Have you ever had an orgasm while sleeping? Even if you don’t, you’ve heard about the phenomena. You know people who have had “wet dreams”, erotic dreams that led to orgasms. This means you don’t need physical stimulation to achieve orgasm, this means you just need your mind.
On the second hand, you’ve probably heard about hypnosis. You might have seen some crazy shows or videos of which you’re doubtful. You might also know that it is used in medicine to avoid systemic anesthesia during surgery, help people stop smoking and access information buried in the subconscious of witnesses of crimes. It’s no joke.
What if we were to combine the two of them?
In this article, you’re going to read about erotic hypnosis. You’re going to discover the process and the principles behind this form of art, therapy, and enjoyment.
After this article, you’ll know much more about its practice, usage and popularity and you will have access to enough resource to begin your journey or simply dig deeper into the subject.
What is erotic hypnosis?
Erotic hypnosis is basically the use of hypnosis techniques combined with erotic and sexual suggestions to trigger arousal and pleasure.
The state of hypnosis helps reducing inhibition and increasing arousal. It can be used in many contexts, from improving sexual health to inducing a stronger power exchange in a BDSM relationship.
How does sexual hypnosis work?
Research isn’t very clear on how hypnosis work but it’s a state where the subject complies with suggestions. This state, known as trance allows the hypnotist to transform the reality and behavior of the subject, providing the subject consents to them.
Sexual hypnosis is based on hypnotic principles: the subject is brought to a deep state of relaxation where she is much more likely to accept suggestions.
These suggestions become her reality for some time. She can perceive herself as drunk, as getting stimulated in erogenous zones or just appear as not in control of her body.
In erotic hypnosis the suggestions make the subject feel pleasurable sensations or live arousing situations depending on the « scene ».
It’s important to note that, just like in traditional hypnosis, the consent of the subject and its willingness is paramount. You can’t get hypnotized against your will and hypnotist can’t transform subjects into mindless robots if the subject doesn’t want to play the part.
The relation between hypnotist and subject is really akin to a master-slave one: the hypnotist takes charge and responsibility for the sensations and behavior he instigates in the subject.
This is why erotic hypnosis is very popular on the BDSM scene.
The process
The process is very similar to a classic hypnosis session. The main difference lays in the type of suggestions the hypnotist will introduce in the session.
Instead of a therapeutic approach, aimed to solve a particular problem, fight an addiction or other, more “mainstream” hypnotic work, the suggestions will be more focused on creating arousal, pleasure and put the subject in a more « orgasmic » state.
Here is a general breakdown of a session.
Pre-talk
The pre-talk is here to help redefine hypnosis. Most people have a skewed vision of what hypnosis is and how it works.
They have seen some Youtube videos of stage hypnosis, showing scenes where people behave like animals on the command of a brilliant showman and often tend to forget that hypnosis is used in medicine and therapy as a tool to change behavior and perceptions — such as pain.
So the idea behind the pre-talk is just to prepare the subject, explain to him or her that all hypnosis is basically self-hypnosis: the subject just follows the instructions of the hypnotist, let him guide her toward a deeper, more suggestible state.
At the same time, it’s interesting to remind the subject that she will stay in control and won’t do something that she wouldn’t normally do.
Depending on the level of familiarity of the subject with hypnosis, this is also a moment to change expectations: maybe she had bad experiences with another hypnotist or maybe « it didn’t work». In this case, the idea is to start with a clean slate and to avoid misconception and counterproductive expectations.
Induction
When the pre-talk is done and the subject is ready, the hypnotist will put the subject into trance.
I’m not going to dive too deep into the state of trance as science is still really out there on the existence of such a state: some schools of thoughts talk about levels of trance, of depth, some other are contesting the very existence of such a state.
Basically, it’s just a very relaxed state where you are much more ready to accept suggestions as reality, without filtering them like you would do in a normal state.
There are a lot of induction methods, involving staring at candles, looking at a fixed point on a ceiling and feeling your eyes growing heavier and heavier…, etc.
The underlying principle is what Derren Brown calls « Pacing and leading » in his — amazing — book Tricks of the mind.
The goal is to help the subject put attention toward feelings she already is experiencing then inducing new feelings — of relaxation, ease, etc. — by feeling her how new feelings are coming up.
Here is an example:
“As you sit here, reading this article you start to realize that you haven’t blinked in a while and as you continue reading, you realize your eyelids are getting heavy. The more you try to resist blinking, the more you want to blink. You’re going to try to resist but your eyes are getting too tired so you know you’re going to blink very soon after reading this sentence.”
First, establish something that is already happening (reading this article), then induce a sensation. Using the eyes blinking is a foolproof one as we both know you’re going to have to blink at some point. .
Remember that the subject’s belief is at the heart of hypnosis. This highlight two key points:
- The hypnotist needs to have strong confidence in his skill to induce trance because doubt would show at a sub-communication level and hinder the induction
- By playing with the person’s belief — often based on popular culture — it’s easy to use terms such as « going deeper into trance » or use the classic « spiral » to induce trance. If the subject believes it, it will be effective.
One very popular induction in the community is the Dave Elman induction. This induction is not used only for erotic purposes and many therapists use it for regular hypnotherapy.
Here is a demonstration of the Dave Elman induction by Mike Mandel:
Once the hypnotist has obtained this level of relaxation from the subject, he can carry on and start playing with suggestions.
Suggestions and post-hypnotic suggestions
This is where the fun stuff happens.
We will go over the most popular hypnotic suggestions in erotic hypnosis later in this article but this is the moment the hypnotist can introduce suggestions that become temporary realities for the hypnotized.
