KINKY NLP

Neuro-Linguistic
Programming for Erotic
Hypnosis

sleepingirl
 Copyright © 2021 sleepingirl
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
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ISBN-13: 979-8-7809-0803-6
Edited by sleepingirl, with help from Michal Daveed
(GleefulAbandon)

Cover art and all formatting by sleepingirl

For the hypnosis kink community: There’s no reason
a fake can’t do what the real thing would... and it’s
possible for a fake to be more real than the real thing.

And for my partners, who believe in me.

 PREFACE
For me, for a long time, hypnosis and
mind control were the stuff of fantasy. I
remember being a young child, ashamed of
my fascination with the concept of someone
being mindless or manipulated. Along with
the shame was a steadfastness in believing
that on the off chance it was real, it could
never work on me. I have vivid memories of
resigning myself to this—bittersweet, maybe,
but safe, since I’d never confirm or deny the
reality of it. As the years passed, I never
outgrew the fascination, and curiosity
eventually got the better of me as I grew old
enough to shyly start exploring.
 I learned as many did: By cobbling
together sources from the realms of stage
hypnosis and hypnotherapy, with a healthy
dose of parroting parts of erotic audios that I
downloaded onto an MP3 player that hid in
my room. It was desperately hard, at that
time, to find educational material that was
meant to be used in an intimate partnership,
and I ran into many roadblocks struggling to
understand therapeutic framing and language
around the majority of hypnosis books that I
poured over. But slowly, I began to develop
an understanding of how real people did
actual hypnosis. I kept a secret notebook with
terms and inductions. I did my best to get
through case studies. Things were beginning
to click.
But peppered amongst the sources I went
through, there was something called “neuro-
linguistic programming”—obfuscated,
mysterious, and alluring. As far as I could tell,
it claimed to be a tool of persuasion and
powerful hypnotic influence. It was
something that intrigued me as much as it
confused me. The books were nearly
impossible for me to parse, using a
vocabulary that felt like a different language.
Largely, I left it alone.
Fast forward, over a decade after my glee-
filled entrance into the online and in-person
erotic hypnosis community (and more
experiences with hypnosis than I ever could
have dreamed of), now we are beginning to
build our own little library of books and
other resources that I wish I had had access
to when I was younger. To my surprise, I
ended up contributing one—The Brainwashing
Book: Hypnotic, Erotic Behaviorism and Beyond
(2019) felt like an enormous achievement; a
once-in-a-lifetime thing to do.
Except…
As I grew more to understand the nature
of hypnosis through participation and classes,
my curiosity never waned. Not just myself,
but the community as a whole was growing in
its breadth of knowledge in many different
ways. People connected more, shared more,
and read more. But there was one topic that
seemed to be an outlier in that: Neuro-
linguistic programming. Was it a scam? Was it
a collection of sneaky language patterns? Was
it a thing that only creepy hypnotists did?
What the actual hell was it?
 I’ve had the enormous fortune of creating
friendships and partnerships with unique,
intelligent people, and so, armed with a solid
foundation of experience and knowledge, I
finally dove headfirst into learning about this
strange model, while having innumerable
conversations that shaped my understanding
along the way. It’s said that one of the best
ways to learn about a topic is to teach it, and
for me, writing is my favorite way of teaching.
Writing a book, since I’d done it once already,
no longer seemed like an insurmountable
task: It seemed like an old friend. I had read
(and re-read) enough already to begin to
develop some fluency in NLP’s jargon. I
decided that I would do the work of parsing
through a ton of the NLP stuff out there to
attempt to distill it into something that could
advance the erotic hypnosis community and
answer our eternal questions about it.
Again, I’ll say: I wrote this book for you—
no matter what your background is or where
your curiosity lies, your interest in knowing
more is why I keep doing what I do.
 INTRODUCTION
Neuro-linguistic programming is one of
the most complex, infamous, and
misunderstood pieces of modern hypnosis
practice and especially of hypnosis in our
kink world. It brings to mind pick-up artists
and pseudoscience, language patterns and
obfuscated jargon. Some assert that NLP is
complete nonsense, while others insist that it
is the mystical key to all human interaction.
Over the course of this book, we’ll be
exploring what NLP is according to a variety
of different sources, explaining from where it
came, and most especially exploring how we
can dig through it, think critically about parts
of its claims, and use it for mutually enjoyable
hypnokink practice.

What Is NLP, Actually?

Talking about what NLP actually “is” is

difficult. NLP includes a collection of
concepts that have evolved (and are
continually evolving) that may or may not
intersect with each other. It is complicated
deeply by the fact that there is no standard
for the practice; anyone may claim to be
certified, anyone may give a certification, and
there is no body that regulates the use of the
term or contents. NLP practitioners come
out with new books and seminars all the
time, often contradicting previous literature,
even by the same author.
Thus, it is hard to come up with a concise
summary of the practice. It could be defined
as a kind of philosophy towards human
communication. It focuses on language as a
way to broaden our understanding of others
and create different outcomes through
hypnosis and other methods. And even that
sounds vague and purposefully ostentatious.
 It’s much easier to understand what NLP
is or claims to be when it’s not being
discussed within a vacuum; a lot of context is
necessary to parse its many moving pieces. A
little bit of history goes a long way here, not
only in learning who was involved, but about
their connections and motivations. We’ll go in
depth to all of this as we continue, but for
now, let’s try to come up with a brief synopsis
of NLP based loosely on the structure of this
book:

The Meta Model

The very first part of NLP
that was born out of
analyzing influential
therapists. The meta model
says 1) everyone sees the
world differently, 2) we
represent those perspectives
through language, and 3)
that we can use analysis and
employment of language to
understand and also
promote change in these
worldviews. The extremely
broad thesis of the meta
 model might be: “Nobody
can see the world as it truly
is, and we also
communicate about it in a
limited or inaccurate way.
So to help someone
understand the world, you
can clarify their language—
i.e. the way they process.”

The Milton Model

The second part of NLP
came from a study of
Milton Erickson, one of the
most well-known
hypnotherapists in history.
The Milton model says that
sometimes it can actually be
good to use the unclear
language that the meta
model says to be cautious
of because it has the
potential to induce trance
or agreement. It also says
that by using trance, people
have more resources to help
solve problems. A broad
 thesis of the Milton model
might be: “Based on how
we process the world, using
incomplete language can
cause someone to process
in a way that is potentially
trancey, which is useful.”

Other Parts
Since its inception in the
1970s, NLP has been added
onto by countless sources
(including its founders), and
many of these parts have
been integrated into
practice. There are ideas like
reframing (taking a concept
and looking at it from a
different perspective),
future pacing (having
someone imagine
something that will happen
in order to change a current
perspective), and more in
an enormous grab-bag of
techniques included over
the years. Some of these are
 completely novel, while
others are more of an
expansion or dive into
previously-existing topics.

You’ll notice that all of these summaries

are within the context of “helping” someone
—this is because NLP was originally
designed as a therapeutic tool. Its founders
studied therapists in order to do therapy and
sell books and seminars to therapists. As
much as NLP has a reputation for being
relied on by salesmen and unethical
hypnotists, this is its root, and we’ll be largely
looking at it through that perspective.

Pseudoscience?

Before moving forward, we should address

a point that’s often brought up in discussions
of NLP: The idea that it’s pseudoscience. The
definition of pseudoscience is: “A system of
theories, assumptions, and methods
erroneously regarded as scientific.”1 The
definition of science is: “Knowledge about or
study of the natural world based on facts
learned through experiments and
observation.”2 Essentially, the claim is that
NLP is a system of theories that have either
been disproven or cannot be verified through
experiments and the scientific method.
This is true. NLP is, by its very
characteristics, mostly not able to be tested in
the same ways that other disciplines can be. It
comments directly on the nuance of human
interaction, as well as the subjective nature of
trance and suggestion. Beyond this, it’s true
that a good chunk of NLP is so far detached
from more established psychology that it is
no longer useful. NLP as a whole describes
an incredibly broad conglomerate of ideas
from different people and places, some of
which don’t really make sense in reality.
But while hypnosis itself has been under
scientific study for a decent chunk of time,
these studies are limited by its nature—
dependent heavily on uncontrollable variables
like the personal histories of the individuals
involved and minute shifts of tone and
context. Attempts to codify hypnotic
response on any sort of scale are inherently
flawed—something that we’re intimately
aware of when we dive into erotic
relationships where we aren’t limited by rigid
experimentation.
It’s OK to label NLP as pseudoscience,
but the key is that that doesn’t invalidate it. It
is still useful and influential to what we do as
erotic hypnotists. As we go through the book,
we’ll be identifying some key spots where the
logic doesn’t add up in terms of techniques,
and focusing on the places where it does.
Logic is the crucial word here, because we
can’t rely on repeatable science—we’ll need
to be working with a thorough understanding
of how our partners’ brains work in and
around trance and language.

NLP for Hypnokink

Given all of this, how does the erotic

hypnosis community fit in? How do we take a
questionably-scientific model of practice
that’s been used for everything from therapy
to sales to persuasion and seduction and
apply it to hypnokink?
First, we must acknowledge that many
parts of our current body of knowledge in
kink actually already come from NLP. There
are things we learn, teach, and repeat as
gospel in the community without knowing
their origin—even concepts that NLP
practitioners have distanced themselves from
over time. Topics such as modalities, yes sets,
double binds, anchoring, pacing and leading,
and many more have roots in the wild ride
that is NLP. This makes sense, considering
that our hivemind of education on hypnosis
kink is taught by a wide variety of people
with different backgrounds.
Additionally, this is not limited to the kink
community. Hypnosis practice, therapeutic or
otherwise, often draws from NLP. Some of
the most oft-cited books are by NLP authors
or are NLP-adjacent. Since NLP draws so
heavily from Erickson and made study of
him part of its primary strategy, it is often
hard to find the line between what is general
hypnosis knowledge derived from Erickson
and what is knowledge that comes from
NLP’s analysis of him.
The word “model” is going to be used a
lot in this book. A model can be defined as a
representation of something to serve as an
example to follow: It creates a framework to
better understand something, but it
necessarily has boundaries, and thus is
limiting. We generally have many nebulous
and varying models of hypnosis that we use
in hypnokink that can include discussion of
negotiation, intimacy, suggestions, and other
pieces of data, facts, and methods related to
doing hypnosis between partners. NLP was
originally meant to be a “model of
models”—a way to make frameworks of
frameworks, in the hopes of being all-
encompassing and unifying to some degree.
(Thus, the original “meta model”—a model
that refers to models.) How much it succeeds
in this initial goal is debatable, as we’ll see. As
a rule of thumb, something that attempts to
create a unifying framework ends up
generally becoming just a separate, distinct
model. But this model, like NLP, can
certainly be useful.
Most accurately, we can say that NLP
serves as a model of hypnosis, a model of
therapy, and a model of communication. Its
methods and techniques are intended for use
within different types of relationships—it is
our job to translate it to fit within the erotic
hypnotist/subject partnership. While the
original tomes are meant to teach therapists
how to help clients, and other permutations
are meant to teach salespeople how to
convince customers or skeevy individuals to
find partners, we are looking to use NLP in
an intimate and ethical setting.

Ethics/Consent

It seems prudent to discuss the idea of

ethics here, to start with, as NLP’s reputation
as a tool of influence is pervasive. As
mentioned before, when introducing these
concepts, we will not be looking at NLP
from the lens of pick-up artistry or
persuasion. But perhaps it is good to address
some of the ethical questions we face when
attempting to use NLP for consensual
hypnosis play.
The ethics of something is not a question
that can be answered without background
knowledge, and for this reason, we will also
revisit this discussion later in the book when
we have a foundation for how NLP presumes
to operate. However, primarily, one of the
most important things to remember is the
context that NLP comes from originally, and
how we need to adjust that to fit our needs in
an intimate partnership.
 The therapist/client relationship is
different from the partner/partner
relationship in many ways. While there is
precedent in ethical therapeutic practice for
obtaining informed consent, the role this
takes and the way it happens is very different.
A therapist is not usually going to sit down
with their patient and explain the ins and outs
of the techniques they are drawing upon in
order to perform therapy. In kink, we
recognize that understanding the process is
helpful (albeit not strictly necessary in all
partnership models) in order for both
partners to express consent. A therapist may
include discussion of risks of therapy, but the
angle that they come from will be different.
Consent is not a simple topic, and
particularly when it comes to sexual consent
we have very different guidelines and needs
as opposed to consent in other situations.
This is a nuanced concept in just vanilla sex,
and it gets even more complicated when we
need to look at this from the perspective of
(essentially) talking and listening as a form of
sexual interaction.
“Don’t Be an Asshole” is perhaps the
simplest way to express our model of consent
for sex, kink, and hypnosis, and there has
been a lot of discussion about trying to
codify non-asshole methods of being
intimate with partners. To make it clear:
Everyone has different needs for consent and
comfortability, and there is no one-size-fits-
all approach that is the “safest” or “best.”
The only way to discover this is through real,
engaged conversations between the people
involved. People who are newer to kink and
the kink models of consent may need extra
discussion so that they understand what is
happening and the risks involved.
“Don’t do NLP without someone’s
consent” seems like an easy thing to say, but
even here, we must understand that there is a
need for nuance. As we’ll learn through this
book, playing within NLP’s world and model
requires us to buy into the idea that NLP is
an attempt to codify all forms of human
communication. So we as hypnokinksters are
faced with the need to reconcile “everything
is NLP” with “don’t do nonconsensual NLP.”
Of course, these two ideas can coexist,
because when we say “don’t do
nonconsensual NLP,” what we really mean is
“don’t purposefully mess with someone
without their consent.” We can, for example,
see a distinct difference between the kind of
active listening that NLP teaches and using
hypnotic language patterns on someone who
hasn’t expressed that it’s OK to us.
We are not simply being pedantic by
making this distinction. The more we can be
specific and discuss consent with an
understanding of the nuance of human
interactions, the healthier these conversations
will be overall within the community and
with our individual partners. We will go
further in depth in Chapter 16 where we
revisit ethics at the end of this book.

What to Expect from This Book

This book is in some ways a summary and

in other ways a culmination of NLP as a
whole and some of its parts. By boiling down
concepts from many books and articles, we
are not going to be able to give the full,
complete picture. There are sources upon
sources to wade through and parse, and
attempting to codify them into a more
digestible form necessarily transforms the
material.
 Additionally, we are transforming it further
by looking at it from the lens of hypnokink
and hopefully in a way that is more practically
useful for us with our intimate partners.
“Kinky NLP” means that for you, as a
person interested in erotic hypnosis, this stuff
should be approachable and applicable to
what you do. Context will be given for the
original therapeutic perspective, but we will
strive to understand this material within a
context that already exists for us and within a
model of hypnosis that is most realistic for
the way that we play. We will also be omitting
some concepts and theories which are
outdated or useless, or stuff that just plain
doesn’t make sense. We’ll be adding
background and other bits of useful hypnosis
theory that intersects with what we discuss.
Sections of this book will be interwoven
with small history lessons, and the book for
its first two parts goes somewhat
chronologically through the development of
NLP and its parts. The history of our
techniques as hypnokinksters is important to
learn because none of what we do evolved in
a vacuum. Background is very important for
us to be able to think critically about our play.
Importantly, the history and names are given
for this purpose: To provide a frame of
reference, as well as to provide readers with
the ability to know what other hypnosis or
NLP sources are talking about when they
reference topics or people. We are not
necessarily venerating any particular practitioners—
the nuance required to explore whether the
people discussed herein are worthy of that is
beyond the scope of this book.
This book is about NLP, but it’s not about
all of NLP and it’s also not solely about NLP.
While you will learn a good foundation for
what NLP was and is, the ultimate themes,
techniques, and lessons in this book may not
align
with what “conventional” NLP practitioners
do or believe. It’s a perspective on how the
good parts of NLP can be adapted to mesh
well with good psychological and linguistic
hypnosis knowledge.
 PART ONE:
THE META MODEL
 CHAPTER 1:
INTRODUCTION TO THE
META MODEL
The meta model is the early foundation of
NLP; it was the starting point for everything
that would come later. As we’ll explore, the
meta model predates the term “neuro-
linguistic programming,” but is still
considered one of its pillars. It is a bit
difficult to summarize concisely, but one way
to explain it might be that it is a framework
of how to linguistically analyze the
communication of other people, find out
what they aren’t saying (and what they are),
and ask the right questions. This is all to
encourage better understanding of the way
they view the world and thus give them the
ability to change in some direction. To begin,
we’ll dive into a little history about the key
players involved and how these intersections
of giants were the spark of creating
something so extensive. Let's discuss the
foundations of how NLP views language and
processing.

