time they do so. Assuming a rough association like open eyes = out of trance and closed eyes = in trance, that repeated mental shift is your phase transition. We now often replace the eye opening and closing with other actions or suggested sensations, but the process is otherwise largely the same.

My theory as to why it works? Any phase transition costs energy, whether that’s a state of matter or mind. Beyond any hypnotist-supplied suggestion for relaxation, it’s essentially a more pleasant form of whiplash. That would explain the oft-described increased disorientation, sensitivity, and perhaps even focus if the hypnotist establishes any sensory or conceptual anchors prior to the process.

[hypnosisliker]

I did it. I got asked about this for the 100th time and now it's an essay.

Do you, dear reader, have ADHD or some other neurodivergence-classed diagnosis and worry that hypnosis might not work for you? Read on.

I’ve thought fairly long and hard about how to write about this without just dumping a several thousand word treatise on neurodiversity, ableism, and hypnosis on y’all, and I think the best thing to do is start with a hot take and go from there. I’ve tried to be comprehensive and clear for any newbies, so people with a lot of experience with this issues might feel like I’m taking a lot of words to say some things that are very simple:

So. Being neurodivergent is not a barrier to hypnosis.

While there are aspects of the experience of neurodiversity – things like the difficulty of communicating across gaps in experience – that can be a hindrance, these are individual traits that are not restricted to or generalisable within a diagnostic clade.

It is also not true that neurodiverse people of a given category are particularly compatible or incompatible with certain hypnotic approaches. For example: a hypnotee with ADHD may find it very easy to fixate or hyperfocus on a visual stimulus, or they may find it seemingly impossible to focus on something so boring. Different people mesh well with different approaches, and what is going to work for a given person is something dependent on how they experience things.

It is my belief that categorical statements about the ability of people with ADHD to engage with a given approach are rooted in ableist stereotypes of people with ADHD, and trying to categorise subjects by diagnosis and assign an appropriate intervention or hypnotic approach for that diagnosis is not a thing anyone should do.

This doesn’t mean that you should just ignore cognitive diversity when doing hypnosis – quite the contrary, hypnotic play is cognitive play, and so we should pay close attention to how our partner is thinking. What it means is that you shouldn’t make assumptions about how a person thinks based on their diagnosis. The best way to find out what will work for yourself or someone else is to experiment with different styles, talk about what did or did not work, and communicate as best you can about how you experience hypnotic play.

I want to stress as a person with ADHD that I am not intending to dismiss or invalidate the difficulties that anyone may personally experience in being able to play with hypnosis. Rather, I’m wanting to make clear that the best way to figure out what works for you is to explore your individual experience.

Let’s say that I’m a person with a diagnosis like ADHD and am struggling with hypnotising or being hypnotised. What can I do?

Well, to start with, try something else. A good rule of thumb is that you should be feeling engaged with the hypnotic content or hypnotist: if files aren’t working for you, try a few different live hypnotists. If relaxation isn’t your jam, try a different induction style.

Often, it’s pretty apparent why hypnosis won’t work for someone: Do you feel like the way you’re being hypnotised is boring, find one that’s less boring. Do you feel like you don’t know what a suggestion means or how you’re supposed to feel? Then find a way to frame that suggestion that makes sense to you or ways of describing feelings that are consistent with your lived experience.

If it’s not obvious what’s not working, you might try talking to someone – it doesn’t have to be your partner or even a hypnotist – about what you experience versus what you’d like to experience. Or you can just try different stuff all willy nilly.

Just don’t trick yourself into thinking that there’s only a certain way that works for you. Being hypnotised is a skill, and once you’ve figured it out, you might go back to approaches that didn’t work for you in the past and find that they’re fantastically fun and effective now that you’re better at slipping into the right kind of headspace.

And please, communicate.

To wrap up, there’s a lot of general advice that could apply to people who are having trouble hypnotising and being hypnotised, and I’m simply not going to be able to summarise it all here. The best advice I can give is for anyone who’s struggling to try to articulate as best they can what they expect hypnosis to be like, what they’ve experienced so far, and what the disconnect between the two is. With that information and a bit of learning – from books or from asking questions –, you should be able to find a way that works for you.

[hypnosisliker]

one of the best academic paper titles

[hypnosisliker]

Hypnosis vs Trance

Here's my thesis: there is no hypnotic trance, it's hypnosis AND trance. Hypnosis and trance are often correlated, but they're not same.

Hypnosis is an intention to believe and follow suggestions automatically, an activity of phenomenological control. We can see this intention at the very beginning of the Elman induction, during the eye lock.

The Elman eye lock goes "Close your eyes. Imagine that your eyelids are so heavy that they just won't open. When they are so heavy that you know they won't open, then go ahead and try to open them." Right there is the core principle of hypnosis: believe these things are true, and behave accordingly.

Another variation is seen with the automatic imagination model, which asks the hypnotee to imagine not imagining through willing suspension of disbelief.

The format of these sessions resembled a normal conversation where the hypnotist simply asked a series of questions and gave clear instructions, and the subject remained awake and fully alert throughout. "Can you imagine that your hand is stuck to the table?" - "Can you continue to imagine that and also imagine that you’re not aware that you’re imagining that, like it’s happening by itself?"

and all people need is a context saying "we're doing hypnosis, here's how it works" to get started. Likewise, post-hypnotic suggestions imply that people can follow hypnotic suggestions without being in an explicit trance.

And because there's a thing called "waking hypnosis" in which the hypnotee responds to suggestions while being apparently fully conscious, without an induction or a trance... all that's left is hypnosis.

