A Lot Has Changed Since March

Guys. GUYS. It's almost 2017, and I haven't posted anything here since March.

Oops.

Part of that is that I have been posting all my original writings on tumblr, which is much more accessible for most people. Part of that is that I've kind of let the "diarist" aspect of my writing slide...A LOT.  So we've got some catching up to do, you and I...

The last thing I posted was my day one of NEEHU post. There are several more days' worth, which all got posted on tumblr (at "enscenic.tumblr.com" - look for them under the "event recaps" button, since it's unlikely that I'll get them cross-posted here anytime soon.)

A lot has changed since March.

For example, right now there is a man in the alley outside my window vomiting up what sounds like his entire stomach; and also his spleen, his appendix, his liver...you get the idea.  Faithful readers of this blog might recall that I live in the middle of Oregon's wine country; those people might be confused by this talk of "alleys" and "vomiting men". It's quite simple. Last September I moved to one of America's largest cities and my apartment is across the alley from a bar, and it's closing time, when all the drunks don't have to go home but can't stay here. There. You know what I mean.

Things that are the same:  still waiting tables, still writing smut, still loving hypnosis, still Mama to an adorable demon in feline form. Things that are different:  people actually tip here, my smut has become somewhat sporadic, I get to do far more in-person hypnosis, and my demon cat has a demon cat roommate.

My circle of friends, most of whom I've met because of hypno-kink, continues to grow, although I'm still the person who doesn't make friends easily and can take far, far too long to warm up to someone.

I appear to have developed a small reputation for being a reliable hypno-con presenter.

I have grown downright opinionated about certain somewhat controversial topics, and have even been known to publicly speak on them.

2016 has been that kind of year.

More to come...

Water, or This is What Happens When It’s 8 Days to MEEHU and I Kind of Fancy Having an Interrogation Scene

This is something a little different, you can maybe almost even safely read it at work.  (Yes indeed, that means no obvious smut.)

Debrief Transcript (Trance Aided), Agent 12, RE: events of 10^th July 2015

               I approach the door to my hotel room and something’s off, something’s wrong, but I’m not sure what.  I examine the hallway, the light fixtures, the doorjamb – and there it is, the thing that tipped me off.  I always scatter salt under the door, it catches in the ridges of the jamb and is nearly impossible to clean up completely. Opening the door changes the pattern, and I am dead certain that someone has been in my room, and is probably still there.  I wasn’t having any fun at this convention anyhow, it’s time to blow.

               I find my partner, Agent 5, milling about with the real writers in line for the hotel-catered lunch.  I catch his eye and give him a thumbs up, which is our prearranged signal for “we’re blown, rendezvous later” and head for my personal escape route. Through the maze of rooms allotted to the Romance Writers of America Conference, (we’ve built our covers as two moderately successful authors over several years, 5 even writes his own material), down the freight elevator, out through the kitchens.  It’s just outside the lift that they catch me, clubbing me on the back of the head.  I go down hard, my body just quits on me, and I think ‘at least I warned…’

               “Fitzroy, is it? Nice alias.” are the first words I hear when I come to. Damn.  They’ve nabbed 5 as well.  I can’t see him, but I can hear someone needling him, doing obvious pre-interrogation patter, and I know it’s only a matter of time before it’s my turn.  Time to see what I have to work with.  There’s not much.  I’m tied to one of those rolling office chairs, wrists to the arm rests, legs to the pedestal, you know the drill.  I’m in what looks like a room within the Con hotel, double beds, over-size flatscreen, mini-fridge, those ridiculous lamps that attach to the wall next to the beds, you know, the ones you can never find the switch for?  There’s something weird about these lamps though. They’re putting out perfectly round halos of light, halos that seem to spin around the room on a line of light, entering my vision from the right and exiting on the left.  It’s almost impossible not to try and track them as they move, and it’s when I try to turn my head to follow them that I realize my head is being held in place somehow.  It’s a variation on the old ‘shine a light in their eyes’ trick, but I am confident that I can withstand it.  

