It is frustrating living so far apart from all of the other hypnotists I know, so of course the meet up in London every month is something that I always look forward to. It is always a fun social occasion if nothing else; even if very little hypnosis takes place it's nice to sit down, have dinner and a drink, and swap anecdotes.
For me this month's meet was much the same as others that have come before. The highlight was that Darren kicked off the hypnosis by demonstrating a confusion induction on me. I went into trance of course, but I didn't think this was because of the induction even though Darren's delivery of it was excellent nonetheless. I believe I've simply reached the point where an induction isn't really needed, I can access trance any time I'm asked to, if I want to.
The problem I have with confusion or overload inductions I think comes down to the way in which I have learned to think. I have been flying gliders solo for many years, and as a pilot one of the most important concepts is that of workload management. One inevitable consequence of flying is that there will be times when there is too much to do in that moment, when the flying becomes "interesting", and it is of importance to prioritise. There is a saying amongst pilots "Aviate, navigate, communicate", which sums it up quite well. First and foremost the pilot must concentrate on keeping the aircraft in the air, then they can worry about where they are, and then, finally, worry about talking to their passengers or radioing the ground to order more sick bags, etc.
Darren's induction consisted of giving me various tasks to do all at once whilst also going through his induction patter. Stare at that wall, move that arm in circles, spell "green" backwards, that sort of thing. It was very well delivered, but as I was most interested in Darren's patter and technique I kept my attention on that and my performance at the other tasks went by the board as a consequence. Gah! Stupid, useless brain!
Darren did however give me some rather fun suggestions to the effect that I'd tell the biggest lies I could think of in answer to any questions I was given. This had me insisting that I'd gotten my watch from the moon (as opposed to on sale from Argos).
I did a little hypnosis on Darren, which went quite well, but otherwise I didn't get up to much hypnosis wise. In the end it became quite a social evening, although of course the discussion stayed firmly on the topic of hypnosis.
What I missed later on, because I had to run off to catch my train, was what happened when the others hit Leicester Square. Apparently they drew a crowd, using Will as their first subject, but the crowd wasn't particularly friendly or restrained thanks no doubt to being the worse for alcohol.
I hate leaving early, but I suppose central London at 10pm isn't an ideal setting for street hypnosis.
Good news! Readers may be pleased to hear that after several months of philosophical ramblings I've actually gone out and done some hypnosis worth blogging about for a change!
I was quite frustrated about missing out on the last meet in London thanks to being on holiday so I was more than keen to get out and socialise with the intention of going a little impromptu zapping into the bargain. Rich and Javier indicated that they wouldn't mind a night out in Bristol so that settled it, once again I would go to Bristol.
Getting to Bristol is an hour on the train, which is much faster than trying to drive, so once again I pulled out my trusty folding bike and jumped on the first train I could after work. On arriving in Bristol I was surprised how much I enjoyed the ride to our meeting place, the traffic was light and it was a pleasent temperature as I made my way past the docks and into the city centre. Slightly less fun was the ride up Park Street, which is quite steep and I was obliged to use my bike's lowest gear, my feet spinning madly as I inched my way up the hill, confused pedestrians overtaking me on foot.
Anyway, having parked my bike I ventured into the Wetherspoons pub where we were meeting. For those who don't know Wetherspoons is a chain of pubs that can be found in a lot of cities across the UK. It seems to me that the idea is to maintain the same consistent standards across all their pubs, such as being understaffed so as to guarantee a 15-minute wait to get served at the bar, and running out of Curry by 7pm during their 5pm-10pm Thursday night "Curry Club". I assume that the inability the staff have to pick up on my dry sense of humour is however just an incidental effect of working there.
In any case Rich and Javier showed up, as eventually did my dinner in the form of my 3rd choice of Curry, so we spent a little while catching up. Or rather they talked whilst I stuffed my face, I was very hungry by that point.
In the mood to find a suitable venue for approaching potential subjects we headed out and had a look around the other bars nearby. It seemed as though every bar we went into was empty and I couldn't believe how incredibly quiet it was. After 20 minutes or so we decided we'd be best off cutting our losses heading back to the Wetherspoons. Perhaps sometime during university term would have been a better idea.
The pub wasn't particularly busy so it only took us a minute or so to clock our the most likely group of potential subjects; a group of four young women sat by the door. As always though it took a little bit longer to build up the nerve to actually approach them; once again it was Rich who stepped up and wandered over. We couldn't hear his opening line, but I never get tired of seeing the look of wonderment on peoples' faces when they hear that the person who's approached them is a hypnotist.