This leaves plenty of opportunities to create erotic, fun and pleasurable suggestions.
We will often see an evolution of the suggestions, starting from something pretty simple and easy like feeling slights tingles in a specific part of the body to something more intense and powerful like a full body orgasm.
The idea here is to make the subject realize she’s hypnotized and increasing the effectiveness of the suggestions.
There are two categories of suggestions: the suggestions that take place during the trance and the suggestion that will materialize on a specific trigger, like a keyword or a specific action. This latter is called a post-hypnotic suggestion.
One very common post-hypnotic suggestion is to re-induce the state of trance by commanding « sleep » to the subject.
This allows for another technique often used during sessions: fractionation. It consists of bringing the subject back to consciousness and under again many times in a row.
This allows to “deepen” the trance and render the subject more compliant, showing her the effectiveness of post-hypnotic triggers. This is also used in the Dave Elman induction demonstrated above.
In erotic hypnosis circle, we will often see suggestions like « pleasure » or « orgasm now » that triggers the corresponding sensations.
Getting out of hypnosis
Once the session is over, the hypnotist will proceed to clear the triggers setup previously and bring the subject back to full consciousness.
We usually use a count from 1 to 5, finishing by a « fully awake » instruction :
In a moment, I’m going to count from 1 to 5 and at 5 you will be fully awake.
You will feel happy and refreshed from this session and all the commands and post-hypnotic suggestions I gave you during this session won’t work on you anymore until your next hypnosis session.
Now, on the count of 5, you will be fully awake. 1… 2… realizing where you are, taking in the environment 3… moving your fingers… 4… stretching and 5… eyes open, fully awake.
Aftercare
In this part, the hypnotist takes in feedback from the subject: what worked well, what was pleasurable, what was not, what it felt like, etc.
It’s pretty interesting as it yields insights into the perception of hypnosis suggestion and helps fine tune the scenes for subjects.
Types of suggestions or scripts you will find in erotic hypnosis suggestions
Now that you know the structure of an erotic hypnosis session, let’s see common suggestions often used during these seances.
Sleep now
This trigger is used in a lot of different practice but is really convenient for the hypnotists as it allows to bring back the subject, have a completely normal talk and bring her back to a state of trance to continue the work.
The process, called fractionation — bringing someone in and out of trance —seems to be improving the compliance of the subject to suggestions.
Pleasure and arousal
This is a very common post-hypnotic suggestion making the subject feel pleasure.
It can be brought by letting the subject remember the most pleasurable sensation ever experienced then amplifying it.
Arousal can be increased by imagining a volume knob that will be turned farther and farther.
Orgasm on command
This one is probably the best known and written about. It’s the most fantasized about suggestion.
Making people attain orgasm by just speaking to them is a power trip in itself.
Sensation play
Very often, the hypnotist will make suggestions that:
- create sensations that don’t exist, like a tingle or a more sexual stimulation
- displace/misplace sensations — feeling what happens on the tip of the nose on her clitoris of the subject for instance
- increase the sensitivity to increase the response of the subject
Movement restriction
Whether it is impeding movement by using imaginary ropes or ordering the subject to “freeze” and be stuck in a certain position, movement restriction is a very common form of suggestion.
Dispossessing the subject of its ability to move reinforce the belief of hypnosis and reaffirms the control over her.
Memory Play
Some suggestions can be about playing with the memory. Just like stage hypnosis where the hypnotist makes the subject forget a specific number, memory play can have a role in erotic hypnosis.
An interesting suggestion is to forget whatever happens between two commands — like “memory off”, “memory on”, making people and objects — such as closes — virtually teleport and disappear. Creating interestingly awkward situations for the subject.
Know that like in most relationships the only limit is the other’s desire and your combined imagination. There are many more interesting scenarios to explore such as simulating untold desires during the session.
In an article on Cracked, an erotic hypnotist explains a client asked to forget how to pee on the toilet. If that’s your thing, hypnosis can bring it to you but most people will stick with much more reasonable explorations such as perceiving body parts as bigger or coming harder than they ever have before.
If you want more examples or ideas, have a look at our article dedicated to erotic hypnosis suggestions.
Why is it so interesting?
Well, if you’ve reached this section, I think you’ve come up with your own reason on why the subjects interest you.
In my opinion, it takes a particular place here, at The Unchained Mind as it touches two particularly powerful subjects: hypnosis and sex.
Hypnosis is one incredible way to access hidden resources and work with the subconscious, something we are not trained to do.
Sex is a powerful drive but also a very repressed and conditioned need in our modern societies.
This mixture is a great way to explore hidden resources while making it fun and pleasurable.
It’s also a great way to reprogram yourself for pleasure rather than following weird convention pressured on you made by a society, a group of people with mostly frustrated or underwhelming sexual lives.
Finally, it’s interesting to explore fantasies, possibly repressed in a low stake environment: even if it’s the perceived reality during the session, you don’t have to be put in danger of your reputation or even your physical health to explore some of your deepest fantasy.
For instance, one very common fantasy amongst women is the « rape » fantasy. There are a lot of psychological studies you can find around the subject.
Theories propose that it’s about removing the responsibility for sicking pleasure — which can be labeled as slutty behavior in a sexually repressed environment — and enjoying the moment because, hey, she has no choice and kind of don’t want it anyway, so she’s not a slut.
It goes without saying but there’s a big difference between fantasies and reality. Please don’t rape people, nobody wants to get raped.
However, it’s possible to make a subject believe she’s in this type of situation during an erotic hypnosis session and make her realize this fantasy.