               It’s almost a relief though when one of my captors comes in to view, blocking the lights.  Because of the glare, I can’t get more than just a sense of him – tall, powerful, probably over-confident because he’s looming over me and I’m tied to a chair.  When he starts to speak, his voice is mild, almost gentle, and barely audible.  

               “You’re going to have to speak up if you want this to work,” I taunt, and he slaps me.  Really puts his shoulder behind it, and it’s when my head bounces off the back of Agent 5’s that I realize that we are tied back to back.  Someone is talking to him as well, but he has the sense to learn from my mistake and keeps quiet.

               “You don’t get to speak,” says the tall man.  “You get to sit there and listen while my friend milks Agent 5 for everything he knows.”

               “Really? Are you going to hit me every time I make a noise then?” I ask.  He answers me with a feint towards a backhand, but stops before he does anything but barely contact my skin.  

               “No, Agent 12, I think in your case we’ll have to try something different.”  He fusses with something outside of my range of vision, when he turns he’s got a hypodermic in his hand.  ‘Great’ I think.  ‘Drugs. I can deal with drugs.’  I don’t struggle when he injects me, which seems to surprise him, but that’s because he doesn’t know about the new anti-interrogation techniques that the Agency has perfected.  I’m proof against any chemical he wants to use to try and make me talk.

               I can feel it though.  In training I practiced this, how to ride the wave of relaxation and lethargy that trickles over me.  Of course, once the drug became part of the scenario my plan of attack changes. It’s no longer ‘escape as soon as possible’, it’s going to be quite some time before my reactions and reflexes will be back up to par.   Now it’s ‘withstand their interrogation’.  The tall man starts to talk again, I have to really concentrate to hear him.

               “You are going to be quiet Agent 12, as quiet as Agent 5 is talkative, until we find out what we need to know.”

               “I’m really not, you know.” I answer. You can’t tell from my voice that the drug is affecting me.  Maybe my breathing has slowed down a little bit, but not enough to betray me.  The tall man laughs at me.  Laughs in my face.

               “You’re not what?  Not going to be quiet?”  He steps to the side and the lights are back in my eyes again.  I notice that they take exactly the same amount of time to revolve around me as it takes to take one breath.  In and they are on my right, out and they are on my right.  

               “No,’ I say.  “I’m not really a quiet sort of person.”  And if I’m talking then 5 can be silent.  The tall man’s friend is still muttering behind me.  I can’t quite make it out, but I think 5 is getting the same speech that I am.  Don’t talk, listen while your partner talks.  I feel the drug slowing me down, making my body feel like it’s in slow motion. The tall man’s friend is talking about how easy it is be silent and rest, about how hard it is to speak when your muscles are so heavy and tired from the drug, how easy it would be to just rest and let me do all the talking.

               “Let me do all the talking” I say to 5.  I think he says it to me at the same time.  The lights are on my right and I breathe in. “Don’t speak” I say to 5.  The tall man grabs me by the hair, a good strong grip, and wrenches my head around. “Don’t speak” he says to me.  I can barely feel the pain from the hair pull. The drug they gave me has made everything slow and heavy and I feel like I am buried under a mile of cotton. Nothing he does will hurt me.  I am safe from pain in this cocoon.  It’s just like we were taught at the Agency. Use their tools against them.

               They are circling us, the tall man and his partner, talking at the same time, sometimes alternating with each other, but always talking in that quiet voice that I can barely hear.  It is so frustrating not to be able to hear clearly.

               “You really have to concentrate to hear clearly” says the tall man.  For a second, I forget that I need to talk to keep 5 from talking, but I remember just in time.  “I really have to concentrate to hear clearly” I say to the tall man.  The lights are on my right and I breathe in.  The tall man’s accomplice tells 5 “You must speak so that your partner won’t talk.”  Oh no! Before 5 can answer I say “I must speak so that my partner won’t talk.”  I really have to concentrate to hear clearly, the voices are so indistinct, hard to pin down where they are coming from or what they are saying.  I notice that the lights are slowing down.  I breathe in and they are to my right, I breathe out and they are to my right.  I can’t forget to keep talking, I must speak so that my partner won’t talk.