Just as Javier and I arrived hot on Rich's heels it turned out that one of the four was leaving, but that was okay because the other three were really interested and one of them, called Rachel, was persuaded by her friends to volunteer to give it a try.
I always enjoy watching other hypnotists at work, so even though Rich's process of going through magnetic fingers, magnetic hands, hand-to-eye fixation induction contained nothing that was new to me as such it was great to watch the confidence with which he delivered it. Rachel's response was also worth watching; she had closed her eyes and was wearing a typical hypnotee expression which I can best describe as serene relaxation with a hint of concentration.
As we watched Rich's efforts, Javier and I got talking to one of the other girls, Malaika, who enthusiastically told us about having been hypnotised a few years before when she was in School and how it'd been quite an embarrassing experience for her at the time, making her reluctant now. She mentioned how good it had felt to be in trance and some phenomena such as being glued to the spot, although she was disappointed that she'd failed to hallucinate a pink elephant in the room. I think all three of us filed this under "iiiinteresting".
Never tell an impromptu hypnotist "I've been hypnotised before"!
Meanwhile, all the outward signs were that Rachel was going under quite nicely, which is what I think prompted Rich to jump straight to telling her that her drink would be stuck to the table as his first phenomenon. Sadly this didn't work, as she managed to pick her drink up with no difficulty at all. She did, however, say that she fell incredibly "chilled" and relaxed.
I offered to have a go, so as Rich got chatting to Malaika I found myself with my first proper subject after two months and hastily trying to remember what to do. Fortunately this is the point where the subconscious takes over and once I'd decided on a magnetic hands induction I went from there with no difficulty.
I like to link breathing to relaxing further, and talked her down using that to start with. Then, having asked permission first of course, I picked her arm up by the wrist, asking her to let it go completely limp, and then told her she'd feel twice as relaxed and go twice as deep when it dropped into her lap. I did this, gently, a couple of times.
Next I went into a convincer, my own variation of the floating arm. I supported her arm by the wrist again, but this time had her imagine it getting lighter. I find supporting the arm by the wrist means that you can use an ambiguous touch to help induce catalepsy. You can also feel when the arm does start to lift and tell the subject "that's right, you can feel it getting lighter". Soon enough her arm was drifting free from any support.
Next I told her that when she opened her eyes she'd look across the table at her friends and she'd find what she saw really funny. This didn't work so well, in that I didn't quite have her in stitches, but when she said to me "oh, that didn't work" she was grinning from ear to ear, which I pointed out to her.
I tried again to stick her hand to the table, with no success.
Rachel was lovely and whilst she was a bit lukewarm in terms of how she was able to respond as a subject I can't fault her for her willingness and enthusiasm for trying. I really need to work on some routines that are better suited to this kind of subject.
By this point Rich had somehow persuaded Malaika that he wouldn't embarrass her in the same way the last hypnotist had and then promptly zapped her under, so Rachel and I paused to watch as Rich went through the motions of sticking her drink to the table, her hands to her stool, etc.
I did one more thing with Rachel; during an interlude in Rich's routine with Malaika I did an Ericksonian handshake on her. I felt very bold trying this routine on such a lukewarm subject, but what the heck I thought, why shouldn't I try it. I took her arm, looked her in the eyes, and started telling her how easy it was to go into a daydreamy state right now, etc.
I always find it's impossible to gauge how well this is working with most subjects, but the trick is not to worry about that and keep going. All I could see was a pair of unblinking blue eyes and an unchanging half smile as I rattled off the patter. Afterwards she said she had felt very zoned out by it, and the way that I wasn't blinking (which I wasn't even aware of!) had certainly had an effect.
I was having a lot of fun, but sadly the end of any trip to Bristol is for me determined by the time of the last train home. At about 10pm Javier and I reluctantly said our goodbyes, left the pub and jumped on our Bicycles for the ride to Temple Meads station, as he was catching the same train as me as far as Bath.
For me it was great to see Javier and Rich again and what a fun evening we had! It was such a high to do some real hypnosis again after so long, and definitely worth the journey out there.
Staying behind Rich tells us he hung around for another hour with the girls. In fact he persuaded Rachel to hold his phone and film him doing another routine on Malaika. Here's the video.
If anybody in the South West of the UK is interested Rich is running a one day hypnosis course on Saturday 26th September. He's told me that the course will cover all aspects of impromptu hypnosis including pre-talk, subject selection, inductions, and suggestions. An excellent place for a complete beginner to get started and hypnotising people straight away by the sounds of it. I'll post more details here shortly.
