On Waking Trance (Article)

On Waking Trance by sleepingirl

Hypnosis is well-known for being connected with the idea of sleep -- the term “hypnosis” itself implying this, and the very concept coming from a historical background which to some degree equated the two. As hypnokinksters, we know that this is an erroneous relationship, but there is still a lot of focus given to the image of a subject slumped in a chair with eyes closed, seemingly nonresponsive.

“Waking trance” may seem like an oxymoron, and indeed, it doesn’t fully describe the nuance involved in terms of an accurate model of hypnosis. To understand better how we can utilize “waking” trance and how it works, we should first strive to understand a little bit more about hypnosis itself and start examining our motivations for why we want to explore this.

What Is “Hypnosis?”

Within hypnokink, we tend to talk about “hypnosis” as something that is more broad than just the “state” of trance. Confusingly, we use “hypnosis” to mean two separate things: 1) The overarching process of doing mind-play and having a scene (“Let’s do some hypnosis together”), and 2) The specific altered state of trance (“I am going to put you into hypnosis”).

As hypnokinksters, we use the term this way to some degree because we have an understanding that hypnosis as a practice encompasses much more than the simple idea of putting someone into an altered state and giving suggestions. We know that there are so many variables and factors involved in having an effective, enjoyable experience. The adage, “Ask 10 hypnotists how hypnosis works and you will get 20 different answers” is over-quoted, but quite relevant. Does this hold true outside the hypnokink world, and can we get some context from that? Do we have a scientific model of how hypnosis works or what it is? 

State Versus Non-State

There are a lot of theories that come out of the clinical world about what hypnosis is and how it functions, but many of them can be explained as falling under the categories of “state theories” or “non-state theories.” There is not a singular state or non-state theory -- there are a collection of various theories that simply often fit on one side or the other, and far too many to discuss in such a small section of an article.

But the split between these two worldviews is generally simple: Some see hypnotic phenomena as a product of utilizing an objectively altered state of consciousness (“hypnosis”), while others explain it as a result of many psychological factors such as role-enactment, placebo effect, and general human behavior. Take the example of a hypnotic subject “in trance” responding to a suggestion that their arm feels lighter. A state theory may say that the arm is raising because the subject is in an objectively altered state of consciousness that causes them to respond in a special way to suggestions. A non-state theory may say that this is the result of the subject expecting hypnosis to work a certain way -- they are in the role of a “subject” and thus will respond like one. State theories may discuss dissociation as an important aspect of hypnosis (such as dissociation from conscious “control” or the feeling of voluntary response) and distinctly resulting from a trance state involving changes in brain function, while non-state theories do not, but both perspectives tend to emphasize the sense of involuntary experience as defining of hypnosis.

If you are thinking that both of these sides each seem like they make sense in different ways and in different scenarios, you are not alone. There are also more modern clinical theories of hypnosis, some of which take a more middle-of-the-road approach. However, these theories are quite reactionary and still must work off of other theories and studies -- none of which are objective, or unbiased, and often make assumptions that we don’t universally agree with in the hypnokink world. But how should we view the nature of hypnosis within the community?

A Hypnokink Model

We know for a fact that expectation, motivation, and placebo are heavily involved in response to suggestion, and we also work off of a model which is very interested in the idea of trance and depth, if simply as a subjective feeling that is worth exploring. We also know that response to suggestion is not necessarily predicated on a hypnotic state -- inductions themselves are made up of suggestions, and subjects can have great success experiencing intense responses even when no effort is made to put them into trance beforehand. We don’t know how much an actual “trance state” has to do with suggestibility in general. Even academic studies have found that with context, responsiveness to suggestion while “in trance” is only marginally more effective than suggestions made outside of trance. It is perhaps more useful to think of hypnosis terms of the concept that it represents a level of engagement, a shift in focus and/or processing, or a potential expansion of capability.

