9 Persisting Misconceptions About Hypnosis

A zine by sleepingirl and GleefulAbandon, created in 2019. Available as a download.

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Hey, there! Have you been turned on to the wonders of hypnokink? Do you feel like you've just had a bucket of shibboleths and tips and bits of wisdom dumped over your head, and they are now slowly dripping down your back? Are you thinking to yourself, "OK, I am finally getting the hang of this erotic hypnosis thing?"

Not so fast! Odds are a lot of the information you've received is, while given in good faith, mired in assumptions about the nature of hypnosis and the human mind that are not empirically true! And the kicker about a practice that takes advantage of suggestibility is that buying into these can make them more true! How’s that for a mental rut?

Here are 9 myths about hypnosis you are likely to encounter in your freaky journey!

(Full disclosure: We are experienced hypnotic players who are constantly exploring and growing, and we recognize that not everyone may share our perspective on all of these. But when we accept the oft-repeated principles we hear as incontrovertible truth without questioning them, we risk building a wall between us and further learning about the amazing, weird things we can do with our brains! This is not meant to disparage any person for their beliefs or experiences, and we welcome feedback and discussion!)

1. All hypnosis is self-hypnosis.

Yep, and all pain you feel when someone punches you in the thigh is your own brain making pain happen. CURSE YOU, BRAIN!

This tends to be an idiom that can cause more harm than good. It’s clearly not an empirical statement (how could it be?) though it is often taken as one. On the surface, it’s well-intentioned and trying to convey that subjects have agency and hypnosis isn’t mind control like you see in the movies. However, while it's good to know that subjects have the ability to cultivate a real sense of self-sufficiency, it minimizes connection with the hypnotist and the power that can be exchanged. Hypnosis is collaborative, and the hypnotist’s behavior absolutely affects trance, whether positively, or in bad situations, negatively! It takes two to do hypnosis with two, full stop.

When you hear this phrase, ask yourself, what is really being communicated here?

2. Hypnosis is distinctly different than meditation, subspace, etc.

Different how, exactly? Sexiness is not sufficient here, kids.

Well, here's a whole can of worms: Hypnosis as defined by hypnokink practitioners tends to be a wider umbrella than the clinical definition of hypnosis. There is also the concept of hypnosis as an altered state and then the concept of hypnosis as a set of practices. Pretty much any altered state could be called hypnosis when kinksters use it in hypnokink to commit dastardly deeds. Same with the (extraordinarily broad) set of practices that we take advantage of to fuck with brains.

Here’s the thing: hypnosis isn’t just one solid thing or state with one solid set of rules. Trance and brainfuckery are dynamic! We don’t really even have a great way of defining suggestibility, because we know that shoving someone into an altered state and then telling them, “You will experience xyz” is not really sufficient. And of course, a lot of stuff can get done outside of a traditional “trance.” Where is the line?

Spoilers: Any line we make is subjective. Meditation, when you potentially put yourself in an altered state and change the way you focus pretty much fits under that umbrella, too.

3. You can't make someone do something they "don't want to do" or go against "core values" with hypnosis.

We do things we don't want to do all the time, starting each day from when we wake up when our alarms go off. People drink alcohol and do things they wouldn't have otherwise done. People are talked into buying things they don’t want or need, or making complex decisions that don’t always have their best interests at heart. Not to mention that our broad-strokes “core beliefs” are changeable, sometimes with just a simple shift in perspective.

Human beings are dynamic and complex and exciting creatures, and we don't have a black box inside of us with ideas that are immutable to us. Change in belief and behavior is a part of how we function, and that’s WITHOUT hypnosis! Once again, this myth is well-intentioned, but an oversimplification that can backfire if someone is trying to process why they experienced a hypnotic scene differently than they thought they would.

4. Depth is the key to suggestibility.

Here's an idea: A swear jar but you have to put money in every time someone asks if they were "deep enough." Depth is a metaphor, but it's a useful one! It relates to your own subjective trance experience and how you experience intensifying it, which is hugely important self-knowledge. But it is not quantifiable, and there is not a simple correlation between depth and ability to access more trance phenomena. As with many things in hypnosis, it’s different for everyone and can be different at different times based on a huge number of variables.

And on that note…

5. Suggestibility scales are legit.

"But wait!" You might say, "These have been studied! What about things like the Stanford Susceptibility Scale?"

They're bad.

Academics, in good faith, tried to impose objective rules on altered states that run on the subjectivity and diversity of the human mind. People are different. Subjects are different. Alas, researchers at Stanford in 1959 (yes, that long ago) were mystified by this concept. And still, so are some today.

Really, Stanford peeps, amnesia is the most hypnotized a person can get? Some folks lose memories in trance right away but won't take to certain hallucinations. And some hallucinations are easier for some folks than others. Trying to create hypnotic rules for how hypnotizable you are is a losing game.

