Roll To Disbelieve?
I think I figured out the problem with me and hypnosis. It's that I keep throwing so high on my Will Save. My subconscious says "roll your Will Save," and I'm like "but I want it to work," and my subconscious is all "you need to roll anyways."

In English, for the D&D impaired, my problem is basically that I am simultaneously a believer and a skeptic when it comes to hypnosis. I could tell you how it's all fake, and I could tell you how it's all definitely real. My thoughts constantly shift back and forth on it. You might say I even have a tendency to overthink it.

In particular, when something appears to work on me I tend to question afterwards if my subconscious was really causing me to do it, or if my conscious mind was just playing along because I want so badly for it to work. I do believe both of these scenarios have happened with me at different points. (Or sometimes at the same time, like when I've decided "fine, I'll just play along and see where this goes," eventually discovering that I couldn't seem to get myself to stop playing along.)

Even after my first freeze test experience, I remained a bit skeptical. But there was another experience early on, just a little after that one, that completely convinced me hypnosis was for real.

I was hanging out in this hypnosis chat room on Yahoo (back when they had chat rooms still). It's probably a good thing it's not around anymore, because there were so many creeps hanging out there, let me tell ya. But I also met a few pretty cool people. One kind person in particular offered to do a trance for me via voice chat. At the time, fancy built-in webcams and mics weren't as common, and I had neither. So he had me keep my hands at the keyboard while my eyes were closed, with one finger on "y" and one on "n" for responses, while I listened with a pair of headphones.

It was so long ago, I don't entirely remember what style of induction he used, but I'm pretty sure it was just the usual relaxation type induction. He decided to give me a somewhat open-ended trigger. It basically functioned like "Simon Says," except I'd sort of have to do what "Simon" said. Though that was not the trigger phrase...he wisely wanted to use a combination of words that one would be unlikely for someone to say other than as a trigger. (And I've long since forgotten what the phrase even was.)

I didn't have any friends I knew who were into hypnosis at the time, but the idea was that this would allow me to potentially trigger myself if I wanted to. I because I didn't really believe saying the words out loud to myself would work, what I did was type the phrase and then a command into a text box on the computer, and then had that silly built-in computer voice read it back to me out loud. And I'd do the same to release, if I didn't break out of the suggestion on my own.

Some of it worked, some of it didn't. I discovered that, as usual, any suggestion that involved believing I could hear or see something that wasn't there or believing I was transformed into something didn't work. And I could remember (at the time) every bit of the induction, so that wasn't working either. But things that involved actions tended to work.

I think I tried to get myself to believe I'd been turned into a mermaid, but all that happened was that my legs were stuck together. I forget everything I attempted, but I do remember a few. After doing some basic things, I remember trying to brainstorm things that I just would have absolutely no patience for otherwise. Things that, if someone said "pretend you are _____," I do so in a very unenthusiastic manner, feeling too silly about it.

I decided, on a whim, to make myself "move like a robot." The result was that I moved kind of slowly and mechanically, with smooth movements and jerky stops when something was rotating or changing direction. Typing in the release command was very interesting. But being difficult to please, I still wasn't convinced. It's not like I move around a lot while sitting down.

So I decided to try again, but wrote that it would not take effect until I stood up, the idea being that I would walk across the room and back. I had no idea how I would attempt to walk like a robot if someone had just asked me to, so I had no idea what was really going to happen. I don't know why, but it turned out my subconscious' idea was a slow, jerky robot, only able to move one limb at a time (right leg, left arm, left leg, right arm, etc.). I was honestly surprised I stuck with it the whole time across the room and back to my chair, because that's something I would've been far too embarrassed to do on my own. And yet at the back of my mind, I still wondered if maybe all it had done was given me an excuse to be uninhibited.

I tried to wrack my brain for some idea so completely silly, that I would never imagine someone talking me into doing. I ended up typing a command into the computer about something like acting like a ditsy or slutty schoolgirl. I forget what the exact phrase was, but it was something along those lines. The type who is vain and concerned with popularity, perhaps like the "Plastics" in Mean Girls (though this was before that movie was made). But the thing about this idea is that it's not just that it's something no one could convince me to do, but something I would not even know how to do. What would portraying such a character even entail? I had no idea. I could not picture in my head what that would look like, I just typed in these words.

So I get out of my chair and walk across the room...and am absolutely shocked when I start uncontrollably flipping my hair with one hand and rolling my eyes and making this tut-tutting "as if!" sort of sound the entire time. Oh, and swinging my hips wildly. I was flabbergasted...the whole time I was like "where is this coming from??" I can say in all honesty that this is one of the few times I really felt that my subconscious was completely in control, that I was not consciously doing any of this. I don't think I could even reenact it for you if I wanted to. That was the first moment I was completely 100% convinced hypnosis was real. (Even if I still wonder about the whole forgetting trances or being convinced you're seeing something that's not there. ;-))

Disappointingly, the trigger didn't last very long. I don't know why, but things often tend to fade kinda quickly with me without occasional reinforcement. I tried a few other silly things that night. Like saying that once I got out of my chair, I would not be able to use my legs (falling to the floor -- but not in a way that hurt -- and having to crawl back to my chair). Or ones where movements would be reversed, so trying to move my right foot would result in moving my left,or trying to step forward would result in stepping backward. Which was really trippy by the way. But the next day it was already seemed not quite as strong, and by the end of the week it wasn't really working very much. That one night, though...wow. I'm not sure why that one worked so fantastically. Although I think his idea in pitching this trigger was that I'd be able to try experimenting with some things with someone I already know I could trust: myself.


Geez, I have so much more to say on this topic, but it's getting late. When I have some time, I'll tell you about my recent experiences this last week of a good friend of mine turning me into his hypnotic toy over webcam.