on request - reference/lessons/etc

I was asked recently by a lovely co-twitterer NookieNotes about whether I've got some material to help with learning hypnosis, specifically reference, lessons and so on.

so, not to waste any time, I'm going to simply put some links here which should help folks find out how to get started.

1. YouTube: simple one, learning by copying is how I got my start. Just like any kind of complex skill, you have to master the basics before you can get fancy. Find a simple video of an induction, something you think you can follow, and watch it, over and over and over again. Then try it on your friend/lover/coworker/brother. Over and over and over again
   Brian David Phillips - nice simple easy to follow inductions
   katherine Anne: a bit fancier but shows you can start young.
   learn the inductions, practice them on friends, then take them apart, start changing parts to get your own style and learn what works and what doesn't.
   eventually you can move onto more complex stuff, NLP less direct inductions, once you get the feel for what people's minds are doing as you bring them down.
   Derren brown's stuff is probably the more complex showy stuff, that you'd like to strive towards (and surpass ?)
   
2. Warpmymind: This one is a bit more interesting, if you'd like to experience some easy free hypnosis, there are a ton of (fetish mostly though not all) files here. most will not work as well as a live hypnotist, try the plain inductions (bubble induction, blink induction are both good starters) learn them feel them out, if they affect you, then Great! enjoy them. if not, they still affect others, nearly everyone can be hypnotized, but not everyone respond to common methods.
3. Blogs!: You're reading one now! and there's also a few more in the "Other People" section to the sidebar here!... yes, go check them out... yeah I'll wait.
   read a few? interested? good.
   what these give you is a sense for what other people who are just in your position (just want to experiment / learn / enjoy it) are doing. I try to find the most interesting material and link it there, all stuff that I follow. I use an RSS reader like Google Reader to keep up with the slower updating ones (the faster updating ones I can check every day myself) there are others out there, if you find them out, I'd love to hear about them.

I hope this is at least a little enlightening to all here, I'd write more but it is getting late, and I cant do ALL the work for my readers.

I'd love to hear what resources other people have and what they use to find information and enjoy reading.
One thing I didn't mention are communities, this is where you meet the other people interested in this subject. There are quite a few but they are generally not hypnosis oriented, twitter, myspace, and the usual places you hang out at are probably the best, because the people who mention this interest along with their real life are most likely to be the trust worthy ones (they have little to hide)

Above all, have fun, learn, share, and be safe

- Sharky

Hmm... A new name on the list?

Hello to all of Sharky's loyal readers! I'm sure a new post is exciting, seeing as he's been quite negligent as of late. And though it isn't from the big guy himself, I hope a new voice is just as exciting. :)

You can call me any variation of my alias (though Red is most preferred), but here I am!

I've actually been in contact with Sharky for four months prior to this intro. We've experimented with so much that I have to admit to forgetting half of what we've done. (Whether or not this is Sharky's doing, I can never be sure. ;) )

It all began with my insatisable curiousity about our favorite subject -- hypnosis. I'd been following several blogs and was thoroughly ready to experience some hypnofun of my own. Fortunately for me, I found this little site that belonged to a certain Curious Hypnotist. I read through the posts about twenty times, giving me plenty of time to gather up the courage to say a meek "hi". But Sharky was incredibly friendly and more than eager to try out his skill on another victim.

Erm...subject. I said subject, Sharky. :)

That night -- or a few later -- he brought me into my first trance through text. Since then, we've done most of our trances over videochat. This accounts for some of my memory loss, as there aren't any chats to go back and glance at. But, I'll be posting things as I remember them, so you should get a variety of amusing stories. At my expense. But hey, so long as we're all laughing. :)

I'm sure Sharky is more than willing to share stories of the embarrassment he's caused me, though. Never fear -- you shall hear all about our trances!

Anyway, that's all for now!
Hope this was a nice little intro for ya
Until next time
~Red

what do you want? - or some things about how and why hypnosis works

Most people imagine hypnosis as some sort of mind control.



Most people that are INTO mind control fetishes seem to think hypnosis is the best answer.



The truth is actually somewhere else entirely. Hypnosis, from what I've experienced has been a lot simpler than originally imagined. There really are two parts, focus, and trance, once you have both, you have Hypnosis.