A Brief History

It is the early 1970s at the University of

California, Santa Cruz. Richard Bandler is a
student, and John Grinder is a professor.
Somehow, they cross paths, study therapists,
and within the span of five years end up
authoring The Structure of Magic volumes I and
II together—the very first books on the meta
model and what will be used for decades as
an introduction to NLP. Bandler and Grinder
are often cited as NLP’s co-founders, but the
reality is that it was born out of group
collaboration and a significant number of
contributors, including a third, generally
unacknowledged co-founder named Frank
Pucelik.3
Bandler:

Worked at Science and Behavior

Books, a publishing company
focused on therapy and
psychology
Got the job through Dr. Robert S.
Spitzer, company president and
family friend
Was told to edit manuscripts of
Fritz Perls, legendary therapist
and originator of Gestalt therapy
Was accidentally called “Fritz” a
number of times by Spitzer due to
his uncanny ability of “modeling”
or copying behavior and speech
patterns4

Pucelik:

Was an older student; did a stint

in the military after a couple years
of school, then went back and
studied psychology and political
science
Transferred to UCSC and used his
background knowledge on
 therapy to do peer counseling for
fellow students
Met Bandler due to their
overlapping interest in psychology
—the two of them ran student
seminars on Gestalt therapy
together

Grinder:

Was a “hotshot” linguistics

professor at USCS
Was asked to sit in on Bandler’s
therapy seminars so he could lend
his perspective
Asked the group questions about
the language patterns that they
were using, watched and took
note of how they all behaved and
offered input

The group grew beyond its simple basis of

Gestalt therapy. It became a collaborative
effort, and even further as they invited more
and more students to join and participate in
the discussions and learning. Around this
time, Spitzer asked Bandler to record audio
tapes of Virginia Satir, renowned family
therapist, and she would be the second of
three “therapeutic wizards,” as NLP
affectionately calls them, to form the basis
for their development. Bandler’s skill for
modeling communication was again utilized
as he spoke with her and transcribed her
sessions. Satir ended up having an ongoing
dialogue with them, the only one of the
original three who eagerly collaborated. The
student seminars, as they “levelled up,”
became known as the “Meta” group.
There was Fritz Perls of Gestalt therapy,
and Virginia Satir of family therapy—as for
the third “wizard?” That would be Milton
Erickson, whose body of work would
introduce them to hypnosis, later. Bandler
knew very little about the topic until he
looked over Erickson’s case studies, writings,
and other books on the subject. But from
there, these group sessions often included
trance; Pucelik recalls in The Origins of Neuro
Linguistic Programming (2013) that they would
even spend days hypnotically “transformed”
into the therapists they were studying to
better learn how to model them.
 But as things really got going and they had
the opportunity to actually meet Erickson,
Pucelik was not invited and was mysteriously
asked not to return to the group. It continued
without him, training multiple generations of
students in the techniques they were
synthesizing as they all collaborated with each
other. Bandler and Grinder moved on to
publish their first book together, The Structure
of Magic I: A Book about Language and Therapy
in 1975, which formed the basis for what
they called the “meta model”—the very first
part of NLP, a culmination of what they had
learned from studying Fritz Perls, Virginia
Satir, Milton Erickson, and others in the
fields of linguistics and therapy.

Map/Territory Relation and Alfred

Korzybski

Understanding that the meta model and

NLP come from a coalescence of therapeutic
techniques and linguistics (among other
fields), it makes sense that it is largely focused
on the idea of problem-solving and change
through a linguistic and philosophical lens. It
begins with a basis or model of how to view
the world and human interactions and then
gives more technical guidance on how to get
information, model experts, and achieve
different outcomes.
Arguably, the first and foremost part of the
meta model and NLP is a concept borrowed
from scholar Alfred Korzybski, who wrote,
paraphrased, “The map is not the territory.”5
This was meant to illustrate the idea that a
model of something does not represent the
thing itself. This concept has been
expounded on by countless others. One such
example is artist René Magritte in his famous
painting, titled, “The Treachery of Images,”
which depicts a tobacco pipe, captioned,
“Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a
pipe”). This describes the idea that the
abstraction of a pipe in the form of a
drawing, albeit realistic and recognizable, is
not literally a pipe. Philosopher Immanuel
Kant describes this idea in transcendental
idealism—we do not experience the world,
we experience our impression of it.6
NLP (specifically the meta model) holds
this concept at its core. The way that one
views the world is not literally how the world
is, and the way that one describes the world is
not literally representative of it, either. From
a therapeutic standpoint, this is meant to
assist therapists in understanding that a)
themselves and their client have incomplete
and different views of the issues at hand, b)
that their job is to understand the client’s
“map” and expand upon it to assist them in
positive change, and c) they can achieve this
through use and analysis of language.
It’s helpful to dig back a little to
Korzybski’s work to get a fuller
understanding of from where this idea came.
The full text of the oft-truncated quote is
this:

“A map is not the territory it represents, but, if

correct, it has a similar structure to the territory,
which accounts for its usefulness. [...] If we reflect
upon our languages, we find that at best they must be
considered only as maps. A word is not the object it
represents; and languages exhibit also this peculiar
self-reflexiveness, that we can analyse languages by
linguistic means. This self-reflexiveness of languages
introduces serious complexities, which can only be
solved by the theory of multi-ordinality. The disregard
of these complexities is tragically disastrous in daily
life and science.”7

Korzybski puts forth a model for therapy

and linguistics called “general semantics,”
which borrows from other linguistics and
places a high focus on his idea of “non-
Aristotelianism”; essentially, as much as you
attempt to truly describe something, you
cannot capture its essence and you cannot
perfectly represent it. It is very interested in
the human experience as viewed through
language and over time, and how language
can alter that experience through
understanding its ambiguity and symbolism.
Digging into the specific quote and concept:
No representation, word, description, or
internal model has the capability to actually
represent something. But it becomes useful in
guiding ourselves and others through the
world when it approaches similarity. The
original meta model takes from this in certain
ways—Korzybski can easily be viewed as a
grandfather to NLP, predating it by nearly 40
years. Later and other versions of the meta
model take even further from him, and we
will dig deeper in later chapters.
 Map/Territory in Kink

This is the sort of philosophical basis for

the meta model: The idea that we are
fundamentally starting from an impoverished
point in terms of how we understand the
world and how we understand each other’s
“maps” of it. In kink, it is ideal to think about
this when we’re interacting with our partners.
For example, in negotiation, how might
someone be viewing the idea of a potential
activity differently than us? We know how
important it is in many partnerships to strive
for information as a necessary aspect of
consent. NLP gives us a framework for this
in the idea that we can delve into what our
partner believes is entailed in something. We
must recognize that being “informed” about
something is not necessarily about what
“objective reality” is—“amnesia,” for
example, is a nebulous and ambiguous
concept that may require clarity, which we
can attempt to achieve through
communication.
Even within the context of a scene, this
idea of map and territory is relevant. In a
really concrete way, perhaps you are doing
some sort of guided fantasy; we know
intuitively not to assume that the way you
describe or view a scenario is replicated one-
to-one in the subject’s mind. This knowledge
allows us to better work with ambiguity, or
search for information about their model, or
expand the way that they conceptualize
something to better match your
representation, or expand the way that you
conceptualize something to better match
theirs. For another example, you can consider
a response part of a subject’s model; if you
tell them to act like a bimbo, and they start
babbling about wanting to go shopping,
you’ve learned something about how they
process what a “bimbo” is, and you can make
decisions about how to utilize that. NLP
gives specific tools and techniques to be able
to clarify information that’s being given to
you, discover new things, and facilitate
change and expansion.
In general, we can talk extensively about
the simple value of a person feeling like they
are understood. Feeling “seen” or “known” is
a key ingredient in someone experiencing
good rapport, and especially within the
context of an erotic interaction. If the subject
has a sense that you are making attempts in
understanding them, it can facilitate trust and
a high level of responsiveness. Simply using
the meta model as a framework to display
that kind of attention (if coming from a
genuine place) is another way that we can
benefit from it.
At its very core, this is all about learning
how to understand someone’s model of the
world, which is a phrase that is oft-repeated
in discussions of NLP. Learning about
someone, learning about the way that they
process concepts, learning about their
thoughts, feelings, and personal history gives
you an immense way to connect with them
and an immense amount to utilize when you
are hypnotizing them.

Language as Representation

The meta model strives to say that if we

each have different maps of the world, we
explore and show each other our maps
through the language that we use. On a very
basic level, we paint pictures for each other
through words in order to describe our
experiences. We may note different details of
our experiences, and the way that we tell
stories says a lot about the way that we have
processed an event.
For example, if we are talking about our
first time doing hypnosis, we draw upon the
memory that we have in our heads and have
to translate that to words in order to
communicate it. The way that we do this
varies from person to person, and also likely
depends on what we are thinking about that
day. We choose different verbiage to talk
about the way that we felt, perhaps key things
that we saw or heard. In this way, we are
attempting to bring someone into our
“world” so that they can better understand it.
But even beyond trying to share an
experience, whenever we communicate we
are somehow presenting our worldview. The
act of translating the way that we
conceptualize something into speech is
always going to be telling about how we
process things. The nuances of our language
and the way we communicate concepts is
always going to represent how we view the
world. It is the key medium we have to share
ourselves and our internal experiences.
 NLP says that language should be the
subject of scrutinous study because of this.
The thesis of the meta model in particular is
all about learning how to understand who
someone is based on the language that they
use, specifically because it tells us about how
they think about events, people, and ideas.

Generalizations, Deletions, Distortions

So far we know that NLP says that

language is a representation of our individual
worlds, and both the experience itself and our
verbal representation of it are incomplete.
The meta model claims to categorize three
main ways that this manifests: Generalizing,
deleting, or distorting experiences or
information.

“Generalization” is when we take

one experience and consciously or
unconsciously assume or
communicate that it represents a
whole class of experiences. For a
common example, a child has a
bad experience going to the
 doctor’s office and then expects
that all further visits are scary.

“Deletion” happens if we are

somehow leaving out a part of an
experience so that it becomes
incomplete. Perhaps we go to a
party, and despite there being
some awkward interactions, we
remember the experience as
overall being pretty fun.

“Distortion” occurs when we

change the quality of something.
This could be as simple as
misremembering the color of
someone’s eyes, or more
complicated, like assuming that
there is causality between two
things (like having the sense that
hypnosis is sexual).

Notice that some of these examples could

potentially lead to problems, while others are
more neutral or even feel like they could be
fun to explore. NLP is mainly written from
the perspective of therapy—the goal is to
identify limits in our processing that are
detrimental, and help the person overcome
those issues. However, it’s important to
remember that just because we generalize,
delete, or distort information, it doesn’t mean
that it’s problematic. This is a natural part of
the way that we process information as
humans. It can even lead us to positive
worldviews (or, as we’ll explore in later
chapters, great opportunities for hypnosis).
This is to say that generalization, deletion,
and distortion are not inherently good or bad
things. They largely rely on the context that
the information is being communicated as
well as the intent of both the speaker and
listener.

Deep Structure/Surface Structure

The meta model says that we can look for

hints about how we change information
through analyzing language. It borrows terms
to describe this from renowned linguist
Noam Chomsky’s transformational grammar
(although does not perfectly copy the
concept) in the form of “deep structure” and
“surface structure.” The general idea is an
easy one if we boil it down: On the “surface,”
people make speech acts that represent (often
incompletely) what they are feeling, meaning,
or experiencing on a “deeper” level. The
meta model also makes heavy use of the term
“transformation” in discussing language,
namely to describe the ways that utterances
can be changed in different ways to express
different things. For example, how
information is transformed in the way that
we talk about it, or how experiences are
transformed through being generalized,
deleted, or distorted.
Someone might say, “We had such a good
time.” This would be the surface structure—
what is being said. The deep structure of this
sentence includes information like what they
were doing, who was involved, and when
they were doing it. For another example, “I
really want more brainwashing” might be
transformed from the deep structure of
something like, “I have enjoyed brainwashing
in the past with a specific partner that
included being conditioned to masturbate
about them and I want more of that next
time we play.” Clearly, native speakers don’t
usually talk like this, as context is an
important part of language, but the surface
structure begs the questions: Why? By who?
When? What does “brainwashing” mean?
NLP wants us to look into even the most
seemingly obvious statements and wonder
where there might be information hidden or
assumed. “I bought lunch” implies that some
amount of money was spent and some kind
of food was received, but how much and
what kind? It may not always be important to
get those answers. It’s the mindset of looking
to see how we communicate and how we are
transforming our experience that matters.
This of course connects with the idea of
wanting to understand someone’s model of
the world; their model includes the
transformed information hidden behind the
“surface” words that they are saying. In
hypnokink particularly, we can gain a lot of
resources by striving to understand the true
whole of an utterance, or what that utterance
represents. How has someone processed their
thoughts or experiences, and how are they
communicating it to you? Are there aspects
to it of which they themselves are not aware,
because of this nuance of language? Can you
use any of that to your advantage as a
hypnotist?

Meta Model “Violations”/Questions

Finally, the meta model provides specific

analysis of what language patterns to look for
that might imply these transformations of
generalizations, deletions, or distortions, and
gives examples of ways to “challenge” these;
how to dig under the incomplete surface
structure to glean more information for all
parties involved. This is referred to in several
different ways based on where you look for it
—sometimes this is referred to as the
concept of “meta model violations,” where it
describes the specific language acts, and then
various examples of questions are given
which attempt to specify generalizations,
recover deletions, and clarify distortions.
It’s important to remember that in each
case, simply hearing these phrases or words
does not imply that they’re automatically
limiting. We need to use our judgment to
discern if the information is incomplete in a
way that would benefit from clarity, or if it
would simply be useful from a hypnotic
perspective. There is not a need to push to
clarify on every sentence, nor should they be
pushed in the same way—it is just about
what you are trying to achieve by looking for
information underneath. While the meta
model emphasizes an increased awareness on
linguistic transformations and limited
utterances, it acknowledges that native
speakers of a language often rely on
presupposition, assumption, and frame (all
ideas that we will explore more in depth
later).
Sometimes making these pushes on
“incomplete” statements is about fixing
them, so to speak, but from our perspective
as hypnokinksters, it can be valuable and fun
simply to discover new things or change
someone’s perspective. Getting someone to
think about something differently is a key
aspect of doing hypnosis—hypnotizing them
is not just about linearly putting them in
trance, but changing the way that they are
thinking. NLP would say that that expands
their resources (with which we as kinksters
have to play). After all, getting new
information gives us more ingredients with
which to use in our patter. This is one of the
key differences between the way that we want
to use NLP in erotic hypnosis and how NLP
teaches it—they operate on the assumption
that these “violations” are usually implying a
negative limitation. We as hypnokinksters
want to expand our understanding of this
concept to simply find interesting and
enjoyable places to push someone.
The templates given for both the examples
and clarifying questions are purposefully
simplistic as well as spelled out—regular
conversations don’t usually go so rigidly and
nor should they. Natural speech can often
contain more than one example of each of
these, and it’s not so much about going down
the list and challenging each word you hear,
but more so carefully considering how to be
more effectively communicating with them,
or what useful things you may unearth by
poking and prodding at certain junctures.
There are a variety of different situations
presented in this list—some about “fixing”
information, and others about more playful
interaction.

GENERALIZATIONS
 Universal Quantifiers

Words such as “always,” “never,” “every,”

“nothing,” or “all” are the mark of someone
generalizing in such a way that they feel or
imply that there is no alternative or
exception.

Example: “I never seem to go into trance.”

Clarifying: Offering contrary examples, such

as, “Never? Even when you were watching
that movie?” Or taking it literally to the
extreme in jest, such as, “Yeah… I bet even
when you’re talking to someone, you can’t
understand what they’re saying!”

Modal Operators of Necessity or

Probability

Words such as “must,” “can,” “should,”

“will,” and their inverses, “mustn’t,” “can’t,”
“shouldn’t,” or “won’t” might imply that
someone is wrongfully assuming that their
actions are limited or restricted.
 Example: “I have to go deeper into
trance...”

Clarifying: Challenge their sense of surety

and discover more about their belief, such as,
“How do you know that you have to? What’s
giving you that compulsion?” Or try to get
them to see that they have more (or, in the
case of D/s, less) options, such as, “What
would happen if you did or didn’t?”

DELETIONS

Simple Deletions

Something is missing or being left out.

Example: “It feels so good...”

Clarifying: Try to prompt for what is

missing, such as, “What is making you feel so
good? What do you feel that lets you know
that you’re feeling good?” You might get
some interesting information about their
experience that you can use against them.

Lack of Referential Index

 Any noun which is unspecified, like
generalized groupings such as “they” or
“people,” or “those” or “that” when what is
actually being referred to isn’t clear.

Example: “I really am doing this… Like, it’s

really happening...”

Clarifying: Try to dig with questions such as,

“What is it exactly that you are doing? What
is happening? Can you tell me about it?” This
can have the effect of pushing someone more
into their internal experience.