As an example, Martin Taylor is a hypnotist who does not use inductions. He does just fine.

There's no question that you can really zonk people out with hypnosis, whether you call it trance or not. Cardeña has a paper on deep hypnosis states and neurophenomenology but I'm not going to dig too much into it here. It does seem like hypnotic coma and plenary hypnosis are the same thing. I'm not going to go into what trance is, or exactly what zonking/deepening entails. Honestly, I think trance by its nature is subjective, and so is up to individual interpretation.

Instead, what I'd like to dig into are the attempts of Kirsch and Lynn to remove the brainworm of trance from the conversation in a series of papers over the years.

It's 1995. Kirsch & Lynn are not thrilled about the word or concept of trance, and detail the "state vs non-state" positions.

At one end of this continuum are scholars who espouse the concept of hypnotic state in its strongest possible form, as a condition that is fundamentally different from normal waking consciousness and from other altered states, such as daydreaming and relaxation. [...] At the other end of the continuum are theorists who use the term state to describe hypnotic phenomena but deny that it explains or causes those phenomena in any way; those who acknowledge allegiance to the state construct but then ignore it entirely in their theories of hypnotic responding; and those who explicitly reject the hypnotic state construct as inaccurate and misleading. Surprisingly, this latter group now includes some prominent Ericksonian clinicians (Zeig & Rennick, 1991) who maintain that the concept of trance has little explanatory value and claim that it only distracts from their preferred emphasis on hypnosis as an interpersonal process. Between the two extreme positions on the state issue, there is a concept of trance as an altered state, one that is not unique to hypnosis. [...] The problem with these definitions of trance is that they are too inclusive, loose, and imprecise to be subjected to empirical study. Without some means of determining whether a person is in trance, it is impossible to test any hypotheses about the effects of trance.

The paper continues in this vein, finally arguing that trance is not a useful way to think about hypnosis.

There are two sets of data that have led to a convergence of opinion on the state issue among most researchers. The first is the very modest effect of hypnotic induction on suggestibility. Most people are almost as responsive to so-called "waking suggestions" as they are to the same suggestions given in a hypnotic context (E. R. Hilgard, 1965). The second is the consistent failure to find any reliable markers of the hypothesized state. Erickson's (1941 /1980) hypothesized behavioral markers (literalism, catalepsy, and amnesia) have either failed to distinguish hypnotized from nonhypnotized participants (Green et al., 1990) or have been shown to be products of participants' perceptions of the hypnotic role (Orne, 1959; Young & Cooper, 1972). Similarly, no physiological or even self-report markers of a hypnotic trance have been found (Dixon & Laurence, 1992; Kirsch, Mobayed, Council, & Kenny, 1992). [...] Having failed to find reliable markers of trance after 50 years of careful research, most researchers have concluded that this hypothesis has outlived its usefulness.

It's 2000. Kirsch takes aim at the loose conceptualization of trance in this beautiful piece of snark.

A second point of agreement is that many hypnotized subjects experience themselves as being in a special state of consciousness denoted by the term trance. Nonstate theorists do not reject the proposition that these experiences are real , although in many cases they may merely be deep relaxation interpreted as a hypnotic trance because they happen to be occurring in a hypnotic context. [...] There is yet another variant of the trance position that must be considered. Some writers see trance as an altered state, but not as one that occurs only in hypnosis. Trance may be identified as a state that often occurs in nonhypnotic contexts, such as daydreaming, absorption, focused attention , or concentration. Spiegel (1999), for example, has identified the hypnotic trance as "just a shift in attention." This very popular type of definition is consistent with nonstate formulations of hypnosis. It may indeed be true that responding to suggestion requires absorption or concentration. But if the hypnotic state is merely narrowly focused attention or absorption, then most people are in a hypnotized state when studying for or taking an exam, driving a car, watching a film, or engaging in any other absorbing task. What is accomplished by calling these instances of hypnosis? It tells us nothing new about studying, driving, responding to suggestion, or any other activity that requires focused attention, and I cannot imagine us ever convincing the larger scholarly community that research on attentionally demanding tasks is by definition research on hypnosis . The term focused attention has the virtue of being more descriptive than the term hypnosis, and it has less surplus baggage associated with it. So if hypnosis is nothing more than a state of focused attention, perhaps we should consider names like American Journal of Focused Attention and American Society for Clinical Focused Attention as more accurate labels for our journals and organizations.

It's 2007. Lynn and Kirsch take another shot in Hypnosis And Neuroscience: Implications For The Altered State Debate. There's some pushback on their earlier papers.

Gruzelier (2000) proposed that an integration of neurobiological and socio-cognitive perspectives could promote the understanding of hypnosis and its humanistic applications. He further stated, ‘… hypnosis is an altered state of brain functional organization …’ (p. 51). Under a heading ‘The death knell of neurobiological investigation: the rush to judgment’, Gruzelier (2000) states, ‘Kirsch and Lynn (1998) and Wagstaff (1998) claim that no marker of a hypnotic state has been discovered after decades of investigation, and that the search for one should be discontinued. A neurobiological explanation does not exist. Neurobiologists may rightly wonder how such an unworldly view exists’ (p. 52).

And while they admit that they did say "trance should go live on the big farm up state" they also say that maybe if it could be measured in something other than handwavey feels it might be more useful.

