A Whole Lot of Shaking Going On.
I dragged myself out of bed at 7:00 a.m. Which, for me, was really more like 4:00 a.m. Fortunately, the wonderful and well-appointed hotel provided a buffet breakfast. I sat down with some of the friends I had made over the course of the previous day. Lee came over and sat next to me. Before I knew what was happening, and only shortly after she had said “good morning,” she tossed the “pause” trigger at me, and started tickling me. It was a fine good morning, thank you very much, and, as I mentioned, quite the abs workout. She released me, and at the same time stopped tickling me, which caused my brain an interesting minor conniption. I accused her of being a sadist, to which her only response was, “well, you’re the one laughing.”
I then met in person, for the first time, LeeAnn. (I know, this will be confusing; there’s a “LeeAnn” and a “Lee,” or “LeeAllure”: I won’t change either of their names, so you’ll just have to bear with it.) LeeAnn had come to hypnosis via her hope to deal with some personal issues, and had found an open and inviting community in Hypbook. She had brought her husband, CT, along in an effort to educate him about the community. It should be noted that LeeAnn is a loud woman, with an easy and infectious laugh, and had the wide-eyed look of the kid in the candy shop for all of the weekend. She was also fascinated by how easily I was going under, and then coming up, and then going back under, at LeeAllure’s urging. Then again, so was I.
We ultimately departed and went our separate ways to the location where NEEHU proper was to be held. The location is called “The Society,” and it is a BDSM club just outside of downtown Hartford. Should you type “The Society Hartford” into your handy map or browser search of choice, the first thing that will show up is “The Society Room of Hartford.” This is most definitely not the same place. Which is how I wound up driving through the very center of Hartford, Connecticut, at 8:30 am (5:30 am my time) in an unfamiliar car and jet lagged beyond all contortion. It was an inauspicious start.
Fortunately, I was able to drag my sorry self to the Society (five miles away from “The Society Room”) without too much more effort, beyond a sheepish acceptance of being lost.
The Society is a very interesting place. It’s located in a post-industrial part of town, in what I can only imagine must have been the warehouse district once upon a time. Somehow, a number of small churches have grown up around the location. At various points in the weekend, we could hear the strains of gospel or Christian rock drift down to our little dungeon. Some were perplexed that this happened even late into the night, but it is the trend for churches to provide late night entertainment for those believers who struggle to remain clean of drugs and alcohol. Be that as it may, you haven’t lived until you observe a hot BDSM scene to the strains of Newsboys’ “God is Not Dead” coming down from upstairs.
The Society is, ironically, very comfortable; it is clean, and filled with places to lounge and relax in in and among the St. Anthony’s Crosses and chain spider webs. As you enter past the guarded door, there’s a changing room just off to the left. Beyond that there is a long hall that goes to the main room. The hall has two doors on either side, one that leads off to a quiet room to the left and a “medical play” room with gurneys to the right. The main room is quite large, and had been sectioned off for our purposes with a vending table and a blanket fort, as well as chairs and couches for us all to sit at. Off the main room on the right was a separate play room, with various implements as well as a class room. At the end of the main room was a narrow “hard point” which opened into the kitchen and another lounge-y area. Beyond even that was a bar room with booths.
I had volunteered to work in the kitchen, and threw myself into washing dishes (I demurred from actually cooking or serving as a sous chef; in my jet lagged state I did not want to be trusted with sharp implements. Moreover, my track record with cooking is genetically poor.) As a bonus, I find focusing on washing dishes to be extremely satisfying. Almost trance inducing. I pretty much washed dishes for more than an hour while SweetGasp, aided by the able sous chef, OneEyedStranger, and with assists from Sleepingirl and CCKitten, rocked out a fantastic series of breakfast and lunch items. (This is where SweetGasp unleashed her beignets upon an unsuspecting group of attendees. Had she charged for them, I’m fairly sure she’d have walked away from the weekend with a profit, or at least a few souls in her pocket.)
Sadly, I am far older than I used to be, and the jet lag and standing got to me, so I handed off my task to other people and went off to classes.
The next bit will only be understandable if you read my story “Be Careful What You Switch For.” Which I’ll place right here. Go read it—I’ve been told it’s not so bad. ttp://djpynchon.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/be-careful-wha…-for-fiction-2/
So I had posted the story a few days before NEEHU. As I was wandering around the Society, Lee walked up to me, and used her sleep trigger. She leaned in and started whispering to me about how awesome it would be for me to have a mantra running through my brain that would feel so good if I were to find myself repeating it out loud every so often. She didn’t use the “mindless plaything” one from the story, but rather suggested “My mind is open, I am so happy.” That’s it. Try it. Repeat it a few times and you’ll find it’s a pretty good feeling. (You probably shouldn’t do it right before you see a car salesperson.) And really, beyond the other suggestions she gave me, it was very helpful; it put me in a frame of mind to be more accepting of the world I had found myself in. However, and in line with the thread of my story, she asked me to get other people to say it, too, albeit with less orgasmic rewards than in the story. This was something I was unable to do.
