I hope I’ve not been unnerving in needing to ask your permission first, because I really do like your name.

To the aspiring hypnotist.

I try to avoid discussing what suggestibility is or isn't, because I'm both gullible and highly suggestible and I was convinced very early on that I was difficult to hypnotize. I know firsthand how deeply it can affect a subject. It hurt.

And yet there are those that still try. I didn't mean to imply that it was a representative sample or anything. It was only meant as a particular example of something I've seen 'tists try before that ultimately doesn't work out. It is certainly not the only reason for a budding 'tist to seek to develop their own style.

That's true. But sometimes depth is exactly what a subject wants. In fact, I didn't even say it was better to go deeper. It was implied, sure, but not because it's better in any way. I know what deeper means and I've rarely felt that it was at all necessary or relevant to my work. I'm a consent slut in the end, and absolutely everything that happens with me has to be something that a subject consented to in some manner.

Yes, but you learn it by doing it. What you can learn from a book isn't what will catapult your abilities forward. All you need to start doing it is one reliable method, and you're better off getting that from one of the more respectable texts (and you're right that Erickson's scripts are certainly not the only source material) than some hypnosis blog that you happen to like. How you hone your skills after that will be unique to you, but it will always be important to have the basics to fall back on.

Making her cum

Of all possible messages, I choose only this:

I agree.

I don’t know

Tomorrow I’m off to Edinburgh, to teach an introduction to hypnokink and to see my people. I always feel such a warm welcome when I’m there, the kinksters are smart and interested and so very welcoming. It’s not just Edinburgh though, the London hypnokinksters have been absolutely awesome every time I showed up. They even dragged us off to the LAM, herding us like sheep through this scary, foreign city. I feel blessed and thankful.

It surprises me every time, when someone is nice to me, when people are welcoming and treat me well. When someone likes me. You see, I struggle with my confidence, or my lack thereof. I live with crippling self doubt, always have. It’s a mental scar of sorts, but it doesn’t have a story I coulkd tell to boast. You’re going to have to take my word for it when I say that I’ve been through some shit.

As a result, I am constantly aware of one simple truth: I don’t know. I don’t know anything for certain. I don’t trust my own observations, I don’t trust the words of other people, I don’t trust what I read anywhere. It’s like I live in a story with an unreliable narrator. The only thing I know for certain is that the information I do have is not the whole truth. I don’t know. I don’t know if they really meant what they said to me. I don’t know if they still love me. I don’t know anything.

Living like this is exhausting. This is one of the reasons I have fetishised being put in a mindless trance, being hypnotised into believing, being free of that constant gnawing doubt, just for a little while. I have learned to live with it, of course. I have learned to just accept a compliment or praise, I may not feel it, but they are telling me that they believe it, and that is worth something. I have learned to accept that there are things that I’m good at. And yet…

I am perpetually surprised when people are nice to me. When they want to hear me speak on a subject, when they want to read what I write. I’m just a voluptuous woman nearing 40 who has seen some things and tried some things. I have better than average social skills, and a way with words, and I like to notice patterns and draw conclusions. But in the end, I don’t know anything. I don’t know if you will understand what I’m trying to communcate. I don’t even know whether I existed yesterday, whether anything is real.

So yeah… I don’t quite know where I was going with this writing either…

You weren't going anywhere with it. It's not a place you recognized or understood when you first wrote this. You were screaming, in your mind, at your mind, that silent scream that can't escape your lips. It's hard to explain because you already understand it, even though you really don't want to. If I could find a better way to explain it to where you didn't have to understand it, I'd have loved nothing more than to be able to do that for you, but I can't. It sucks.

The fact is that no, you didn't exist yesterday. (For the day you wrote that post.) You were someone else. Something else. You had maybe less confidence, less awareness of your skills. When things change in you before you're ready to accept them, and you don't feel yourself disappear, that's just the brain being stupid. Trying to convince you that you really are the same person, when everything you wanted to overcome has started to recede from your persona.

As another user pointed out, it was a metamorphic time for you, and you needed to talk about it. There was too much to say, and when that happens we often tend to shut down. It's a scream I recognize because I've seen it before. "Please... Someone. Anyone. Hear me."