In our 1995 review (Kirsch and Lynn 1995), we did state that after the failure to find reliable markers of trance after 50 years of careful research, ‘most researchers have concluded that this hypothesis has outlived its usefulness’ (p. 853). However, we went on to say that this state of affairs did not preclude the possibility that such indicators would eventually be discovered, and we underscored the importance of identifying the physiological substrates of hypnosis. Far from declaring the issue dead, we identified three ways in which scientists could usefully approach the question of identifying the physiological substrates of hypnosis: (1) identify the physiological substrate of the hypothesized hypnotic state; (2) identify the physiological correlates of differences in hypnotic suggestibility; and (3) determine the physiological substrates of responses to suggestions.

And it turns out that as of 2007, technology has advanced to the point where poking at brains does show that hypnosis does do some things.

The present chapter is written in the spirit of fostering a congenial dialogue between state and non-state theorists (Kihlstrom 2003). We will review studies relevant to each of the three ways we proposed to address the question of the physiological substrates of hypnosis, including studies that Christensen (2005, p. 286) identified as representing ‘replicated research over the past 2 decades supporting state-based theories of hypnosis’.

However, there's a problem. Trance is subjective, and trance itself may be a product of suggestions in the hypnotic induction.

The design also fails to address the critical issue of the causal role of the trance state in producing other suggested subjective experiences. Hypnotic inductions are suggestions to experience a trance state. [emphasis added] For that reason, they should produce altered subjective states in many people, and these altered states should possess neural substrates (Kirsch and Lynn 1995). It is not clear that the experience and neural correlates of trance would be the same for all hypnotized subjects or even all virtuosos. Having different pre-conceptions about trance might lead to different subjective states and therefore to different neural substrates. In any case, the altered state hypothesis does not concern the existence of these altered states, but rather their hypothesized causal role in producing other hypnotic phenomena.

And the paper's conclusion: those studies are just showing evidence of suggestions, rather than of a base hypnotic state.

[...] Research in this area has succeeded in finding baseline correlates of suggestibility, effects of induction procedures and effects of other specific suggestions. Perhaps the most important finding to date is the specificity of neurological effects in response to the specific wording of suggestions. The neural concomitants of suggested analgesia, for example, seem to depend on the specific suggestion that is used (Rainville et al. 1998). This finding, however, also points to one of the weaknesses of some of the research. In particular, there has been a tendency to confound induction with suggestion variables, i.e. subjects either receive or do not receive a hypnotic induction and then are given a suggestion to experience a particular effect. However, the wording of the suggestion following a hypnotic induction differs from the wording of the suggestion given without the induction. This confound renders it impossible to ascertain what is responsible for obtained differences, and this problem is compounded by the finding that neural activity may be exquisitely sensitive to suggestion wording.

It's 2010. The Clinical Handbook of Hypnosis has two chapters. One says that state might be a thing. The other one (Wagstaff, David, Kirsch, and Lynn) points to the first chapter and says state has still not been shown to be a thing.

No specific physiological markers of the hypothesized hypnotic states have been found (Lynn, Kirsch, Knox, & Lilienfeld, 2006; see also chap. 4, this volume)

It's 2016. A new book comes out, Hypnotic Induction: Perspectives, Strategies and Concerns. It says that trance is a thing, much to the consternation of Kev Sheldrake in his review.

I’ve been operating under the assumption that the induction was just a suggestion to enter an imagined hypnotic state, but I had to read this book to realise the ferociousness with which some academics still (and I mean still) imagine that state to be real. As a final thought, if there isn’t anything magical going on during an induction, and an induction is just made up of words (no mesmeric fluid or invisible energy passing from hypnotist to participant), and practically anything can be used in place of an hypnotic induction (placebo pill, for example), then what else could the induction be, other than a series of suggestions? And what, other than a suggested state, could those suggestions suggest?

It's 2020. Lynn & Kirsch are frustrated that papers are still turning up discussing "trance" as being inextricably tied to hypnosis.

Surveys of students from various countries (Green, Page, Rasekhy, Johnson, & Bernhardt, 2006) document the wide prevalence of a number of myths and misconceptions we review. A powerful engine driving these myths is the popular media, including movies, television, and the Internet, which capitalize on the core myth that hypnosis is “an altered state of consciousness quite different from normal waking consciousness” (70% agreed, Green et al., 2006); termed by many, a trance. The myth of trance is arguably the mother of all myths [emphasis added] and has birthed many related myths that we will discuss. The idea that hypnosis brings about a trance state was first popularized in Du Maurier's blockbuster novel, Trilby (Du Maurier, 1894/1999), in which Svengali—a name now synonymous with a brutal manipulator uses hypnosis to ply the ill-starred Trilby to his will. De Maurier portrayed hypnosis as a sleep-like trance state that produced amnesia, loss of control and willpower, and special abilities (e.g., Trilby became an opera diva). The term “trance” is still featured in titles (and contents) of articles in influential hypnosis journals (e.g., Wickramasekera II, 2016) and unfortunately still carries the baggage of its historical roots.

Again, the paper points out that trance is either not defined or defined so broadly as to be useless.

Hypnotic trance is rarely clearly or explicitly defined by researchers or clinicians, and the nature of this hypothesized state has been described in a plethora of contradictory ways (see Kirsch & Lynn, 1995). One definition is that hypnotic trance is “the cognitive end state produced by a hypnotic induction procedure” (Halligan & Oakley, 2014, p. 111). While the authors are among the few to actually define “trance,” broad definitions place no constraints on the nature or constituents of this state, which is often the case when this term is used. In the absence of reliable physiological markers, it is generally operationalized by self-report of its presence.

The paper then goes on to break down some myths that you can reliably test for a hypnotic state. It's a great overview, you should check it out.