I'm in London again next week for another HypnoMeet! Awesomeness!
This isn't hypnosis, but anybody who knows Darren from the London HypnoMeets will be amazed to hear what he sounds like when he's not being a hypnotist.
I think this is hilarious, so I simply had to post it. Enjoy!
It's amazing what you can learn very quickly about others, even people you have known for years, in the context of hypnosis. Indeed, I see hypnosis as a great amplifier of a person's true nature.
For example, I have always been a great believer in the idea that you should treat others in the way in which you would like others to treat you. This leads into trying to understand the situation from the viewpoint of the other person
I am happy to take on the role of subject in a hypnotic context, admittedly in part to satisfy my own curiosity, but also to gain an understanding of hypnosis from the point of view of my own subjects. I do not think that I would consider it fair to practice hypnosis on others from a position of being unwilling to experience it myself.
I realise that in spite of my recent progress in this area I am still an appalling subject, but the principle is there at least.
There are, however, hypnotists out there who are unwilling to play subject, and I find that in correlation these tend to be the sort of hypnotists I am uncomfortable with the idea of being a subject for.
The very nature of the relationship between hypnotist and subject requires that both assume specific roles. The hypnotist takes a position of influence over the subject, whereas the subject must assume a deferential position. In return for this control the hypnotist must also assume responsibility for the subject's well being, and show the subject respect; this is part of the hypnotic contract.
That power and control is something that a lot of people, especially men, aspire to isn't exactly a revelation, and I could spend hours discussing it. Primarily though I think the trouble is that a lot of people have such aspirations but without the due respect for those who would be below them and look to trust them.
I could rant at this point about the cultural effect of television programs such as "The weakest link" and "The apprentice" in which teamwork is portrayed as working together but only as a consequence of everyone trying to ultimately be top dog; stab your teammate in the back as soon as you can, or else they'll do it to you. The message is that you must claw your way to the top at the expense of others, and trust nobody. I do not think that this is a good role model, and I am reminded of something I once heard a politician say, which was "Be nice to people on the way up, because you might meet them on your way down!"
I think that it is important to be versatile, not just in hypnosis but also in life. There are times when one should take control and responsibility and lead, but there are also times when one should be happy to fall into step and place ones trust in someone else. I don't think that having a preference for one or the other of these roles is a bad thing, but expecting to be one but not the other at all times is not realistic and can lead to bad relations with other people.
Going back to the subject of power hungry hypnotists. I have found that there are a lot of people online who seek power over others, or at least to play that role, through online hypnosis. Usually it's men seeking women who will play a submissive role for them.
Now, there are of course examples of romantic or sexual relationships with couples practicing hypnosis on each other out there, and usually this exists in what they like to call a "D/s" or Dominant/submissive arrangement. One of the couple, usually the man, will be the hypnotist and the other will be the subject. "D/s" also exists in a number of relationships without hypnosis too, but it seems to be something which hypnosis amplifies very well.
This is probably what all the above mentioned hypnotists would probably aspire to; having a permanent subject over whom they could wield ultimate hypnotic power. What is interesting though is a dynamic that seems to exist between the participants in these relationships; amongst the successful ones at least. This is that it is always the subject who is the one determining the direction of the relationship, not the hypnotist.
The subject may enjoy being dominated, controlled or manipulated by a hypnotist, but the relationship is always following their agenda, not that of the hypnotist.
One could even go so far as to argue that the best hypnotist to have for such a relationship is paradoxically one who doesn't actually crave power, or at least one who doesn't put that before the well being of their partner.
This comes back to a point I have made before, which is that hypnosis is subject oriented. The best way to be a good hypnotist is to respect and to understand the needs of your subject, and to place those ahead of your own agenda.
There are times when I wish that I had access to a time machine. In particular I wish that I could go back about 10 years and tell my younger (pre-university) self a few useful pieces of information.
In particular I would tell my younger self to go out and learn how to be a hypnotist.
There is a good reason for this, which is that back then my ablities at being able to understand, empathise with, and get into rapport with other people was pretty poor. Even now I still don't see myself as any kind of master or expert in a social situation, but in comparison... well, there is no comparison. I believe that a little knowledge of hypnosis has made an enormous and positive difference to my life and the way I think; a change that in some respects I could have done well with years before.
For example, I also used to fall into the trap, when women were concerned, of believing the evidence before me; which was that none of them were ever interested, and therefore that something was very wrong with me. A self-fulfilling downward spiral, and not an uncommon situation as far as I've been able to tell. In the end this spiral was broken, not by me, but by someone else seeing things inside me that at the time I couldn't.
