Brainwashing to Reduce Hypnotic Agency by sleepingirl

Brainwashing to Reduce Hypnotic Agency by sleepingirl

The Brainwashing Book was a discussion of how to use operant and classical conditioning in order to make long-term practical changes in a hypnotic relationship (as well as improve our understanding of hypnosis as a whole). It is very much through the lens of behaviorism, because I felt that associative learning and conditioning are necessary concepts to grasp in order to comprehend what we do in general hypnosis and especially in whatever it is that we call “brainwashing.” I stand by this, but have known and tried to make clear that behaviorism is only a single model of how we can look at changing a person or creating some kind of “brainwashing” artifact to be intense and lasting.

I have been asked a lot about “When is volume II coming?” (presupposition and all) and for most of this year put that question on the backburner -- if there was ever going to be a volume II, I would want to put some space between it and the original book. Some space between my experience. I have largely focused on writing about NLP with the intention of making that my “book 2,” but not “volume II.”

But the other night, I started thinking about it more concretely; if I broke out of the original model, what would I want to say, what would I want to write about? And I realized that some of that stuff is worth me getting out on paper, even now. This article will be a collection of thoughts of how I might approach returning to this material, and largely, I am thinking about this from the perspective of turning hypnosis into mind control.

What is Mind Control?

If brainwashing is a fantasy that we as hypnokinksters want to make achievable, mind control sits right next to it. When talking about erotic brainwashing, we were very careful to define it as broadly as possible in order to allow for the kind of variance that occurs between relationships and partners. However, in this piece, it is likely more helpful to get more specific and actually try to define some parameters of what we are aiming for. This is not to say that mind control is necessarily more objectively defined, or that you can’t use your own picture to create a dynamic that is most attractive for you and your partner. Simply that to discuss this, it is helpful to have a framework. Any of the elements involved can be tweaked to suit your desires.

If we think of depictions of mind control in media, several elements come to mind. The first and foremost is a lack of ability to resist, and that is what we will be focusing on in this writing. The fantasy of mind control often comes into play as a plot point between hero and villain, where malicious intent forces an unwilling party into doing their bidding. But even when mind control is being used as a force of good, the core of it is still predicated on compulsion or influence that cannot be easily countered by sheer force of will.

This is often described as the difference between “mind control” and “hypnosis” as realistic concepts. The first thing a hypnotist may say to a new subject is how hypnosis is not mind control and therefore they cannot be controlled against their will. This gives us a very distinct starting point for this kind of fantasy. But, is it possible to use hypnosis in such a way that truly removes resistance? The answer is complex, surely, but close to “yes,” which we will explore, and of course the many ethical considerations necessary to introduce this element into consensual relationships.

Ethics

Certainly, this kind of play is challenging to navigate within a traditional framework of consent and negotiation. Generally it is much easier to understand how to approach the safety of some aspect of kink after understanding how it is achieved and what, practically, is happening. This is key to mitigating risk; it is impossible to discuss specific risks within a vacuum where there is no foundation for the actual activity. However, in this case, it may be prudent to bookend this piece on both sides with some ethical considerations; first, we can talk about what kind of dynamic this creates, and later, we can talk about the specifics.

A theoretical dynamic wherein resistance is purposefully reduced or eliminated seems unlike any other kink activity. But, we can think about similar styles of relationship: total power exchange, consensual nonconsent, or playing without safewords. The common theme in these dynamics is that agency is consensually messed with in some way -- even though there is variance between individual relationships.

The obvious key is that this reduction of agency is agreed upon by both parties, and hopefully following a lot of trust-building and discussions of risk and practical mitigation strategies. While on some level, doing this hypnotically may seem a little different as it is altering the way the bottom/subject processes and thinks, but even in more traditional BDSM relationships, this happens more often than we might expect. For TPE/CNC/no-safeword play, you will often hear participants saying that it becomes very real to them, even though they are bound simply by an agreement and motivation. The bottom may truly feel that there is no way for them to legitimately protest; the patterns of behavior that they follow within a relationship builds muscle memory and expectation that mirrors the kind of lack of resistance we try to aim for with mind control. In fact, agreement and motivation is partially what we are playing with in terms of hypnosis.