               “I must speak so that my partner won’t talk” I say to the tall man as he and his accomplice continue to circle me.  They circle me like the lights circle me.  I breathe in and they are on my right, I breathe out and they are on my right.

               “I think he’s just about ready” says the tall man, referring to 5.  His partner looks at me and says “She is too, let’s turn them.”  My body is so heavy it’s like it’s become part of the chair.  The world spins on me and I can’t stop it, it keeps going and going and I’ve forgotten something that I’m supposed to do, something important.  I finally realize that I can’t be spinning, because the lights are still circling me, and now I am facing Agent 5.  He looks confused and dazed, like he’s forgotten something.  We’ve both forgotten something.

               “Did you forget already?” teases the tall man. “You have to speak so your partner won’t talk.”  

               “Did you forget already?” taunts the tall man’s accomplice.  “You have to speak so your partner won’t talk.”

               I am staring at 5 and he is staring at me.  We are locked eye to eye, I can see the reflection of the lights there as they go around and around.  They are getting even slower.  The lights are on my right and I breathe in.  The lights are on my right and I breathe out.  I notice that 5 is breathing at the same time that I do.  I watch the lights reflected in his eyes. The lights are on his left and he breathes in.  The lights are on his left and he breathes out.

               “Agent 12, I have some questions for you” says the tall man.  His accomplice tells 5 “You must speak so your partner won’t talk.”

               “I must speak so my partner won’t talk.” I say before 5 can answer.

               “Agent 5, I have some questions for you” says the tall man’s accomplice.  The tall man tells me “You must speak so your partner won’t talk.”

               “I must speak so my partner won’t talk.” 5 says before I can answer.

               “I must speak so my partner won’t talk.” We say together.

               “I must speak so my partner won’t talk.” We breathe together.

               “I must speak so my partner won’t talk.”  We chant together.

               My body is a weight pulling me down.  The lights circle me and I can’t stop staring at them. Across from me, 5 slumps in his chair, but I can tell that he is staring at the lights too.  It’s hard to think.  I have to speak so my partner won’t talk, but I don’t know what to say.

               “You don’t have to think” says the tall man.

               “You don’t have to think” says his accomplice.

               “I must speak so my partner won’t talk.” we explain to them.  

               “You don’t have to think.” they say.  “All you have to do is respond.”

               “I must speak so my partner won’t talk.” we plead.

               “We will think for you.” they say.

               “You can speak without thinking.” says the tall man.

               “You can speak without thinking, so your partner won’t talk.” says his accomplice.

               “I can speak without thinking, so my partner won’t talk.” We say.

               “Our words are your words.” They say.

               “Your words are my words.”

               “You can speaking without thinking, our words are your words.”

               “I can speak without thinking, your words are my words.”

               We speak together.  We breathe together.  The lights circle us.  They are on my right and we breathe in.  They are on my left and we breathe in.  We speak, so the other won’t talk.  We can speak without thinking.

               -transcript ends-

               “Well, that was certainly interesting.” said the Deputy Director.  He flipped a switch and turned off the monitor.  “I guess you were right about hypnosis being the wrong way to go with interrogation resistance.”  He stretched to his full height, joints popping as he did so.  “If it was that easy for us to break them, think of the damage our enemies could do.  They could have all our secrets in an afternoon. I’m glad you came to me with this. I’ll make sure that your higher ups in Research know how instrumental you were in this discovery.”

               “It was very interesting the way they reacted, wasn’t it?” asked the research tech. “Of course I have worked very hard in the process of teaching them how to withstand interrogation to prepare them for the moment when they are completely open and can be programmed to do anything I need.” She smiled at the Deputy Director. “By the way,“ she said, grabbing a bottled water from the mini-fridge, “It’s time to relax for me, relax right there where you are standing, perfectly comfortable and perfectly content to listen to my words.”  She popped the water open and drained it.  “This is thirsty work!  Now let’s you and I plan the best way for me to continue to infiltrate your organization.

The Experience of Feeling Normal (aka Friday night at WEEHU)

I am, in the words of every person, every where, who has ever started a blog, then ignored it in favor of other life events, really REALLY sorry that I disappeared for (gulp) 7 months.  +/- 10 days.  Or so.  I have a list of excuses that work well for me, I'm happy with them and will continue to use them in the future, the chief of which being that I had a lot of changes in my everyday life happen all at once and I don't handle change that well, so it took me quite awhile to get my feet back under me.