Tangent- Willpower and Hypnosis
One of the questions I do get asked often is whether you can be “forced” to do something under hypnosis that you otherwise wouldn’t want to do. I think there are two ways answer to the question: directly, and from a more “meta” perspective.
Directly speaking, the answer is no. You can’t be “made” to anything you don’t want to do. More broadly speaking, hypnosis can lower your inhibitions, especially if you do so in partnership with a skilled hypnotist. So, to reframe the question, when you are drunk and “making a fool of yourself” are you doing so “unwillingly”? Are you responsible for your actions?
In my experience, just from the weekend’s activities, I can honestly say that I stopped myself from doing things which I was asked to do. Lee’s suggestion was that I get other people to say the mantra “My mind is open and I am so happy.” I had a few opportunities to carry out the suggestion later on Friday, but I didn’t. And I didn’t because doing so would have not been congruent with the consent I was given for the scene in question; in other words, it would have been taking them out of their “scene” and inserting them into mine. And, for whatever reason, I couldn’t get myself to do that. Later in the weekend I was given a suggestion to experience something, and I refused, because the environment I was in just wasn’t comfortable, for whatever reason. The hypnotist understood and redirected me to something fun I was comfortable doing. In both cases I was given “commands” that conflicted with whatever ethical code I was following at the time. In both cases I refused to follow the commands. I felt more in control of my actions than I do when I’ve been drinking. So, in my experience, you cannot normally be made to do something you don’t want to do.
From a more “meta” standpoint, note that one of the appeals of recreational or erotic hypnosis is that it fulfills the fantasy of giving up control to someone. Whether in that fantasy world it’s because the hypnotist is “stripping away” the will, or because the inductee is giving up the will, um, willingly. So if that’s the fantasy, why is that person trying to resist? And how? And so, for such people, there is a tension between the fantasy fulfillment and the requirements that such play is entered into with consent. And for those people, the answer to that question is, by design, much trickier.
So after the quick induction and instruction from Lee, at 10 a.m., I attended my first class. It was taught by a veteran of hypnosis events called Wiseguy. Wiseguy has written many stories that are among the foundations for the erotic hypnosis genre. They are excellently written, and are on the more romantic or “soft” end of the “mind control” genre. He led a class on “Brain Overload,” which is to say, on hypnotic inductions that confuse or “overload” one’s thoughts. In essence, the brain becomes so overwhelmed by rational thought that it seeks an exit from thought, and runs towards a trance. These are inductions designed for active, critical minds, such as my own, and it was the best way for me to start the weekend. He read a fantastic hypnotic script that had me in a light trance.
I believe it was sometime this morning (though it may have been fleetingly the night before) that I met LeadPrism, who was attending his first –EHU a well. He and I would have several wonderful conversations throughout the weekend, as we both came at it more from the amateur hypno-enthusiast side of things, than from the BDSM side of things.
After the first class, I ran into LeeAllure and LeeAnn, who were discussing–what else?—hypnosis. LeeAnn had mentioned to Lee that she (LeeAnn) had never put anyone else into a trance, and certainly not live. Lee volunteered me for the honor, and offered to help her through the process. Which is how I found myself seated on a couch in between two gorgeous women about to be put into a trance. Or, as I like to call it, being in a “Lee Sandwich.” This time, Lee was on my right, while LeeAnn sat on my left. LeeAnn playfully put one of her legs over my left leg. Lee followed suit and put one of hers over my right. So there I was, held down, and about to be forced into a trance. (I know, what a terrible predicament. There’s no violin small enough to convey your sympathy, I’m sure.)
Lee started the induction, and…. I was out in less time than it takes to describe it, really. LeeAnn, I guess, was startled by how quickly I was gone, and couldn’t find her voice. Partially, I understand that she was also being tranced by Lee’s induction. They had a conversation, as I floated between them, and decided that we (Lee and I) should try and induce LeeAnn. At this point, LeadPrism came into the room, and Lee asked if he would join us. MrDream (the other half of ZanyMo, and a fine hypnotist himself) happened by, and he, too, volunteered to help induce LeeAnn. So with me on LeeAnn’s left, Lee on her right, and MrDream and LeadPrism on other chairs nearby, we all started talking in smooth, hypnotic tones.
I think all four of us kept talking for a good ten minutes. LeeAnn was out cold, and it was wonderful to watch up close as someone else went into a trance. Halfway through I realized, “I’m helping put someone in a trance!!!” It was the first time I ever put anyone into trance (or, at least, a quarter of a trance). I thanked LeeAnn profusely for the honor. Less than 24 hours officially into the weekend, and I had both hypnotized and been hypnotized. There weren’t any commands given to her that I can recall, beyond that LeeAnn should be open to having a good time over the weekend.
Shortly after that we broke for lunch.
After lunch, I wandered around, after doing a little bit of clean up and some more dishwashing. I went into a class on “dual inductions and co-topping.” There I found Lee and her friend ZanyMo doing an odd “co-topping” session with “GleefulAbandon.” (Gleeful and I had sort of bonded earlier on our shared love of Broadway tunes, and I had asked if she knew the lyrics to the “Confrontation” scene from Les Miserables. It was something in my mind as an uber-geeky thing to do to just randomly do it in the middle of the room or something. What? Jason Siegel and Neal Patrick Harris do it. Youtube it.) Essentially, Lee and Mo were infringing tightly on Gleeful’s space. Gleeful saw me, made eye contact and said “help me.” I confess, I saw the odds, and joined in on the co-topping. Somewhere in there, Lee and Mo used the overload to send her into a trance.
