Going Blank

For all the clever 'effects' that I tried out on LG a few weeks ago, I think her favorite one was outwardly the least impressive. I held my hands apart, and then brought them slowly together, telling her to watch them, instructing her consciousness to evaporate as my hands got closer and closer. By the time my hands were an inch apart, she could no longer speak. By the time they touched, she was staring utterly blankly at them, all expression erased.

"Think of a camera iris," she said later. "A circle that sort of twisted as it got smaller, and then winked out."

During the several minutes that she was absent, she looked to me like a frozen statue, staring at the wall, completely unresponsive. Inside, she said, the only sensation that came through was the sound of my voice maintaining a thread of contact, although there was no meaning in the sounds.

She loved it. "No need to be, do, anything. Total lack of responsibility."

She loved it so much that she asked me to install a trigger. Now, whenever she is feeling tense, she can use her magic word to instantly induce a complete relaxation that eventually blends into a nap or sleep.

I love the effect, too. There's something so completely powerful in just switching someone's brain off with a word, leaving them as a blank statue or puppet. And yet it's so different from the usual hypnotic effect, which is all about dramatic behavior or sensations.

It turns out we have a lot of company. When you're done here, visit my colleagues Lex and Mirehn and see what they've been up to. They and their subjects also have discovered the pleasures of blanking.

In my case, I can think of three or four subjects who've responded well to going blank, whether it was over the phone or in person. All seemed to have tensions in their lives, and turmoil in their minds, that they just couldn't switch off otherwise. One begged me to keep her blank for much longer, and moaned at the pain of returning thoughts as they flooded back afterward. I still can't forget the look on the face of Deborah, one of my more intense subjects, who last summer craved nothing more than long stretches of blankness. I secretly gave her a little present; she would go blank whenever she sat on the toilet and peed. I confess it may have started a new obsession for her.

Then there was Shelly. After a few in-person demonstrations, she asked for a trigger to use at home, and chose her own trigger word: "bliss." I haven't heard from her since.

Getting the Point

It's been far too long since a submissive offered a report on one of my in-person scenes. Let's change that right now. Her name is LG, I've hypnotized her both online and in person, and this is the report she wrote for a sub friend of hers:

"Here's the photo of me with the needles in my breast. I know you're going to need an explanation, because I am such a wuss about pain. The answer is very simple and very complicated at the same time.

"The simple answer is that D told me it wouldn't hurt, and it didn't. The complicated answer is that somehow he has managed to get into my head and not only turn off pain but bring it back as well. We've done this in person, obviously, but also just online. He's asked me to put clothes pins right on my nipple and then made the pain disappear and reappear - slowly, gradually as he counted.

"I can sort of understand this kind of thing. But what I can not understand is how he has pictures of me outside in places I know I have never been. Yeah, I know that sounds crazy, but it's true. I have no memory at all, but I must have ridden in his car to get there. And until I asked him today, I didn't even know what sort of car he drove!!

"It's sort of the ultimate submission - I don't even have to think about being obedient; I just am."

"As for the needles, I really don't have much of a memory of how he did it - just some rather disconnected sounds and feelings. I can remember the sound of him opening the package with the needle in it. I can feel his hand squeezing my breast and a sharp prick. I think I gasped. I'm reasonably sure he said "Good girl". I know it happened 4 times because I can see the needles in the picture. I do remember asking him to take the pictures. But the whole procedure is definitely fuzzy.

"Maybe you should ask him to fill in the blanks. After all he was there - even if only part of me was. "

Of Two Minds

Here's news that some of you have been expecting for a while: Hypnoslave c and her subconscious, Megan, have been talking to each other. Or rather, typing.

It's something of a landmark, since they've each been speaking, separately, to K and to me for nearly a year. But both seemed a little wary of communicating directly with the other. Guess I'd feel the same way, come to think of it.

What's changed is that c feels a lot more comfortable with Megan inside her these days. She doesn't feel threatened. In fact, she's appreciated Megan's efforts to blunt some difficult health issues that have occurred lately. And Megan, as she's been saying for some time, considers herself to be just another part of c's mind.

I believe the first cross-mind communication was c typing, "I wonder what your voice sounds like." Then she saw her fingers typing Megan's response: "Like you."

The details of the conversation that followed are a little vague, as both later told me they couldn't remember what they discussed.

I'm really pleased that they both are relaxed enough to let that happen. Megan and her powers have become such an important part of c's already powerful mind ... it would be odd for them to treat each other as separate.