Or possibly it just took something really special to motivate me.

So (please refer to earlier blogs and reacquaint yourself with my tendency to over-use the word "so") this weekend was "WEEHU" the WEstern Erotic Hypnosis Unconference.  And it was AMAZING.  Who knew that all it would take to feel "normal" would be to spend a weekend surrounded by people often categorized by society in general as "abnormal"?  I have come to the conclusion that any time you get a community of people together that collectively is more creative and intelligent than average it will be inevitable that all the dimmer lights surrounding them will be blinded.  Or something like that.  I am also REALLY tired! So much of this non-pre-thought-out rambling will be neither original nor linear, but I can live with that.

Here is the anatomy of my weekend.  After working many, many days in a row in order to justify taking a lot of time off in a small period of time, I met up with my trusted traveling companions (thanks to Skyla and Naj for not, as my brother put it, reenacting the Saw movies with me) to drive to San Francisco.  Thankfully we were starting off in Portland, so it was a very manageable drive.  We had dinner, then got on the road and drove all night (Halloween night,) and got to our breakfast meet up by 9-ish.  Skyla and Naj went along without me to pick people up at the airport, and I had the pleasure of enjoying a wonderful sunshiny afternoon outside by myself, which frankly I really needed after all that working!  Then I got to commute the rest of the way with the wonderful Felix Krull, who MAY have tranced me a little bit on the way, something I have been looking forward to for weeks.  This weekend was actually the first time that I've ever had the opportunity to experience any hypnosis with a living, breathing human that I could reach out and touch, so I had a little impromptu list in my head of all the things I wanted to experience. Traveling-trance:  check!

That evening was the meet and greet and open halloween play party at The Citadel.  Is there a better place to have a costume party than a Dungeon?  I don't think so!  With that said, there weren't as many people in costume as I had hoped.  I am by nature not a 'mixer' (or a blender or a food processor) and spent most of the time sticking by the people I knew and letting them introduce me to the people they knew.  I lasted about 3 hours before being tired enough that I felt like I might pass out, and left to get some actual sleep.  Anyone I met Friday night, when I was covered in crystals and hopefully not looking as lost and out-of-place as I felt, but never said anything to again, it's most likely because I didn't remember meeting you!

I may <ahem> have gotten to have a wonderful experience outside of the play party that night which ultimately led to me getting a wonderful night of sleep.  Slept straight through 'til morning, which, as readers of this blog will know, is HIGHLY unusual, so pretty much the best first night of my first live get-together weekend EVER!

NOTE:  I started this Monday night, and it is now Tuesday afternoon and I find I'm having trouble writing it because it has sparked so many different ideas for other posts!  So hooray for that!  I will work on the rest of the specific WEEHU post offline and then post when it is more coherent.  For now, a million thanks to everyone who organized WEEHU and made it possible for me to attend.  The experience of feeling like a normal human, accepted and welcomed by the people around me, is one of the most priceless memories that I will ever have and I cannot really express how much it means to me.

Hypnosis And Cats

For those of you who read the last post and are concerned that I seem depressed, morose, and generally a big giant downer who needs to cheer up and play in the sunshine you are a) correct but b) over-reacting a tiny bit.  When I get down, I write about it, and that makes me feel better.  It's a system that works pretty well for me, so it will keep happening, because I do tend to have little crises of melancholy in the middle of the night when no one is around to talk to.

That said, I have been spending a lot of time in a chat room lately, learning how to be more social and generally being friendly with people.  Several of the people with whom I've chatted have kitty cat personas, which is interesting, since I'm not built that way, and it's ridiculously entertaining for me to watch.  (Actually, there's a ton of mutual entertainment happening between all the kitty cats, and that's what is really fun to see.)  So, I'm not a kitty myself, but I do have a kitty story...

I did get to do a little trancing the other night, which was wonderful, but had a pretty abrupt ending.