Likewise, although none of this is one-size-fits-all, we can compare mitigation and boundaries to BDSM relationships. Lack of agency means that the hypnotist/top necessarily takes more responsibility onto themselves, and both parties must be confident -- not simply through intuition, but from experience -- that the top has a clear understanding of where the bottom’s lines are in different situations at different times, and that there is a very real chance that they do not always get it right. There must be an acceptance that lines will shift and change as well as acknowledgement that the top will, in many cases, be the one who ultimately makes choices about that. This is not just for the bottom’s comfort and consent; this is quite a bit for the top to take on as well.

Safewords specifically are intended as a communicative function -- they easily and clearly let the top know that something needs to change or stop. When they are taken out of the equation, that communication changes. The bottom may be allowed to voice their concerns normally or verbally (albeit without guarantee that they will be respected) but this may be a big change that they have to learn. Safewords can certainly still exist within a brainwashing relationship that has elements of decreased resistance, but by nature of this kind of brainwashing, they are no longer as effective as mitigation. The communication is necessarily altered, and some relationships may make choices about how they receive it.

To explain more, it will be helpful to understand just what we mean when we say “reducing resistance,” so we should jump right into that. But in summary, when beginning to approach this kind of play, consider the very real risks involved in your partner potentially losing the ability to effectively say “no” to something at all times. What kinds of lines does that create? What kind of conversations will you need to have? Are there boundaries that must be set, and how strong are they? Do you have a good understanding of your partner’s limits, and are both of you prepared to have discussions if someone’s lines are inadvertently crossed? Are you and your partner emotionally ready for that?

Reducing Agency

So, when we talk about reducing agency, what do we actually mean? There are two potential ideas here that are inevitably connected. The first is thinking about resistance as a whole within a relationship: generally making someone more agreeable in all aspects of a dynamic. Their decision-making is based more on the hypnotist’s choices, their patterns of behavior are more yielding in a broad sense whether within play or outside of it. This might be what comes to mind when we think of brainwashing as a whole.

The second idea is specifically about altering agency within hypnosis itself. This is some of the most interesting and obviously transgressive stuff that we can achieve with hypnosis -- the oft-repeated phrase “Hypnosis can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do” is overly simplistic for any number of common reasons in general hypnokink, but with this intention, we are attempting to look it in the face and specifically prove it wrong. What if you could make a suggestion and you and your partner had faith that they would take it, regardless if it was 100% wanted?

Response to Suggestion

To understand how to change the way someone responds to a hypnotic suggestion, it’s best to understand how that response works in the first place. We know that hypnosis often doesn’t make someone respond mindlessly. When a subject is given a suggestion, they go through a process to parse it. That process varies on many factors, such as the state of mind someone is in, who they are, and their history with hypnosis, but we can think of a few things that might be happening.

Perhaps we can consider the way that a message is received in an interaction. The speaker has an intention of what they’d like to communicate, translate that to words (and/or nonverbal signals), and the listener receives the communication and then needs to parse it to understand it. In hypnosis, we understand that part of this parsing process are different kinds of evaluations that happen within the moment. The kinds of evaluations that someone makes can be conscious or unconscious -- they either think about it or it happens outside of their awareness -- and can vary; long-term experienced partners may make fewer or different judgments about whether or not a suggestion falls within an acceptable range of behavior for them, for example.

Judging whether a suggestion is acceptable or consented to is a common response. Another might be that a subject parses a suggestion and considers whether it makes sense to what they are experiencing; think about how we pace and lead to ensure we are sending messages that are congruent with the subject’s experience. For now, let’s think most about the former, although what we are talking about will inevitably affect the latter.

Making hypnosis work a little bit differently for someone is sort of our goal when we are talking about making it more like mind control. We can use a variety of different strategies, but corrupting, co-opting, or hijacking these evaluative processes in different ways is one of the primary things we can do. Let’s explore.

Speed and Reframing

One of the primary ways to think about this is by making the response to suggestion so fast that it essentially bypasses some or all of the evaluations. If a subject takes a suggestion in such a way that they respond to it without the chance to consciously or unconsciously judge it, they may lose the opportunity to negate it. Refusing a suggestion is a product of evaluating it, and in many cases is a learned skill. Some new subjects don’t have the understanding or muscle memory to analyze a suggestion that’s being offered to them and decide whether or not they’d like to respond to it; this is a critical skill for new subjects to learn in order to be able to keep themselves safer in interactions. However, in this scenario, we are making an effort to eliminate or reduce that process.

