7: How to hypnotize someone
Even once you have a partner who excites you, hypnotizing them for the first time can be daunting. There’s the question of how you actually do it, sure, but also what you’re going to do in that first session. Maybe you share a distinct fantasy of exactly how it should go, or maybe you just want to make hypnosis happen, but don’t know what you should do when you get there. Both are OK, and in the beginning, it’s great to just try out hypnosis and see what you both like, and let what sparks guide you through the experience. Nothing has to “happen” beyond you both feeling seen, cared for, and excited for more!
“Pretalk”
Step one of a hypnokink scene—after safety/negotiation talk—is having a conversation with your partner that puts them in the right space to be hypnotized. This is sometimes called a “pretalk,” but it is essentially just setting up the subject for success.
This is the part where you bust misconceptions and give more productive expectations that will help someone have a fulfilling experience. Ideally you should ask your partner what they think about hypnosis and what they’re expecting to get an idea of where they are in their thoughts about it, and work off of what they give you. Is your partner expecting to be blank-minded? Gently let them know that that’s not necessary or expected. Are they worried they’ll lose control? Remind them that they still have agency and they’ll be aware of what’s happening!
This is something that a lot of hypnotists will “rehearse” to some degree—not the exact words, but really having an understanding themselves of what to communicate. The misconceptions listed here are a great place to start; how would you phrase them?
Here are some summarized points you may want to hit upon:
Hypnosis isn’t mind control
Hypnosis is a subtle experience that is also unique, so approach it with curiosity
A person is generally aware of what’s happening in hypnosis
Being relaxed isn’t necessary for hypnosis
They don’t have to worry about “getting it right” because you’re working with their natural responses
Later on, we’ll discuss some more in-depth things you can do and communicate to really set someone up for success.
Induction
As for that first “induction”—that first time actually leading someone into trance—we urge you to improvise. While there are “scripts” you can find online, memorizing or reciting isn’t a great way to actually go about it! It may seem daunting to completely improvise your hypnosis from the start, but you’ll be setting yourself up for success by immediately trying the kind of hypnosis that engenders greater intimacy and focus on another person. There are so many different ways to hypnotize a person, and luckily, we can share one of these easy guidelines for improvising:
This method is called “Three Truths, One Suggestion,” and it’s exactly what it says on the tin: You say three-ish things that are true about your partner’s experience, and then you say one-ish thing that you WANT to be true.
Here’s an example:
Truth: “You’re sitting in a chair...”
Truth: “...feeling the temperature of the air around you...”
Truth: “...and I know that you’re listening to my voice.”
Suggestion: “Now, you’re beginning to go into trance.”
This is also called “pacing and leading”—you “pace” someone with truths about their experience, and then you “lead” them to experience something new. It’s not only an induction technique on its own—it’s a core part of hypnosis, and you can structure your entire hypnosis scene over this loose concept.
How does this work?
Hypnotic context
Setting up a situation in which a person expects to be hypnotized gets you pretty far in doing actual hypnosis! This is also called “framing.” Your pretalk—and the fact that you and your partner are agreeing to do a hypnosis scene—is what creates this context and expectation.
“Mind reading”
A person being hypnotized wants to feel like the hypnotist knows their experience. (Of course they do! Would you feel confident going into hypnosis if you thought the hypnotist didn’t understand what you were feeling?) If they’re confident that the hypnotist can describe what they’re feeling, they’re more naturally going to accept suggestions—a subject being hypnotized in this way might feel something like, “Yeah, that’s right, I do feel that… Yes, and that… Yes, that too; these are things that are happening to me… OK, I guess I AM going into trance…”
Basically, we want to say things to someone that are things they can agree with—naturally leading them to feel that we say true things. We also want to prove to our partners that we are paying attention to them, and we are able to notice things that they may not be paying attention to! That gives us a bit of authority over their experience.