I'm sitting there, all relaxed and comfy, (and approaching hot and bothered), and vaguely aware that the cat is being pretty vocal in the background...but it really just didn't matter at the time.  So I have a little mantra I'm chanting (or trying to chant, talking wasn't my strong point at that moment) and the cat is adding a nice descant in the background (which I am hearing less and less) when...

CRASH!!!!!!!!

I'm pretty certain that what I said at that point was something reminiscent of a certain christian deity, got pulled utterly and completely out of trance, turned around and...

...well the cat was under the bed, and a lamp that shouldn't live on the floor was reclining quite comfortably there, and most of the small make-up items from my make-up table were strewn on the floor around it...but other than the yowling (which was apparently getting louder in real life while it was getting quieter for me) and the crashing, my hypnotist couldn't tell what happened, so I will have to use my imagination and extrapolate from the available evidence.

1- There are raccoons in my neighborhood this time of year.

2- My cat feels honor-bound to protect all living things from the horrors that are raccoons.

3- The raccoons like to tease my cat by perching outside the bedroom window and peeking in at her.

4.  The window sill on that particular window is about 2 inches wide

The cat's vantage point to see out of that particular window is on top of the cabinet/small fridge/toaster oven tower that I keep next to my desk.  She climbs up (floor to desk to printer to fridge to toaster oven) and can stare out the window.  When the raccoons are out, she stands on her hind legs on top of the toaster over and paws at the window glass in an effort to get to the evil vermin outside.

I think the raccoons were out there, and she, pushed to her breaking point, tried to get up on the 2 inch wide window sill and attack the furry fuckers.  And fell off, bouncing off the toaster oven and into the lamp, and across the make-up table and to the floor, at which point she decided she was under attack and ran and hid under the bed.  I think.

All I know is that the age-old question of "will Noelle stay entranced if something loud and unexpected happens in the background" has now been answered!

(And the cat is just fine.  I lured her out from under the bed with her favorite dead-fish tasting treat and that was enough to make her feel safe, and she has no broken bones or pulled muscles that I can tell, and is currently doing what she always does this time of day, namely sleeping.)

There may be more on what that session was actually meant to accomplish later...         

Tickling

I have finally been inspired to write something erotic again.  Hope you enjoy!
(The following contains sexual situations that may not be suitable for minors.)

Retracing My Steps

One of the side effects of my February hypnotist disaster has been the tainting of my hypnosis fetish.  I had only been exploring hypnosis for a little under 3 months when I started working with him, and a ton of what I learned that I liked and what worked well for me I learned with him.  Not everything, thanks goodness, but enough that for the last month it has been really hard to be in trance without his specter sort of lurking in the back of my mind.  Mind you, this is after the other person with whom I work helped root all the left-over suggestions etc that had been left behind out of my head.  I decided that I needed to re-write the program, as it were, so that is my new adventure.  Same as the old adventure, just from a different direction and, unfortunately, without as much trust in myself or for new people as I had.  I miss the kind of innocent enjoyment I was able to bring to things before, and I may never forgive him for the loss of that, but I know that I will be better off this way.

So, I went back to the beginning.  Which for me, was YouTube (you can all stop cringing, there are worthwhile videos to be found there.)  I'm re-learning how to go into trance trusting myself, and I am trying to do the same with my other friend/hypnotist, who has stuck by me through all of this and has been a rock and a pillow all at the same time.

The hardest part has been having the sheer joy I found in the erotic aspects of hypnosis be diminished.  When I lost my trust in people that was the first thing that was affected, and has proven to be extremely difficult to work through.  I was never interested in being the person who tranced alone from a file to get my rocks off, I relished the human connection that I had found and even more the friend that I thought I had found through it, and losing that broke my heart.  It also slammed home just how lonely I had been before I started my hypnosis adventure, and made me enormously grateful for the friends I have made who didn't disappear on me, even though I have been weepy and whiny, selfish and scared, and more than a little bit over-sensitive.  (Or, as one person put it, complicated.)  I am a very, very complicated person.  Yes.