Despite concerted attempts, researchers have not succeeded in finding purported markers of the hypothesized hypnotic state. For example, Lynn et al. (2008); see also Lynn & Rhue, 1991) found no reliable evidence that hypnotic and nonhypnotic conditions differ in terms of (a) literalness of response to a series of questions (e.g., saying “no” to the question or negative shaking of the head in response to the question, “Do you mind telling me your name”); (b) trance logic (i.e., heightened tolerance for logical incongruity/saying a hallucinated person appears transparent), or the hidden observer phenomenon (i.e., a hidden part of consciousness directs behaviors/experiences, while another part, separated by an amnesic barrier, is unaware and responds in a manner consistent with suggestions). Either no differences are evident across hypnotic and nonhypnotic comparison conditions (e.g., nonhypnotized imagining participants or individuals who role play or simulate hypnotic responses: literalism, trance logic) and/or the findings are determined to be the product of suggestion or experimental demands (i.e., hidden observer) rather than an altered state unique to hypnosis (Kirsch & Lynn, 1998). [A larger study] failed to find support for the claim that eye behaviors index a hypnotic state.

It's 2024. The Routledge International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis just came out. Lynn argues that hypnosis is independent of trance explicitly.

A cornerstone of our theory is that hypnosis unfolds independent of a background “trance” or special state of consciousness unique or specific to hypnosis. We argue that such a state is rendered irrelevant by findings that different hypnotic suggestions (i.e., direct imaginative suggestions) elicit diverse experiences and attendant alterations in consciousness (e.g., sensations, cognition, emotions, perceptions, memories), behaviors, and psychophysiological responses (Landry et al., 2017; Lynn et al., 2007), and no special state is required to experience a gamut of suggestions.

Let's hope it takes this time.

[hypnosisliker]

Academic Papers on NLP

From one of my reddit comments...

So the best introduction to NLP is this video by Irving Kirsch. Here are the slides.

But if you want to really research NLP, you should get into the original papers. This is great fun and relatively easy these days. If you have Zotero and the Scihub plugin for Zotero, you can plug in any DOI link and it'll come up. You may have additional papers that you want to pull from citations; I use Semantic Scholar to turn citations into DOI links that I can get Zotero to pull.

So here's my research on NLP (if you copy and paste the URLs into https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/ they'll give you the PDFs):

Predicate Matching in NLP

The Eyes Don’t Have It: Lie Detection and Neuro-Linguistic Programming

Research findings on neurolinguistic programming: Nonsupportive data or an untestable theory?

Mental imagery as revealed by eye movements and spoken predicates: A test of neurolinguistic programming

Neuro-linguistic programming treatment for anxiety: Magic or myth?

Double hypnotic induction: An initial empirical test

Neurolinguistic programming: a systematic review of the effects on health outcomes

There's also the papers that Michael Heap did:

Neurolinguistic Programming - An Interim Verdict

Neurolinguistic Programming: What is the Evidence?

Neurolinguistic Programming: A British Perspective

The Validity of Some Early Claims of Neurolinguistic Programming

Also recommended is @ellaenchanting's overview and Wordweaver's discussion on what NLP repackaged.

[hypnosisliker]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

[hypnosisliker]

got brainwashed so much i have a voice in my head trying to brainwash me even more

i should listen to it...

[hypnosisliker]

Why The Chicken Thing Isn’t Pet Play*

*except when accounting for the infinite variety of human sexuality, desire, and experience

A dear friend was recently talking about her ventures into crow/raven based pet play, and I commented on how birds are sometimes under-represented or under-explored in discussions of pet play. I amended that to say, well, except for hypnokinksters who are into The Chicken Thing.

My friend responded that The Chicken Thing does not count. (She expanded this statement similarly to the footnote above.)

I found this sentiment very interesting and intuited that it said something true, so I shared it with my girlfriend @lyricalagony, who gave a pretty brilliant summation that works as a good starting point for this discussion:

“There’s no interiority to it.”

I think for most kink participants, what gets grouped as “pet play” is experiencing either the mindset or the circumstances of the animal in question, with optional intersection with the relationship that the animal has to a person. And the most common form of the trope of hypnotizing somebody to act like a chicken is adamantly not about that.

As stated: there is no interiority to it. It’s not about the mindset of a chicken, or a human’s relationship to a chicken. It’s about demonstrating power over a hypnotized person to the point where the hypnotized person will act like a chicken. The state of mind is arguably much less important than the tropey, codified actions of the hypnotized person; the trope can be played out equally well with a subject who believes they are a chicken, is entirely mindless and acting on command, or is conscious and a prisoner in their body for the duration. This can be just about demonstrating power, or it can be about exhibitionism, or it can be about humiliation. But it is rarely about experiencing being a chicken. 

To the extent that the hypnosis routine is about experiencing being a chicken, or about a human’s relationship with a chicken, it’s in the sense that chickens are often (popularly?) thought of and treated as equipment, pests, or toys - at least among most people who don’t actually raise them. It’s telling that when Disney made a chicken into a mascot animal, the joke was that the chicken wasn’t anthropomorphized at all. Effectively, chickens are a creature that most people are encouraged not to relate to or sympathize with, and the trope of making someone act like a chicken is tied up in the perception of a chicken as a common, undignified, and unsympathetic creature.

In short: the most common version of the trope of hypnotizing someone to be a chicken isn’t pet play. It’s objectification. And it’s kind of neat how that says something about how chickens are perceived in the popular conscious that birthed the stage hypnosis routine.

