30 Days of Hypnosis: Day 4

Preferred method of induction? I.e. pocket watch, pendant, crystal, spiral, fixation, etc.

Yes, all of them men­tioned above, and more. I have a pas­sion for stereo­typ­i­cal induc­tions of all kinds, the more stereo­typ­i­cal, the better.

But my most favorite must be the clas­sic “look into my eyes” fix­a­tion induc­tion, espe­cial­ly when look­ing into the eyes of a love­ly female hyp­no­tist. Pat CollinsAnd who bet­ter to epit­o­mize that than the “Hyp Hyp­no­tist” her­self, Pat Collins.

December 26th, 2014 | Category: People, Personal | Comments are closed

30 Days of Hypnosis: Day 3

Do you like to experience amnesia?

Hyp­not­ic amne­sia, just like a num­ber of oth­er hyp­not­ic phe­nom­e­na, is some­thing that I want to explore fur­ther. I would like to improve my skills at being a good hyp­not­ic sub­ject, in this case, being able to man­i­fest it successfully.

Then again, some­thing about being sub­ject to hyp­not­ic amne­sia has, in the part, pro­voked unpleas­ant reac­tions, espe­cial­ly when pro­duc­ing inex­plic­a­ble sit­u­a­tions. For instance, once when a good friend of mine and I were exper­i­ment­ing with it, I found myself moved from place to place with­out remem­ber­ing that hap­pened, and some­how the impos­si­bil­i­ty of it was caus­ing men­tal dis­com­fort. I believe that was because my mind was try­ing to fig­ure out what just hap­pened and was run­ning into the road­block of the amne­sia suggestion.

December 25th, 2014 | Category: Personal | Comments are closed

30 Days of Hypnosis: Day 2

What was it like the first time you were tranced or tranced someone?

Actu­al­ly, I should amend that to the first two times I was tranced. This is a sto­ry I often tell to per­suade peo­ple that hyp­no­sis is real.

In 1984, I attend­ed a con­ven­tion in Cleve­land, Ohio. I pri­mar­i­ly want­ed to meet Mar­i­on Zim­mer Bradley, the writer and cre­ator of the Dark­over nov­els and sto­ries, but the real treat was in meet­ing Kather­ine Kurtz. I knew Kather­ine from her Deryni nov­els, a series of nov­els set in a medieval fan­ta­sy set­ting much like medieval Europe, where the mag­ic is pri­mar­i­ly used by the Deryni. The Deryni are a muta­tion from human­i­ty which grants them psy­chic pow­ers, includ­ing telepa­thy and telekine­sis, plus what can only be described as mag­ic. One of the tele­path­ic tal­ents used was the abil­i­ty to induce a hyp­not­ic trance state in unsus­pect­ing or unward­ed sub­jects. It should come as no sur­prise, then, that Kather­ine was trained as an Erick­son­ian hyp­no­tist, and she reg­u­lar­ly wrote that into her sto­ries.

On the final day of the con­ven­tion, Kather­ine and a few oth­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed in a pan­el on hyp­no­sis, and as part of it, she did a group induc­tion and two guid­ed imagery ses­sions for the audi­ence. I par­tic­i­pat­ed whole­heart­ed­ly and that is a mem­o­ry I still treasure.

Which leads to the sec­ond time I was ever hypnotized.

A good friend of mine just fin­ished train­ing as a hyp­no­tist, and I invit­ed him to come to the month­ly meet­ing of the local Doc­tor Who fan club, where per­formed a demon­stra­tion of hyp­no­sis for the mem­bers of the club. (I should point out that we would watch a Doc­tor Who episode at every meet­ing: this time it was ‘Masque of Man­drago­ra’, which has one of the most evoca­tive hyp­no­sis induc­tions ever.) After the meet­ing was over, I vol­un­teered to do a more per­son­al demon­stra­tion for anoth­er of the club mem­bers. He gave me the tra­di­tion­al post-hyp­not­ic amne­sia sug­ges­tion and brought me out of trance.

And that’s when I went into a fugue state.

I could­n’t think, I could­n’t speak: I could only mouth words that I did­n’t know how to say. It only last for maybe 15 sec­onds before I was put back into trance and then the sug­ges­tion was removed.

I did­n’t under­stand then but I believe I under­stand now what hap­pened: my sub­con­scious under­stood the sug­ges­tion to for­get being hyp­no­tized to mean for­get ever being hyp­no­tized, and my pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence was some­thing I def­i­nite­ly want­ed to remem­ber, so the two impuls­es were in con­flict and my mind was frozen.

And those were the first two times I was ever tranced.

December 24th, 2014 | Category: Fiction, People, Personal | Comments are closed

30 Days of Hypnosis: Day 1

What’s your hypnosis origin story?