But speaking of different kinds of hallucinations...

6. Working with someone’s “primary modality” is the key to effective hypnosis.

The idea that of the five senses we each have one primary one that aids in our learning and that is best used to create hypnotic states and phenomena is not only limiting, it’s been debunked time and time again. The concept of “modalities” that is so prevalent in the erotic hypnosis world comes directly from NLP, where Richard Bandler and John Grinder stated that we had primary modalities — a “Preferred Representational System.” However, just like with learning styles, study after study after study has found no supporting evidence of this. In fact, in the ‘80s (yes, that long ago), Bandler himself said that this idea was no longer emphasized in NLP (regardless of the fact that it is still pervasive today).

And beyond this, yeah, you could spend your time using only visual cues and visual words and creating visual hallucinations, or you could actually utilize multiple senses, because spoiler alert that is how human beings experience the world. You're not trying to find a secret code that unlocks a shortcut to being a better subject, you're Dora the Goddamned Explorer and it's not just about finding the thing at the end; it's about chilling with Boots and Map.

7. “iM tOo AnAlYtIcAl To Be HyPnOtIzEd”

Also going in the swear jar is anyone saying they have trouble being hypnotized because they're "too analytical." Bruh. Hypnosis is not a game of chess wherein the hypnotist out-logics the subject to get them to comply. It's engaging your brain and letting you do more with it than you thought possible. This is definitely not downplaying the experience of people who have had a difficult time getting the experiences they are searching for, but more about The System(ic misunderstanding pervading hypnokink culture) getting us all down.

Being “thinky” doesn’t mean someone can’t be hypnotized (hypnosis =/= not thinking or altered thinking), it just means that you both use what you’ve got — hypnotist AND subject. Analyzing something doesn’t make it impossible to trance. Hypnosis should not be synonymous with “letting go.” It’s about changes in focus and engagement, oftentimes really subtle, especially for subjects who have preconceived notions of what it’s going to feel like. It’s dynamic, it doesn’t mean laser focus, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean blank-minded.

Subjects: Learn to love the way you analyze; notice shifts and changes, use it to be open to learning about how hypnosis feels for you as opposed to what you expect it to feel like. Understanding what your real subjective responses are is key to growing.

Hypnotists: While it might be helpful for some people, stop assuming that you necessarily have to overload or confuse them to get to the holy hypnotic grail of mindlessness; utilize their internal responses for the trance!

Here's a secret: If a hypnotist calls someone a "difficult subject," they mean they failed to connect with their partner in a way that they deemed hypnotic enough. This is on them, not the subject.

8. Your subconscious is like a quiet roommate chilling inside your head.

The metaphor of your subconscious (or unconscious mind) as someone with whom you can communicate is a useful one for a lot of people! It can put you in touch with how you're feeling and processing, and create fun surprises no one might expect. But it's just that: a metaphor. Your brain is not a director and an actor; it’s a beautifully complex amalgam of experiences and observations. You can play with treating your subconscious as a person, but recognize that there's not literally a man behind a curtain, and recognize that your interpretation of it might be flawed (i.e., don’t use your “unconscious mind” to negotiate under the assumption that this conscious personification is faultless and somehow knows better than you do).

9. Abreactions.

This is a huge one, and another one where the hypnosis scene has deviated from psychology (sometimes a good thing!). Clinically, an abreaction is a response with some emotional connection, and is in fact often used as a tool to create breakthroughs in therapy. In the hypnokink Scene, “abreaction” has also become a boogeyman, a synonym for "freak out.”

Can folks freak out during a hypnosis scene? Sure! Can they freak out during an impact scene? Of course! Can they freak out in the dairy aisle of the supermarket because the wrong song starts playing on the loudspeaker? Also, yes. But an abreaction isn't technically synonymous with freak-out. Technically, a giggle-fit during hypnosis could be an abreaction.

Here’s the thing: it might even be OK to appropriate the term “abreaction” to mean “negative reaction” in the hypnokink community, but we have to stop making that interchangeable with “unexpected reaction.” Of course a negative reaction is unexpected. But that doesn’t mean all unexpected reactions are negative. They happen absolutely all the time in hypnosis; demonizing all of them is unhealthy and unrealistic.

Well-intentioned practitioners of erotic hypnosis have put all their safety eggs in one basket: Caution against causing an abreaction, end the scene when you do, and you've accounted for the worst. But this is a scene that traffics in suggestibility; when you make out abreactions to be this looming, awful risk, you bring them to the fore, and when both players assume that that means an unexpected reaction is cause for panic, it creates unwarranted anxiety and problems. Not to mention that it greatly hinders the breadth and depth of what you can achieve together.

In short, you can and should learn to navigate emotional vulnerability and be confident and flexible in handling your partners’ responses, no matter how unexpected or intense they are. We're here for those reactions, folks, and not all of them are to be feared and fixed.