Focus is what it sounds like, a person putting all of their attention on only one thing. The hypnotist in this case. To get people there all you have to do is say "pay attention to me", it's that simple, and of course some people comply and others look at you and ask why, the thing to remember is that as with everything if you want to get a person to do something, asking them to do it isnt always the best way.



The second part of Hypnosis is trance, and that's also fairly simple. In trance a person is put in a mental state where they stop thinking and just do things automatically. People enter into a trance all the time and dont even know about it; Watching TV, driving a familiar route, getting "in the zone" at work or doing some hobby are all trance, the key is the automatic reactions and lack of critical consideration on every step.



All together, Trance makes people react, and focus means people pay attention, when you put them together, you have hypnosis, the hypnotist suggests, and the subject acts. Its all very simple.



So what does all of this have to do with mind control? well, that's the part that gets turned off, or at least down when you're hypnotized. The part of your mind that thinks about things before doing, and that is paying attention to everything at once. Even when hypnotized, it's never completely shut down, and can be awakened by various things. The main one being forcing the subject to try and go against their own morals or fears.



So it comes down to this, Hypnosis works because the person hypnotized is deeply concentrated on the hypnotist, and in a state where commands are followed automatically. People who want to be mind controlled, enjoy this state and like accepting any suggestion regardless of it's nature... unless it steps over a mental boundary of some kind (phobia, moral objection) In short, hypnosis is not supernatural, entering hypnosis is almost entirely the subject's choice and remaining in it depends on basically what they are willing to do and feel comfortable with.



Some people can be convinced to do things they wouldn't always do while they are under, they CAN NOT be convinced to do things that they would NEVER do.



So, before and often during a session, the question to ask someone is "what do you want". If you'd like to keep someone in hypnosis, the key is to give them a ride they'd enjoy, to at the very least use what they like.Ask them what they're into, you can ask them what they think hypnosis is like, either way a good hypnotist always makes sure that the person going under knows what they are in for, even if it means they know they are in for a surprise.



Whether you're interested in being behind the swinging watch or in front of it I'd love to hear what else people would like me to talk about, so this is an official question for commenters.What do you want?



Happy Trancing.



- The Curious Hypnotist

Welcome to my first Blog Post!

So, hi. :-)

It's always strange doing the intro thing... even more so in this arena. I have to say, I'm a little intimidated!

Ok, so on some crazy website, I see this forum post regarding hypnosis, and I think "how intriguing"... I messaged Sharky because he seemed to have a clue what he was talking about, and didn't seem pushy. After some discussion, he offers to try putting me under via text. Obviously I agreed, and here I am now. ;-)

Since then(only a few weeks ago?) we've played with some text stuff, and some phone/voice. I've learned that I'm a feel-y kinda gal. Things that have a physical feeling to them seem to work nicely for me. And there's this lovely little afterglow I get after going under that is absolutely freakin' awesome. All tingly and champagne-bubbly, like Santa Claus is coming to town. Seriously.

Earlier I was trying to explain to someone the difference between the results via text and via phone/voice. Text has a much LIGHTER feeling to it, for me. Light, as in fluffy. Yes, I mean physically light. I had to correct this person when they assumed I meant light as in light vs. deep. Nooooo.. I mean actually, physically LIGHT, buoyant. Voice is a HEAVY feeling, like physical weight on me. It's like being in a hole, or slogging through mud. I don't know what other people experience, I'm just explaining what I'm feeling. I must warn you that I am obsessive about needing to explain how stuff feels - just ask Sharky! :-)

Anyway.. we've progressed into some of the more interesting aspects of hypnosis, which I generally refer to as "playing"(ie: it's fun, "can we play tonight", etc.). I'll try to share some thoughts on my view of things, as long as you can live with my obsessive need to *explain* how stuff feels. ;-)

-heather

when minds attack 2: Sharky takes a vacation!

Sometimes real life interrupts, and sometimes I just end up losing interest, but now it's time to come back because frankly this is still fun, and I still like talking about this. So, without further ado, to the business at hand

so for all of you wondering where this curious hypnotist has been, well, hypnotizing of course! and I have a new little name there on the right to show for it, (to those unsure Heather is the new one)

Heather is one of my newest subjects, she is smart, kinesthetic (focused on physical sensations) and will be writing a few of her more interesting experiences from her own point of view over here in the blog.
She Contacted me, curious about the nature of the experience, and agreed to go under, this would be about 3 weeks ago, and since then I can say that she has had quite a bit of fun, and also learned quite a lot and experienced a lot more.

so one of the reasons I delayed so much talking about the second trance here is that I was hoping to get permission from my friend Coco to use her trance here. Now that I have it, here goes.