I wish I could help you, but I can't—not directly. You don't want me to. But in this I can't back down because this consent is one I won't respect.

Look at the name of this blog. I refuse to turn away any wish you make of me. I won't stand for it.

Also welcome to Tumblr's hypnosis community.

my greatest fear

my greatest fear, even after all these years of coming to terms with my strengths and my flaws, is failure. I am afraid of making mistakes. Tiny mistakes, big mistakes, it paralyses me. Literally. I procrastinate or I just freeze and do nothing, because I’m afraid of “doing it wrong”. Which is a shame, I could be so much more productive…

As a submissive, focusing on obedience or helplessness is liberating, because it releases me from that everpresent fear. When I’m helpless, there’s nothing I can do, therefore I can’t make mistakes. When I’m obedient, the criteria for success are easily met; as long as I obey, I’m good. Not being afraid to fail takes such a load off my mind.

That’s why being Dominant is so scary; there are so many things I could do wrong. Not only can I accidentally hurt my sub more than intended, I can also get the rope or hypnosis techniques wrong. I paralyses me. Anyone who has ever submitted to me has seen this; I giggle and blush, too afraid of failure to do the hot thing we both want me to do.

The other day, I exclaimed in delight at my puppy that he is so easy to hypnotise and play with and I love it. He grumbled that he probably doesn’t help me brush up my hypnotist skills. I got a little teared up, and it’s happening again now as I’m writing this… Because he is helping me become a better hypnotist. He gives me confidence. When I’m playing with him, I know that, no matter what I say, no matter whether I get all the Ericksonian shit right or not, he will drop for me, he will obey me. He makes me feel like I can do no wrong. And it mean I can play without fear.

I cherish these moments.

Someday I will not be afraid anymore.

Please hear me because I mean it when I say that I'm happy for you.

When Suggestions Don’t Work

The other night I was playing with one of my partners. This person is an amazing subject and over time we have built up a lot of open triggers. I was dropping her, bringing her back up, and teasing her by talking about how much control I have over her. She would playfully counter that I don’t have that much control and I would respond by cycling through a number of those open triggers having each one produce a profound and different reaction.

Then, I got to one that didn’t produce the reaction I wanted. In fact, it didn’t produce any reaction at all. My initial impression was to think that I wasn’t using the right phrase/words. I tried a couple of different variations, each one failing to elicit the programmed response until she finally said “I think that one fell out of my head.” She felt bad about it and started to apologize before I told her that she has nothing to be sorry for because she had done nothing wrong. In fact, she was doing exactly what I told her to do when something doesn’t work by telling me.

What I didn’t expect was how much this “failure” would actually make me feel like a better hypnotist. It may seem counterintuitive, but rather than focusing on the one suggestion that didn’t work, I realized that my partner feels comfortable enough with me to be open and honest when that happens, which means that all of the other things that did work really do work. The unbelievable things this partner is capable of and all of the suggestions that have taken hold in the past were all real.

So, why am I telling you this story about how I convinced myself that this failure was evidence of success? Because I think that there are a couple of lessons in it that took me some time to learn on my own. Subjects, if something isn’t working, tell your hypnotist. You haven’t done anything wrong, it just means that the method being used is not the correct one. Hypnotists, if your subject tells you something isn’t working, thank them. They are helping you by giving you the information you need to make things work better. The more honest, trusting and supportive you are in your communications with each other, the easier it will be to find ways to find the suggestions and methods that do really work.

Excellent post and reflections. A little while after my first tests with covert hypnosis I realized that the problem was that the subject's image of me was warped beyond what I knew how to repair. I still had control over them, but because I was a novice with the covert programming, I couldn't correct their image of me without risking losing control of the hypnotic state. That and other aspects made me uncomfortable with the experience overall, and it taught me that rapport is as important for the hypnotist as it is for the subject. Both need to be aware of what is happened, and it is primarily in the lack of feedback that my own blog runs to slowly. There's no such thing as failure in hypnosis. Only thing we didn't prepare for as best we could.

Stay safe. Maintain trust.