You didn't really think I was going to continue where I left off yesterday, did you? Silly, silly you! I can't really, because there's backstory to the backstory, and before it will make any sense to discuss my eventual sybaritic bed-nudity (also the name of my next band, natch) the wonders of hypnosis must be discussed.
I've heard a lot of strange assumptions about hypnosis from people who were otherwise very bright and informed, but had gleaned most of their info from movies and tv shows. And bad novels, comic books, and hearsay. Also good novels, fake scientific papers, and of course, the internet. My favorite misconception about hypnosis is that it is mind control. Thanks to movies like "The Manchurian Candidate" people have gotten the idea that it is possible to completely control someone through hypnosis and turn them into an ice cold assassin. Um...no. Well maybe if you were already wanting to be an ice cold assassin. Who wanted to assassinate the exact same person that the hypnotist had chosen. 'Cause evil hypnotists often place Craigslist ads searching for want-to-be assassins, right?
Hypnosis is a heightened state of relaxation and concentration. For some people, (like me), an INCREDIBLY heightened state of relaxation and concentration. A lot of my success lies in the fact that, like Fox Mulder, I wanted to believe and went into my first experience with hypnosis determined to follow instructions exactly. Following instructions exactly is important. So is knowing that there isn't a "wrong way" to experience hypnosis. It also helps to remove sources of distraction like screaming children, head-banging room mates, or caterwauling...er...cats from the room. And I personally like to use headphones because then it sounds like the hypnotist's voice is inside my head with me. Having a good imagination is a plus, as is being smarter than average. "What?" I hear you saying. "I though some people were too smart to be hypnotized!" A lot of people who comment on hypnosis videos think so too. My favorite comment yet is from the gentleman who claimed that he couldn't be hypnotized because he was "mentilly superier." His spelling would lead the objective reader to disagree with him, but I digress. Smarter people are often easier to hypnotize, because they (here it is again) follow directions. And that's all you have to do to be hypnotized: sit comfortably, listen, and follow the directions that you are given.
I am not exaggerating when I choose to use all caps to describe my relaxation during hypnosis. There is always a moment during the induction where I feel like an over-inflated balloon that has just had its knot undone. Or like someone has pulled the plug on whatever current it is that animates me. I've tried being hypnotized in my desk chair several times now and most of the time I end up falling out of the chair. And the times I've fallen out of the chair I've stayed in the same position I fell in for the entire session because I felt so damn relaxed that it didn't matter that I was twisted up on the floor. I want to make it clear though, that if I hadn't been comfortable I could have, and would have, (and have, although it was while still in the chair) moved. NOT mind control. Occasionally, on times where I've gone extremely deep, I've felt like I was completely paralyzed, with some sort of uniform weight or field holding me down. But I still could have moved if I'd needed to. And if something happens during hypnosis that scares you or disturbs you enough that you don't want to do it anymore, that's game over. I've been shocked out of trance once, and it happened because I'm extremely literal minded sometimes, and thought I had been told to pick both my feet up from the floor simultaneously. While standing up. Snapped me right out of trance because I was following what I was hearing exactly, and the part of me that would have interpreted instructions more logically was a mile behind the action. And I'm not ashamed to admit that I did a "getting attacked by a vampire" video, (just to see if it would work, really), that scared me so badly that I shook for almost an hour afterwards. And I don't get scared of shit like that normally. I'm the one who (even at 5 years old) has always had an over-developed sense of the difference between fantasy and reality. Horror movies? Please! Scary books, ghost stories, whatever. The scariest thing I've ever seen on tv was an episode of The X-Files where a swarm of bees was released in an elementary school play yard. And I'm not scared of bees either, but that shit could really happen! So vampires, either the scary kind or the sparkly kind, don't really do it for me. Actually the sparkly ones are kind of scary, but not in the way that they're meant to be. So the vampire hypnosis was kind of a test for me, to see how much I would let myself be influenced.
And vampire hypnosis led to slave hypnosis.
No comments:
Post a Comment