Additionally, while clinical literature defines hypnotic response as necessarily feeling involuntary, hypnokinksters are familiar with a level of subtlety involved in this. Not every response has the same feeling of total dissociation from conscious control, and that doesn’t represent failure. Being able to experience this is a skill which can be learned and taught, and is never universal.

For the purpose of this article (and all others), we will be thinking about a model of hypnosis that is quite broad. A common phrase in the hypnokink community is “Hypnosis is bullshit,” which can be interpreted as a tongue-in-cheek way of acknowledging that while hypnosis is our defining interest, we know incredibly little about it, and that “hypnosis” itself as we use it is not the most important part of enjoyable, successful scenes. Just like with non-state theories, we recognize that context, rapport, and general psychology are central to hypnokink, and we additionally use some idea of intimacy in whatever form that takes. But we also love our concept and subjective experience of trance -- for many, it’s the core of our interest. Hypnokink is about being flexible with which models you choose to view the world through, and that means acknowledging that hypnosis is “real” to us in some way, no matter what that objectively represents, and that hypnosis is also bullshit.

What Is “Waking Trance?”

So, understanding a little bit more about how we should look at trance in general, what is a viable model for understanding this nebulous idea of waking trance? We know that trance is a dynamic thing in and of itself, and we know that we are all naturally suggestible regardless of whether or not there is a formal “trance” state. There is no singular static “state” of hypnosis. Our changes in cognition and experience during trance speak to an idea that there are many different kinds of states that we move through in our daily lives and when we are engaging intimately with each other. While we may not have the science available to prove a multitude of subtle physiological changes, we can at the very least operate on an idea that we must treat the dynamic nature of the hypnotic experience with respect.

Understanding this and all of the previous context tells us that we should view “waking trance” as something that is not really distinct from “regular” hypnosis at all -- while at the same time that we must acknowledge that it is. We must create our own definitions and models for the experiences that we create with our partners. So when it comes down to it, there are a few things to consider, and some of it relates to our motivations in the first place.

Why do we want to explore waking trance? Is it simply about expanding the context in which we are able to work with our partners? Is it about creating a sense of subjective control? For all of this, you have to consider what “waking trance” looks and feels like, since there is no objective definition. Does the subject appear completely awake, but feel something internally? Or are there subtle differences, like a little bit of stiffness or sluggishness to the way they move, or slight changes around their eyes? Does trance logic come into play? There are so many questions, and no right answers, but we have quite enough that we can work from in terms of creating the kinds of experiences that we are seeking.

Expanding Associations

The feeling of being in trance is often a very attractive thing, and many subjects express a desire to be able to be in that state as long as possible to be able to feel it. In this case, the focus should be on striving to understand what makes a person believe that they are in trance, and then being able to expand that capability. As the hypnotist, you are able to influence this in a variety of ways.

In the classical hypnosis example, we have this idea of “convincers” -- some act or suggestion which serves to prove to the subject that they are hypnotized. We know that the conviction involved in someone thinking that they are in trance is important in a variety of ways -- like the expectation that they will act differently or be more suggestible. The general model for hypnotizing a new subject nearly always includes some sort of experience which causes them to perform an internal check, with the goal being that the subject comes to their own conclusion that they are, in fact, in trance. This may take the form of a suggestion like catalepsy -- the subject tries to move, and finds that they cannot. Some subjects report a feeling like, “I probably could if I really tried, but I just didn’t want to.” Hypnotists know to reframe that response as a successful one -- “Doesn’t that imply that you were hypnotized, that you were so far removed from that desire?”

However, with experience, both subjects and hypnotists note that they don’t necessarily have to rely on something so rigidly structured to achieve a “yes” response to that internal question of “Am I in trance?” This is because over time, subjects will either consciously or unconsciously take note of certain things that they experience and determine are proof of trance. For some subjects, this may be as concrete as something outwardly obvious, such as heaviness or looseness in their body (referred by hypnokink educator GleefulAbandon as “dogalepsy,” the opposite of catalepsy), or the way that their eyes flutter or roll. But these can also be much more subtle, like a distinct but difficult-to-describe sensation inside their head or behind their eyes. It’s important to remember that these signs can be different from person to person, and even different at different times -- the subjects that are most versatile in hypnosis are those that are able to recognize that.