I can remem­ber becom­ing inter­est­ed in the sub­ject before my teenaged years. I most like­ly was around 9 or 10 at the time. Of course, by that time, I had seen hyp­no­sis as rep­re­sent­ed on adver­tise­ments on the back of com­ic books and see­ing it on TV. I remem­ber watch­ing it pre­sent­ed on movies, espe­cial­ly “The Woman in Green”. How­ev­er, the most vivid impres­sion I can remem­ber was find­ing a copy of a book on hyp­no­sis one day at the library Book­mo­bile. I was amazed to find such a thing and even more amazed to be allowed to check it out. I do remem­ber the man in the Book­mo­bile ask­ing me if I want­ed to get more books like this, but I did­n’t say any­thing because I did­n’t want adults know­ing about my inter­est in the subject.

It was a slen­der copy with black&white pho­tographs show­ing the male hyp­no­tist and female subject(s). It might have been “How to Use Hyp­no­sis” by Dr. David Tra­cy (1952) but it was cer­tain­ly some­thing from that same era. I real­ly can’t remem­ber clear­ly any longer, as that was about 50 years ago. After that it was things like watch­ing Pat Collins on the Show­time cable net­work or her appear­ance on “The Lucy Show”, going to the down­town library by rid­ing the bus and check­ing out books on hyp­no­sis there, and see­ing hyp­no­sis and all relat­ed sub­jects on tele­vi­sion and at the movies. All of this when I was still a teenager.

And that’s my ori­gin story.

 

December 23rd, 2014 | Category: Personal | Comments are closed

30 Days of Hypnosis

I’ve seen this list and sim­i­lar float­ing around the Inter­nets, so I fig­ure its my turn to answer it.

Day 1: What’s your hyp­no­sis ori­gin story?

Day 2: What was it like the first time you were tranced or tranced someone?

Day 3: Do you like to expe­ri­ence amnesia?

Day 4: Pre­ferred method of induc­tion? I.e. pock­et watch, pen­dant, crys­tal, spi­ral, fix­a­tion, etc.

Day 5: Instant trig­ger *SNAP* or long drawn out “You are get­ting very sleepy, eyes are heavy, limbs are heavy, so very heavy, so relaxed”?

Day 6: Frac­tion­a­tion: “Yes, please!” or “No, I don’t like roller coast­ers. I feel nauseated.”?

Day 7: Are you a trance junkie (short term) or do you pre­fer a one hyp­no­tist rela­tion­ship (long term)? Why or why not?

Day 8: Are you func­tion­al in a trance or do you have issues talking/moving?

Day 9: What is the most impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tic you look for in a hyp­no­tist or subject?

Day 10: Favorite hyp­not­ic expe­ri­ence as a subject?

Day 11: Favorite hyp­not­ic expe­ri­ence as a hypnotist?

Day 12: What’s your favorite pop cul­ture ref­er­ence about hypnosis?

Day 13: How do you feel about stage hyp­no­sis? Would you ever con­sent to tranc­ing someone/being tranced in front of an audience?

Day 14: What’s a com­mon mis­con­cep­tion peo­ple have about hyp­no­sis that both­ers you the most?

Day 15: Do any of your friends and fam­i­ly know about your hyp­no­sis inter­est? Why or why not?

Day 16: Do you pre­fer male or female hypnotists/subjects? Why?

Day 17: If a curi­ous novice asked you to intro­duce them to the world of hyp­no­sis, where would you begin and why?

Day 18: Do you have any hyp­not­ic expe­ri­ences you regret? Why or why not?

Day 19: What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever expe­ri­enced in trance as a sub­ject or strangest thing a sub­ject has request­ed to experience?

Day 20: How much of an influ­ence does your hyp­no­sis inter­est have on your every­day life?

Day 21: In a con­sen­su­al sit­u­a­tion, do you pre­fer to be aware or unaware of an impend­ing trance? Hyp­no­tists: is it eas­i­er to trance an informed sub­ject or to drop them unaware?

Day 22: How do you feel about mind con­trol sto­ry cap­tions? Taste­ful when done right or oh so very tacky?

Day 23: Have you ever had dif­fi­cul­ty going into a trance/hypnotizing someone?  What happened?

Day 24: What advice would you impart to a new hyp­no­tist or subject?

Day 25: Do you find that there are cer­tain words or phras­es (not trig­gers) that send you deep­er into trance?

Day 26: Is there a cer­tain trig­ger you pre­fer more than others?

Day 27: What was your worst expe­ri­ence with hypnosis?

Day 28: What are your thoughts on ass­hole hyp­no­tists who prey on the vulnerable?

Day 29: Do you have any close hyp­no-enthu­si­ast friends that you’ve met on the Internet?  How did you become friends?

Day 30: Just rant about hyp­no­sis. Go crazy! But not too crazy… 65% crazy, 35% sane.

December 22nd, 2014 | Category: Personal | Comments are closed
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