Nowadays knowing a lot more about unconscious signals, the nature of confidence and the importance of a healthy sense of self worth, I can't help but wonder how different things would be if I found myself single and free to approach women again.
(This is also in a dream universe where the concept of single women isn't just an absurd myth perpetuated by wishful thinkers)
In any case, I am very happily spoken for these days so the above line of thought is more than little bit trivial.
I guess what I'm getting at here is that for someone who has always been far more interested in science and engineering than anything people related, developing the peripheral abilities needed to perform hypnosis has a significant effect on other parts of ones life, and I would say that this is reason enough on its own to take the time to learn.
By performing hypnosis I mean meeting people and hypnotising them face to face as opposed to text hypnosis over the internet - but that's another post.
My younger self could have benefited from what I know now, but I guess anybody could say that at any time in their lives; the most important thing is that my present self has learned those lessons and is getting the benefits. I hope anybody else who reads this and decides that they also want to learn hypnosis will discover the same.
It seems that it is impossible for any knowledge to be acquired by humanity without somebody somewhere trying to find sexual applications for it; if you don't believe me I suggest you visit the Internet. I therefore find it unsurprising that there people out there who have a sexual interest in hypnosis. In fact, there is quite a large community of such people to be found online if one knows where to look.
Interestingly this world appears to be largely disconnected from the mainstream, visible and public world of hypnosis, with which I generally like to associate myself and this blog. I believe that it is important to keep these two worlds firmly apart, keeping each in their appropriate context; the main reason for this being for the sake of people's comfort zones, admittedly including my own. I do, however, make no secret of the fact that there are certain aspects of this hidden side of hypnosis that interest me, and about which it's about time I wrote something; not least because most mainstream hypnotists tend not to talk about it.
My attention was first brought to this other side of hypnosis, "hypnofetishism", by my own apparent inability to be hypnotised. I was frustrated and I wanted to know more, so I started looking for written accounts about what it was like being hypnotised. Try it if you like; it's very difficult to find any. I have a theory that the kind of people who are best able to look critically at an experience and write a description of it in detail are actually by definition the worst possible hypnotic subjects for exactly the same reason! In the end I did start to find and read accounts and these were all blogs written by hypnofetishists.
Now, when performing stage hypnosis or impromptu hypnosis, what the hypnotist wants is to find the best subject ot subjects they can. Ideally they can use selection procedures to find the people with the best natural suggestibility to get the most dramatic results for a watching audience. If the subject doesn't go under too bad; the hypnotist can simply move on to another who does. Hypnotherapists do not need to produce theatrical results but as far as I understand they too usually have the luxuary of working with subjects who have at least some decent foundation to their natural ability to go into trance; I have heard two well known hypnotists (Jon Chase and Sean Michael Andrews) say in interviews that people who don't hypnotise easily tend not to go to hypnotherapists anyway. I think it is for these reasons that I found the mainstream expertise to be rather useless with regards my own situation, namely being a very poor subject but really wanting to experience hypnosis just for the heck of it. I will not repeat my "let go" rant; I believe I have already made that point enough times.
If, however, we consider hypnosis in the context of a romantic or sexual relationship it is needless to say that discarding the subject in favour of a better one is not really an option. Hypnotist and subject both have to work with and develop what they have. It is here that hypnofetishists are well aware of something that mainstream hypnotists seem not to be, or at least don't advertise, which is that anybody who really wants to be deeply hypnotised can be if they take the time to learn, including people who at first seem completely unable to even enter a trance.
I know I keep repeating that piece of information, but in my opinion it's important to hammer it home.
Anybody who has met Liz, who co-writes the Hypnofantastico blog with her boyfriend (and personal hypnotist) Lex, cannot help but be amazed by her abilities as a subject. Most noteworthy however is that she is not naturally a good subject, actually she's very analytical in nature, and has the kind of mindset that questions, analyses, describes, and... well... blogs. Her ability to enter trance easily and deeply is something that she has learned over time, with quite a slow start, and her story is far from unique in their world. it was, however, that story that got us talking.
Hypnofantastico and other blogs like it are hardly indicative of my own desired uses for hypnosis, especially with complete strangers in a pub, but Lex and Liz are fun people to be around and it is very interesting to see how far hypnosis can be taken in the context of a close and trusting relationship.
The topic of hypnosis in the context of a romantic relationship and the sexual side of hypnosis is quite a large one, and there is much about it that I think is interesting and worthy of mature discussion. I first came across it through my pursuit of information about improving my own abilities as a subject, but there are other areas that I will discuss in subsequent posts.