Focus/attention
Additionally, telling people what they’re experiencing has the nature of making them think about the things we’re describing. So you can get someone to move their attention from “how they’re sitting” to “your voice,” and that changing attention can be really useful as a fixation for trance! Both a strong internal focus and/or a strong external focus are naturally hypnotic, especially if you go back and forth between the two.
How do you know what to say?
We always know things about what our partners are doing, feeling, and thinking—even if we can’t see them, like in a scene over text. We just need to know what ingredients are available for us to talk about, which we’ll talk about in more detail in the next few sections. For now, we can think about stuff like:
What their physical body is doing/feeling
Sitting? Laying down? Reading? Breathing? Eyes open or closed? Gravity? Temperature? Texture?
What emotions they might be having
Excited? Nervous? Turned on? Anticipating? Focused?
What their attention is focused on
You? Your words? Their own thoughts? Their body? Something specific you just mentioned?
Put on your observation goggles and see what you can observe about your partner from their environment, body language, and expressions! You can practice this by imagining what it would be like to be looking at someone who is ready to go into trance for you. What kinds of remarks could you make about them? How would you keep it going?
Hypnosis is both a physical and psychological experience—someone going into trance may experience changes in their emotions, thoughts, attention, and bodily feelings. It stands to reason that if you direct someone’s attention to one of these places, that’s going to change the experience—often leading to an ability to notice more of those subtle shifts! This is one essential basis for inducing trance: noticing trance feelings = more trance experience!
You might feel the desire to fill space and make sure you don’t stop talking, but pausing is actually a great tool! Don’t be afraid to let your words hang in the air and give a little time for your partner to process. Tempo is a big part of hypnosis, and variation is your friend.
Respond to their response
When you say your first “truth,” give space for them to respond. Remember that when you say something to someone, you’re changing their experience! If you tell someone, “You’re sitting in a chair,” naturally, they will start to think about how they’re sitting, for example.
Ideally, you can use each statement as a springboard to jump off of. If you can see your partner, you can look for cues that they’re responding—a slightly deeper breath, a relaxing or tensing of the body or face muscles, any twitching or stillness, microexpressions, etc. Even if you’re working through text, you can assume that a person is responding in some way!
When you see any change in their response like that, you can say the magic response acknowledgement words, and they’ll feel very much like they’re doing the right thing—and that you’re noticing:
“That’s right”
“Very good”
“Mm-hmm”
“Yes”
“There you go”
Any other way you would naturally affirm something
Additionally, you can then make that one of your “truths”:
“Now, you’re taking a breath because you’re responding to my words”
“I’m noticing your face relaxing”
“You’re paying attention a little more carefully, now, aren’t you?”
See what happens when they respond to your response to their response!
How do I make a suggestion?
Saying truths or pacing is all well and good, but how do you know what suggestion to make, and how to say it? Surely you can’t just say whatever you want, willy-nilly?
That’s true to a point, and crafting good suggestions is an art form that people spend their whole journey as hypnotists improving at and perfecting. But we can look at some guidelines that can get us started in the right direction.
The content
Usually, early on in a hypnotic session is when you might be interested in making suggestions having to do with—well, trance! So this is a good place to start. Later, we’ll discuss other ideas (but honestly, trance doesn’t really get boring!).
We know that experiencing trance feels like a number of things—there’s physical, sensory changes, as well as emotional, psychological changes. Here are some aspects of trance that you can suggest:
Focus
Relaxation/limpness
Tension/stiffness/excitement
Fuzziness in head/vision/body
Tingling
Heaviness
Lightness
Thoughts slowing, quickening, wandering
Vision darkening/brightening
The flow
A good rule of thumb is to flow in an incremental and logical way.
For example, if you’re saying truths about someone’s body, we know that they’re focused on and receptive to sensory stuff. So we might say something like, “You’re lying comfortably in your bed, and now you can start to feel your body relaxing.”
On the flipside, another example might be: “You’re paying attention to the words I’m saying, and now you can feel them beginning to affect you deep inside your mind.”