Subjects often have different ways that they process suggestions, as mentioned; the way someone responds in what they feel as “deep trance” might be different than how they feel they respond when they are awake. Many people have had at least one experience where they feel as though when a suggestion was given, they responded to it “unconsciously” -- without thinking about it. This is something we want to draw upon, but take a little bit further -- some refer to “preconscious” response, where it occurs not without awareness, but before. It’s the feeling that a response happens “too fast” for them to even think about it. The other concept that comes into play here is reframing: taking an existing situation and describing it differently, from a different point of view. As we’ll be exploring, many parts of the hypnotic response can be reframed to suit our needs.

Recalling

As always, it’s important to understand the way that your partner responds so you can best utilize their unique skillset. If you are working with someone who has familiarity with responding to trance in such a way that they feel they “don’t think about it” or it “happens before they can do anything,” then you have a good starting point. You can have them recall that, whether in or outside of trance, and talk about the things that they feel made that happen. Having to go over it again causes them to parse over it and make connections about it, and also gives you information about how that response works. Perhaps there are specific ingredients or environments that make that happen. Perhaps it happens mostly with a specific response (being triggered into trance is a common one). Or perhaps they feel they need to be at a certain “depth” to get that kind of responsiveness (which begs for some exploration of depth as a general concept).

This usual trick of recall is a good one to build anchors with, of course. You can even anchor a “too fast” response feeling to responding to an entirely different suggestion; building the association. Invoking a memory or thought is often an automatic process -- consider, “Don’t think of pink elephants.” Keep in mind of course that remembering something transforms it, and trying to explain or produce it transforms it further. It will not be the exact experience they had before. It is good to acknowledge this, because it is possible a subject will feel like they can’t quite grasp the original feeling. You can instead anchor to the act of recalling itself, or simply leave room for variance in response. You can even try to tweak that for your purposes: “It’s easy enough to remember that sense of automatic responsiveness, but notice how it’s a little different now that we’re constructing it in your head, almost a little easier and smoother to process as your brain learns how to do it.”

You can think of the basic principles of classical conditioning here -- at its core, classical conditioning is about pairing responses that happen, at least on some level, unconsciously. For example, if your partner is recalling a moment that they went into trance without processing it, and you anchor that to a specific trance trigger, they can go into trance and build that response. You can continue to tweak it in such a way that they focus on different aspects of the experience, which has the effect of distracting someone from their process of actually evaluating the current suggestion. Perhaps they feel it as a speed thing, especially if you frame it as such, but maybe they understand it in different ways, such as it happening outside of their awareness, or they are being controlled. These are all useful frames of references to work within.

Buy-In and Fantasy

Another way that you can draw upon this sort of idea is by using fantasy. Many subjects fantasize about being hypnotized in such a way that they aren’t able to resist. The motivation to make that a reality can be really strong, and you can take advantage of that desire. Often, someone will have a really deep, core association with that concept, especially if they fetishize mind control. In the same way you might anchor recollections of a feeling, you can draw upon or construct something from their memories of fantasy.

To some degree, you may be working against their understood sense of hypnosis. Hypnokinksters are told early and often that hypnosis cannot be mind control, and that hypnosis includes agency in different ways that fantasy mind control does not. So it may be important to discuss with someone how these fantasies ARE possible, in a pretalk sense (almost the antithesis of the traditional pretalk) to frame it for them. If they have existing experiences of automatic response, this is helpful, but even explaining a little bit to them how you can achieve it in other methods will give them something to work off of.

You want them to buy-in to the idea. For some subjects, simply having them doubt having a sense of complete agency is enough to smooth this process out. You can also entice them into the idea: “This is something you’ve wanted for so long, giving up so much to the point that you don’t control your own responses anymore...” Using some causality logic will greatly help you here: “...And that makes it even easier for your mind to do all the things it has to do to make it happen, use your own resources against you.”

Putting them in the place of a fantasy character responding to mind control is another idea. It takes them out of the frame of reference of being a hypnotic subject that responds in a prescribed way. You can do this as a sort of persona shift, but it doesn’t have to be anything traditionally structured. Simply having someone imagine what someone else might experience can be enough to have them process in a different way. You could do this visually, as though they are watching the experience, or in a more abstract sense. This plays off of concepts you might see from induction styles like “My friend John”: “I am thinking about a person who has no willpower left, who is just a total responsive puppet, and the way they take suggestions at this point, oh, it’s so good, the words just go in and they have no part of it, their brain is so disconnected from anything but skillfully making them happen, perfectly, automatically.” Perhaps there are some associations you can make with the trope of dolls, robots, or even bimbos.

