Hypnosis as an Emotion

Our collective view of hypnosis shapes how it feels and how it’s acted upon.

For many subjects, hypnosis is viewed, more or less, as a series of social rituals. Specific processes must be followed to induct, deepen, fractionate, suggest, and wake the subject. Named inductions, too, are given more credibility, and seem to work better than anything that has not been heard of.

All of this, however, is entirely arbitrary.

For the experienced subjects reading, you’ve likely begun to have odd instances where the traditional progression of hypnosis was entirely unnecessary. The “state” of hypnosis that we all enter is something taught to us. It’s never exactly the same to any one person since it is formed, in some way, our expectations and beliefs about it. 

However, the more we learn it, the less it becomes intellectualized. With enough time, a consistent experience stops being conscious and instead becomes something we simply feel.

Hypnosis, with enough exposure and time, becomes an emotion.

It is almost inevitable to begin feeling “trancy” about certain things. If something feels appropriately hypnotic, or even just abstractly appealing in a hypnotic fashion, we can experience the feeling of hypnosis as an “approval” of that, almost like a sub-genre of general enjoyment. 

The feeling of hypnosis can even, then, intermingle with other similar states. A common experience for many into hypnokink specifically is for subspace and trance to merge. Submitting becomes hard to delineate between sexual submission and hypnotic submission, both elicit similar overall feelings. 

Lastly, this also means that one can have hypnosis as an emotion fuse, in one way or another, with a single person. Much like a trigger, a person is one single umbrella idea, and that means that we can be conditioned to it. Much like feeling happiness or horniness or tenseness whenever you see someone, it can be just as simple to slip into a mildly hypnotic “state” the longer you speak with someone you’re particularly fond of in that way.

The truth of the matter is that, beyond brand new subjects, almost all rituals that we as a community believe give legitimacy to a hypnotic session are entirely unnecessary. Hypnosis as an emotion is not just a factor of enjoyment, but of belief. Hypnosis itself is belief made tangible, the same psychological factors that fuel magical thinking and feeling. If you believe that something is hypnotic, that is all it takes for it to, in some way, be so. This also means that with enough agency and experience, you can summon those feelings yourself.

With this understanding of hypnosis as emotion, I’d like to give a brief test to the experienced subjects reading, and a test for hypnotists to try out on their subjects as well. It is very short, consisting of just two statements. Read one, then scroll down and read the other. Once done, scroll down further.

This is called “The Orange Test“. It goes like this:

If you are feeling some level of trance now, you might understand just how arbitrary this all is. Interestingly enough, this test has less of a chance of happening if you, the reader, were not given the explanation that I gave over the course of this article. As hypnosis is an extension of our beliefs about everything, including hypnosis, believing that rituals are necessary make them more necessary than not. 

This is to say that if this test worked, and you are still currently in trance, that you believed me. In a way, I am now hypnotic to you.

Oranges are no longer hypnotic. Find yourself waking up at whatever pace is most comfortable.

Lastly, I’d like to give you an even simpler test, one that goes to the heart of the matter. If the prior test worked on you, this one should as well. Here it is:

Ultimately, this is something within your control. All it takes, at the end of the day, is to evoke the feeling.