[hypnosisliker]

man, I hate how difficult it is to find consistently good hypno stuff out there. Hypno isn't hard to find, but finding blogs or whatever that share our taste consistently enough to be worth following is a huge fuckin pain. Where's the hypno that focuses on the comfort of the subject before busting out "You belong to me, the hypnotist, now"? Where's the hypno that's not about being sexual, even if there's a focus on pleasure? Where's the hypno that bothers to earn its power over you?? That takes your hand and leads you gently into trusting, safe trance? That doesn't ask you to perform desperation or submission out the gate, or maybe even ever? I want to be brought into trance, inspired to submit, I want to want to obey, not just to be told to.

[hypnosisliker]

guys I’m starting to think hypnokink is the kink for nerds

[hypnosisliker]

Alright this is apparently an issue so for any hypnodom reading this I need you to do something for me.

Respect the way up.

The way down into trance is often hard and requires a fair amount of effort from both people. The way back up out of trance *is the exact same*

Subs often have a difficult time getting themselves out of trance/fully ridding themselves of the effects of it, and this only gets worse the deeper they go and the more triggers you implant. So after you've finished breaking their mind, you need to help them piece it back together. This is part of the aftercare of a hypnosis session and it's absolutely non negotiable.

There's many ways to help someone come back to themself, but personally, I recommend instilling a safeword trigger and a recede trigger. The difference is a safeword trigger instantly breaks trance, but is much more jarring because of it, while a recede trigger allows for a slower, more controlled ascent out of trance. For example, I've given some of my subs a mental red button they can press whenever they need too which allows them to regain control of their body and mind. This is their safeword trigger, and they are able to use it on themself (which is what makes it effective). I've also given them a recede trigger that I use in the exact same way I use the trigger to drop them into trance. It lets me stay with them and help them properly regain their bearings and thoughts again as they come out of trance.

[hypnosisliker]

Do you have any tips for writing hypnosis scenes/ scripts? I’ve been trying to improve my writing and you really nailed what I’m going for

The thing that makes hypnosis writing effective for me is descriptive writing. Honestly, it's not very different from normal fiction writing in that sense. You wanna have the reader need as little brain power to bridge that gap between what you're saying and what they're imagining. Think about the senses they would feel, the power and push and pull of the forces in their head, how they might start to drift off and need to be told to focus again. Sensory writing, appealing to sight, sound, smells, anything that lets someone believe the things you're saying is what really makes hypnosis effective.

In terms of effectiveness for triggers, you need very solid communication. That's to say, describe exactly what they are going to feel, how strong they will feel it, what senses they will experience and how. The stronger you want a trigger to work, the more time you need to build it up. Bring the tension and expectation in their mind higher and higher until their subconscious is practically begging for it. At that point, their mind will do the rest for you.

[hypnosisliker]

I'm leading a text study on Milton Erickson at Charmed this coming weekend, and there's been some discussion around learning from Erickson so I wanted to make this little guide of tips I'd give to someone trying to read his book (my favorite) "Hypnotic Realities"! A lot of this is relevant to other hypnosis books too!

If you're coming to Charmed, we're going to have an excellent time at the class! Hope to see you there!

[hypnosisliker]

Ooh I've got a question! When improvising the specifics of an already negotiated scene, I find myself taking long pauses just to come up with ideas for the next suggestion or two.

If this were improv where someone else was chiming in, I'd have time to come up with something new to say as they were talking; But alas, just me. So any time I take to stop and think feels like a pause.

Do you have any advice on how to maintain flow in a scene?

A superb question and one I wished to give time and ensure I answered properly. Apologies for letting others skip the line ahead of you.

A negotiation is typically a framework for a scene. My first bit of advice is to ask about surprises and the spirit of the scene. Having some agreed upon surprises can give you a little something to fall back on to keep things spinning. For instance, I may negotiate a fractionation scene with some amnesia play in which at a certain point I will allow my partner to completely let go, so that the lost time grows more and more with every repetition until I am ready to enact a fantasy of complete helplessness. Then I would work out what level of comfort they have with knowing what will come, what they would imagine/enjoy in those gaps and such. A way of knowing what is within the bounds without committing anything to words so you can be flexible and build the idea into the play and have it grow organically.

And if no ideas come I have been known to just ask my partner to imagine I had done something flashy and imaginative. Because at times the best thing you can do is just lean into the role, even if you're not able to live up to your own hype.

Another bit of advice that plays into it is use fractionation and check-ins to buy time. Know your rhythm and the way your routine ebbs and flows and that will give you time to find your time to fit planning into the activity. The good thing about hypnosis is that bringing people up and down, stopping the play and starting again is all part of the fun.

Next, try to find out signals of what is working and what isn't in the moment. Nothing gets my inspiration more in the moment than feeling out my ideas and seeing something cause a reaction. It may be me using a number of words and seeing one of them causes just the bearest of whimpers or pleading eyes and that just makes me want to find that button and press it again and again.

Keeping the flow is all about seeing what works and keeping it going. Use breaks. Pre-plan and keep stuff in your back pocket and most of all have fun. That's the name of the game after all, isn't it?

[hypnosisliker]

Hypnosis and Dissociative Disorders

I've been meaning to write this since Charmed.

I shall not point fingers or name names but during Charmed 2024 there was a 101 class that taught that it was unsafe to play with those who dissociate as part of a mental illness. The graphic, which I'll paste below, used the word "Can't".

I wanted to speak to that.

Hypnosis has several different definitions. One could go to a hypnosis event and ask every presenter "define hypnosis in a single sentence" and get a different answer every class, likely a few may even contradict.