I suppose one reason I haven't reported this before, is my fear of having c branded as having some sort of mental condition. It's come up here on the blog occasionally, and in conversation with other D/s players: Surely this can't be true. And if it's not true, then it must be ... schizophrenia! Multiple personalities!

Um, guys, those are harsh diagnoses to toss around anonymously. For one thing, what we're describing is real. We haven't spent the past year goofing around with mental illness. Or roleplay. We're all highly skeptical and I daresay pretty well scientifically educated people, who discovered this by accident and think someone might want to take a look at what we've uncovered. For another thing, if c has 'multiple personalities' then so do nearly all the submissives I've ever hypnotized, since they nearly all had a subconscious who came out to play during trance.

But I digress.

In more news, Megan and c crossed a new boundary this week in the way they communicate with me. Megan had been a little put out that I had not mentioned her many efforts in last week's post about 'non-kink' uses of hypnosis. She chose a phone call between me and c to make her feelings clear: She put thoughts in c's head for c to say out loud to me. Passing her thoughts through the conscious c is something new, and c kept interrupting with, "this is sooo weird" but didn't block it.

Megan had told me what she was going to do, but even so it was pretty bizarre hearing c's voice saying things that I knew she wasn't consciously thinking. "What are you two talking about?" she said at one point. I must say, it's an efficient way to carry on a conversation... but, yeah, it's odd as hell.

Power of Suggestion

Here's an unusual post-orgasmic comment: "Can you help me with my weight too?"

Actually, it's not so uncommon. After demonstrating that I can control mind and body in sexual ways, I'm sometimes asked about other personal matters and whether I can suggest changes.

It's nothing mysterious or invasive. You just do what a friend would do: Ask questions, and suggest little positive changes that get at the root of a problem. Only instead of making the suggestions over coffee at Starbucks, you make the suggestion during trance to the subconscious. (That's also sometimes over coffee at Starbucks, as it happens.)

Self-confidence: Sandy would apologize after almost every little sex act: "I'm not very good at that," she'd say. It got to be a real drag, especially since it wasn't true at all. It turned out this attitude was a gift from a persuasive former boyfriend who had mocked her sexuality at every opportunity. I thought about removing her memory of that boyfriend entirely, but that could be awkward. So I told her subconscious: "Whenever Sandy gets undressed, remove her memory of Jack." She still despises Jack, but he doesn't bug her in bed anymore.

Weight: An attractive woman, who had put on a lot of weight, said she'd done it to cut down on unwanted attention from strangers. Only it wasn't working: She was still attractive, but stuck with all these pounds. Since she's actually no pushover, and the attention she described seemed like harmless flirting, I suggested to her subconscious a new attitude. When someone tosses a compliment her way, I said, visualize a gold coin dropping into her lap. And now she quietly enjoys the accumulated wealth rather than accumulating weight.

Trust: Maggie, a woman who has had a couple too many "love 'em and leave 'em" boyfriends, found herself distrusting almost everyone in her life and automatically questioning their motives. Every new potential boyfriend was assumed to be as bad as the last, and she wasted a lot of time obsessing about it. Her subconscious told me this was really getting in the way, that Maggie actually had good taste in men, friends and colleagues. So a little later, knowing that the subconscious was listening in, I offered Maggie an independent trustworthiness rating tool. She helped design it. Now, when she looks at someone she knows, and scratches her nose, a little stoplight appears next to the person, with red, yellow or green illuminated, suggesting how much trust to place in them. With the question answered, she can stop worrying about it.

More weight: Come to think of it, I've helped three women with their weight, by quietly enlisting their subconsciouses in different strategies, whatever seemed appropriate. Darlene's subconscious, Nina, has grabbed hold of the food choices: same schedule, healthier choices. Shelly's subconscious makes sure her arms don't work when she tries to reach for junk food or late-night snacks. Sandy discovered that she's unable to eat the second half of a sandwich anymore.

Relaxation: One of the most appealing things about hypnosis is the relaxing induction that takes you there. Never mind all the clever post-hypnotic effects, just being able to utterly check out of the day's worries and mental distractions for a few minutes is highly appealing. So I've given a couple of women "triggers" that they can use whenever they want, to send themselves into trance for 10 minutes.

The key to these working, as with so much of hypnosis, is that both the conscious and subconscious want to make it happen. It's all within the mind's power already; my suggestions really just remind them that it's possible.