The other major thing that has been bothering me is that (because I am insecure) in my imagination my ex-hypnotist tells other people to stay away from me, that I am bad news, that I am crazy, that I am the kind of person you don't want to get mixed up with (which is how he made me feel about myself when he left.)  There are a couple of people who, before I met him, I had been interested in getting to know, in being friends with, and because I know he is friends with them/associates with them I feel like I can never pursue that avenue.  I feel like I have my own version of the scarlet letter floating ahead of me everywhere I go, and that this herald of my presence will color every interaction I try to have in the future.

But I do understand that I feel this way because I lack self-confidence.  I do understand that I am insecure and that most of the time no one will care what has happened to me in the past or about with whom it happened.  It's the one person who will care that I think about.

My friend last night told me something amazingly and agonizingly important:  feeling this way, feeling in general, IS COMPLETELY NORMAL AND ACCEPTABLE.  (I had to capitalize that for myself, to help it sink in a little more.)  Feeling how I have felt over the last month, and the way I felt through the 5 weeks before that--all completely normal and acceptable.  And it's not my fault if other people can't deal with it.  The only things within my control are how I feel and how I choose to react to those feelings, and I have handled that in the most honest and ethical way that I know.

And for now, that is enough.

I Have Stepped Into The River, And Luckily I Floated

It's the middle of the night/the wee hours of the morning on Christmas Day (or Mithrastide as I like to call it when I'm being really obnoxious) and I should be asleep.
I.Should.Be.Asleep.
And I can't sleep for several reasons, some what you'd expect and some not. The obvious reason is because I waited until the last minute to work on a project that is meant to be a gift for someone in (aarrrggghhh) approximately 6 hours, and, even though I started today with plenty of time to spare, is not done yet. Because I let myself be distracted in the middle of it.
Oh but it was so worth it!
So let's recap, shall we? I'm Noelle, and I want to write a book featuring hypnosis. In order to write intelligently on this subject, I decided to experience hypnosis for myself, and rather than spend a lot of money on a professional appointment turned instead to YouTube ('cause that's always safe), where I immediately (it took three videos) became enamored with hypnosis, specifically with being entranced. (Ironically, I have an Aunt who is a certified hypnotist. Yes, I can hear you laughing. Stop it! Stop it right now!) But soon just listening to files on YouTube wasn't enough, so I went searching for a more personal connection. Or rather, I was thinking about searching for a more personal connection, when someone whom I'd never met in my life private messaged me and wanted to know if I wanted to be hypnotized by him. Then, after chatting a little bit via pm, he apparently decided that my lack of experience was going to be a problem and never got back to me. Cue sad violins and mournful dirges. But you can't miss what you don't have, it didn't break my heart because I don't have one (just kidding, calm down!) and I soon found some new videos to experience. And the man who made those vids is a genius, let me tell you. As I started by using the actual YouTube names of people I will continue to do so now, if anyone ever reads this then maybe they will want to go check these vids out, yes?

So I discovered a man called kaos ocntrl. Who has a great voice with a great accent and a great style of hypnotism and whose vids work really really well for me. And he has a blog, which I read, which lead me to a community of people on this great big world wide web who like what I call "smutty hypnotism" as much as I do. Although they call it a fetish. Which it is. I have a fetish now! Fetishes are cool! Actually, I have several, but I digress. But not by much, as I will soon divulge.

I made a profile. I was very honest in this profile, because this is the kind of community that is accepting of this kind of honesty. And so they have proven to be. I have a great pic that I found ages ago, before I embarked on my hypnotism adventure, that is eerily prescient, which I am using as my avatar, and have already made several connections with fascinating people.

(Somewhere my dead ex-husband is laughing his ass off right now.) I understate. I joined this site on 23 December (two days ago, and not early in the day, either) and have 1- discovered things about my mind that I was completely in the dark about and 2- acquired a Master. Or he acquired me. And I'm scared and nervous and exhilerated and wound up and so many other things that I just can't make the words fall into line. I did things tonight that I have barely imagined, (not dangerous things, no need to worry about me yet), but things that were new and different for me. And what I have discovered is that this man who I met on the internet less than 48 hours ago is more accepting and compassionate than any of the stellar examples of manhood who have shared my bed over the last 12 or so years. And yes, I do believe the brief sample I have so far is sufficient to make this judgement. I can be honest with him about what I want and don't want, about what scares me and why, about things that no one else knows about me.