As hypnotists, we can expand the capabilities of our partners by encouraging them to be able to make these sorts of connections between their subjective experience and their trance. What’s happening on some level is that the subject is creating associations -- “My eyes are getting heavier, therefore I am in trance.” By the same token, we can conceptualize someone feeling as though they aren’t in trance as having similar associations -- “My eyes are wide open, therefore I am not in trance.” Certainly, understanding what someone’s subjective experience is in this regard requires a little bit of communication; what you see as signs of their trance may be different than what they feel. You can ask questions like, “When you’re in trance, what does it feel like?” Or, you can go the other direction: “What tells you that you’re awake?” (Add a “right now” to emphasize the sneaky fun -- their internal check may very well be a hypnotic act.)

From here, you can alter their associations. Going along with the previous example, if a subject says they feel awake with their eyes open, you have many options available to you. You can approach it as an opportunity to convince in the classical sense, like having them keep their eyes open in an almost cataleptic way: “Your eyes become wide and hypnotized, the sense of your eyes going into deep trance, stuck open, and the way they become glassy…” You could also question their sense of their own experience: “What makes you so sure that you’re awake right now? Isn’t it possible that you’re in trance and you’re not noticing? I can see all sorts of signs of trance -- a change in your posture, the muscle form in your face…” Emphasizing that you can tell better than they can about their trance state is one way of allowing you to change their perception of it and create the definitions and associations you want. To some degree, this idea of changing definition is very important. You want the subject to define trance in a certain way to include signs and signals that they may previously not have accepted as “hypnotized.”

Consider, too, that being as broad as possible with your definition here allows for more of those internal trance checks to come back as positive. If a subject in waking trance can act completely normally, but also may sometimes recognize the slight contrasts and changes in the way they see, move, or breathe, you’ll be able to have that feeling be more consistent.

As with all hypnosis, this is not necessarily about rewriting their own definitions and behaviors (although that certainly can be involved), but about being able to utilize what already exists. One of the most effective things you can do is broaden their definition of “trance” to include behaviors that happen while they are “awake.” If a subject seems very alert and talks about how they have clarity of mind while not in trance, you can suggest something like, “Trance cognition is a funny thing; it changes based on how we need to function. You know that your thinking shifts around so much between different trance states, and you know that you’re deep in trance right now, so if you had to think about something clearly, your brain would easily shift to make that happen even this deep, maybe in a way that’s difficult to discern or maybe in a way that is very obvious -- that sense of easy cognition, being sharp and smart as a result of being hypnotized…” Remember, of course, that thought patterns can be considered behaviors and signs of trance, too. 

Anchoring

Anchoring is a familiar process to many hypnotists -- just like the idea of setting a trigger, anchoring is all about taking a mental state or response and pairing it with some sort of stimulus so that it may be returned to easily. The word “anchoring” is seen often in NLP, and works based on the principle of classical or Pavlovian conditioning: If you ring a bell consistently before giving a dog food, the dog will exhibit signs of psychologically and physiologically expecting the food even in its absence. In hypnosis, we apply this in ways like setting and reinforcing trance triggers -- “When I snap my fingers, you’ll find yourself returning to deep trance” -- or anchors for other states and behavior -- “You so easily start to notice the way the word ‘perfect’ makes you feel so good and so submissive…” The process of creating expectation is heavily relevant here, as we know it’s very important to trance phenomena. (See “The Brainwashing Book” (2019) for more in-depth discussion on this topic.)