Training

Of course, one of the most obvious things that comes to mind is being able to train this sort of response; starting from scratch or continuing to reinforce an existing response. Conditioning is relevant here again, both the ideas of using operant conditioning to shape and build towards a desired behavior as well as classical conditioning to associate responses. Let’s look at a concrete example of how this might work.

One of the easier responses to condition in a way that bypasses or changes the evaluative process might be the act of going into trance, so much so that this kind of unconscious response can seem normal. We can think about something like fractionation as a good example of this. There is a sort of expectation of trance getting “easier” to achieve as fractionation proceeds. Subjects may feel as though fractionation makes them go “deeper” as well as more automatically into trance. You can consider this as a sort of classical conditioning principle; being put into trance over and over trains the response naturally and encourages familiarity with it as well as speed. Remember that classical conditioning can be seen to work on the principle of expectation/prediction, so the subject is predicting exactly what will happen before the next signal to go into trance is even given. They’ve already pre-evaluated it and are primed for it. This is exactly the kind of thing we are looking for.

It’s important to note at this point that just like any other form of training or hypnotic response, making a transition to less resistance is not something that is simply achieved and then done. It takes upkeep and may not be fully immersive every time on the first shot. This relates to fractionation -- after ups and downs, that trance response becomes very consistent, but after a break, although generally subjects will learn how to go into trance more quickly over time, it may take a moment to get back to that space.

So to some degree, part of this is about making someone comfortable with that evaluation happening before the suggestion is given, or that the evaluation is done acceptingly so many times that it becomes habitual and automatic. Repetition helps train that; fractionation of trance or other responses can speed things up, provided that they are going through the process and learning the way it feels. This is also where some brainwashy suggestion and framing can be useful: “Can’t you feel yourself learning to accept my suggestions more intuitively? Like, the process you go through gets easier and easier the more you trust me, and you don’t really have to worry about that anymore; your mind will do it all on its own or realize that it doesn’t have to do it at all to respond powerfully and intensely.”

More Ethics/Safety

All of this being said about a bit of technique to use, let’s revisit our discussion of ethics and safety. Clearly, and truthfully, it should be stated that this is a dangerous thing to do. No matter how you attempt to put boundaries on how your partner responds, whether you attempt for it to only be with you, or any number of situational circumstances, the reality is that you are teaching them to un-learn aspects of hypnotic skill that are meant to keep them safe. When someone learns these patterns they can become habitual, and this kind of habit is not easy to put simple boundaries on, especially seeing as the kind of behavior we are looking at is specifically stuff that makes responses automatic and unconscious. We must always be conscious that hypnosis is not magical and perfect, and that means our attempts at creating safety hypnotically are not a guarantee of anything. Likewise, there is no magic word that undoes behavior-learning instantly.

While there are strategies we can use to assist and mitigate risk, consenting to this style of play and relationship necessarily involves consenting to the risk of bleedover and specifically the risk that your partner loses some ability to evaluate how safe suggestions are on their own. Of course, this is not a given, nor is it universal; this is something that is very nuanced.

But this makes it all the more important for this play to occur only when the hypnotist partner is available to care for the subject. Not only should they have a very solid understanding of what is acceptable, but they must accept the risk that a line gets crossed and they cannot rely on the subject parsing suggestions for consent and safety as effectively anymore. As hypnotists, we of course strive to play within our partners’ limits and boundaries as a primary way that we approach play. But we also are used to understanding or encouraging our subjects to speak up if something is wrong or reject suggestions. This process may change if we change the way our partners respond to suggestion in general. For this reason, it’s by far safest to do this kind of play within an existing and long-term involved partnership.

It’s also worth coming back to the conversation about how general brainwashed-ness can influence hypnotic agency, and vice versa. Exerting control over someone’s ability to reject suggestion can have the effect of naturally making them feel more brainwashed; it is a powerful proof of control, and this is something to keep in mind. It can create dependency, not just feelings of it, but true dependency where the bottom comes to rely more on the top for general safety and boundary-setting.