Comparative Deletion

Words like “more,” “most,” “better,” or

their inverses, “less,” “least,” or “worse” may
imply that someone is differentiating between
two or more nebulous things, and/or the
standard is unclear.

Example: “It’s just so much more intense!”

Clarifying: Recover what the comparison is,

such as, “More intense compared to what?
Can you think about that more clearly?”
 Unspecified Verb

The thing or person making an action or

statement is unclear—a verb that doesn’t
describe a solidly measurable action, which
could cause confusion or misunderstanding.

Example: “I feel like I’m not improving as a

subject.”

Clarifying: Attempt to point out what they

are viewing, since their language isn’t clear:
“What does it mean to improve? What exact
qualities does ‘improving’ have in this
situation?”

Nominalization

A nominalization refers to a noun that

doesn’t represent a physical “thing”—often it
is a verb that has been “nounified.” It is
abstract; it can’t be physically touched,
standardized, or measured, and thus can be
murky if it is assumed to have a single
concrete definition.
 Example: “I want evil hypnosis.”

Clarifying: Attempt to dig into their model

to understand the actual concrete qualities
that they are perceiving, such as, “What does
‘evil hypnosis’ feel like? How does an ‘evil’
person behave?”

DISTORTIONS

Mind Reading

An assumption is made about how

someone else or a group of people thinks,
feels, or will behave.

Example: “I know you want me to be more

expressive.”

Clarifying: Challenge their knowledge, such

as, “How do you know what I want?” Or try
to discern from where the assumption came,
such as, “What makes you think that?”

Lost Performative

A judgment about the value of something

is made, but the source of that is ambiguous.
 Example: “It’s important to have a blank
mind in trance.”

Clarifying: Attempt to identify from where

they got the idea, like, “Who says that?” You
can also challenge the information; “How do
you know that the people who say that know
it for a fact?”

Cause-Effect

An assumption is made that a particular

action or process results in something
specific. Words like “if/then,” “because,”
“makes,” or “causes” imply that someone is
making a correlation that may not be a true
connection.

Example: “When my eyes are closed, I go

really deep.”

Clarifying: You can try to challenge the

association, like, “How do you know those
two things are related?” Or you can try to
clarify the values involved; “What does it
mean for your eyes to be closed? Are there
different levels of that, like when they’re just
heavy or fluttering? Do you think that
translates to any other things your body does,
or that we can harness to move that feeling?”

Complex Equivalence

Similar to cause-effect, there is a

conclusion made that two ideas are invariably
connected. Words like “means,” “because,”
and “equals” could be signs of someone
equating things that don’t necessarily relate to
each other.

Example: “I’m really analytical, so I’m not

very good at going into trance.”

Clarifying: Attempt to unravel the

equivalence: “When did those two things
start meaning the same thing? What makes
you think that being analytical inhibits your
ability to go into trance?”

Presupposition

A statement is constructed in such a way

that part of the message has to be assumed to
be true in order to parse it. Presuppositions
can be very extensive, but one way to identify
them is when the surface structure obscures
the deep structure of an utterance.

Example: “I really want to go into trance!”

Clarifying: Identify the true deep structure

of the sentence and specify based on that:
“Why do you assume that you aren’t already
in trance? When do you think you will know
if we will?”

Applying the Meta Model for Fun

In a therapeutic context, this seems like an

obvious approach and it is easy to see how it
is useful. The goal of therapy is to assist a
client in making positive changes; different
therapeutic approaches, including NLP and
others, have different theories for how best
to make that happen. NLP’s therapeutic
practitioners, including its founders, clearly
found something interesting and successful in
their careful deconstruction of the language
of different therapists. They were language
nerds through and through, and so their
techniques rely on their strengths in
challenging what they believed were flawed
structures of the language of clients—and
much more, of course, but speaking here
about the meta model, specifically.
But this applies to our erotic hypnosis in a
number of ways; the skill of being able to
translate a therapeutic model—or
“transform” it, to cheekily steal from NLP—
should be a coveted one. Whether it’s pre-,
mid-, or post-scene, we can learn to listen
more deeply and acknowledge that there is
more than what is at surface value to what
both we are saying and our partners are
saying. If a subject says, “I’m really
fractionated,” what does that mean that they
are experiencing? Are they looking for that to
change in one direction or another? What
useful information can you glean that may
help you make the scene even better?
Perhaps, to them, being “fractionated” means
they’re deeply engrossed and enjoying the
experience; maybe it’s a hint that they want
more. It could mean something specific
about their process, like physical sensations
or a change in their thinking. Do they feel
slower? What kinds of actions or questions
are available to you as the hypnotist here?
This last part is key: What choices are
available to you? Whenever you gain
information in a hypnotic scene—
information you gain from observing and
listening to your partner’s responses—you are
gaining options on how to proceed. We
hypnotize others by 1) understanding how
someone is processing, and 2) using that
knowledge to influence where they go.
Naturally, there are a lot of concepts in
hypnosis which generally beg for a broader
understanding: The ideas of depth, trance,
arousal, excitement, specific tropes and
concepts—all of these are highly
individualized and dependent on context. As
you learn more about how someone is
processing something in a moment, avenues
open up for you to lead them down a rich
path.
As we explore further into the book, we’ll
also discover that sometimes we actually want
our partners to generalize, delete, or distort
information. The previous examples show
some of this, and when we get to talking
about the Milton model, we’ll look more in
depth about different techniques and ways to
think about this idea. But for now, when
you’re analyzing the communications your
partner is making, think about what would
benefit the scene: Would it be more fun to
push against and clarify, or go in the same
direction as their thoughts?

Meta Model Questioning as a

Hypnotic Practice

You can think of questioning as a way of

achieving engagement, as well. Asking
questions or clarifying specifically makes
someone go internal and process—a
hypnotic act. Let’s look at a theoretical,
fictitious interaction to see how the simple
act of clarifying and discerning information
can be an aspect of a scene.

A subject and hypnotist sit down to do a scene

together over video chat. They have negotiated that
hypnosis is going to happen and the subject expressed
interest in feeling very submissive. The hypnotist
confirms that the subject is ready, and the subject
agrees.
 Hypnotist: So, it’s interesting that you’re focused
on wanting to feel so submissive. What’s driving that?

Subject: Um, I’m not really sure… I think I just

haven’t gotten deep enough to feel it before.

H: Well, how deep have you gotten? (The

hypnotist has learned something based on the
subject’s linguistic comparative deletion and
complex equivalence—the subject expects
their level of submission connects with their
perceived depth of trance. The hypnotist is
purposefully shifting focus.)

S: Maybe like… Medium deep? But not

REALLY deep. (The subject at this point is
recalling previous trance experiences.)

H: What does medium deep feel like? Not really

submissive? (Continuing to guide the subject to
thinking about what trance feels like,
attempting to clarify the value of
“submissiveness.”)

S: Um, no, I guess I sometimes feel sort of

submissive… Like, kind of floating feelings…
 H: It feels floaty? (Using suggestion to go
with their flow, clarifying linguistically
ambiguous information / nominalization,
attempting to understand the “map” and use
it.)

S: My body feels heavy, but light at the same time?

I don’t know if that makes any sense. (Showing
signs of trance.)

H: Sure. What parts of your body do you feel it in

most? (Directing the experience to an even
further internal level and creating anchor
points—see also submodalities.)

S: Maybe my legs? Sort of my eyes, too.

H: Yeah, I get that. Is that also where you feel

submission?

S: Um… Maybe? Not really.

H: If I say the word “submit,” where do you notice

it? (Creating a verbal anchor.)

S: …Between my legs…
 H: How does that feeling compare to the floaty
one?

S: Well… It feels really different. It feels kind of

hot, and tingly…

H: And medium trance doesn’t feel hot and tingly

in the same way it does when you submit?
(Redirecting back to trance feelings and
attempting to get the subject to examine their
own complex equivalence.)

S: I mean, maybe it could? But not usually…

H: But you think submitting definitely feels hot

and tingly.

S: Yeah…

H: And you feel kind of hot and tingly right now,

right? (Moving into more direct
language/suggestion.)

S: Yeah…

H: So you must be in deep trance, then. Because

you said you couldn’t really be in medium trance while
feeling like this. (Attempting to clarify/change
the map of the experience.)

This is by no means the end of this

interaction—the subject may agree, and the
hypnotist could move into identifying what
else “deep trance” (a nominalization) feels
like, or perhaps the subject disagrees, and the
hypnotist further digs into the equivalence
and discovers other associations that they can
use, or something entirely different could
happen. Note that the tone of this is anything
but therapeutic—there is an idea of
“diagnosis” in this scenario, but that is simply
a flavor and technique; the subject is likely
experiencing some sort of trance shift early
on.
Also, of course there is a lot more going
on here than use of the meta model—you
can see things related to sensory experience,
utilization, reframing, and much more. But
hopefully it illustrates the perspective of the
hypnotist who is considering the meta model
as part of their toolbox. They are listening
carefully and attempting to understand and
challenge the subject’s statements and beliefs
in a mutually beneficial direction. Keen
readers (or those familiar with other parts of
NLP) may notice interesting things about the
hypnotist’s use of language relative to the
subject’s—something we will get to
discussing in the second section of this book,
on the Milton model.

Chapter Summary

NLP was originally just the meta

model, which was borne from a
group of enthusiasts meeting and
studying the language of therapy
“The map is not the territory” is
an idea it adopted as foundational:
Everyone experiences the world
differently through their own
filters of perceptions
We represent our worldview or
“map” through language—to
ourselves, and to other people
This representation is often
incomplete because of the way
that we necessarily generalize,
delete, or distort information, and
we don’t always see what’s under
the “surface”
The meta model aims to codify
these through language patterns
and offers methods to clarify
information
As hypnokinksters, we’re
interested in how our partners
represent their world and how we
can dig into it so we can use it for
hypnosis, or do it in a hypnotic
way
 CHAPTER 2: MODALITY
AND REPRESENTATIONAL
SYSTEMS
Many hypnokinksters are familiar with the
idea that is colloquially known as
“modality”—the concept that we experience
the world in a way that can be described
through our senses, and how that is useful in
hypnosis. Sometimes this is called a VAKOG
model: Visual (sight), Auditory (sound),
Kinesthetic (touch), Olfactory (smell), and
Gustatory (taste). Hypnotists assert all sorts
of things about modalities and how to utilize
them, like taking advantage of a person’s
“primary modality” to induce trance or other
phenomena, changing the way someone
processes an experience, or that the language
someone is using directly indicates which
sense they are using. But from where did this
idea come, how accurate are these
applications, and what’s the most effective
way to take advantage of it?
Like many other hypnotic artifacts, this
became widespread practice because of NLP,
and specifically it is part of the meta model.
But where did NLP get it? And of course, we
must understand that anything we learn from
NLP, hypnosis, or any other source should be
subject to scrutiny.

Fritz Perls and Gestalt Therapy

We mentioned in the introduction to the

meta model that this part of NLP was the
result of “modeling” three influential
therapists: Fritz Perls, Gestalt therapist;
Virginia Satir, family systems therapist, and
Milton Erickson, hypnotherapist. In this
discussion of modalities, we’ll be taking this
opportunity to have a more in-depth look at
the first of the three, as NLP’s idea of
representational systems is sometimes
attributed to be from its roots in Gestalt
therapy.8
Fritz Perls is the originator of Gestalt
therapy, a practice that places emphasis on
how the patient is feeling, thinking, and
experiencing in a given moment, as opposed
to events in the past or future. In the very
book that Bandler helped edit, The Gestalt
Approach and Eye Witness to Therapy (1973),
Perls describes Gestalt as a “here and now”
therapy.9 It shares similarities to the concept
of mindfulness, and one of its main tenets is
that to solve a problem, the client must
become fully aware of it. This awareness is
extensive and is often achieved by the
therapist leading the client through fantasies
of different situations and asking questions
intended to change their focus so they might
have a more thorough and full understanding.
As Gestalt therapy emphasizes the
importance of one’s own awareness of
oneself, sensory perception is certainly an
inherent part of the way that all animals
(including humans) process—Perls wrote in
Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the
Human Personality (1951): “Every contacting
act is a whole of awareness, motor response,
and feeling—a cooperation of the sensory,
muscular, and vegetative systems…”10 This
idea of “contact” is essential to Gestalt
therapy—the idea that various aspects of
oneself are in or out of contact with other
aspects, both physical and psychological
(such as physical contact with skin, or
mentally being detached from an idea). These
boundaries are one of the primary ways that
Gestalt therapists view their clients’ worlds
and visualize their issues.
Gestalt therapy says that even if a problem
may potentially stem from the past, the client
must solve it in the present. The struggles
they are having are occurring in the present,
and the tools that they have available to them
are in the present. If, to do so, one must gain
full awareness of it, and sensory perception is
an integral part of our awareness, then it
makes sense that a lot of focus is given to this
part of how we view the world. Becoming
aware of what we truly feel when we are
thinking about something is a big exercise in
this kind of therapy, and Perls understood
that “feeling” applied to the idea of emotion
as well as emotion having sensory qualities.
For example, feeling excited by something
makes our hearts beat faster, maybe makes us
warmer because of increased bloodflow. All
of those sensations are useful because they
are a part of our full experience of
something.

Representational Systems: Myths and

Misconceptions

NLP takes from this and adapts it. As we

know, NLP is very interested in how we view
the world and process it. So it places high
importance on the idea that we have different
sensory “channels” through which we
experience things, and terms this
“representational systems.” Gestalt therapy
says that our awareness of the world is based
on our perception being filtered through our
personal history and how we feel; NLP
agrees and relates this to its idea of how we
create maps of the world, or representations
of it. Bandler and Grinder’s second book, The
Structure of Magic II: A Book About
Communication and Change (1976) posits several
things about this model and its
correspondence with language and therapy. A
lot of attention is given to discussing how the
language we use corresponds with our
sensory perception of the world, and how
paying attention to and utilizing these sensory
channels makes communication more
meaningful. There is some useful
information, but some questionable.
While many of these ideas became
pervasive in the hypnosis community and
continue to be so in some modern NLP and
hypnokink, Bandler himself actually moved
away from a few of these claims, especially
after heavy research refuting them. For
example, early NLP asserted that you could
discern what sense a person was accessing by
observing the direction their eyes were
looking (known as “eye-accessing cues”).
While there may be some correlation
between eye direction and certain mental
processes, it was proven not to be what
Bandler and Grinder first claimed about a
person’s specific sensory experience—and yet
those claims are still repeated.11
The more prevalent claim is about humans
having a “primary modality”: For example,
someone may be “primarily visual” if they
tend to process through images or speak
using visual sensory predicates (“I ‘see’ what
you mean”). This has been refuted by
research, seen in studies about NLP as well as
related concepts like learning styles.12 It is
not a terribly useful process to diagnose
someone’s primary modality or “preferred
representational system,” as NLP calls it.
There is no such simplistic thing, in reality,
and although it can be a helpful model in
some cases, it may hinder how we approach
our partners with trance. In hypnosis, we
make choices all the time about how to
engage someone’s brain in different ways, but
the idea of relying on a single sense because
we somehow decided they are “better” at it is
quite limiting. It also pigeonholes the five
senses in a way that is not useful—perhaps
we may say that a swinging pocket watch is
clearly a “visual” induction, but we are
discounting the kinesthetic aspects of the
eyes or head moving back and forth, the
spacial elements involved, the sounds, and
any number of internal experiences,
memories, or other artifacts. For the purpose
of this chapter, we will move focus away
from this idea, and pay more attention to the
aspects of NLP’s representational systems
that are more helpful to us.