Notice that for these introductory sorts of suggestions (which are a pair of one pace and one lead), we’re making pretty small changes to someone’s experience! We’re using words like “you can start to” and “beginning to,” and the content of the suggestion is stuff that’s pretty easy to use as building blocks. We’re not necessarily jumping to, “Now you’re in deep trance!” or “Now you’re fully under my control!” We’re giving the subject time to let their feelings grow in a natural way.
OK, now what?
You’ve said your three truths and one suggestion… Your partner might even be in trance! So… do you just stop there?
Keep going! You can repeat this pattern, and change it up! Try two truths and one suggestion, one truth and two suggestions… As the trance progresses, your partner will naturally become more responsive to you, and you’ll start to learn how to notice when your partner is more and more accepting.
It’s always good to throw in some “truths” even when someone is deep in trance—it helps maintain a strong sense that you’re both on the same page about how your partner is feeling, which is an important part of them feeling confident in responding to suggestions. It also can make them feel like you’re reading their mind, which is great for hypnosis!
Neither a certain “depth” of trance nor a “level” of responsiveness is the goal in hypnosis. The simple goal is that both partners are satisfied and feel good. Sometimes, a person is in trance when you give them their first “truth.” Sometimes, you may need to talk at them for a while before they visibly show signs of trance.
But! Even when they are in trance, that’s not the end of the hypnosis. Enjoy, explore, and deepen those feelings together. Don’t feel rushed to move on to more “different” suggestions.
Communication flow
Part of becoming more comfortable as a hypnotist is simply getting comfortable with this process of making a communication to your partner, allowing them to respond, and then making another communication to them. You can think of hypnosis (or any kink scene) as a conversation with verbal and nonverbal elements.
You want to be able to talk naturally, “listen” and observe what your partner has to say, and then respond. We look at this “three truths, one suggestion” model as simply a guideline to learn pacing and leading. There is no hard and fast rule for how many truths or suggestions to make at any point during trance.
As you progress, you’ll feel better about exiting from structure and simply saying the things that you think will affect your partner. Please, experiment!
Wake-up
Eventually, you’ll be ready for the scene to end. A “wake-up” in hypnosis is a suggestion that gives the person a foothold to come back to baseline. Here’s a couple tips:
Left alone, someone in hypnosis will eventually come out of trance (but that can be less fun, because they have to do a little “work” themselves and may feel a lack of attention).
Someone coming out of trance is most of the time going to feel a little fuzzy afterwards. That’s perfectly normal and it will fade over time—give them a little care if you can and encourage them to take it easy until they feel more with-it.
Wake-ups can be short and sweet, or long and involved. Here’s a couple of examples:
“When I snap my fingers, you’re going to wake up.”
“I’m going to count from one to three, and on the count of three, you’ll be out of trance. One… beginning to feel yourself stirring. Two… Noticing your body more and getting ready to fully awaken. And, three: up, up, up!”
As a general rule of thumb, it can be more comfortable for a person who’s been very engaged in trance (whether in intensity or time) to have a slightly longer wake-up, because they need a little time to reorient themselves. Notice that there are some suggestions about how the subject is incrementally feeling more awake and in touch with their body that can be useful.
You may see suggestions about telling your subject that they’ll feel “alert” and “wide awake” when they come back. While giving these suggestions can sometimes affect a person’s experience, sometimes it can be a little jarring for someone to be told that they’re supposed to be “alert” when they wake up feeling fuzzy. Over time, you can work with your partner to have quicker, more awakening wake-up capabilities, but at first, here’s some alternative phrasings and ideas you can think about:
“I’m going to count to three, and you can take that time to allow yourself to come back up in whatever way feels natural.”
“I’m going to snap my fingers, and your mind can take that as a sign to shift back awake.”
“You can begin to wake up now in the way that feels most right.”
These phrasings—especially when we emphasize that a suggestion will be carried out “on their own terms,” “in a way that feels right/natural” are what we might call “permissive,” and they can be really helpful for all sorts of suggestions!