This trance was going to be one that's mostly just standard, Coco is a fellow "curious" very much into the subject but never having explored it, and I agreed to let her experience trance. This as usual started pretty simply, I used a fairly interesting text induction, and coco goes down fairly smoothly. The induction required quite a bit of typing on her side, (which lets me keep tabs on just how tired she is based on speed/typos).

Half way through however the reactions began to appear unusual, she complained of her hands locking up, and I let her stop typing as I went to a normal induction method. Again a few minutes pass and she goes deeper but begins to appear incoherent, right up until the point where I give her a re-entry trigger for trance... all hell breaks loose. She simply types "hello" and appears completely awake, but disoriented, and begins to tell me I am manipulating the situation, and other things like that. Now, if you've ever woken up someone from a strong dream you know the kind of reactions I was getting from her, something was going on in her mind and I had to gently lead her back to awakening...

At this point I could have quit and called it a day, but talking about the trance I got the impression that something was there under the surface. Something that every good hypnotist should learn is how to explore someone else's associations and mental imagery, and I gave that a try asking her and delving into what her subjective experience was. Now by this point I had known my friend here was very much stressed and had something on her mind, something she was blocking from the surface. What I found is that going into hypnosis often allows those thoughts that are suppressed to just rise to the surface, and while with some people that leads to less inhibition, in someone like Coco, it caused a lot of ideas that she wasn't thinking about before to bubble up and make her feel very disturbed...

before long though she asks to try again and go back into the trance, and I reluctantly agree, again starting with a simple induction, however mid-way through the second induction again, the reactions come out...

[23:11] sharky: and take another deep wonderful breath
[23:12] sharky: and sigh and feel your stomach and chest relax
[23:12] coconut: but what if there is something that occupies my mind
[23:12] coconut: ignore it?
[23:12] coconut: focus on breath
[23:12] sharky: and what is it that occupies your mind
[23:12] coconut: a person

things however only got more interesting from there, I begin to explore where these feelings are kinesthetically (where do you feel X, can you pinpoint it), as well as exploring it in time / experience...

[23:13] sharky: and can you look at this person ?
[23:13] coconut: yes
[23:14] coconut: im imagining him in front of me right now
[23:14] coconut: looking down on me
[23:14] sharky: and move away from him
[23:14] coconut: while im laying in the bed
[23:14] sharky: look at yourself now
[23:14] coconut: he got me trapped
[23:14] sharky: look at the both of you on the bed
[23:14] coconut: ok.
[23:14] coconut: he has my hands locked in the bed
[23:14] coconut: and i like that i resist
[23:15] coconut: im looking at yself
[23:15] coconut: and him
[23:15] coconut: from afar
[23:15] sharky: and is this a good image?
[23:15] coconut: it's an enjoyable image

I cant say that I've ever helped someone through a drug trip, but I would say that is what it would seem like. The key to my efforts is just trying to ask leading questions to maintain some sort of peace in her mind. Now my own observation is probably that this is some kind of repressed thoughts that bubble up as soon as she was too relaxed to repress it any longer, and the only thing I could do was either push it down even stronger, or try to pull it out into the open and find a way for the person to deal with it in a positive way.

what actually ended up happening by the end of the trance, was that Coco had worked through her issues regarding this event / person in her life, she had come to realize all the thoughts that were going on in the background and was able to deal with them more openly. This wasnt something I intended to do going in, but I was very glad to be able to help out.

The key idea I think, is to never bail out on somone who is in trance, when they are under for you, you are their guide, and it is the responsibility of the hypnotist to either lead them back out, or lead them through a trance. That at least is my view, and what I would like to go by.


Finally, to Liz, from Hypnofantastico, a happy birthday, another year closer to death!

When minds attack

So hypnosis doesn't always go as planned, and the real interesting learning happens when people just react in their own odd individual way.