One such definition I could use is "Hypnosis is an altered state where a hypnotee is lead to a suggestible state where the hypnotee is dissociated from their conscious thinking." though one could say it is "an altered state that leads to breakdown in critical thinking and a heightened state of suggestibility" or you could start talking about the unconscious or subconscious mind.

Fact is, there's a lot of theory work at play and the language we use to shape the concepts isn't as important as understanding the concepts.

Dissociation is a natural part of hypnosis. It's also a natural part of existing. In much pre-talk patter we as hypnotists tend to ask an introduction level hypnotee to think about their experiences with time dilation, with highway hypnosis, with spacing out, with walking into a room and forgetting why you came in there.

Things so normal that as part of rapport, a hypnotist tends to assume the hypnotee can latch on to one of the concepts.

Dissociation is a spectrum. Literally. Within psychology the DES-II tool grades dissociation experiences on a scale, hence the acronym.

Graphic source

When people, including myself at times, describe dissociative disorders they tend to be referring to disorders that focus on dissociation as their main symptom. Depersonalization, Derealization and of course Dissociative Identity Disorder. Over the course of my life I have been diagnosed with all three.

But the scale includes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, both complex and standard. Complex simply refers to a level of trauma that has been ongoing long enough that it is not a single memory or incident that triggers the symptoms.

According to the American Psychiatric Association one in eleven people will be diagnosed with PTSD at some point in their life with 3.5m diagnosed per year in the USA.

Which is to say that dissociating as part of an illness includes 8% of the population. Does that mean 8% of all potential hypnotees are too dangerous to play with?

...the answer is not a clear cut, "no". There is some elevated danger. But rather than teaching people not to play with those who live with these experiences, perhaps we can teach why there should be heightened caution and then allow people to navigate together.

We should always strive to educate and provide tools. When you tell a person they can't do something then they'll just do it without understanding why they aren't supposed to or, worse, predators will find those who were excluded from safer spaces. Harm is not reduced, an educator just gets to walk away from the harm with a simple "I said they shouldn't".

And plus, I said 8% of the general population...

Within hypnosis circles I assure you it is far higher when one factors in that multiple studies have supplied evidence that hypnotic susceptibility increases along with dissociative capacity.

Suffice to say, from utilizing hypnotic susceptibility tests (HGSHS) and dissociative tests (SDD and DES) the more a person dissociates, the more susceptible to hypnosis they are.

The human mind uses dissociation as a way of coping with physical and emotional pain, among other necessary inner needs, and so a person suffering from a mental illness that features dissociation becomes a naturally gifted hypnotee. It's a matter of practicing a skill constantly without realizing that they are refining something useful. Wax-On/Wax-Off.

This leads to a number of safety concerns. We've typed on serious concerns such as altering sense of identity and derealization attacks from lack of grounding. This is a topic near and dear to our heart as we acknowledge that we needed to gain an education in how to safely consent to hypnosis play and failing to do so in the past caused harm to ourselves and to those we played with.

So here's a list of potential dangers in playing with those who are further along the dissociative spectrum, how to mitigate those dangers and create a space where everyone can play safely.

I'll focus on hypnotees with dissociative experiences for the most part as the relationship between dissociation and hypnosis is primarily a concern while the hypnotee is in trance. That having been said I acknowledge that Dom Space connects just as much to the spectrum and an entire new post can be made on the topic of performing hypnosis when you have a dissociative disorder.

Heaven knows it is a topic I study feverishly to maintain safety for myself and those who entrust their mind to my care.

So... with that said, let's talk about the dangers.

Abreactions

This is likely the most common concept that comes up when thinking of the relationship between PTSD and hypnosis. An abreaction is the moment a hypnosis session or scene goes off the rails because the hypnotee is actively reacting to a trauma trigger while they are in a suggestible state. Their Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn impulse may be triggered and cause a physical or emotional reaction which was not part of the negotiated/planned scene.

This could be a cut and dry example of "and think about all the times you've been hypnotized right there on that sofa" causing a hypnotee to follow the suggestion and regress in memory to a time before a bad break-up when their former partner hypnotized them on the sofa they are currently on.

It could be an abstract example like "imagining yourself in a field of flowers and breathing in, noting how lovely the scent is, like the most beautiful perfume." causing sense memory to trigger the scent of a perfume that was in the air during a traumatic moment of their life that instantly flips the switch in their mind to go into F/F/F/F mode.

Likely any given hypnotist will experience this at some point in their life. The first example is one that any person could experience. Hypnosis naturally draws upon associations and when you create an association in the present to a negative emotion in the past you will summon it into the present.

With the second example, that association is already there and it was activated during the scene. The source of the abreaction. I avoid using the word "Trigger" both because of shitty internet discourse in the 2010s and because the term is used for other things in hypnosis, but that is what it is. A sense, a memory, an association which causes the source of trauma to intrude upon the present. The danger that the hypnotee experiences in these moments is very real.

Typically when I discuss these topics I put a disclaimer and emphasize how present the traumatic experience is. My hope is that anyone who is interested in hypnosis knows full well how true and powerful inner experiences are. If you doubt that then I sincerely do not know why you are in this community to begin with.

How to prevent an abreaction is important but should never be learned at the expense of learning how to handle an abreaction. Prevention is about disclosing during negotiation, asking the hypnotee to volunteer anything which may activate a negative reaction or simply what topics to avoid. Phobias are common enough examples of things that a hypnotist should know before working.