Sensory Predicates

NLP says that the words we use are a

representation of our world and thus carry an
implication of the modality with which we are
processing. For example, describing
something using predicates (verbs, adverbs,
or adjectives) that imply sight is an indication
of visual modality being used in that
situation: “The car is shiny and red,” for
example, may be telling that the person
describing it is processing that information or
memory visually. Words like “sounds,”
“loud,” and “ringing” might be examples of
auditory words, and “rough,” “feels,” and
“solid” might be examples of kinesthetic
words.
This can be quite valuable—the person
using those words at that time may in fact be
thinking about those qualities or accessing
the memory using those senses. Listen for
words that are descriptive in some way,
especially descriptive about a sensory
experience. A subject saying that they love
the way your eyes look is certainly giving you
useful information—you know that on some
level, they are processing visually, and
specifically in regards to eye contact. That
gives you information about a) how they are
currently thinking, and b) what ingredients
you have available to move through the
trance. Hypnosis is fundamentally about
understanding the way that someone is
processing so that you may work with it.
For example, if you’re having a
conversation with a partner about the
qualities of depth of trance, you can listen for
cues about how they describe their
experience. This can be especially fun when
talking to someone who is hypnotized—
perhaps they are quietly telling you, “It’s
fuzzy, and I feel so far away, and everything is
dark…” You can understand this as that they
are having some quality of kinesthetic and
visual experience, especially in the exact
moment that they are communicating those
things to you; in order to communicate about
it, they need to change their focus to those
senses, recall what they feel and see. You
know where their attention is, and you could
at this point increase their focus, explore
other attributes of those senses in order to
expand the richness of their trance.
Where this idea of looking for sensory
language breaks down a little might be in the
assertion that someone stating, “I hear what
you’re saying” or, “He has a sunny
personality” as always the same thing
(implying auditory and visual modalities,
respectively). It is vitally important to
remember that the use of language has many
different influences; consider that perhaps
that is simply a turn of phrase or metaphor
that they picked up culturally. In fact, this is
something to keep in mind whenever we are
listening for sensory markers—why might a
person be using the words that they’re using?
Also, consider that language is an
incomplete picture—just because someone is
talking about the way your voice sounds
doesn’t mean that they also aren’t processing
other aspects of the situation. While it can
give you a rough image of where to start, try
not to assume that simply listening for
sensory predicates is enough to a) understand
how they are processing a memory or
experience, or b) that they are telling you
everything that is going on inside their head.
 Matching Modal Language

Another way that sensory processing and

language can intersect is in the idea of
building rapport. Matching tone and word
choice is often cited as a good way to get on
the same page with someone, and listening
for sensory predicates is a decent way to look
for places on which you might be able to
meet them. This can be about learning how
someone is processing something in a given
moment and playing within their world, or it
could be about raw word choice. After all, we
are all familiar with having shared grammar
with those with whom we have strong
interpersonal relationships. Of course, being
terribly over the top about this in a new
partnership often comes off as unnatural and
skeevy, so it’s about finding a good balance.
Additionally, understanding how a person
might be viewing something is a step to being
able to utilize that. If your partner reports
that “being brainwashed” feels a certain way,
you can take advantage of that information
and expand upon it or change it. For
example, they may say that the feeling of
being under your control is like a buzz,
maybe something that is hard to describe.
You can match their modal language by going
in a direction like, “We both know that my
power over you transcends words, like there
just isn’t the right way to say it in our
language, but it’s something that your body
knows innately, like a high…” It’s not
necessarily about matching words exactly
(although it certainly can be), but trying to be
active in working with the subject’s processes
and responses.
Encouraging your partner to be oriented
towards feedback and verbal responsiveness
both inside and outside of trance allows you
more broad use of all of this. It can be in
moments that are explicitly related to
hypnosis, or even outside of those contexts,
like understanding how they processed a
movie that they enjoyed or a fond memory.
Perhaps that informs how you can create
strong memories for them, yourself.

Be Extensive

Bandler says, “[I]t’s important to match

primary representational systems at first, and
then to overlap into all the other systems.
This way, you expand the person’s ability to
take in and process information.”13 While
based on an outdated concept, this falls in
line with a good hypnotic principle—
sometimes it’s best to create as rich of an
experience as you can. For example, if you’re
trying to encourage your subject to
hallucinate something, perhaps the
experience of being trapped in a sexy cage,
you can talk about how the metal feels, what
they see looking out of the bars, the sound of
it rattling when they move or struggle. It’s not
always necessary to be explicit about this, as
in, you don’t need to always have one or
more from each modality to be effective in a
single suggestion, but it is helpful to consider
when striving to build diverse experiences.
NLP sometimes refers to this as “4-tuple,”
referring to the “4” sensory channels (visual,
auditory, kinesthetic, and olfactory/gustatory,
which are sometimes combined).
In fact, we can conceptualize this further:
Most experiences, memories, and suggestions
have elements of multiple sensory modalities
being engaged. Even if we take a single
aspect of an experience, such as your partner
looking into your eyes, we can zoom in and
enrich it. Clearly, there is the visual element
of being fixated, but there are also some rich
kinesthetic elements—the way their eyes feel,
any quality of the muscles around the eyes
and how they may be focused or unfocused
on their body. Even the emotional elements,
how it makes them feel internally to be so
intimate and the way that manifests as
physical sensory feelings (are they excited,
and does that make their body have certain
responses?). Perhaps there is also an auditory
sense of being very aware (or unaware) of
silence or breathing or words. Even the idea
of “negative space” is important here—what
are the gaps in the experience, if someone is
really fully focused on specific senses? Can
you narrow them even further, or do you
want to expand their perception?
In this way, you can think of it as the idea
that there are multiple sensory channels for
an “external” experience as well as for
someone’s “internal” experience. The cage
example highlights how you as the hypnotist
can consider the different sensory elements
of a situation, and the eye fixation highlights
how internally someone is processing with
different senses. How you make choices
describe something versus how it is
interpreted or felt—and how you can make
choices to talk about that internal
interpretation.
Another way you can apply this is when a
subject is having difficulty fully realizing a
suggestion. Perhaps your partner can’t quite
get to the point of having a physical orgasm
on command. Instead of focusing purely on
the specific feeling of orgasm, think about
what else accompanies this. The sounds that
they may make, how their vision may change
or become dim and unimportant, the
emotional or mental climax they experience.
Even different aspects of the physical
experience, perhaps a tensing up or intense
pleasure—and what does that pleasure even
feel like? What are the emotional
components? What are the external,
environmental elements that they are
experiencing when they cum? What kinds of
things are happening inside their head, and
what is that subjective experience?
It’s important to consider this not only
from the perspective of how you can provide
examples of sensory experience, but also how
your partner is already processing
suggestions. A subject being hypnotized is
not just experiencing what they are being told
to experience; their minds are not blank slates
being written on. Most likely, they already
have some sensory associations with what
you describe to them and are consciously or
unconsciously creating those connections.
For example, if you begin describing a forest
to someone, there will almost certainly be
some level of spontaneous detail coming
from them—how things look, feel, sound,
etc, to varying degrees. It’s good to remember
that and not get caught up on the feeling that
you have to describe every suggestion very
specifically or rigidly. Leave room for your
partner’s mind to do their own thing (and
encourage this to them as worthwhile).

Switching Systems

One of the ways that NLP uses modalities

is specifically changing the way a person
processes something. In a therapeutic
example, a client may feel trapped by the
difficult experience of being rejected for a
job. The therapist may note or intuit that they
are talking about the “feeling” of rejection
rather exclusively, and may choose at that
point to try to have them process the event in
a different modality—perhaps the therapist
talks about how the client may visualize that
rejection, and then take steps to make that
visual fade, or some other way to handle it.
There’s a little bit to unpack here, and to
some degree this (and other parts of this
chapter) touch upon a concept called
“submodalities,” referring to the different
broken-down aspects of sensory experience,
which we will cover in Chapter 15. However,
let’s focus on this idea of purposefully
changing the representational system that
someone is using. Let’s look at an erotic
example: Your partner is deep in trance and
you are conditioning them to be more
submissive and responsive to you. They’ve
shyly said that they love your voice, so you
have a good idea that they often are focusing
on how you sound. You can purposefully
play this up to ensure you are working on the
same level—“Hearing my voice to the
exclusion of all else, something you love so
much…” And then purposefully you can
switch the modality they are working with:
“It’s almost like my voice is a physical
sensation, going into your ears, making your
brain melt away with word after word after
word…”
NLP says that changing the
representational system you are processing
with is a way to give yourself new options
and choices, and perhaps there is something
to that. You are not necessarily taking away
the auditory aspects of your voice, but you
are opening their capabilities to experience it
in different ways, and more richly. In the
above example, you are purposefully giving
the subject new tools to work with while they
trance—you can even explicitly frame it as
such: “The more you can fully experience me
and my voice in as many ways as your brain
can, the easier it is to fall under my spell, as
this is just another way to let me into your
head and influence the way you think and
process when I hypnotize you…” This is a
way to use this idea to build upon something
that is already happening.
You can also use this switch as an
ingredient to create contrast or mark a shift
to a different tone for the scene. For
example, you may be trancing someone in a
very serious way, doing some darker-toned
brainwashing about how helpless they are to
you. Perhaps you are saying things like, “You
can so easily visualize yourself on your knees
before me, looking up at me as though I
completely control you…” Then, you want to
turn them into a bimbo to prove that control;
you have a couple of options. You could
continue with the visual modality: “You
notice everything fuzzing around the corners
like when you’re a little drunk, watching your
brain fizzle out a little, a pink hue tinting your
thoughts and your eyes…” And/or you could
switch to something else: “You feel your
entire sense of self shift focus to what your
body is feeling, like your sex drive is taking
over everything, noticing exactly how that
feels in your head and what it does to your
mind to be so totally aroused, how that’s tied
in to your IQ dropping…” Using a shift in
sensory processing can help emphasize the
shift in what you’re doing. It’s important to
remember that there are no hard and fast
rules here; it’s all about making choices that
make sense for your situation.

A Gestalt Approach
 Let’s go back to Fritz Perls for a moment
here to examine a little bit of what he had to
say on sensory modalities from the lens of
Gestalt therapy:

“Experience occurs at the boundary between the

organism and its environment, primarily the skin
surface and the other organs of sensory and motor
response. [. . .] We speak of the organism contacting
the environment, but it is the contact that is the
simplest and first reality. You may feel this at once if,
instead of merely looking at the objects before you, you
also become aware of the fact that they are objects in
your oval field of vision, and if you feel how this oval
of vision is, so to speak, close up against your eyes —
indeed, it is the seeing of your eyes. Notice, then, how
in this oval field the objects begin to have aesthetic
relations, of space and color-value. And so you may
experience it with the sounds “out there”: their root of
reality is at the boundary of contact, and at that
boundary they are experienced in unified structures.
And so motorically, if you are aware of throwing a
ball, the distance comes close and your motor impulse
has, so to speak, rushed to the surface to meet it.”14
 Gestalt therapy has an interesting
perspective on this idea of “contact” as we
mentioned earlier; it is one of its core
concepts in almost a philosophical way. It can
be tangible or abstract. Contact exists
between the self and others, between oneself
and one’s past or present, between your
fingers and your phone. The “contact
boundary” is the space where that contact
exists, like the exact space where your skin is
touching the air, or a more nebulous
example, like the perceived distance or
closeness between lovers. In a therapeutic
setting, a therapist might be concerned if they
feel like the client is out of contact with parts
of themselves and their current experience;
for example, “out of touch” with their
feelings about a difficult event.
In this excerpt, Perls breaks down
“experience” from the lens of the senses, and
he discusses the various aspects and contact
boundaries involved therein. There is some
emphasis put on the idea that the idea of
experience necessarily involves many
different forms of contact, between many
different things, and that the senses must be
considered parts of this. We know that
Gestalt therapy is very interested in
promoting a person’s full awareness of a
situation, and that sensory experience is an
important part of that.
We can apply some Gestalt thinking to our
erotic hypnosis by shifting our perspective to
more broadly include this idea of contact and
awareness. In a therapeutic model, the
purpose of awareness is to solve an issue. But
within an intimate partnership, our goal
changes to be more about any number of
things: Perhaps having a fuller experience of
something, perhaps achieving some intense
effect, or just having fun.
For example, how you can encourage
sensory contact between the things that you
want: “You have a concept in your head that
encompasses your attraction to others and
your sexuality, all the different ways that
makes you feel, with all the different parts of
yourself that feel those things.” Here we’ve
used some patter to define an abstract
concept and give the subject a way to
experience it—a little nebulously and using
kinesthetic senses here, but you could get
much more specific, perhaps by putting some
definition on what that sensation feels like, or
asking them to tell you how it feels to them.
You can consider this acting as creating
contact between their awareness of their
sexuality and themselves. You can also shift
this contact, for example: “You can so
distinctly feel that concept becoming closer
to me, as I become inevitably entwined with
the way that you experience attraction…”
You are creating contact between their
abstract idea of their own sexuality and their
abstract idea of you. In this case, the
awareness we’re enhancing is to follow our
mutual desires for intimacy and a brainwashy
flair. By opening up the idea that this is a
sensory experience, both you and your
partner gain avenues with which to explore
and describe this nebulous idea. You could be
more light and fluffy with it if you like,
perhaps contact between their brain and your
words, and talking about what that boundary
feels like as the thing that defines their
experience.

Chapter Summary
The idea of sensory “modalities”
comes from NLP, where it was
originally called “representational
systems,” because it describes one
way that we represent our world
NLP was influenced by Gestalt
therapy, which considered the five
senses integral to our awareness
People may not have a “primary
representational system” as early
NLP posits, but it is useful to
consider different ways of how we
can understand that they are
processing through their senses
(for example, through language)
It is important to understand that
experiences are rarely if ever
exclusively a single sensory
process; we cannot pigeonhole
our experience of the world this
way
When we are hypnotizing our
partners, it can be very useful to
understand this and be extensive
with our understanding of their
sensory experience
We can think about changing
someone’s perspective by
changing what senses they are
processing with
Gestalt therapy also talks about
the idea of “contact” between
both concrete things and abstract
things, which is ripe for use in
intimate hypnosis
 CHAPTER 3: THE META
MODEL’S UPDATES
The meta model of NLP was first formally
introduced in 1975, before the term “neuro-
linguistic programming” even existed. As
we’ve discussed, NLP has evolved in a fairly
complicated way over the years, contributed
to by many practitioners with many different
perspectives. As it became more clear that the
meta model was just the foundations of the
practice, not the whole, what happened to it?
Did it change, or become expanded?
It’s impossible to fully categorize exactly
what the meta model “is” in its current state
—that’s sort of a misunderstanding, as there
is no objective standard for the various parts
of NLP. And as NLP grew, the lines between
its various parts and categories have just
become more blurred. But we can explore
some key additions that are particularly
relevant to our understanding of NLP as a
whole and our hypnokinky practice.

From Where Did We Get This?

Among other sources, this chapter is

synthesizing some contents from a book
called Communication Magic: Exploring the
Structure and Meaning of Language (2001) by L.
Michael Hall, a later contributor to NLP and
associate of Bandler. It was written 25 years
after the original meta model was proposed
and was an intentional “update” to the
practice. (Hall writes elsewhere that Bandler
originally asked for the two of them to co-
author it, and they worked on it together, but
ultimately Bandler took his name off of it
because he “...got upset with [Hall] for
something and so refused! Such is life with
geniuses!”)15
NLP is largely a practice that draws from
sources that draw from sources that draw
from sources. Hall got involved some time
after the meta model’s inception but was
fascinated by Bandler and Grinder’s remark
in The Structure of Magic books that Alfred
Korzybski’s theories “...will be particularly
useful in expanding the meta-model
further.”16 He dug more into Korzybski’s
general semantics and fulfilled this statement,
adding it to many of the other important
players and concepts in the world of
psychology, hypnosis, and linguistics. We will
be particularly focused on a few of these
additions from Korzybski and others that
inform the way we should think about
communication, especially within the context
of hypnosis as a communicative practice.

Cognitive Aspects of the Meta Model

Hall takes care to emphasize that the

“magic” in the meta model’s analysis of
language comes from this idea that words are
associative and representative, not only in a
singular way but in a contextual one. He
quotes Robert Dilts, an NLP practitioner
influential to its slightly later development, as
writing, “A word is worth a thousand
pictures.”17 What they mean is that a single
word—for example, “peach,”—carries
individual weight for people; there may be
the literal images or other sensory
experiences of a peach, different memories of
when they were eating one, processing
peaches as part of a higher class of fruit or
food, and much more.
We can think of the hypnotic concept of
anchors or triggers—words designed to elicit
a specific response through association. But
really, all words carry this sort of power, and
beyond. Every word we hear, read, or speak
causes us to process in a unique way—this
concept is an important part of how we can
be hypnotically effective. If the meta model
says that words are representations of our
“maps,” that should tell us that there is a lot
of information to be gleaned from what a
person is processing from them.

Macro versus Micro

The meta model has a reputation for being

investigative, made clear by its nature of
encouraging questioning and clarification.
But what are we investigating, especially
when we as hypnokinksters are working
somewhat outside the therapeutic context
that the meta model originally came from?
From a macro level, the meta model seeks
to achieve goals and change, so any
deductions are being made for the specific
purpose of giving the person the ability to
move in a desired direction. But if we break
that down, it’s about discerning the qualities
of the map. For an example in hypnokink, a
problem-solving model might look like the
hypnotist trying to achieve the goal of
turning their partner into a doll. On a micro
scale, the meta model gives us the foundation
to discover lots of things related to this goal:
What is the nature of the subject’s map
related to this? How do they categorize the
experience of being a doll? Is it inherently
erotic, or how does it connect to the idea of
eroticism? Do they relate it to previous
memories, and what were those like? Does
“doll” have contextual meaning within
different frames of reference for them?
These are all relevant questions, but it’s
important to realize that this idea of problem
solving and deduction is only one angle that
we can consider. If we expand even further,
it’s not necessarily about using the meta
model to clarify and specify—it’s simply
about understanding how someone processes
these things to be able to utilize them, and
you don’t have to follow a specific procedure
to get this information. Using generalizations,
deletions, and distortions is a normal part of
human processing, and sometimes the right
choice isn’t to “fix” those. Let’s look at a
fictional example:

In the heat of the moment within a scene, a short

lull between trances.