It was a very instructive scene to observe if for no other reason than that it firmly established that going into trance does not necessarily require relaxation.
Tangent- Facial Expressions
I need to make a note about the expressions on people’s faces as they go into trance. I had heard it said many times by hypnotists that watching someone give in to a trance is a very fantastic sight. Having been around people as they were drawn into and out of trances, I must say, I quite agree. There’s something delicious about seeing that look of surrender on someone else’s face. This is so particularly where you yourself know that feeling that’s conveyed. I mention this now, because Gleeful had a particular look at times when she heard a trigger word, or when someone was about to hypnotize her. The look was something along the lines of “Oh god, I can’t believe this is going to work again, and I like it, but I can’t believe I like it, and I can’t believe I’m this easy.” The reason I know that look and what she was conveying is because those very words were going through my own mind, about me, the whole weekend.
At some point on Friday, Lee spoke to me about how she wanted my participation in a hypno demo that was happening later that evening. I also spoke to Marc Cabot about a scene I had come up with in my mind for his ongoing subject, Ms. Mesmer. He agreed to help with it, and we agreed to do the scene on the following evening.
I took OneEyedStranger and SweetGasp to the hotel, where we spent some time in the hot tub, watching the rain come down. After that, I took them out to dinner, and then went back to the hotel to change before we finally headed back to the Society for the evening’s events. I must apologize to the two of them because I needed reminding of my destination easily five times in each direction. Which wouldn’t be so bad, except that it was only a 15 minute drive. Apparently my poor brain had been rather overloaded.
Friday evening was designated, in part, as requesting cocktail attire. It was nice to see everyone dressed to the nines. Fans of corsetry would have been very sated by the visions on display, and I actually felt slightly out of place in a simple blue-lavender suit, when there were so many people in leather and lace.
The group had planned a series of hypnosis demonstrations, to give people an idea of the various ways hypnosis can be used. LeeAllure had had this idea to involve this pseudo-hypnotic method called, rather delightfully, “Erickson Ambiguous Touching.” Lee had demonstrated it to me several times. Essentially, the “hypnotist” (although hypnosis isn’t particularly required) shakes the subject’s hand, using a method whereby the middle finger drags across the palm while thumb and pinky alternately tap on the outside of the hand. It’s deceptively simple, yet time after time it resulted in my hand going numb and, essentially, staying in one place until moved by the hypnotist. Plus, by dragging a finger from the shaken hand to the other hand, the numbness and catalepsy can be transferred. Yes, I know. And yet it worked.
Lee gathered me, LeeAnn and Mrs. Wiseguy together to demonstrate this method. We took turns. First Lee shook Mrs. Wiseguy’s hand and left it in the air, then demonstrated how the hands stayed in place. Mrs. Wiseguy did the same for me, posing me in Rodin’s “Thinker” position. Then I did the same with LeeAnn and, in a spurt of improvisational genius <cough, cough> posed LeeAnn making the “YMCA” letters, one after another. LeeAnn then did the handshake with Lee. We still had some time left, so Lee decided to do a quick hypnosis scene with us.
First, she had me go into a bit of a trance with my eyes open. Then she had LeeAnn and I face each other and had us do a “mirror” trance. Which is to say, you place two people facing each other, and tell each that they are going to go into the same level of trance as the person they’re facing. Sit back, relax, and watch the decent. LeeAnn was slightly concerned—and I can’t blame her—because it’s a very intimate thing to do. And she was somewhat concerned that her husband, who was in the audience, would find this objectionable (I understand, ultimately, he did not.) So, as I was going deep, I was doing my best to keep her calm, and to demonstrate that there was no cause for alarm. To my mind, it lasted less than a minute, but I am certain it went on for much longer than that.
There were other demonstrations. Marc Cabot had a hysterically funny trance, which you should read about on his blog (“You want to make fun of me, ok then, you can’t stop yourself from making fun of me.” “Look at me, I’m Marc, and I wear a funny hat to bring attention to myself.”). There were a couple of really hot and intimate scenes as well. (In some cases I wish there had been a microphone to pick up some of what was said on “stage.”)
The point of the demonstrations was to show how hypnosis can be useful and entertaining with respect to everything from a hot and heavy BDSM scene, to a typical adult Vegas-style hypno show with induced orgasms and singing, to something playful and innocuous, like our scene. In that sense, it was very effective.
I spent a good chunk of the rest of the evening hanging out and chatting with various people. I got to talk about some favorite topics, including Doctor Who, and English soccer.
[Deleted Scene].
At around 2 a.m., I dragged myself back to the hotel and poured myself into bed.
Next time- Saturday, Part One. Improv scene! Slapping! Pushing! Moving! A day as a “hypno-slave.” So much happening that Saturday had to be broken into two parts! Stay tuned!
djpynchon 