[Audio Summary: The third (3rd) audio entry in the Trance Tales series. Not a hypnotic script, just some autobiographical information for the curious.] - Audio posted 08/22/2020

This is the third entry in the series, still trying to keep it more casual than my typical recordings.

As with all the others, it's just a flat recording of me reading the entry of the same title. In this case, Trance Tales 3: The Artist Formerly Known As...

Here you are:

 As always, enjoy.

-C

[Summary: The third (3rd) entry in the Trance Tales series. Not a hypnotic script, just some autobiographical information for the curious.]

(If you've missed the prior entries, you can catch up with In the Beginning and Trial and Error.)

Let's dive into the beginning of the experiments, shall we?

Well, not quite...what can I say? I like to tease.

One of the first things you learn about hypnosis, particularly when you study it from a kink perspective, is that it's difficult to explain concisely. This is not to say there aren't fantastic works about trance, how to hypnotize, hypnosis and kink, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), and plenty more. It is, rather, to say that precious few of these works agree about things as simple (hah) as fundamental definitions of trance states, or even the mechanism of hypnosis itself.

That isn't necessarily a bad thing. We're at a strange crossroads between psychology, neuroscience, and stage magic; there are plenty of very compelling arguments to be made about all of these things - but that's another series entirely. Suffice it to say, for the purposes of these Tales, that it can be somewhat frustrating to study if you're accustomed to clear and straightforward answers.

So it didn't take much time at all before I decided the only way to really learn about hypnosis was to do it. That led me to both vanilla and kink hypnosis sites on the good old internet, where I made profiles and lurked around in chatrooms; at first, mostly to observe. But as I said in a prior post, many of these places can be very quiet - placid, even - on the surface. Conversations tend to be one-on-one.

Before I started talking to people on these sites, I made the choice to try in-person hypnosis first. I had a (new) girlfriend, and it seemed like a fair place to start. This was another revelation: people have very different ideas about how hypnosis works, even if they've never tried it or learned about it. This particular girlfriend, we'll call her Vanessa, believed it worked in the sort of hyperbolic sense you encounter in some shows and cartoons. Discussions about subjects needing to have weak wills, and hypnotists getting absolute control. I wasn't really equipped to dispel any of that, and at the time I only really knew extremely basic inductions. As a (fairly obvious, in hindsight) result, I wasn't ever able to get her into a trance. Came close a few times, often with frustrating, but amusing, interruptions...phone calls, people walking by, sudden noises, all of that.

I'd call that a setback, but it ultimately worked out for the best; that is, it helped me to understand that I needed a much more thorough comprehension of how hypnosis worked. I became very fixated on the precise moment when someone drops into a trance.

That's when the experiments really began. The timeline might jump around from here forward, just so you're aware.

I was exceptionally lucky to encounter several willing volunteers, some who had almost as little experience as I did - often less. This could have ended badly, since you don't know what you don't know, but I had at least learned by then (from the girlfriend in the first Tale) to be extremely clear and up-front about everything before doing anything.

Because of the nature of the internet back then, most of the experiments involved text chat-based trancing. That's a hindrance of its own; you can't adjust your rhythm to the reactions you can't see or hear. But when both parties are consenting and giving one another the benefit of the doubt - trust, that is - it can work just fine. So I practiced, often with subjects who had previously run into issues going into trance...whether for files or for other hypnotists, for a vast variety of reasons. It seemed like the best way to learn. It was.

Yahoo was the messenger of choice, particularly for a lot of throwaway accounts. The anonymity made people more comfortable, which is helpful. For my part, I had been "online" long enough not to dwell too much on useless things like "a/s/l?" or "pics or it didn't happen" and that mentality of people needing to prove themselves real enough to be worth your time. I suspect that went a long way on the comfort front. I didn't even insist on "real" names, or proof of existence...I wasn't there for dating, so what did I care? This did lead me to be used as a masturbation aid more than a few times, but you learn to recognize that really quickly after awhile. I'll discuss that one later down the road.

For now, let's consider Olive (no, that's not her name, don't be daft.) Olive loved the storytelling and quasi world-building elements you get from progressive relaxation inductions, but they didn't work for her worth a damn. Like me, she was heavily into the kink...including some of the then-new-and-rare hypnosis-based porn floating around. We skipped the induction style we knew wasn't viable, and dove into "confusion" inductions; perhaps a facsimile of them, ultimately, but after two or three, she went under. But how do you test it?

Repetition, triggers, and guided hallucinations. Getting her to repeat mantras, and (as you might expect) turning her into a good girl. This mostly translated to guided masturbation, emphasizing particular types of behavior, and (very basic) conditioning...but she responded to it, and (crucially) was always pretty clear about how well it worked. That said, honestly, what I remember most about her wasn't the sexual elements.

Olive was -exceptionally- talented at visualization, and so we spent a lot of time setting up scenarios like you'd hear or see from progressive relaxation inductions. You know, "imagine you're on a beach," and "picture yourself in front of a fireplace," that sort of thing. But we'd build the background within a very different induction, and slip into the imagery after she was under.

Highlights? The beach was okay, but if I remember correctly, she preferred a cabin in the woods, on a snow-covered mountain, in front of a fireplace. The incredible thing was how well her (unconscious) mind would fill in the details, with the appropriate push.

I say exceptionally talented because visualizations, and visual hallucinations in particular, are not easy for many subjects. [Note: that's fine. Every subject is different, as you'll see from the continuations of these Tales.] She'd slip from an apartment bedroom into these places we built inside her head, and explore the scenarios for an hour or so (time was, as usual, the big limitation) every few days.

Picture, as a favorite example, New York City...but underwater. Remove the crowds, and let it be a seascape. Let all the building lights and signs refract through the water. Consider a dolphin as a sort of tour guide through the familiar-but-unfamiliar streets...I don't know about you, but I can't see it. Among other things, I've never been there; moreover, I don't have much of any visualization ability at all - trance or not.

But she lived there, or visited frequently enough, and could see it just fine. I'd set up the framework(s), and her brain would take it from there. How cool is that?! I was fascinated; embedding the pleasures and triggers for more testing was just a fun little bonus in comparison.

It didn't take much experimentation to learn that few subjects had that same ability/capacity, so I shifted to other areas of exploration for them. That was an immensely important thing to learn: how to adjust to the skills, desires, and responses of subjects. I can scarcely imagine how unsuccessful I'd have been if I tried to do that same level of visual hallucination with everyone I tranced.

What other areas? That's for next time.

Until then.

-C