The idea of building broad associations with hypnosis isn’t just so that the subject can make that internal trance check once. All of those trance signs also function as anchors, especially when they are repeated and become something familiar. For example, a subject who learns that their body becoming a little more stiff is a sign of them in hypnosis may notice (either as directed to or spontaneously) that the act of noticing that stiffness is hypnotic in and of itself. In this way, the hypnotist can also then just suggest that their body is becoming more cataleptic as a way to achieve trance, instead of seeing catalepsy as a byproduct of hypnosis; they become associated and connected. These responses can also be non-visible -- perhaps it’s a certain pattern or quality in how someone thinks, or a tingling feeling. You can conceptualize this as the behavior of “noticing” is the stimulus for the anchor, or that the anchor is the feeling or response itself.

In unfamiliar trance states or in trance states that are meant to be maintained for longer than usual, these kinds of anchors are incredibly useful, so actually emphasizing the internal process that the subject takes to notice them can be quite effective. It gives the subject a level of power over their own state, so they may actively look for trance anchors if they want to refocus. Of course, in a power exchange relationship, it just takes a little framing to flip the script: “You can’t help but follow your mind in circles of noticing your little trance signs, your brain so easily controlled to look and see automatically, always learning more about your own responses and how I can use them against you…”

You can also create more concrete anchors for the subject to take an active role in keeping themselves in trance. One example of this might be pairing the feeling of trance with them gently clenching a fist -- if they are up and active, and need a little bit of a trance “reminder” or “jolt,” they can take advantage of the anchor themself. You can also set this up with any behavior or stimulus you can think of -- perhaps when they think a certain phrase in their head, they refocus.

Reframing Waking Trance

There is a concept in hypnosis and NLP known as “reframing”: Taking an experience and providing a different framework for processing it such that new perspectives and options become more clear. To some degree, what we’ve presented so far is about reframing -- taking someone’s existing worldview of what hypnosis looks and feels like and expanding that or giving the subject a different way of seeing it. But there are many ways that you can get creative to frame waking trance, as well, in a less direct way than questioning it head-on or providing your own explicit definitions.

For example, a subject may have an idea of what trance is like for themselves -- as we discussed, they may be consciously aware of what that is or more have a gut, unconscious feeling about it. However, this probably isn’t their only idea of what hypnosis looks and feels like. You can take advantage of their other pre-existing visions of hypnosis: “You’re so intimately aware of the image of a deeply controlled subject, staring blankly ahead, perhaps awaiting instruction… The fantasy of the person just like an automaton, going about their day, no one knowing just how deep they are because they are just automatically doing what needs to be done.”

Certainly, too, along these lines you can frame “waking trance” as an aspect of other states or roleplay. “Dollspace” might be one example -- giving your partner the qualities of feeling very doll-like, or like an object, and creating a concrete headspace for that. Any persona change, transformation, or role-enactment can function like this; as we understand that there may be a theoretically limitless variety of states we can play with, you can explore them with your partner and flesh out the subtleties between them. However, always remember that it’s best to be flexible -- if the different subjective or behavioral aspects of these states shift over time or spontaneously, that should not be treated as failure. An “android” headspace may include someone having very stiff speech patterns and motions sometimes, but may evolve into a smoothness, for example. It’s not important to rigidly make definitions for these spaces -- ambiguity allows freedom and exploration.

Another example of reframing waking trance is to do something like telling the subject to “pretend” to be awake while they are deep. Using the concept of “pretending,” “role-playing,” or “faking” necessarily implies that it’s a false act -- presupposes that they can’t be actually awake, and you can emphasize this both while trancing them and while talking to them (“You’re doing so well, you almost had me fooled there!”). You can do this in many kinds of frameworks -- perhaps you have your subject in a deeply aroused space, so you may want to have them pretending to be totally normal. Consider aspects like how you can encourage them to be able to hold onto their internal proof of state. This can be especially interesting if how they feel internally is at more intense odds with how they behave externally -- for example, a subject that feels dumbed down but needs to act smart. You have options in these cases of how you let it play out -- do you allow for a fun “failure,” or do you disconnect their inner process with how they are behaving?