Recently I've had several trances where I found myself in unfamiliar waters. The two trances that are freshest in my mind were with friends that I'll name Coconut and Celeste. In both trances I ran into situations that I didn't quite know how to react to, and both I think I learned something very interesting about the way people's minds work.

With Celeste, she had agreed to trance to satisfy her curiosity, (which I was glad to help with) and I used a confusion induction which I learned from Lady R's "Chelletrance" script. it's a very straightforward and effective method that involves having the subject try and memorize a list of items, which distract the conscious mind while you give them suggestions. The first stages were quite effective, and I continued deepening and relaxing her using vague imagery like "sinking" and "flowing" and measured her depth using the same scale meter used in that script (which I find is very very effective, thank you Lady R) after what seemed to me like a perfectly normal trance, and bringing Celeste out, I asked her to report on how she felt and what she thought of her first experience. The response I got was extremely interesting.

Celeste reported that during the trance she began to imagine herself sinking in the ocean, with very vivid imagery imagining herself first as her 16 year old self with appropriate hair and dress, then as her 8 year old self and so on, going with extremely vivid descriptions of every stage she went through in addition to the feelings of depth themselves. She told me how the scale was as big around as she was tall, and had a chain which she pulled on to bring herself down deeper, and how she sank deeper and deeper into the water changing identities as she sank into different versions of herself.

It wasn't until I went into trance myself that I noticed, that at points I would start to have my own spontaneous imagery pop up, I would drift into almost dream-like imaginings, which I actually don't remember now other than knowing I did them. The whole experience was very surreal but not unfamiliar, and I think it's the same one that Celeste went through. I had several more sessions with Celeste since then, and she's been a very good subject, and I learned that in the absence of specific instructions on what to do, her mind tends to wander around imaginary creations, which can be either good or bad depending on the goal of the trance, but must be acknowledged.

So I hope this was helpful to everyone, (all 2 of you) who read this, and I will write about Coconut on Friday with my next update.

- Sharky

The Ol' Switcheroo

Today's is going to be a short one,

So this week I got to try a little bit of role reversal.

Since I have been playing with Scorpio, she's always been very much into learning all about hypnosis and not just what it feels like to be have fur and want nothing but to chase string. I enjoy being a teacher myself, so decided to take on the task of teaching her. Aided by hypnotically enhanced memory, she has proven a very quick student, and after a few mishaps and stumbles, I have decided to provide myself as a willing subject for her to practice on.

If there is one thing I learned by through this side of my life, it's that after reading about hypnosis and theory for many years and thinking I know all about it, I found that the moment I began hypnotizing others, was the moment that I began to really understand how people react and what is really going on.

After a few lessons, we decided it was time to give it a try. Scorpio prepared a script for her trance, a very helpful way to keep yourself on track when first starting out. I on the other hand took some time to relax a bit from work and put on some headphones and music to let me really sink into this experience.
I have to admit that with trance, I've tried many times, and I seem to be one of those people that always has a little voice, or other activity in the back of their heads, even while feeling a fairly strong trance. It leads to my mind always being aware, breaking down, trying to figure out anything around me. Makes it easy to learn new things but very hard to just let go.
So, with boosted confidence (some hypnotically) and a couple false starts, we began the session outright.

I am not sure what to describe, about how it felt, Scorpio's script was pretty good, long and thorough and overall I found I went fairly deep ...for me anyways... part of me was always awake as I said, and I think I understand why some people react the way they do. For example I found that having to blink constantly due to the relaxation makes it very hard to read rapidly appearing lines, and I was constantly trying to catch up on what had been typed. At one point I found that I would have spontaneous imagery unrelated to the trance, which is something I've had before (waking dreams) but only when extremely tired, my dreams tend to stick around a bit after I wake up, to the point of being able to go back in, if I feel a dream is particularly interesting.

Overall, this was a very good and successful trance, and though I want to try going much deeper, I was pleasantly surprised at least one post hypnotic trigger had worked, not strongly but just at all, as that would be the first time that has happened. Perhaps we will have many other trances to talk about in the future.

So a bit of house keeping, the chatroom is here, and I am still on schedule (updating Mondays and Fridays) it's not a lot, but I have a heavy work schedule as well, I'll be on the chatroom constantly, and the blog has a new color and layout which I think is an improvement. Nikki (the girlfriend) made herself known and she will update whenever she feels like it, since even through hypnosis she has a mind all her own.

