Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Suggestibility

I learned to trance with audio files and videos. For some reason I thought that my ears were an essential part of my hypnotic process. Why wouldn't I think this? I had no information other than my own limited experience. Without really thinking it through, I concluded that if the pattern of my sessions changed that I would somehow fail to be hypnotized, so I tried to never deviate from it. I had already forgotten what I started out knowing: that hypnosis is listening and following directions. You can do that sitting, standing or lying down. Curled up on your side, leaning against a tree, floating in a bath--it's the mind that is important. I made the error of focusing too much on the word "listen", but that's not the only way we enter information into our brains, is it?
As you might suspect, being a writer started for me with being a reader. I learned to read as a very small child, sometime between ages 2 and 3. Sounds ridiculous I know, but according to my family I was reading street signs on car journeys at 2 and I know I read simple story books to myself at 3. As a kindergartner I was probably reading at a 3rd grade level and the gap between my age and my ability continued to widen as I got older. I'm not bragging; it's just something I have a knack for, just like people who are good with languages or can do complex mathematics in their heads. I have been using my eyes for 95% of my life to gather information, but for some reason I really believed that it would be hard to hypnotize me with the written word.
This is where we should all now stop and laugh our asses off.
When I ventured into an on-line community of hypnotic fetishists, the first time I tranced was by reading a very short paragraph that I received in a personal message. I honestly did not think it would work. I also happen to read very quickly. Skip the following paragraphs if you don't want to know the process by which I read; I think it's very pertinent though, so you may want to slog through it.
When I read my brain automatically skips useless, space-filling words like "the", "is", "and", "for", etc--the words that you can supply for yourself through context rather than needing to consciously read them. I also to tend to look at blocks of text rather than one sentence at a time. It's the same as looking at a photo. Someone sends you a picture they took on their vacation of a beautiful landscape and you maybe glance at it without really looking for details. Right off you can tell it's a picture of a river running through the countryside, with a bridge and a boat or two, clouds in the sky, maybe a flock of sheep on the hillside. Then, as you take a closer look, you see the smaller details that helped your brain immediately identify the scene, such as the sheep dog with the flock of sheep, the picnicking couple at the riverside, the birds flying in the distance. You didn't need to notice them at first in order to identify the scene. When I read, whole paragraphs are for me what the photo of the river is for you, and the sheepdog, the picnickers, and the distant birds are all the little words that only exist to connect the nouns and verbs and adjectives together.
Incidentally, did you see the river just now? It won't be the same river as mine, but I'll wager you saw it just the same.
So I'm reading this short paragraph, and I'm really reading it. Every single word. I remember observing that and being surprised, but for the life of me I cannot tell you what that paragraph said.
Do I really need to point out that I always remember what I've read?
It comes down to this. In the end WE HYPNOTIZE OURSELVES. We make the decision to experience trance, and even if we say to ourselves "I don't think it will work" we still make the decision to try, and unless you are specifically trying to thwart your hypnotist,you have by putting yourself into his or her hands already tacitly agreed that you will be hypnotized to some degree.
And that brings me to suggestibility.
I have been speaking with my Master via Skype. Don't worry for now about what we get up to, there will be other posts for that. The important thing now is that, while I have a microphone, he does not, so he communicates by text while I squint at the tiny little letters and answer by voice. Quite by accident, last night, we discovered that he can manipulate my actions using nothing but hand gestures. This is not something we had previously discussed or that he had set as a trigger. He made an offhand gesture in response to something I said rather than typing, and it evoked a physical reaction in me. So he experimented, and the more things he tried the stronger my reaction.
It felt like magic.
And then, just to see what would happen, he began to type out descriptions of how my body should behave. Ever play Dungeons & Dragons? Then you know the type of phrasing to which I refer. "so and so picks up his broadsword and faces the troll" or whatever.
Suggestions.
Not orders. Never once was I ordered to obey.
And I never once thought to myself "I should do that." Or "I want to do that." Or even "Why on earth would I do that?" What I found instead was that after reading something similar to "the foot you are holding onto moves to the side" that I was suddenly fighting to keep my leg from moving. I didn't even notice it moving at first! My attention was on the screen. Then my master asked "Are you trying to fight it?" and I was looking down at my hand trying to hold my leg and saying "yes" at the same time. I literally realized what was happening only because I heard myself answering him. And fighting the compulsion just made it stronger.
It felt like magic.
It felt wonderful.
I was in trance and had been in trance, without an induction, without a trigger, probably from the moment I first opened Skype and placed the call.
It was so much fun I can barely handle waiting to do it again.
 

3 comments:

  1. wonderful, simply wonderful. I am sure you will continue to enjoy this journey you are on

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  2. Beautiful descriptions, of what reading is like for you, of what your imagination is like, and of what trance is like for you.

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