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Emdash

Emdash

@emdashery.bsky.social

230 followers 230 following 100 posts

Mid-30s demi hypno-nerd with a passion for punctuation. Always glad to talk shop about hypno and kink.

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Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · Oct 23

Twitter Repost: So, I've been deep into hypnokink for two years, and "hypnotic amnesia" still seems like the holy grail for a lot of folks in terms of selling/living the fantasy. I've got a theory about it!

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 18h

ADDENDUM: I don't want to sound like I'm talking down on files. They're a big part of the kink for a lot of people, and they make it accessible in a way very unique to hypno!

I just think they're not the best way to either measure or train suggestibility.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 18h

(Even if it makes me wish that there was a way to ethically and sensibly demonstrate this growth in *the literature*.)

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 18h

But that means that a lot of the research that suggests that hypnotizability is stable/difficult to change just...falls flat for motivated parties.

Kinksters are gonna skill grind hypnotizability in a way that researchers can't really anticipate. And I think that's delightful!

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 18h

So much hypno research is based on files or protocols. That's the nature of science: You have to control for the variables! But ask any hypnotist (and especially hypno-kinkster), and they'll tell you: Good hypno happens in the moment, meeting both partners where they are.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 18h

#hypnovenber Discourse 3: A Short Rant on Hypno Research

I fekkin' love reading hypno stuff, including the latest research, but I find myself feeling like the kinksters are achieving stuff that researchers can't. Obviously, some of that's for good reason--IRBs don't approve drone play (usually)

Reposted by Emdash

ELDER BEAST 🔜 MIR @theelderbeast.bsky.social · 2d

Saying someone is a “bad subject” because they didn’t get hypnotized is sort of like saying someone id a “bad at eating” cuz they didn’t like a meal you made them. People are different! With huge varieties in psychology and experience. It informs our likes and what works for us.

Reposted by Emdash

Karlos 🔜 Palm Springs Pride 11/5-11/10 @karlosthefog.bsky.social · 1d

I will NEVER find the AI video/photo you shared interesting or funny or neat

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 1d

You layer in the suggestions you know they're capable of, then the ones you're pretty confident about. You play around with where they are and where they can go, and slowly, you help them figure out how these little dissociative tricks work inside their salty brain-meats.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 1d

So, it's not really about chasing depth, unless that's actually what you and your partner want. If you want good, sticky suggestions, think more about rapport--the way that everything the tist says becomes more and more trustworthy. That's how you boil the frog:

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 1d

That can be a fun convincer for the audience, too: When someone you've played with enough gets to the point where you can drop them with a look and then lob a suggestion-grenade you know they're capable of? That's good hot fun AND compelling evidence that trance is real (or the right kind of fake.)

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 1d

--and rapport is actually the secret sauce. You can go deep with mid rapport. You can also get profound suggestions to stick in a light trance when you've got excellent rapport, like with an experienced, long-time play partner.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 1d

(I'm going to use "rapport" here to mean the subject's willingness to assume/believe/imagine that the tist's suggestions are true, which you get by building up trust and credibility. When a suggestion sticks, they think: Oh, this person's saying true things! Their next thing will also be true.)

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 1d

But in and of itself, more depth does not equal more suggestibility.

And yet, folks often DO get more suggestible. Why? Well, my take is that depth takes a while to get to, and on the way, chances are good that you've developed a pretty strong rapport--

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 1d

But I think a lot of tists and subs chase depth because they think it'll make suggestions stick better, and that's not true in my experience (or the literature, for however much we want to trust that).

A deep trance might get different suggestions to work, or work differently--

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 1d

First and foremost: This isn't a callout to anyone who loves deep trances! Depth is fun, even when it's just for its own sake. It's hard to define and not universal, but you definitely know it when you sink into it. For me, it's pleasant, distant, heavy, and dissociative.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 1d

#hypnovember discourse #2: Depth, Rapport, and Boiling the Frog:

So, lots of time in hypnokink, folks chase "depth" without really giving much thought to what it is. There's an assumption that deep trance = better trance. Let's talk about that. 🧠🐸🫕

Reposted by Emdash

Visible Restraint @visiblerestraint.bsky.social · 2d

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 2d

Yet is a really important word--it could very well be that you just haven't found the right approach for your brain yet. There's an endless array of techniques, approaches, styles, inductions, and hypnotists out there, and you truly never know which is going to be the right fit for your brain

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 2d

Addendum: It's fine to be a new tist--nervous, uncertain, self-conscious. It's fine to get things wrong in earnest and be disappointed, whether you're new or not! We have all been there.

It's just not fine to displace your disappointment on a partner. It damages them, and it damages you.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 2d

Delight in the unknowable, unpredictable brain. This kink is alchemy, so you have to learn to love *the process of doing it.*

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 2d

Their honest reactions and responses ARE the right reactions and responses. If it's not what you expected (or what gets you/them off), congratulations: Now you know something new!

Cowboy up, chat about it, and play around with other approaches, expectations, metaphors, etc.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 2d

Tists shouldn't put their expectations of what a response HAS to be on their partners, either. The bubbling, magical cauldron is always what's happening inside the sub's head, and as the tist...you don't get to see it. You can poke it. Stir it. Feed it. Heat it. But you. Can't. See. It.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 2d

There's no one magic word or formula. No script fits everyone. No metaphor is universally powerful or even applicable.

Hypnosis is--has to be--about meeting your partner where they are in their mind, in their life, and in the moment.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 2d

...Well, I don't have much patience or generosity for tists who pathologize their play partners. It's reckless, it's rude, and it's wrong.

Everyone can get better at being hypnotized, and when something "doesn't work," it's probably because your approach as the tist isn't working.

Emdash @emdashery.bsky.social · 2d

--because you can internalize the message that you're bad at something. And unsurprisingly when it comes to hypno, our beliefs shape our reality. If you're told that you're just a bad subject, that you're not responding like you should, that you'll never get to play like you want to play...