But disclosing every part of a trance or scene during the early phases of a hypnotic relationship is essential too. This way the hypnotee does not get surprised by anything propping up during play and they can measure their expected reactions before going into a suggestible state.

But if, despite caution, something does happen? What then?

Noting that every abreaction manifests specific to the person, their situation, their emotional state and how the scene caused it to happen. The first thing the hypnotist needs to do is not overreact. Over-correcting is an easy mistake to make in the moment but it will lead to an overall negative outcome.

Assess the situation and try to recognize what is happening. I had mentioned that the reflex is "Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn" this can be obvious like thrashing or ejecting out of trance instantly. It could be something harder to notice like locking up and becoming unresponsive or emotionally regressing to a terrified state.

If the hypnotee is still in trance then do your best to offer comfort and grounding. Remind them what is happening, remind them that they are safe, perform some grounding exercises such as box breathing (breathe in, hold, exhale for a number of seconds).

Touch is a case by case situation here. I know if I were having an emotional flashback to an assault then being touched would launch me further into abreaction territory. If you believe holding a hand would be beneficial then at the very least communicate it "I'm here, I'm going to take your hand, everything's safe, I'm here."

Over distance you should communicate this via modality. "I'm here, just listen to my voice, focus on the sounds in the room, I'm not going anywhere" for an audio example, "Just feel the blanket beneath you, you can brush your fingers against it if you need" for touch based.

The idea is to use emotional comfort, sensory grounding and patience to bring the hypnotee gently out of the moment.

Then apply aftercare and discuss what happened, what could be improved, what the hypnotee needs and acknowledge that the stress of these moments impacts the hypnotist too. Leave room for the hypnotist to recover as much as the hypnotee.

Decide together if this will end the session or not. Do not cut off on principal. If someone is conditioned to believe that displaying their negative reactions will lead to play stopping then they will hide those reactions. Accept that they happen. Learn how to grow together and incorporate care, comfort and safety into every scene.

Spontaneous Hypnotic Amnesia

One danger for those who suffer dissociative disorders is that their brains are very good at editing information. The further down the spectrum one is, the more adept their mind is at naturally pushing away things that they do not wish to think about nor have the capacity to integrate.

One categorization of dissociation is a failure for the brain to integrate information and experience. It is the cause of time dilation, it is why critical thinking is bypassed and it is why those further on the dissociative spectrum are able to compartmentalize their experiences so effortlessly that they can maintain dissociated personalities.

Where most people who practice hypnosis typically have to study how to achieve post-hypnotic amnesia, those who begin working with hypnosis with patholigized dissociative experiences may need to learn how not to experience it. I include this as I have spoken to multiple people who have lived this reality and it is something we ourselves experienced in the past.

Should a newer hypnotee show signs that they are not remembering what is happening during trance, it is a good practice to train them on how to retain information. Hypnotee Agency is a skill that one develops and allowing them the knowledge that they can chose to retain the information during a trance is as important as reinforcing how easy and normal it is to forget when that is a negotiated part of the scene.

All it takes to be safe here is to just remind them that if they wish to and find it enjoyable to do so, they may retain the information from this trance.

Nothing more complicated than that.

Derealization/Unreality

Derealization is a common experience within dissociation that is actually lower on the dissociative spectrum than PTSD. It is when you do not feel dissociated from your present experiences in real time.

A common version of this is "Deja Vu" which is a sensation where you are having difficulty integrating your present experience because it "feels" like you've already experienced it.

It can manifest in many other ways, however the commonality is that the person experiencing this knows that it's abnormal. When a person is disconnected from their surroundings like this they may experience a barrier between themselves and the world, they may have a distorted sense of time and they may become physically unresponsive and withdrawn.

Source: Mayo Clinic

The best way to handle this is to make sure that grounding always includes a thorough count-up that lets a person feel both in their body (this will help with depersonalization too) and aware of their surroundings. Ensuring both debriefing and aftercare focus on keeping reality in the room is important when someone's sense of what is real can drift.

For that reason it's a good idea to try and reinforce those ideas of what is real and save them in a little box that can be stored away if there are ever any reality altering suggestions in play, that way retrieving and unpacking that box can just be a natural part of the post-scene.

I linked it earlier, but my post on the topic can be found here.

Depersonalization/Altered States of Identity

Ah, our favorite soapbox.

Much like derealization, depersonalization is a symptom that is lower on the scale than PTSD and is actively invoked during inductions such as the Bandler which turns a handshake into the hypnotee starring at their hand and having the sensation of the hand distanced from their mind. Literally dissociating the hand from your body and using that sensation to build a trance.

It's a good induction. All forms of dissociation are not bad things. That is something I want to make sure an audience fully understands. This post is here to destigmatize, particularly when a 101 class was teaching stigma.

Depersonalization is a disconnection from one's sense of self. These are the moments when one feels like they are not the ones living through a moment, they are experiencing themselves from an outside perspective.

Once again, things that are utilized heavily in induction patter.

Source: Mayo Clinic

The derealization advice works well in this case, particularly the idea of creating a "back-up" to restore carefully at the end of a scene.

The big difference though is that depersonalization as a natural thing that those with dissociative disorders do can lead to some bleed when doing suggestions which alter a person's sense of self. I highly recommend an optional suggestion or affirmation that can help a hypnotee ground themselves. That may be too close to therapy for many though.

The hard part about being safe with depersonalization symptoms is that they are typically things that we actively engage with during hypnosis. I guarantee at least one person read "Feeling like a robot or that you're not in control of what you say or how you move." and thought of that as an absolute win.