Scorpio of course will also update on the same schedule so check back on Monday to see how our weekend turned out!

Sharky

The Wayward Girlfriend Appears!

GREETINGS FAIR READERS!

Hey there. :)
This is Nikki (the girlfriend) as Sharky refers to me.

Funny thing, he and I met through a conversation on hypnosis!
We'd begun discussing it online and it led to our eventual meeting and *ahem* union. ;)

Since that day, almost two years ago we've practiced hypnosis!
He's been able to quite successfully put me under and install triggers multiple times, though I've never been able to accomplish the same for him. :(
He is a difficult subject!
I think he works better as master, than slave.

On the topic of difficult subjects, apparently I'm quite resistant to many of my triggers still, in high contrast to the very obedient Scorpio. :)

Well, that's all for me.
Look for me in the future to hear in better detail my exploits. ;)

But he makes it look so easy

It's a lot easier to read others' blogs than it is to think up how to make your own interesting / useful to others.

So some recent things I wanted to talk about, I've had a very interesting weekend with The Scorpio. We got to try some new interesting things, like a blank trigger (which got her so excited she decided to write her own script to try and do exactly that to somone) as well as some other new effects that she'll probably talk about in her post today. It has been basically success after success, and she has been the most talented subject I've had the pleasure of working with so far.

When hypnotizing Scorpio I tend to do things that I would love to experience myself, and being the creative type I tend to come up with all sorts of things. One such odd thing very recently I would call a trance without trance.
So having already installed a way for me to give Scorpio hypnotic commands without any conscious knowledge of it happening, and so I decided using that ability to start bringing her into trance using the subconscious commands, but make sure she remained aware through the entire process and able to comment on it. I cant even imagine the sheer surreality of the situation in her mind, but I'm sure she'll try to describe it in her blog. Either way after a fruitful trance (where we installed the new blank trigger which inspired her so much) I had her brought out of trance the same way even to the point of feeling her memories of the trance going away as she comes out.

I keep wondering however if I'll run out of ideas for what to do so far, so I've started writing down all the triggers I've done with Scorpio. perhaps eventually I can create a list of triggers and various levels of accomplishments.

Other than Scorpio there are always the ongoing fun I have with the Nikki (the girlfriend), there are constant experiments with various people like my good friend Maneater, and others which I suppose I'll have to come up with aliases for. There will possibly be a description and section in the sidebar explaining the cast.

A couple of new things too, me and the Scorpio will try to update our blogs twice a week (Mondays and Fridays) and hopefully I will manage to keep up with my schedule. At the very least Scorpio has absolutely no choice, as at her request she is hypnotically forced to make two blog posts a week. (I try to have little helpful affects on my co-curious friends)

Also as the more astute of you noticed, The Scorpio and myself have started a new chat room as you can see below, and anyone reading either blogs can chat, make comments and leave links.

I hope this becomes a regular place for us to make appearances and chat with all of you curious strangers.

Here's to a wonderful week, and lots of fun.

Sharky

Introductions officially

So Who reads these hypnosis blogs anyways right?

Well I'll start with the simple stuff, I'm a guy, in my mid 20's living in the western US, and I have a knack and an interest for figuring out how things work.

For the last 10 years, I have been very much interested in hypnosis in one way or another, and as of the last couple of years, I have finally found myself finally gathering up the confidence to both talk about it, and finally explore what can be done through it. At first only with my girlfriend and very close friends, and after the discovery of bdsmhypnosis, and HypnoFantastico (and the encouragement of the wonderful lex and liz from the latter) have decided to expand my interest and scope, to share this hobby with other friends, (One of which is the sneaky scorpio) and even strangers. Finally, I've decided to write this blog, where I hope I can tell some of my stories, help other curious hypnotists satisfy their curiosity, and perhaps even let some of my other friends and co-fascinatees have a platform to talk about their fascinations.

So who does read these weird hypno blogs?

I did, and I sat and read and I thought how much I wanted to try this myself, to try and be the hypnotist, or even the subject and explore the unknown that way.

Until one day I tried it myself, and things havnt been the same since!

I hope I can help more people do the same

- Sharky.

Sharky

So people call me sharky, and I am starting a blog.