Some Ideas About Mitigation

In The Brainwashing Book, we discussed a lot about risk mitigation and acceptance, and a lot of that applies here, particularly ensuring that your partner has a solid basis for how “traditional” safety works in regards to responding to suggestion. The idea is that the better your partner has good agency ingrained in their habits, the easier it is to fall back on them and the more muscle memory they have to be able to switch back to that as needed. This is something you can reinforce, and some practice of both “styles” can be beneficial so that both behavioral patterns feel natural.

You can even try creating separate spaces for each approach -- marking times when you want your partner to evaluate suggestions and have agency versus times when they have less resistance. Keep in mind of course that that switch from one to the other may take some guidance, even if it is something set up ahead of time, and won’t necessarily be perfect. This is potentially a better strategy than the framing of “resetting” someone as it’s less about unlearning something and more about developing separate skillsets.

There may be some impulse to set up some kind of automatic process that judges the acceptability of suggestions without your partner being aware of it, but this may not be the best way to handle it. The idea of the “hidden observer” (or the “unconscious mind” functioning as such) is a pervasive one and we know there are some issues with it. Even attempting to create this process is not perfect. The biggest risk with this is the high potential for it to not work as intended. It is impossible to create some sort of separate persona or artifact that can neutrally judge actions and responses within your partner’s mind. It would not be great to rely on that as being failsafe when logically that sort of “observing oneself” process would naturally shift and change and be reliant on the headspace of your subject, no matter how you tried to separate it. Always keep in mind that there is not a perfect internal part of your partner that knows what is best for them.

However, something as simple as check-ins and encouraging other safety behaviors can be helpful. It’s very useful for subjects to be able to speak while in trance. In this way, and if they are used to speaking up when they desire to communicate something, you can learn about how they are feeling, especially if you’ve had them respond in a way that didn’t feel good for them. It is your responsibility at a hypnotist in this kind of relationship to ensure and teach your subject these skills and always reward communication (and respond well to it).

Use Actual Force Sparingly, If Ever

One last note here: we have been framing this occasionally as reducing “resistance” and we have been operating within the fantasy nomenclature of mind control wherein the subject is being made to do things against their will. However, for these kinds of relationships where there are real people involved, even if your partner’s limits are allowed to be crossed as part of the relationship, it’s important to cross actual boundaries very rarely.

Mainly sticking to activities that you are confident your partner would consent to will keep things healthy as well as effective. We don’t want to harm our partners, and especially if they begin to learn that responding automatically to your suggestion means that they are often left doing things they don’t want will make them less inclined to give you that kind of power and control. Doing things that they enjoy will make them feel more comfortable and confident giving in to you.

Of course, the lines get blurred when we choose to engage in various kinds of consensual nonconsent and otherwise fetishize boundary-pushing. This is incredibly nuanced, but one thing to consider is that there are different kinds of “nos” that your partner has. You want to aim for “nos” that are mutually gratifying and have some element of “yes” involved. There is no magical way to learn how to do this or what those things are save for lots of communication, trust, and attention. You want to look for things that have sexy tension, not things that would make your partner balk.

Reducing someone’s resistance only to do things they enjoy may seem strange. But the reality is that it does not reduce the intensity of the sense of someone responding without agency. Both you and your subject will most likely experience the crazy power trip that exists when someone responds automatically, breathlessly, and reports feeling like they truly don’t have control over their actions when you are controlling them. You can encourage this with hypnotic and other patter, of course.

In Conclusion

This is a lot of information, and it is honestly only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to being more specific with brainwashing or looking to create something that looks like mind control. I will be open and say that I was very nervous about sharing this because it is very transgressive stuff and I don’t want it to be taken as “you should do this” or “this is a complete guide to do this safely.” This kind of activity requires an insane amount of learning and trust, exploration of relationship styles and discussion. Things can go wrong, and responsibility shifts. It has the potential to create very unpleasant outcomes.

All of that being said, I think it’s important that we share the experiences we have, especially to show that there are ways to do this sort of thing in an ethical and consent-conscious way. Hypnosis is not mind control but there are ways that we can get close, and I hope to be able to share more of what I can so that people can make their own choices of what they’d like to seek. Think for yourself about what risks are involved, how you can mitigate, and how you can use someone’s responses against them to create a dynamic and scenes that are enjoyable and thrilling for everyone involved.