Hypnotist: You look so fucked.

Subject: Yeah… Yeah. I feel like… I can barely

move.

H: That’s so good. You look like a doll.

S: Fuck…

H: That something that resonates right now?

S: Yes… I feel… just like an object...

 The information that someone thinks
about “dollplay” within the larger context of
feeling like an object (generalizing) gives you
a lot of tools—you then have a broad
reference to draw from and an easy time to
link concepts. This idea of creating
connections between “frames” or contexts is
an indispensable hypnotic tool. Let’s see how
this could play out:

H: Mhmm, a very pretty object… Objects don’t

have will, do they? Like, that’s one of the defining
features of being an object, that they aren’t even
necessarily conscious of the impulse to act—it just
happens. Say, ‘yes.’

S: Yes…

H: That’s right. And what is a dolly except for a

really specific kind of object? We could talk all about
the kinds of qualities that objects have; no control,
not really much awareness… And dollies are, like,
pretty objects. Like, a doll is just a kind of object that
exists to be played with, exists to be looked at. Say,
‘yes.’

S: Yes...
 This sort of surface exploration of the way
that someone connects concepts can be taken
as far as we like, and it should serve to get us
thinking about twisting the meta model from
a simple tool to ask questions and solve
problems into something more hypnotic, or
even how we can use it backwards. NLP
accounts for this—we’ll be learning about a
well-known permutation, the Milton model,
in Part Two.

Chunking

This leads us into a concept in NLP that is

often talked about adjacently to the meta
model—“chunking.” Chunking is essentially
the idea that we categorize information in
certain ways. It’s most easily understood by
example: A chunk of information might be
the idea of a car. A car, in some frames of
reference, could belong to a broader category
of automobiles; this is called “chunking up.”
If you want to “chunk down,” you could
think about the different parts of the car, like
the steering wheel or the seats. There is also
the idea of “chunking laterally,” where you
consider things that are like cars, for example,
a bus; things that have similar qualities.
Chunking isn’t an objective practice. It is
based on using metaphor and reference
frames of how we think about different
things at different times. You could also
“chunk up” a car to think about the broader
class of “things that get you where you want
to go,” in which case, a horse might be
considered a lateral or equivalent chunk.
Note that if you think about a car specifically
within the context of “vehicle,” horse might
not come to mind.
In the example about the doll-like subject,
we learned that there was some
belongingness of “doll” to the higher chunk
of “object” for them. As hypnotists, we can
ask ourselves things like, “What else belongs
to the ‘object’ frame of reference that I can
connect to? What are smaller aspects of
‘dolls’ that I can draw upon to narrow focus?
What language are we both using that might
be changing the reference point of what ‘doll’
represents?”
Perhaps you can think about a chunk in
the middle of “doll” and “object” that doll
belongs to: “Toy.” By simply using that word,
which again carries a lot of power and
connotation, you shift the frame of reference
and allow both of you to consider what is
involved in being a toy (chunking down); toys
have owners, toys have a purpose of being
used for amusement, toys bring delight, toys
are whimsical, whatever suits the situation.
There is not necessarily a right or wrong
way to chunk information—it’s more about
how well you can “sell” it. It’s probably an
easy path for many people to get from “doll”
to “toy.” But consider how you might get
from “doll” to “pet.” Does it have to do with
analyzing certain qualities (like ownership)
and drawing parallels? Does it have to do
with changing the reference frame to simply
think about a higher class of erotic activities?
This entire conceptualization is meant to
accompany a primary way that we as
hypnotists process doing trance. On some
level, when we hypnotize someone, the key
foundation of it is getting from “point A” to
“point B.” We want to go from someone who
is awake to someone who is in trance, and we
need to be able to make links between
concepts that get them there. We may not
even have a set goal for where we want to go,
but we are traveling along a line of ideas that
we are sharing with our subject partner.
Chunking is one way that we can think about
doing this, as it allows us to discover
connections between what we are saying now
(and how the subject is processing) and what
we want to say next.

Meta States

That to-from concept of chunking is only

one way that this idea of changing frames is
relevant. Hall, Bandler, Grinder, and many
others have all separately referenced a
concept that has to do with thinking on a
more “meta” level. In the second volume of
The Structure of Magic, Bandler and Grinder
talk extensively about renowned family
therapist Virginia Satir, one of the original
contributors/models of the meta model.
They note that one of her classic verbal
therapeutic patterns is “How do you feel
about feeling that?”18
When you take someone from thinking
about a specific feeling and go “up” a level
for them to consider how they feel about that
feeling, you’re changing their reference. For
example, a subject says that they’re feeling
excited about getting to play with you, and
you ask them, “How do you feel about
feeling excited?” This causes them to shift
their attention inward and make some
judgments—these could be abstract thoughts
about what they feel is the “right” thing to
feel in this situation, it could cause them to
analyze exactly what that feeling of
excitement is like, they could be thinking
about their own identity and self-image in
their map of the world, and much more.
This is of course a very hypnotic thing in
and of itself (shifting internally or shifting
frames of reference/chunks), but we can
glean more from it. Hall writes:

“Satir had said that any answer to the question,

‘How do you feel about feeling X?’ results in
articulating the person’s ‘self-esteem.’”19

He goes on to quote Bandler and Grinder

from The Structure of Magic I, where they say:

“Changes at this level—the level of self esteem—

are extremely important, since a person’s self-image
affects the way a person organizes his entire
experience or reference structure permeate the client’s
entire model of the world.”20

The meta model, which seeks to clarify

and specify generalizations, deletions, and
distortions, can be seen as a way to “chunk
down” information so it is more clear to the
parties involved. But it can also be used to
“chunk up” or cause someone to see things
through a meta state as described by this
model.
When someone is in a broader or more
analytical frame of reference about
themselves, it could become easier to make
changes and there may be more options
available to both parties. This is notably
useful in a brainwashing context; if you have
someone thinking about the way that they
feel about themselves, they’re in some ways
dissociated from the reality, and you can play
with changing not only aspects of them or
their behavior but also how they feel about
those changes—again, an issue of self-image,
which can become helpfully persistent.

Korzybski, General Semantics, and

Further Language
 Korzybski, as we discussed, is one of the
primary sources for the meta model, but only
his idea of map/territory was really attributed
to him when it was borrowed. Hall and
others dug into his work to see what else they
could find that was useful to the kind of
language and processing with which the meta
model works.
Korzybski’s theory of general semantics
was an approach to language, therapy,
philosophy, and psychology—much like NLP
itself. It was very much reactionary; his
perspective was that “Aristotelian” systems of
thought were all about absolutes, reality, and
rigid identity. (How accurate this is is
uncertain—a question better left to
philosophers, perhaps.) Purposefully
contrasting to be “non-Aristotelian,” and
regardless of Aristotle’s actual views, general
semantics looked to eschew this particular
style of thinking.
Hall summarizes this into three
principles:21

1. The Principle of Non-Identity.

 General semantics says that you
can’t say, “A thing is what it is,”
or “A word means what it
means.” Objectivity is not a
realistic concept, especially
since we represent our
experiences through processes,
patterns, and language.

2. The Principle of Contradiction

Relativity is an essential
concept when trying to discern
whether something “is not”
something. Trying to contradict
something, like whether a glass
is not full, is dependent on our
frame of reference as well as
generally being about degrees
more than a straight “yes” or
“no.”

3. The Principle of the Middles

Boolean/binary things are
arguably non-existent; we live
in a world where we must
understand that there are
almost always shades of gray
 from some perspective. That
could be about the knowledge
we have, the context in which
we are, or any of the other
myriad of variables that affect
us and exist in the world.22

These principles were emphasized in

different ways in early NLP and are largely
important to the practice. NLP values the
knowledge that someone’s subjective truths
of the world are necessarily different from
anyone else’s. The meta model took this to
heart and offered a linguistic view into how
to see some of those differences—but so did
Korzybski, whose work Hall adapted into a
further set of language artifacts to look for in
speech to add onto the existing meta model.

EXTENDED META MODEL

VIOLATIONS/QUESTIONS

Over/Under Defined Terms

Words that are abstract in nature when

discussing quality or other attributes. They
are “over defined” when we take them at
dictionary value and assume objective truth,
and “under defined” because they do not tell
a complete story of the situation.

Example: “What’s the best way to

hypnotize someone?”

Clarifying: Attempt to get some sort of solid

basis for what the words could mean, like,
“What kind of evidence would tell you that
one way is ‘best?’” You can also challenge the
presuppositions involved: “Why do you think
there is one ‘best’ method?”

Delusional Verbal Splits

Language that bifurcates or

compartmentalizes things in such a way that
the fact that they are parts of a whole gets
lost. Words like “body and mind,” “my brain
and I,” and “parts” can indicate that someone
is making a split that does not represent
reality.

Example: “My kinesthetic stuff isn’t as

strong as my visual stuff.”
 Clarifying: Question the categorizing
involved, display the whole, or try combining
the two. “Are they really that separate? Aren’t
your kinesthetic responses and visual
responses just a part of your brain’s process?
Aren’t there visual aspects to kinesthetic
things and vice versa?”

Either/Or Phrases

This can be thought of as a sort of double

bind—language that implies that there are
limited options when in reality there are
more. “If,” “then,” “either,” or “or” can
represent this sort of restriction, but pay
attention to what is being communicated.

Example: “Should we do some bimbo play?

Or should we do robots, instead?”

Clarifying: Test for reality and look for other

options, explore the gradient, or look for
ways to break the assumption there is a rigid
course of action. “Does anything else come
to mind? What kinds of other things are
connected to those or different? What if we
did both?”
 Multiordinality

This is a type of nominalization that

happens when a word is generalized to the
point that its meaning can be shifted to apply
even to itself. Think about words that are
nominalized that have a lot of variance in
what their quality could be, like “love,”
“thoughts,” or “happiness.”

Example: “I’m stuck thinking about my

thinking.”

Clarifying: Attempt to qualify or ask for

reference. “What are those thoughts like?
How are they different from the thoughts
you’re thinking about?”

Static or Signal Words

This is a type of nominalization that occurs

when words are used to imply definites or
absolutes. There is a presupposition that it is
a universal fact, even if the source is
unknown. It is not necessarily about the
specific words being used, but the implication
of where they are from that then rigidly
defines the nominalization.

Example: “This is just how being a subject

is.”

Clarifying: Specify the lack of objectivity to

reduce the absoluteness of the statement, and
seek meaning. “What do you mean by ‘being
a subject?’ Are there times where that quality
changes?”

Pseudo-Words

This is a nominalization where language is

invented to describe something that is not
real. Think about if someone is using an
expression to provide context, but the
expression itself doesn’t refer to anything
with objective meaning.

Example: “I feel totally empty, it’s so

good...”

Clarifying: Reality test and attempt to

specify what is actually happening. “What
does emptiness feel like? What tells you that
you’re empty?”

Identification

Identification violations happen when a

sameness is drawn between two things in
languages, but the differences are deleted.
Words like “is,” “are,” “were,” and “am” are
potential markers for this kind of equation.

Example: “I’m a challenging subject.”

Clarifying: Question the comparison and

identify where they think the similarities are,
and give them options to notice the
differences. “What specifically makes you
challenging? Aren’t there contexts and
situations where that definition doesn’t fit?”

Personalizing

When someone implies that a fact or

statement is targeted towards them, they
could be personalizing. It could mean that
they are connecting things to their self-image.
 Example: “They said that they don’t like
brats… They must not like playing with me.”

Clarifying: Dig into the cause/effect and

offer alternatives. “Why do you think they
were referring to you? Do you think maybe
that’s not what they meant? Isn’t there
evidence to the contrary?”

Metaphors

Metaphors are common language

ingredients that draw comparisons between
concepts without using connecting words
such as “like.” However, information can be
distorted or lost in those comparisons.

Example: “I feel so foggy...”

Clarifying: Explore the metaphor; you can

also try to deconstruct it. “What does that
fogginess feel like or represent? What else do
you feel? Are there other words that describe
what you’re experiencing?”

Chapter Summary
The meta model, like all NLP, is
constantly evolving, and 25 years
after its inception, it was
intentionally updated
It’s important to think about ways
that we quantify and qualify
information—like how we
“chunk” it or create groupings
and categories, and how that’s a
change of frame of reference
We also can think about changing
our reference to be meta—
thinking about thinking about
ourselves and our experiences
We can take more from general
semantics and consider how
objectivity is not real in this
model, and include more patterns
to look for in our pursuit of
“incomplete” language
 PART TWO:
THE MILTON MODEL
 CHAPTER 4:
INTRODUCTION TO THE
MILTON MODEL
NLP has a certain connotation, especially
within the hypnokink community. We think
of a particularly conversational or sneaky
method of inducing trance, dependent on
certain linguistic patterns and potentially
relying on some form of coercion. It should
be clear that this concept of NLP is a
distorted one (further distorted by some
NLP practitioners who have gone the route
of emphasizing sales and persuasion), but it
does come from some basis in reality. The
Milton model of NLP is all about considering
the words that we use and how they
represent models specifically for the purpose
of doing effective hypnosis and changework.
While it has some of the most obviously
interesting content, the way that it is
presented by various sources is steeped in
theory, some sound but some questionable.
Let’s see what we can glean from this
convoluted framework and try to think
critically about which things are the most
useful, and why.

History: Why the Milton Model?

All of NLP has fascinating, interwoven

history, but what surrounds the creation of
the Milton model might be the richest, and
we will only be scratching the surface here,
speaking of two figures integral to its
development. The Milton model was the
result of Bandler and Grinder meeting Milton
Erickson shortly after they developed the
meta model (before the term “NLP” even
existed). In our overview of the meta model’s
history, we left off right as the original
“Meta” group with Bandler, Grinder, and
company going to meet him.
Gregory Bateson:

Is known in hypnokink/NLP for

his work on “double binds” in
schizophrenia among his many
other prolific academic
contributions over a variety of
disciplines
Was a long-time friend of
Erickson and integral to NLP—
he wrote the Foreword to The
Structure of Magic I and reportedly
convinced the publisher to take
on the project23
Arranged the meeting between
several of the early Meta
practitioners and Erickson

Milton Erickson:

Is one of the most well-known

hypnotherapists in the entire
history of the practice
Survived polio as a teen and
partially credited his recovery to
self-trance, and while he was ill,
 learned a lot by observing the
people around him
Developed an effective, new, and
influential hypnotic style based on
indirect suggestion and
observation, which has been the
subject of extensive, scrutinous
study by NLP practitioners,
psychologists, and
hypnotherapists alike
Allowed Bandler and Grinder to
study his practice, and even wrote
the Foreword to their first book
on him, but was famously not
fully satisfied by their claims of
what he did

What the group had theorized and

formulated about their meta model was
turned on its head upon their study of
Erickson’s techniques. During this time,
modeling him and collaborating with their
Meta group, Bandler and Grinder wrote
volumes I and II of Patterns of the Hypnotic
Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. (1975,
1977), which would become the formalized
basis for the Milton model. Michael Hall, the
later contributor to NLP and the meta model,
says that studying and talking to people from
that time, he got the impression that things
“changed radically”24 after this meeting and
study. Stephen Gilligan, an original member
of the group, remembers:

“Actually, Erickson so skillfully and consistently

violated virtually every Meta-Model rule that it
required the development of the ‘Milton Model,’ a
sort of inverted pattern of the former.”25

He continues,

“Secure in my early NLP belief that all

consciousness could be reduced to sequences of three
representational systems (visual, auditory,
kinesthetic), I asked Erickson if I could inquire
about his working state.
‘Go right ahead,’ he said.
‘Do you have internal dialogue when you’re
working?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he straightforwardly answered. I checked
that category off on the list.
‘Well, then,’ I continued, ‘do you make a lot of
visual pictures?’
 ‘No,’ he responded again. And I crossed off
another category.
‘Well, you must have a lot of kinesthetic sensations
then,’ I insisted, growing a bit worried in my Carlos
Castaneda role.
‘No,’ he answered with equal measure. I was at
the end of my known world, like a sailor ready to sail
off the flat earth.
‘Well, then, what do you do when you’re working?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, with a soft intensity.
‘All I know is that I have an unconscious mind
and they have an unconscious mind, and we’re both
sitting in the same room together. And therefore,
trance is inevitable!’
I began slowly to write down those last three words,
but somehow before I could finish, I was too deeply
entranced.
‘I don’t know HOW trance will happen. I don’t
know WHEN trance will happen. I don’t know
WHY trance will happen. And so I’m very curious
to discover just how, when, and why it does happen
now!
‘Now I know that sounds ridiculous,’ he
continued, ‘but it works!’
I slowly wrote down on my notepad, ‘IT
WORKS!’”26
 This paints us a picture of Erickson—as
an inscrutable, masterful, and perhaps
mischievous hypnotist—as well as the way
that the original Meta practitioners became
enamored with him. Bandler “poured over all
of his works”27 to learn hypnosis as soon as
he learned about him, the group began doing
quite a lot of trance in their practice and
study, and NLP’s focus shifted.
From here, it’s easy to see a pattern
forming in NLP’s history: Formulation of a
model, and then contradiction of it, requiring
some sort of “update.” Thus we can
understand why it becomes such a
convoluted practice—it is constantly
evolving, sometimes in progressive ways and
sometimes in perplexing ones. Strangely
enough, a lot of the material asserts each new
update to be definitive, or at least appears to,
while the very principles of NLP itself would
frown on that sort of inflexibility.