Flow And Active Functioning

Some forms and spaces in hypnosis are about active engagement. One way to get someone into a hypnotic state is to take advantage of the existing psychological processes that get us to focus on doing something. In general psychology, there is a theoretical concept known as a “flow state”: The state in which someone is so immersed in an activity that they are completely absorbed and (colloquially) “in the zone.” This doesn’t describe the whole of trance experience, but certainly is relevant and connected to some of what we do in hypnosis, and especially when it comes to ideas of hypnosis as a more dynamic and “waking” format.

Flow state is hypothesized to have a number of factors involved in how it works. Firstly, that it is goal-oriented; the person entering into a flow state has something they wish to achieve, and they are focused on that. Secondly, that there is a balance between the perceived difficulty of achieving the goal and the perceived skill that the person has. The theory states that similar to when we play a close match of a sport or challenge ourselves to do something that we are neither overqualified for nor underprepared for, we tend to get into the headspace more effectively. And lastly, that there is feedback involved in the task; the person is continually adjusting to the changing and challenging nature of the activity. For example, if a person is playing a competitive videogame, they are working towards a clear goal, hopefully well-matched, and are constantly having to make adjustments to how they perform in order to secure a win.

Hypnosis material sometimes refers to “hyperfocus,” which can be considered adjacent here, but it’s important to remember that similar to trance states themselves, we can’t bog ourselves down to the point of inaction by trying to discern if someone is in a “true” state of flow or hyperfocus. What we should do is be observant of our partners and see what we can take in terms of technique and concepts to use to our advantage.

Certainly, we can reframe the idea of waking trance to fit this sort of model, even if we diverge a bit from it. Something that requires concentration (for an erotic example, perhaps oral sex) is a great opportunity to see how someone responds when they are in a trance state that is specifically focused on activeness. Directing their focus to the task in a way that is consuming may be one way of doing this. You could suggest, “Pleasing me right now is the most important thing in the world to you, always important but right now you can feel the distinctness of that and the way that your brain directs all of its resources to doing it to the best of your ability.” You can also invoke this idea for something that is less mechanically-focused, even the idea of simply having an engaging conversation with the subject and having them answer questions. A hypnotic scene could be an in-depth, erotic talk about your partner’s desires, or asking a bimbofied subject some deep questions and seeing what happens to their mental state and focus. We can also use this to play with making everyday activities hypnotic -- there is a certain quality of focus involved in doing the dishes, taking a shower, or putting on makeup.

This also allows us to talk about waking trance as something that the subject is not necessarily aware of. Thus far, much of our focus has been on making trance tangible and noticeable for the subject, but of course there are times when you may want to simply be aware of when they are in some form of state and not make that the focus of their feeling. This allows us the experience of being able to point it out to our partners, or give them the surprise of discovering it for themselves. 

In Conclusion

When we purposefully blur the lines between what is and isn’t hypnosis and expand our models, we can more fully enjoy ourselves in hypnokink scenes. “Waking” trance is only worth discussing as such for the ability to explore what capabilities we can have outside of the expected norm of responses. Trance is trance, and hypnosis is bullshit.

But there is a lot we can play around with when we understand that hypnosis relies at least partially on our internal models. We can purposefully break boundaries and teach our partners that so much is possible, and that the coveted sense of hypnosis is not as limited as they expect. Play around, explore, and enjoy!

Bibliography

Csikszentmihalyi, M., Abuhamdeh, S., & Nakamura, J. (2007). Flow. In Handbook of Competence and Motivation.

Dilts, R. (1999). The Article of the Month: Anchoring. Retrieved from http://www.nlpu.com/Articles/artic28.htm

Kihlstrom, J. F. (2008). The domain of hypnosis, revisited. Oxford Handbooks Online. doi: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198570097.013.0002

sleepingirl. (2019). The Brainwashing Book: Hypnotic, Erotic Behaviorism and Beyond. Kindle Direct Publishing.

Whalley, M. (n.d.). Scientific Theories of Hypnosis. Retrieved from https://hypnosisandsuggestion.org/theories-of-hypnosis.html