This is where a bit of negotiation and hypnotee agency comes into play. Reality needs to be kept in the room during all hypnosis. Diving into ego-death or erasing reality may be tempting, especially for those who aren't particularly fond of reality or themselves, but it is too dangerous to surrender those things.

My definitive post on the topic has more information.

Though while I'm talking about altered personalities, I want to make something clear which I did not type about much in my Personality Play post...

Plurality

This is a topic on its own which could take on an entire post to itself. I may yet write it. If anyone has read our Madison and Belladonna stories they would know that they are written entirely based upon the life lessons Daja and I have been learning while I began therapy and was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Many of my lessons for how to safely play with plural systems are mixed in with the fiction.

When I say Plural I mean to refer to those who have multiple dissociated personalities, along with circumstances such as dissociative barriers.

There are as many displays of plurality as there are people who experience it. Every system is different. No two people are not on fire (awww).

So with that said, any play on either side of the watch is going to be lead with self-advocating. A hypnotic relationship involving a system (or more than one, even) will need a level of disclosure. Not just that a system exists but how that system manifests. What patterns are known regarding switches, what best works when an unexpected switch occurs, what levels of dissociative barriers exist between alters/parts, what terminology is preferred...

Wait, that's a lot to throw at once.

Our version of plurality is based upon Dissociative Identity Disorder. Which is to say that my system, originating via complex PTSD during childhood, used to have firm dissociative barriers between one another. This meant that, prior to diagnosis, you could have an emotionally charged conversation with me, Dawn, and then the next day Cammie will wake up and depending on the level of dissociation (typically but not always linked to stress or proximity to trauma triggers) will either not remember what happened during that conversation or will not carry the emotions that I had experienced. "Not remembering" can simply be "won't think about"

As I said, it's quite subjective. But the conceit is that with those on the DID spectrum will have a complete disconnect between parts/alters.

For those with less dissociation, but still experience plurality, they may not have amnesia or barriers between parts, allowing themselves to communicate with one another actively.

Within psychological communities there is eternal debate on all of these experiences and one of the more poignant debates is that the difference between DID and OSDD seems to just be a level of severity and that treatment and therapy tactics tend to move DID patients into the OSDD box and so they shouldn't be labeled as separate disorders.

These rules on amnesia, inner communication and emotional consistency between parts typically apply outside of disorders. I do not wish to engage in syscourse. But as above when I mentioned abreactions, those who practice with hypnosis know how capable a mind is to create hypnotically induced personalities. There are experiences outside of the DSM-V and that really shouldn't be a controversial statement.

A switch is when one part/alter trades out for another. The reasons are hyper specific to every system and cannot really be predicted without knowing their circumstances intimately. For instance the scent of lavender will draw me out without fail.

These can happen without warning and during hypnosis. Being cautious about body language, tone of voice and sudden changes in mood are the best you can do without guidance from the one with lived experience.

I'd also cautiously warn to end a scene and check in if there is an unexpected switch and there's no negotiated playbook on what to do in case of a switch.

The first Madison and Belladonna story tells the story of that very circumstance because that happened in my real life.

For safety it is best to try and communicate with the entire system over how to approach any aspect of hypnosis play. Exploring is a collaborative action and it can be a rewarding experience to find what works and what doesn't work. But it does take time.

For some basic "until I know better" rules, I'd say NEVER FORCE A SWITCH is a fairly basic rule, though. Also do not assume consent for a specific part/alter counts as consent for the whole system.

There is so much to say on this topic and I will likely revisit it at another point, but much of the safety tied up with DID and identity based dissociative disorders boils down to the fact that you are negotiating consent for a group and that you cannot always guarantee that the hypnotee at the start of a scene will always be present during the entire scene.

To that, I say treat switches like an abreaction, display acceptance and curiosity and don't get too hung up on the circumstances.

At the end of the day plural folx are just people too, just not person.

So... why did I write all this, anyway?

A lovely friend of mine recently joked that Charmed 2024 was the "Year of Plurality" and in a way they were right. I've been attending the event since 2020 and where my first had been a humble little class of 8 or so people on a Sunday afternoon ran by Vulpes Automata (Vulpes teaches the same class at Plural Positivity, albeit without the hypnosis content, a recording is hosted here) this year's event included many systems declaring themselves as such on their badge, both an in-person and online unconference that stretched beyond the time limits put in place and were feverishly well attended.

It has done my heart so good to see the safety and community growing and becoming more accepting.

It reminds me of the community's slow growth to accepting and embracing the transgender community in the mid-2010s.

Which is why I wish to be firm about trying to stop bad ideas from taking root in how we teach on these topics.

Some may remember that in the 2000s, respectable resources teaching hypnokink used to state firmly to "confirm biological sex" with any potential play partner. Said material has been revised. Times change and communities grow.

So when I see this teaching graphic saying that those who dissociate as part of a mental illness "Can't" be hypnotized, due to safety concerns? I get worried.

It was being used in a 101 class at the very same Charmed event that I am praising for having such good acceptance of plural experiences?

I lived this once as a closeted transgender woman. I don't want to live it again with our DID.

And I remember that "never play with anyone who has a mental illness" used to be taught in the same resources that once said to disclose one's "biological sex". People have taught this in classes and been approached by someone who had a mental illness and told how ignorant it was to teach that they could not be played with.

We, as a community, can do better.

I'd rather a 3 hour 101 become a 4 hour 101 and teach this material than to dismiss those who are the most vulnerable and susceptible and have them seek their trances from those who do not have reservations about safety and ethics.

Thank you for reading. I know this was a big soap box.