Introduction

The Milton model is NLP’s approach to

creating a model for hypnosis. While the
meta model is all about clarifying and
reducing generalizations, deletions, and
distortions to improve communication, the
Milton model explicitly aims to create them
for the purpose of inducing trance, as
Bandler and Grinder said Erickson did. As
many have noted, it is sort of the opposite of
the meta model, but it also is far more
expansive than just flipping the language
patterns around. It attempts to codify
hypnosis—and specifically the “artfully
vague” style of hypnosis for which Erickson
is famous.
One of the tricky things about the Milton
model—and every formalized model of
hypnosis—is that it is one thing to talk about
techniques that work, but it is another to try
to detail how or why they work in an
objective sense. Because we rely on theories
and models of the mind to explain our
techniques, these should never be taken as
definitive or universal. We really don’t know
how the mind actually works; we just try to
describe it in ways that make sense to us
based on what we’ve observed. We know a
little about it, and we have some good
hypotheses, and we have some good practical
stuff. Where we need to be cautious is how
much of these models we take literally—
something that will hopefully be clear in this
chapter and future ones.
So, if the Milton model is in fact a study of
Ericksonian hypnosis, it is necessarily going
to be a step removed from how he actually
views and perceives trance, and often in NLP
literature, they talk about his techniques
objectively, as though these are his
perspectives. More so, they are an
interpretation through the lens and model
that NLP uses. This is not to say that it is
right or wrong, and it’s also not meant to
imply that Erickson’s direct ideas are
somehow flawless. Just something to bear in
mind as we explore various aspects of
hypnosis through learning.
The Milton model is about utilization,
ambiguity, pacing and leading, interspersion,
“the” unconscious, the nature of trance, and,
due to NLP’s focus on language, what words
have to do with all of that. In this book, we’ll
also be trying to put a little more “Milton” in
the Milton model by discussing some of
Erickson’s direct techniques and theories. In
this section, we’ll be exploring some of the
foundational theories of “why” this stuff
might work.

Conscious/Unconscious Model and

Criticism

There is a concept that the Milton model

relies heavily on which we may refer to as the
“conscious/unconscious split.” This may
seem familiar, as it comes up in hypnosis as
well—the idea that our minds are bifurcated
into two sections: what we are consciously
aware of and thinking, and what is happening
somehow “under the surface.”
The idea of the unconscious mind
permeates both the history and current body
of knowledge of psychology in general as
well as hypnosis. Hypnotists will sometimes
assert that they are doing work that
influences the unconscious mind and is
therefore effective at producing change. They
may also say that the unconscious mind or
part of it acts as a “hidden observer,” which
is purported to have all sorts of power by
different sources, even including keeping a
person safe while they are engaging in trance.
(Fun fact: This idea came from a specific
psychologist by the name of Ernest Hilgard
in the 1970s, who in the 80s wrote a paper
comparing Erickson’s method of therapy to
being a playwright and director—and detailed
several of Erickson’s more unsavory case
studies.)28 NLP, drawing heavily from aspects
of hypnosis and especially Erickson,
continues these lines of thinking—the idea of
inducing trance, to an NLP practitioner, is
largely about using language patterns that
bypass conscious thinking, whether through
the use of ambiguity that is processed
unconsciously or trance itself being seen as
an unconscious, patterned phenomenon.
The pervasiveness of this idea in modern
hypnosis may also be largely due to Erickson
himself. Erickson was known for talking
about the unconscious mind as collaborative,
creative, and autonomous on some level.
While he wasn’t the first or the only one to
popularize this idea (neither in general
psychology nor within hypnosis), Erickson’s
style and the writing about it was prolific.
However, this idea is something we have to
think critically about, and we can even do so
through the lens of NLP. We discussed that
the meta model gives us a particular pattern
to look for called “delusional verbal splits”
where we need to be cautious of separating
“parts” of an idea from the whole because it
can obscure reality (separating the “mind”
into “conscious mind” and “unconscious
mind”). While the “unconscious” model can
be very useful as a metaphor, and is indeed
widely drawn upon, the mind is not literally
separated into two distinct parts, and
especially not personified, and it is easy to
debunk the idea that there is some
unknowable aspect of us that watches and
keeps us safe during trance or any other time.
This can be summed up by a quote from
Erich Fromm, a German psychologist from
the 1900s:

“The term 'the unconscious' is actually a

mystification (even though one might use it for reasons
of convenience, as I am guilty of doing in these pages).
There is no such thing as the unconscious; there are
only experiences of which we are aware, and others of
which we are not aware, that is, of which we are
unconscious. If I hate a man because I am afraid of
him, and if I am aware of my hate but not of my fear,
we may say that my hate is conscious and that my
fear is unconscious; still my fear does not lie in that
mysterious place: 'the' unconscious.”29

Similarly, hypnokink educator MrDream

wrote once, lightheartedly,

“Every time I hear a hypnotist say[,] '[Y]our

subconscious is the part of you that protects you[,]' I
am like[,] '[I]f I am not paying conscious attention[,]
I bash my toe into things.[’] You know what protects
you? Boots.”30

There are some notable risks in splitting

the mind into two parts. Some of this is just
about losing out on the nuance of viewing
our minds as complex and whole, thus
limiting our perception of what we can do
with hypnosis. It’s relying on a simplified
model that does not fit every situation. But
beyond this, there are some safety concerns.
We cannot assume that there is some magical
part of our partners that keeps them safe—
we as humans have an extremely complex
decision-making system that guides our
judgments and actions. Hilgard, who created
the “hidden observer” theory, likened it to an
actual guardian angel, and this idea is simply
not helpful to us as kinksters who need a
nuanced understanding of consent and risk.
Safety and consent are not black and white—
we do things that are risky or that we don’t
want to do all the time, whether by decision,
mistake, or manipulation. As hypnotists, we
cannot ethically rely on some nonexistent,
supposedly failsafe mechanism when we are
playing with our partners.
We can draw upon the
conscious/unconscious model when it suits
our needs, and we can even use it as a way to
conceptualize how trance works. But, we
need to be very cautious about believing this
as objective fact. To be as effective as
possible, we must be flexible in what models
we are able to apply. Perhaps it is one way to
think about how trance works, but there are
many other metaphors to which we should
be open.

Chapter Summary

The Milton model was an

evolution of NLP as its founders
studied Milton Erickson, famed
hypnotherapist, known for his
indirect style
It is NLP’s approach to creating a
model for how to do effective
hypnosis
It relies heavily on the idea that
the mind is split into parts: the
“conscious mind” and the
“unconscious mind”
We understand that this is useful
as a metaphor, but it is best not to
take it literally; it is limiting to
compartmentalize it this way and
potentially dangerous if we
assume that there is any magical
safety power in it
 CHAPTER 5: PACING,
LEADING, AND AMBIGUITY
We should continue our look into the
Milton model by looking at some
fundamental ideas it gives us for trance.
Erickson was very much about observation,
reading a subject, and utilization, and NLP
extrapolates from this and attempts to codify
it into a methodology of how to hypnotize
someone. These are concepts which, when
we investigate them, tell us a little bit about
the way that subjects process hypnosis, and
how we can use that information to be most
effective in our practice.

Pacing
 One of the foremost parts of the Milton
model is the idea of “pacing.” Of this, in
Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H.
Erickson, M.D., Vol. I, Bandler and Grinder
wrote:

“A hypnotist has successfully paced a client

verbally when the hypnotist’s verbalizations are
accepted by the client as an accurate description of the
client’s ongoing experience.”31

Pacing is when a hypnotist is able to follow

along with a subject, understand their
responses, and over some amount of time
and using a variety of techniques, become
confident that the subject is parsing their
statements as true. Essentially, what the
hypnotist says “tracks” for the subject’s
experience—they are able to feel like it makes
sense to them and accurately describes what
they are feeling. This is key to effective
hypnosis, as we can conceptualize a subject’s
trance as being full of moments where they
are sort of internally “checking” to see how
everything is going.
 A subject may at many points during
hypnosis be asking themselves, “Is this
working? Am I in trance? Am I following
correctly? Do I feel what they are telling me
to feel?” These questions don’t have to be
conscious, either; often this is a sort of gut
reaction to judging what they are
experiencing in response to what the
hypnotist is saying. The idea of pacing is that
those queries become unobtrusive, either that
they are asked less or that the answers to
them are affirmative and facilitate the flow of
trance. We might be able to compare this to
the idea of being “in rapport” with someone.
This is of course ideal, as it allows us a
kind of magical flow to our hypnosis, but
how can we conceptualize making this
happen? The Milton model has some ideas.
We can connect this to a variety of techniques
with which we might already be familiar in
hypnosis: Notably, utilization and “yes sets.”

Utilization

Utilization is one of the most important

parts of effective hypnosis. It is an
Ericksonian concept that refers to when a
hypnotist is both a) observing all of the
subject’s messages and nuances and b)
acknowledging and using them to facilitate
flow of the scene. An example of utilization
might be that the hypnotist sees the subject is
listening attentively and remarks, “I can tell
that you’re focusing deeply on me, which is
perfect, because that’s just what we need to
create the intense experience of trance for
you.” Perhaps at that point, the hypnotist
notices a shift in the subject’s response, like a
small flutter of the eyes, and continues, “Oh
yes, just like that.” This observation is key.
Both of those examples—the explicit,
suggestive, verbal use of the subject’s
responses as well as the simple
acknowledgement—are important uses of
utilization. But utilization can go beyond that
to include using the subject’s personal history,
as well. If the hypnotist knows things about
their “map of the world” (their history, likes,
dislikes, everything that makes their
experience theirs), those are up for “use” as
well. Maybe the hypnotist has knowledge of
how the subject adores eye contact—“Isn’t it
just perfect to be able to stare so deeply into
my eyes and be able to feel all the things you
feel about that so extensively?” And beyond,
as well, such as knowing that the subject
really enjoys music, so then using language
centered around musical metaphors (“The
melodic, rhythmic aspects of my voice hit the
part of you that gets stimulated just like when
you’re listening to someone sing…”).
Bandler and Grinder talk about a concept
that is recognizing what is important to the
subject. If you’re utilizing information that
has value to the other person, your
suggestions around it gain similar value.
Clinical accounts and analysis of
hypnotherapy that we often see, especially in
Erickson’s work, contain a lot of background
about who the subject is and the information
that they’ve given to the hypnotist, because
those aspects of what they’ve revealed are
often used to facilitate change and trance in
this way. For a kink example, if you’re playing
with someone and you know that they
sexualize hypnosis in an extremely visceral
way, you can talk about that to add impact
(“Doing this with you, hypnotizing you,
actually starting and doing it, is such an
intense thing for your mind and body to
handle, it makes it easy for me to slip in and
soothe your brain to let me even further
in…”).
On a logical level, utilizing parts of a
person’s world tells them that you’re paying
attention and that you care about their
experience and what they have to say. There
is an element of showing trust involved: They
are giving you information, and you are
listening. Feeling “known” or even “caught”
can be a way to shift someone’s focus in a
positive way for trance.

Yes Sets

A “yes set” in the hypnosis community is

often referred to as a specific technique
where the hypnotist will ask the subject a
series of questions where the answer is
already known to be “yes.” The idea is that
continuing to get agreement (usually verbal)
will increase the likelihood of getting more
agreement, even when the hypnotist starts
asking suggestive questions. Thus, increasing
someone’s suggestibility. For example, the
hypnotist may begin asking questions like,
“Are you comfortable sitting in your chair?”
(“Yes…”) and lead into questions like, “Are
you starting to feel yourself sinking down
into a trance?”
The efficacy of this particular, specific
interpretation is questionable. It is fine as an
induction technique, especially among
hypnokinksters who have some idea of what
to expect both from leading questions and
possibly even yes sets themselves. There also
is something to be said for the idea that
generally, people don’t like saying “no” to
direct questions like this, because they feel it
is rude.
But to get real use out of the idea of yes
sets, we need to expand our idea of what they
are and can be. Firstly, we should eschew the
idea that the “yes” that we seek needs to be a
verbal one. Georg Barkas, a rope educator
and author of Archaeology of Personalities: A
Linguistic Approach to Erotic Rope Bondage
(2017), is known for discussing rope scenes
as a series of questions and answers, i.e., an
“interview.” Again, these “questions” and
“answers” are not usually verbal in this
model. The “question” might be laying the
rope on the person’s body in a certain way,
and your nonverbal communication,
including facial expression and body
language. One can see different kinds of
“answers” based on how a person responds
—do they curl into themselves, or open
themselves up?
In this vein, the “questions” that we ask in
a hypnosis scene to get yeses do not need to
be explicit questions, either. It is just as much
a “question” to suggest to someone, “Maybe
you can feel that sense of heaviness sinking
into your muscles…” and it is just as much
an answer to hear them sigh or see the way
their shoulders slump. That response to you,
when someone is following and experiencing
with you as you hypnotize them, is very much
a “yes,” as are the little gasps, the body
stiffening with excitement or anticipation, the
soft cursing, the eyes widening, the trance
signs.
The basic hypothesis of a yes set—
agreement begets agreement—can be a
useful one when we broaden our
expectations and definitions. Every trance,
from beginning to end, can be seen as a yes
set: Generally, in hypnosis, you want your
suggestions and verbalizations to elicit some
sort of positive or “yes” response from the
subject (again, which need not be an explicit
“yes”), which facilitates rapport and hypnosis
—which we might also call “pacing.” As we
said, you can think about how subjects
usually perform some sort of internal
judgment (whether consciously or
unconsciously) to look for congruence
between what the hypnotist is saying and
their internal experience. Depending on how
suggestions are given, getting to the point
that Bandler and Grinder speak of where the
subject experiences this “yes” response is
easy if you take the basic principle of
observing what is happening with your
subject and making informed statements
along those lines.

Pacing… and Leading

In this sense, these broadened ideas of yes

sets and utilization are essentially a different
way of framing pacing. Utilize the knowledge
and observations that you have about what
your subject is experiencing in order to make
statements that are somehow consistent with
their internal process in order to facilitate
these affirmative “answers.”
 This can be as simple as watching your
subject and narrating to them what their
current experience is. For example, if you can
see your subject, like in person or over video,
you can say things like, “I can see the way
that your feet are planted on the floor, and
the way that you’re putting weight into your
body. Your shoulders are starting to relax.” If
you’re doing a session over text or audio, you
can make inferences as to what they are
doing: “Watching my words appear, reading
almost automatically,” or “Listening to my
voice, waiting for the next sound and
phrase…” This is an easy way to get those
“yes” responses—of course these
observations ring true; they are literally just
what your partner is experiencing at any
given moment.
The idea of “leading” comes in when we
begin shifting our statements to be more
suggestive. We as the hypnotists move from
making statements that we are pretty sure are
observably true into suggestions that we want
to be true. A very simple example of this is in
an induction/hypnosis style called “three
truths and one suggestion” where the
hypnotist says three things that are true about
the subject’s experience and then tacks on
one “lead.” But in an ideal situation, exactly
when we start to make this shift is reliant on
examination and intuition. There is no
specific number of yeses or signs that show
this, but we can look for signs of trance and
participation. Additionally, when we begin
interspersing leading suggestions, noticing
the subject’s continued positive responses can
give us a good idea about their state.
It is not so much that pacing shifts solidly
into leading; more so that pacing and leading
are natural patterns to continue through the
trance as a whole. This is where eschewing
the idea that a concrete “induction” gives way
to “suggestions” can help—it is more
practical to think of a hypnotic scene as a
long string of suggestions, both verbal and
nonverbal, and continue to use effective
language throughout. Someone does not
become somehow concretely “paced” so that
you then “lead”—these are both processes
that continue throughout a hypnotic scene.
Just like someone does not become
concretely “hypnotized” so you can “give
suggestions”—everything you do is
suggestive and hypnotic, and the state,
whatever it may be, is fluid.
Bandler and Grinder say that pacing can
transform the hypnotist into “a sophisticated
bio-feedback mechanism,” and this may be a
helpful way to think about it. You are trying
to give descriptions of the subject’s ongoing
observable and non-observable experiences
verbally. Less verbally, you can use techniques
like matching tone, posture, and body
language (in socially acceptable, subtle ways)
to further this metaphor as well—thus, you
can also lead nonverbally, perhaps by
lowering your voice, softening facial muscles,
or anything else that has you signalling what
the subject should be feeling. It’s important
to remember that humans are not literally
mechanistic, so you don’t want to assume that
your partner is going to respond like one or
that you should fall into the trap of sounding
and looking too much like a caricature of a
creepy NLP practitioner.