A caveat; I communicate fantastically through text. If I can write I can make myself understood. And most of our communication thus far has been through chatting. I suck at speaking when the subject is important to me, I gibber. It's not pretty. But again, I digress.

So do I share this blog with my new friends? Am I still writing a book? Yes. Are any of them in it? No. Do I intent to write here about a lot of what happens to me with this adventure? Well, yes. Names may have to be changed.

But for now, I have a text message waiting for me, as well as 3 or so hours of sleep.

Happy Mithrastide!

Tangent - How Hypnosis Makes Me Feel

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.

 

The Backstory - Part 1

Flashback, two hours ago. It's just before two in the afternoon and I'm still in bed, enjoying the way my expensive-but-worth-it sheets are sliding over my naked body. I'm still in bed because I had a very late night, and normally I would be exhorting myself to get the hell out of bed already! But not today, and not for the last three weeks or so, because I have discovered that sometimes staying in bed is the very best use of my morning. I have been awake since noon, after being briefly awakened at nine and rolling right over and going back to sleep. It's a quirk that I want to think is unique to me, although I know it's not; when I am awakened unexpectedly like that the sleep I have after is always deeper and more restful than what came before. I've learned not to feel guilty about taking advantage of it. In many ways, sleep is my drug.

So, it's noon, the sun is high (probably, this is Oregon and I can't actually see the sun) in the sky and I am eager and excited to get on with what for the last three weeks has been the first action I take every day. The bed is cold; I have an electric mattress pad that I use every night but it cuts off automatically around eight. I have yet to shuck my pajamas so I'm not uncomfortable, but I keep my room cold and my bed warm so there's no contest about where I'm staying. I pull my handheld over (that's iPod for those of you with dirty minds, get yourself out of the gutter, we're on the edge, but we've yet to go over), plug in my headphones and prepare to relax.

Three weeks ago I decided to write a novel featuring hypnotism. Although I'd definitely zoned out while driving and had hours disappear while playing video poker I'd never officially been hypnotized. (Think video poker isn't mesmerizing? Ha!) Obviously I couldn't write about something I'd never experienced, so off to YouTube I went. I cleverly did a search for "hypnosis" and spent an hour looking through all the different choices that came up. It turns out that hypnosis is very popular on YouTube. There are videos ranging from simple relaxation to help with homework to help with sleep to help with pain to help with orgasms. We'll get to that last one later. I finally chose a video , based completely on the fact that the user pic was unthreatening. (It's a pretty pink and blue spiral.) I read a lot of comments on the videos, figured what the hell, and sat down to experience my first ever hypnosis video.

And then I had to go lie down on the bed. The hypnotist recommended that anyone watching the video do so while either lying back or down, and my desk chair is wobbly. So, handheld with headphones, and a short induction video. Fifteen minutes later, I feel fantastic, and do a longer induction video. Thirty-five minutes later and I feel so relaxed it's like every bone has been sucked out of my body. Well, shit, I, apparently, can be hypnotized. So I listen to a video called "can't stop laughing" and afterwards (surprise), I can't stop laughing. It's the weirdest thing, because the whole time I'm listening to the video I'm thinking to myself that there's no way this can possibly work, but that part of my mind is sitting off to the side observing my reactions to the hypnotist's words. And every single time he talks about laughing or smiling or giggling my body dutifully laughs or smiles or giggles. It's bizarre, and makes me feel fan-fucking-tastic. I'm officially sold; hypnotism is amazing and I want to experience it again and again and again.

Oh, yeah, I'm meant to be writing a book. But I have a new perspective on it now. Before experiencing hypnosis I had thought that my protagonist would be the person being hypnotized, but now I'm thinking the story should be told from the perspective of the hypnotist. And that means that I'm going to have to try every single one of these videos. And videos from other hypnotists as well, but as long as I'm on this page...

How does this lead to my being naked in bed at two in the afternoon, enjoying the feeling of my sheets as they slide across my skin? Don't you wish you knew!