Ambiguity

This general concept as a whole—

communicating with a subject in such a way
that their internal “checks” of your
statements read congruent to what they’re
experiencing, and then using that as a
springboard to give further suggestions—is
incredibly useful in hypnosis. We discussed
utilizing and observing someone’s responses
as a key method of doing this. But one of the
best ways to “cheat” at pacing and leading is
through the use of linguistic ambiguity.
Ambiguity as a whole is a potent
ingredient in hypnosis. It can be talked about
and defined many different ways; the
dictionary definition is “The quality of being
open to more than one interpretation;
inexactness.”32 If you look into what NLP
specifically has to say about ambiguity, it is
generally what we might think of as the
“flying purple people eater” type: Is it a
monster that is flying, purple, and eats
people, or is it a monster that eats flying,
purple people? Bandler and Grinder often
write about Erickson as using this kind of
ambiguity where there is some
(un-)grammatical trick—“And you can feel
your/you’re unconscious now responding to
me…”
 However, we can gain a lot more if we
once again broaden our ideas of this. You can
conceptualize the kind of ambiguity we are
looking to achieve by thinking about it in
terms of the yes sets we discussed. You want
to pace your subject and get those “yes”
responses, whether they are direct yeses or
something more subtle, so logically, one of
the ways you can do this is by speaking in a
manner that is more difficult to “contradict”
(or framed differently, bought into with
greater ease).
For example, a common hypnotic
suggestion might be something like, “You
feel your eyes getting heavier and starting to
close.” You are creating a rigid definition of
what the subject feels is “supposed” to
happen, and there is plenty of opportunity
for them to check on that feeling and notice
inconsistency with their experience. Instead,
you could be more ambiguous and say, “You
can notice that feeling in your eyes, the way
they are starting to shift.” “That feeling” is
not necessarily specifying anything, and this
idea of “shifting” without clear direction or
quality is as well; thus ambiguity. (This
particular statement also includes the
hypnotic trick of getting to change someone’s
focus to within themselves and then using
that shift as proof that they’re experiencing
something distinct as they go internal for a
moment.)
An ambiguous suggestion in this definition
is a statement that has been broadened to the
point that there is much less, if any, concrete
information actually contained within it.
Instead of specifying what you are talking
about, you generalize it—for example,
“You’re experiencing something interesting
now, aren’t you?” Almost certainly, the
subject is experiencing something. And notice
as well that the word “interesting” doesn’t
have an exact value or prescribed response
either, thus allowing for a lot of
interpretation. (This particular pattern is
observed by NLP in its discussion on
language in the Milton model.) What is
happening is that they hear your suggestion,
go to check to see if it “tracks” for them, and
then they themselves produce the answer or
gut feeling of what that “something
interesting” is.

Transderivational Searches
 We can conceptualize this with a term that
comes from NLP: “Transderivational
search.” Usually in the hypnokink
community, we hear this word as part of the
discussion on “pattern interrupt” inductions,
where the subject is in the middle of
something and interrupted in such a way that
leaves them open to direct commands (such
as going into trance). The transderivational
search there is often described as that
moment where the brain is looking for
something to latch onto—thus the
instruction for trance.
However, originally and more accurately,
this term was meant to describe when a
subject hears something that they need to
process by going internally to understand its
meaning.33 This was talked about a lot in
terms of Erickson’s metaphors—using
metaphor hypnotically, such as talking about
a setting sun, relies on the listener having to
make some sort of internal judgments about
how that actually applies, how it is supposed
to be interpreted. Does that setting sun imply
heaviness or trance, or something else? We
can allude to how we want something to be
processed, but the key is that that is an
internal process that the subject themself is
doing, rather than the hypnotist giving a
specified definition. It can be a conscious
sort of wondering, or a more unconscious
feeling of what the answer or meaning is for
them. In this way, the ambiguity we are
discussing has this quality of creating a
transderivational search in many cases.

Mind Reading with Ambiguity

One of our goals with using ambiguity,

particularly within the frame of pacing and
leading, could be to use such applicable
statements that your partner feels like you are
reading their mind. “Mind reading” in
hypnosis is an interesting and complex idea,
but within this context we’re referring to
when our partners feel like we are so fully
aware of their responses and thoughts that
we are somehow inside their heads. Feeling
known and understood is extremely desirable
and helps the subject feel like the hypnotist is
more in control, more confident, or more on
top of things—it dramatically increases
rapport and responsiveness.
 When you are pacing and leading, getting a
good handle on describing someone’s
experience can make them get this kind of
magical feeling. This is especially potent
when ambiguity is involved, as the subject
can feel things like, “How can they possibly
know what I’m experiencing, and yet, they
seem to?” It tends to be a climactic moment
in a scene, which you can notice when you
make a statement and start to get quite a big
“yes” response, or a lot of them very quickly.
We know one of the most important things
in hypnosis is acknowledging responses, and
this acknowledgment often factors into this
sense of mind reading. For example, if you
notice your partner having some kind of
response, even if you’re not sure what it
exactly means, by saying, “Oh, you felt that,
huh?” you’re able to acknowledge the
reaction without specifying what it was (thus,
ambiguity). Even the common “That’s right”
lacks this “referential index”—a term you
might remember from the meta model that
describes when a phrase doesn’t provide
clarity to what it’s specifying. We can also use
description words that don’t have precise,
objective meaning—“Wasn’t that a fun,
complex feeling?”
Anything that tells the subject, “I know
what you’re thinking” can have this kind of
effect. You can allude to what you think they
are feeling, thinking, or processing with
different levels of ambiguity: “Don’t you love
how you feel just that way I tell you to go
deep” versus “Don’t you love how you feel
like you can’t believe this is happening when I
tell you to go deep.” You can begin
suggestions with “I know” to be even more
explicit: “I know how much you are loving
this.”
You can mind-read about specific things or
keep them more broad. When you’re
hypnotizing your partner, generally you are
trying to read them and understand how they
are processing at any given moment. If you
notice something interesting that you think
they are feeling or thinking, you can point it
out right away, or you can indirectly allude to
it for a little bit before finally stating it
outright, which can have the effect of leading
them. In this way, they can feel “caught,”
which can be an intense experience.
 Balancing and Collapsing
Ambiguity/Mind Reading

This idea of creating a flow and tension

before the moment of becoming explicit
leads us into a conversation about the idea of
collapsing ambiguity. When giving
suggestions, it is good practice to leave some
wiggle room with how they can be
interpreted, but we don’t necessarily want
that to be constant. There are times when
you want to be very direct and concrete.
Ambiguous suggestions are great practice,
but being too ambiguous can lead your
subject to wonder if you are actually just
guessing, and they can have the effect of
becoming too broad or even boring. There
can be a feeling of not quite having enough
footing or grip.
“Collapsing” the ambiguity at various
points can help to add punch to your
suggestions and lead to some of those
intense, climactic moments. Direct
suggestion that is given when someone is
particularly responsive is a fabulous proof of
control. There is no hard and fast rule for
when this is appropriate—this is an intuitive
process that relies on you reading your
partner for big “yes” signs and places that
you can get very specific about a) what you
are reading them about, and/or b) what you
want them to experience.
For example, you might be saying
something like, “Yeah, I can see you having
that response…” and then to add extra
punch to it, you can say, “You feel like a
pretty dolly, don’t you? You feel it all inside of
you.” While this kind of direct suggestion is
something you should be reasonably
confident about, you don’t have to worry too
much about “getting it wrong.” It’s not an
uncommon experience for someone in trance
to hear a suggestion like this and, even if they
weren’t thinking of that exact feeling, they
feel something like, “Oh my gosh, they’re
totally right, I just realized…”
You can also be a false kind of direct,
where your statement is direct but the
content is ambiguous. For example, you
could say, “You feel like your mind is
collapsing.” There’s no “right answer” for
what that would feel like—it can be
interpreted in a variety of ways. Similar
suggestions that don’t exactly specify what
something feels like can be used to invoke a
sense of directness without worrying about
your partner doing a rigid pass/fail check.

Chapter Summary

Pacing and leading is an important

concept in NLP; the idea is that
we want to ensure our partners
feel as though we are accurately
describing their experience as
much as possible, whether we are
stating observations (pacing) or
making suggestions about what
we want to happen (leading)
We can achieve this by
understanding that hypnosis is
one big yes set: Our partners
should be able to respond
affirmatively every time we give a
suggestion, even if this response
is internal
Utilization in this context is
important because it teaches us
how to effectively use the
information we are given in order
to increase responsiveness and
rapport
Linguistic ambiguity—language
that causes someone to have to
interpret a suggestion for
themselves—is a cheat-code to
pace and lead a subject because
they often will find something
meaningful for them
This can be thought of as a
“transderivational search”: The
action where someone has to go
internal to consciously or
unconsciously produce meaning
from something
It can create a feeling as though
you are reading their mind, which
is often dramatic and climatic,
especially when you follow
through with going direct and
concrete at different points
 CHAPTER 6: DIRECT
VERSUS INDIRECT
LANGUAGE
The idea of being “indirect” comes up
quite a bit in discussions of NLP and
Erickson. Erickson was hailed as a game-
changing hypnotherapist who brought the
idea of more indirect methods of hypnosis to
a broad audience, and much of our current
body of hypnosis practice derives from this
idea. There are a number of ways that people
have tried to codify the actual methods of
being less direct, and much of the time, this is
done through the lens of language—the
actual words that the hypnotist is supposed to
say in order to achieve this. Much of the time,
we learn habits and patterns of speaking that
are purported to be less direct, but we should
be asking ourselves: Why?

Direct versus Indirect: One Approach

Oftentimes, this idea of indirect language

gets boiled down to changing a suggestion
like, “You feel yourself getting turned on by
listening to my voice in your head…” to
“Perhaps you can feel yourself getting turned
on, maybe from listening to my voice in your
head…” Tacking on “mights” and “maybes”
is a common practice, especially in the
hypnokink world, and sometimes it’s assumed
that this is a form of indirect practice—after
all, you’re not directly saying something is
going to happen, right?
These words should not be assumed to
have this exact kind of power alone. In a
scene in a hypnokink space especially,
subjects often can hear the word “perhaps”
and parse it as “I should…” especially when
the hypnotist doubles down to achieve the
response they seek. They may feel like they
are failing if they don’t experience the
suggestion, which is something we very much
want to avoid. As we discussed while talking
about pacing and leading, it’s important that
the subject feels some congruence with what
the hypnotist is saying. For this reason, we
should really aim to think critically about the
words we’re using not as magic spells with
static meaning (“perhaps” isn’t a get-out-of-
the-yes-set-free card), but instead as
ingredients that send messages which vary
quite a bit based on all of the elements with
which they interact. But, there are plenty of
reasons we use this kind of language already,
and ways that it is useful.

So What Is Indirect Language?

There are many different ways of being

indirect with someone within the context of
hypnosis. In this section, we’ll explore one or
two ways, and some ideas of how language
becomes more or less direct.

“Feel x.” This is the most direct

way to phrase something
(grammar nerds will recognize it
as an imperative). We use this
when we have a position of power
over the listener, both in kink and
in speech.
“You feel x.” Notice that adding
the subject softens this a little bit.
“You can feel x.” An element of
permission is being added.
“Maybe you can feel x.” Uncertainty
is being added—a hedge, which
we’ll discuss.
“Maybe you can feel a little bit x.”
Starting to qualify the feeling as
“little”—reducing it allows for a
more broad level of feeling the
response.
“I wonder if maybe you can feel a little
bit x.” The indicated focal point
changes—now we’re talking about
the hypnotist’s perception, and
also the statement doesn’t
necessarily have to be parsed as
true. However, note again that
this is extremely common in
hypnotic patter and the subject
will likely not shift their attention
based on these words alone.
“My friend John felt a little bit x when
he did what you’re doing.” Taken
 multiple steps further to
completely change the framing.
“I don’t know when you’re going to start
to feel x…” An example of a
classic Ericksonian presupposition
—it is assumed that x will happen,
the only question is when.

There are a couple patterns here that you

might be noticing in some of these examples
—the first is that we are “padding” our initial
direct suggestion with more and more words
that slightly change the meaning of the
statement as well as its tone. In this way, we
are softening our message from a command
to more of a suggestion in the truest sense of
the word. You could conceptualize this as
adding more and more packaging to the
intended communication that needs to be
unwrapped. This unwrapping could be seen
to serve a variety of purposes—it could be a
distraction, it could necessitate further
processing. You may see sources assert that it
“bypasses the conscious mind.” Any of these
reasons are more metaphorical than literal.
On a very basic level, adding more words to a
simple message or “imperative” tends to
sound a little bit more conversational,
appropriate, or polite.
Another effect here is that we’re
attempting to shift the focal point or frame
of reference of the utterance further and
further away from the subject. The actual
suggestive intent of the statement is the true
focus, but we can move away from it by
moving someone’s attention or shifting
cognitive levels—adjacent to meta states and
chunking from the meta model. One thought
process here is that the actual message or
suggestion needs to be parsed within
different frames of reference, which is less
direct than parsing it head-on. It can be a sort
of confusion or uncertainty quality, where it
is unclear from where the experience is
actually coming. For example, telling
someone, “From what I see, you’re going
nice and deep into trance,” causes them to
think about the way that you are processing.
They have to go outside their own experience
of themselves to try to understand yours.
And the actual message of the suggestion
—“you’re going nice and deep into trance”—
is something that they have to a) assume to
be a true experience that you are having, and
b) process from your point of view, with their
focus and attention shifted.
These phrases are examples only—if we
spoke like this all the time in hypnosis it
would sound stiff and rehearsed and probably
not communicate what we want to actually
communicate. If your intent is to shift
someone’s focus onto you and off of
themselves for a suggestion, instead of
leading with “I wonder…” and assuming that
will do the job, you could say something like,
“I was thinking a lot about this…” or go
even further, “I was thinking a lot about this
because I found it really interesting...” Again,
it’s very important to consider your intent
first and the words second—it can be helpful
to think about regular conversations and
speech and try to analyze where the
participants’ heads are going with “vanilla”
language. What are different ways to soften
speech? What are ways to change the focus
of a sentence? What other elements are
involved in this besides just the words being
used? Tone and timing, for example, play a
big part—in the “I wonder” example, it’s
often used as a sort of flowing phrase and
not directly highlighted. Some emphasis and
a pause might change it. And of course there
are all sorts of variables like the quality of
relationship and personal histories.

Indirect Language versus Indirect

Hypnosis

There is also a lot going on in all of these

statements beyond what we’ve discussed
here, and quite a bit more to being “indirect”
with our suggestions in hypnosis. It might be
helpful to think about the question: “Is there
a difference between indirect language and
indirect hypnosis?” Discussing what makes a
suggestion indirect to some degree leads us
to look at the specific words being used—
after all, that is largely how we think of
suggestions being formed. This is especially
true from the perspective of NLP, which is
very interested in language. It is an attempt to
codify the practice of hypnosis based at least
partially on verbiage.
But we must remember that we can’t really
quantify hypnosis into linguistic parts, and
trying to quantify “indirectness” into words is
similarly difficult. It relies on an
understanding of frame, someone’s
psychological ecology, and conceptual ideas
that are often somewhat abstract.
Throughout the rest of the book, we’ll be
exploring more about what “indirect
hypnosis” really means from the lens of NLP.
But for now, let’s try to think about how
words affect trance and take a look at one
particular language habit that we all use from
time to time.

Verbal Hedges

A “hedge” in linguistics is a word that’s

tacked on to a statement that can call into
question its certainty, or make it more vague.
Words like “maybe,” “sometimes,” “almost,”
or “relatively” are examples of this kind of
speech. It represents how the speaker is
distancing themselves from the potential
veracity of the statement. If you say, “You
seem like you want to go into trance,” it
becomes much less of a direct claim than if
you were to say, “You want to go into
trance.” We hedge statements all the time as
humans accustomed to conversations—it is
often read as more polite. For example, “I
think you might be mistaken,” instead of
“You’re mistaken.” Hedging serves an
important purpose in all of our
communication to be able to soften our
language.34
This is where words like “perhaps” and
“might” do enter our language, hypnotic and
otherwise, and naturally so. We began this
chapter questioning our use of these words,
and hopefully here we’ll be able to provide
some insight on their purpose. If we think
about hypnosis as simply a means of
communication, we can understand that
saying something “might” happen has a few
different possibilities. We could be implying a
true uncertainty, or we could be hedging. In a
scenario where you say something like, “You
might experience trance in a way that you’re
familiar with, or maybe you won’t,” you’re
leaning towards uncertainty more effectively
by providing both ambiguity and allowing for
two separate options—not discounting the
possibility that the initial suggestion is not
applicable to the experience. On the other
hand, if you say, “I think you might find
yourself responding as fully as you need to
respond to me,” you’re hedging—softening
your language, not really intending for your
suggestion to be rejected in any way.
Notice that this idea of hedging connects
to our earlier discussion of indirect language
—we added more and more “packaging” and
from this perspective we are adding more and
more hedging. Hedging can mark
information as unreliable, but it also can
cause the listener to need to process it a little
bit more in order to understand why it’s
being hedged in context of the statement.
This is not always a conscious process, but
consider that if you make a suggestion like,
“Maybe there’s almost a sort of dumbness
around the edges of your mind,” your partner
has to parse through the softness and the
uncertainty of the statement itself may
translate to uncertainty or ambiguity of
response within the subject—as discussed, a
useful thing.
There are different kinds of hedges and
each one serves a different purpose in
different contexts; indeed, they are all highly
dependent on background. Consider the
following examples:
“Can you feel a little bit of that
trance infecting your brain?”
Here, minimizing the
threshold for the described
action allows for a high
correlation of experience.
Hedging the size or quality
of a suggested action can
make it easier for someone
to experience. The subject
does not have to manifest a
“big” response immediately
as you say it; consider the
difference between “you
feel intense pleasure” versus
“you feel a little bit of
pleasure starting in your
body”. In this way, it’s a
great transition skill to
make it easier to move from
one suggested experience to
another. In this example,
coupled with the term
“infecting,” which has
(playfully) dangerous
connotations, it plays off of
the exciting idea of risk.
“I’ve been told that turning into a
doll can feel incredibly good.”
The “owner” of this
information is no longer
the hypnotist—the subject
has to shift their perspective
away from the message
being information that
comes directly from them.
This creates a
presupposition (which we
will discuss later) that
others have experience with
the kind of good feeling
that they are indirectly
promising—thus, it is real
and true. It’s being
indirectly implied that this
is something that they can
and perhaps will experience,
which is a conclusion the
subject comes to
themselves.

“Trance is just another kind of

pattern we go through, isn’t it?”
 In this example, the
hypnotist is creating a
connection between two
concepts which could be
considered members of
different categories, but
uses hedges to soften that
certainty. They’re suggesting
that hypnosis is something
that could be familiar to the
subject, something like
other experiences they’ve
had previously. (The “tag
question” at the end also
functions as a hedge here,
and we will explore that
more in detail later.)

Chapter Summary

The Milton model is interested in

indirect language, which we can
understand to be language which
requires extra processing or
language that shifts the focal
point away from its actual
message
We learn language habits that we
really need to unpack to be able to
utilize effectively, such as using
“mights” and “maybes”—they’re
not magic words
No words are magic—meaning
changes based on an innumerable
amount of factors, and we can’t
boil an overarching idea of
indirectness down into parts of
language
We do hedge statements a lot,
both inside and outside of a
hypnotic interaction; we soften
our speech to be more polite and
to ensure that we’re not entirely
attached to the idea of something
being real or true
It’s helpful in hypnosis to think
about how a person processes
softened suggestions, how they
parse them, and where the
emphasis is actually landing
 CHAPTER 7: THE MILTON
MODEL PATTERNS
So far in this section, we’ve explored a
foundation to where the Milton model of
NLP came from as well as some useful
background knowledge to better understand
the way it approaches hypnosis. We know
that, as a study of Erickson, it presents a
framework of how to conceptualize trance,
both about the theory of how hypnosis
functions as well as linguistically what
happens to make it so. In this chapter, we’ll
get into some of the substantive parts of the
Milton model, and the ones that are oft-cited:
The near-infamous language patterns that
effective hypnotists are purported to utilize.
 Relation to the Meta Model

One of the easiest ways to conceptualize

the Milton model is something we’ve
mentioned in previous chapters of this
section: It is at least in some part a reflection
of the meta model. To recap, one way of
thinking of the meta model’s thesis is,
“People represent their world through
language and can’t help but do so
incompletely because of a) the way we view
things and b) the way we talk. It’s helpful to
clarify to improve communication and give
people a richer worldview.” The Milton
model might say, “Purposefully representing
the world incompletely through language is
conducive to achieving hypnotic trance,
which can give people a more rich
worldview.”
The difficulty here is that trying to boil
down any singular part of NLP is
complicated, perhaps characteristically so.
Realistically, these core ideas are only partially
descriptive of these models, and NLP
literature will often beat around the bush in
trying to fully define them. While it can be
frustrating, it is helpful to conceptualize these
parts of NLP—and NLP as a whole—as
being complex frameworks that serve a
variety of purposes. It is the purposes that
give them any structure rather than the actual
contents. The highest “chunk” of purpose of
NLP is (or was originally) to help people
make changes (it being repurposed for sales,
pick-up art, or anything else
notwithstanding). When we reduce that to
the purpose of the Milton model, we are
effectively looking at how to analyze language
in order to better use it to do what we want
in hypnotic trance. From a therapy model,
this is about changework. In hypnokink, we
can acknowledge change as something that
happens in every trance (as every interaction
is influential on some level), but more
broadly we are looking to engage intimately,
whatever that means for us and our partners.
The goals of both the meta and Milton
models are the same: Bring someone into
deeper contact with parts of themselves that
they are not aware of, whether that is
resources, memories, or experiences. The
meta model does this in a “top-down” way
where it says to bring things more into focus
to create clarity, while the Milton model does
this in a “bottom-up” way where it says to
create fuzziness in order to connect someone
to a productive trance. This all might sound
rather arcane and obscure, so let’s try to parse
what any of this actually means.

NLP’s View of Trance

Bandler and Grinder’s study of Erickson

led them to attempt to codify his method of
trance. They said it involved three steps,
taken verbatim from Patterns of the Hypnotic
Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Vol. I:

1. “Pacing and distraction of the dominant

(language) hemisphere;
2. Utilization of the dominant hemisphere,
language processing which occurs below
the level of awareness;
3. Accessing of the non-dominant
hemisphere.”35

We can parse this sort of outdated

technobabble as a different metaphor—the
metaphor for the conscious and unconscious
mind (that Bandler and Grinder note is
borrowed from Erickson). In this context,
they say to get the conscious mind thinking
in the same direction as the hypnotist is
speaking and distract it, and then utilize the
resources of the unconscious mind.
What does that last part mean? Both
Erickson and NLP posit that aspects of deep
trance work happen within the unconscious
mind. If we strip away the metaphor, we can
frame this as things happening outside of
conscious awareness. For example, when the
subject feels as though they aren’t taking
action when doing what is suggested to them,
it’s merely happening to them, or when
memories and experiences that the subject
isn’t consciously thinking about influence
trance. It’s very important to note that this
isn’t strictly a universal rule; plenty happens
inside of hypnosis that subjects can be aware
of, and it’s important to impart that
knowledge to our partners because this can
be a difficult assumption to surpass if
someone is expecting to be unaware in
specific ways. Some parts may feel automatic
while others voluntary, and this experience
can fluidly shift and change.
 Another way that we can look at this is that
we have different capabilities in different
states of mind. On a very simple level, when
we are in the zone with work or cooking or
some other activity, we are able to focus in a
different way on those tasks. Bandler’s view
of hypnosis is that we have different
“patterns” for all of the things we do, and
they are all analogous to different kinds of
trances.36 We have a “pattern” for when we
are working, when we are watching a movie,
when we are having a conversation, etc. His
logic for this is that we change our
perspectives and subjective experience
depending on what we are doing, and we
have different capabilities that become
available when doing different things. Quality
of focus, skills, etc.
Even if you don’t want to entertain that
sort of broad assumption, it’s helpful to
consider that we go through different kinds
of trance when we engage intimately in
different ways. Not every trance is the same;
we feel and respond distinctly depending on
our situations. Because our “patterns” are
different from how we are when we are
“awake,” we think and behave differently and
have access to different conscious or
unconscious processes and skills. It’s not
uncommon for subjects to feel like they
visualize more vividly, have spontaneous
flashbacks, feel focus more or less intently, or
any number of other changes when they are
in hypnosis (which can vary person-to-person
and based on circumstances).
Therapeutically this is useful from a
perspective of how to allow someone to
change in a positive direction—if you expand
someone’s ability to process the world
through trance, naturally they will be able to
approach problems differently. In hypnokink,
we are more interested in what we can
discover when someone is processing
differently. What does that allow us to do or
access? If someone is processing this way as
opposed to that, do we have new footholds
to be able to influence them, take advantage
of them, brainwash them, or give them
intense experiences? Is that idea of finding or
expanding hidden aspects and skills of our
partners simply sexy in its own right? (Yes.)

Generalizations, Deletions, Distortions

 In our discussions about the meta model,
we learned that NLP codifies certain aspects
of the way we communicate. One way that it
does this is by emphasizing that when we
talk, we almost always represent information
(and our map/worldview) in an incomplete
way. It breaks this down into generalizing
information, deleting information, and
distorting information. To recap, generalizing
something might sound like, “Sorry I’m
always late”—the person is making the
experience so general that they don’t
represent when that’s not true. Deleting
something might sound like, “I’m
nervous”—where it’s unclear what the person
is nervous about. Distorting something might
sound like, “People are going to judge me”—
assumptions are being made about the
person’s actions and what response a group
of people in supposed agreement will think.
The Milton model says that when using
hypnotic language, the key is not to specify
and clarify language as the meta model
intends, but to go the other direction and get
more general, more deletive, more distorted.
When NLP’s founders studied Erickson,
what they claimed to see was that he used
language in a more vague way. They inferred
from this that the extra processing required
to parse this language was conducive to
trance. This is sometimes described as
moving someone to a higher pattern or
different frame of thought (having to think
about the statement, consciously or
unconsciously—see also meta states of
thought in Chapter 3).
For example, a hypnotist might say, “I
learned that it’s easy to go into a deep trance
if you want it in a certain way.” Let’s break
this down.

“I learned that…” presupposes

that the knowledge you are about
to impart comes from a different
source, with the implication that it
was from an authority, giving it
more weight
“It’s easy to go into a deep trance
if you…” implies there is a direct
causality between the next thing
you are going to say and going
into trance
“Go into a deep trance” is an
embedded phrase that works as a
 hypnotic suggestion on its own,
especially if given a subtle tone
marker
“Want it in a certain way” is an
ambiguous descriptor; it is easy to
parse this as “the way I’m feeling
right now” or “a way that I can
feel”

Generalizations, deletions, and distortions

are a “chunk” of these models as a whole,
and are often further chunked down into the
specific language patterns that NLP says to
notice. While we specified the exact verbiage
of the meta model and will do so with the
Milton model as well, it is not strictly
necessary to memorize these patterns in
order to be an effective hypnotist. They
should serve as examples and as a sort of
guide, but it might be more helpful to stay at
a sort of mid-range level and more broadly
think in terms of, “How can I communicate
in a way that causes my partner to process
parts of my speech in different ways? How
can I be ambiguous and cause them to make
assumptions that I’m implying?” This is one
area where the conscious/unconscious mind
metaphor can be very helpful—it is an easy
framework to think in; “Which part of them
would process what, and which parts might
they be processing without thinking about it?
Where am I leading them; what am I
implying?”

Deep Structure/Surface Structure

We talked about NLP’s concept of deep

structure and surface structure in discussion
of the meta model; when we talk, there is
often a lot that is implied (deep structure)
instead of directly said (surface structure).
For example, in the statement, “They went to
the store,” there is an implication that the
person is going from somewhere, that it
happened in the past, and possibly that they
wanted to buy something. The meta model’s
goal is to explicitly clarify the surface
structure and discover the deep structure.
From the perspective of hypnotic language
and the Milton model, NLP says to look at
your suggestions and think about the
implications that you are or are not making in
order to use them to your advantage. One
way to effectively generalize, delete, and
distort information for hypnotic interactions
is to make the surface structure of the
statement vague in a way that allows your
subject to find their own meaning (deep
structure) behind it.
Going back to the concept of ambiguity,
Bandler and Grinder says that ambiguity
happens when one surface structure has
many different interpretations. Almost every
sentence taken out of context has this quality
—“I am going to hypnotize you” could imply
that this is going to happen now or later and
through a variety of methods or taking a
variety of forms. Context can serve to clarify
—perhaps the hypnotist is looking deeply
into the subject’s eyes or is holding a pocket
watch, or they just finished negotiation in
preparation for a scene.

Transderivational Search

As we discussed, the term

“transderivational search” used within the
context of hypnosis comes from NLP—
while colloquially in the hypnokink
community it often refers to the “surprise”
moment during a pattern interrupt, it came
from the Milton model and means something
a little bit different. In this context, it refers
to the theoretical process that happens when
a subject is attempting to find the meaning of
a statement on a conscious or unconscious
level. Essentially, NLP says it is the process
of trying to discern the deep structure of a
statement from its surface structure.
For example, if you say to your partner,
“How deep do you want to go?” they have to
parse on some level that there is a
presupposition that they will go into trance—
NLP says that that internal action is a
transderivational search. They might
consciously realize the implication, or they
might simply make the assumption a part of
their worldview for the interaction (“I’m
going to go into trance”). In hypnokink, we
often get a thrill when someone is
intentionally and consensually using fun
language, and we notice it, so there is an
added bonus there. And of course we can
encourage that kind of reaction in our
partners if they initially find recognition
distracting. We will talk about this idea in
depth in Chapter 8.
 Bandler and Grinder call this a
transformation—the initial surface structure
of the utterance is transformed within the
mind of the listener to glean meaning from it.
We understand in hypnosis that the conscious
process of looking internally is conducive to
trance but it is equally interesting to consider
the unconscious process as useful here. It is
not just a transformation of the message, but
within the model of NLP that sees language
as a likeness of how we view the world, it is a
transformation of perspective and “map.” A
hypnotist suggesting something with
generalization/deletion/distortion such as
“Good bimbos babble their thoughts” causes
the subject to internally restructure in order
to incorporate the meaning of the statement.
“Bimbos” is a generalized statement that the
subject will likely relate to mean themselves,
and in order to be a “good” one (who made
that classification?), they have to perform in a
certain way.

Translating NLP-Speak to Hypnokink

All of this being said, let’s think about

what this means for our hypnokink practice.
We began this part of the book by
emphasizing that almost everything we read
about how hypnosis works is theory, to some
degree, and NLP is (extremely) no exception
to that. Conscious and unconscious mind, the
idea of looking internally or from different
frames of reference, parsing the purported
surface or depths of language in hypnotic
ways. We are brains trying to analyze brains,
and a lot of this we do via subjective practice
and anecdotes. Our ability to do experiments
in any scientific way is limited (so is NLP’s),
and the kind of hypnosis we do as kinksters is
rather distinct from the kind of hypnosis in
which researchers have an interest.
It is important to learn about how NLP
presents its information—even if it does so
haughtily and claims to be objective when it
isn’t—because the hypnokink community is
inundated with it, whether we are aware of it
or not. Being able to identify what came from
where is important when we are trying to
think critically about what matters in
hypnosis. As we strive to be “good
hypnotists,” we should be able to stretch our
worldview to be able to work within lots of
different frameworks—like NLP—while at
the same time understanding that these are
all, effectively, metaphors.
When we break this down and think about
having a good hypnosis scene with a partner,
the most important thing is that we have an
enjoyable, connective, intense experience.
NLP wants to help people, or when it’s
convoluted it wants to manipulate people. We
have to reframe this: We aren’t looking to
“unlock the unconscious” to solve problems,
we are looking to discover the depths of our
partners to fulfil desires.
It is not about taking what NLP says
literally or copying the exact language
patterns that it teaches. Even Bandler and
Grinder say not to replicate Erickson directly
but more so use NLP’s tools to become more
in tune with the way that we naturally talk.37
Frankly, a lot of people who use “NLP” do
so poorly because they sound like a caricature
of Bandler or Erickson. Avoid this trap by
thinking about what you want out of
hypnokink and use your own voice; think
about your intimate language with your
partners and strive to communicate in a way
that is both hypnotic and genuine. NLP
affords us the ability to do this in a less direct
way, but it is not necessarily about being
covert. It is about finding what already exists
in the way that you represent yourself, the
way that you learn about your partner, and
emphasizing that.

Language Patterns

What follows are the language patterns

first identified by the meta model as
generalizations/deletions/distortions but
utilized for hypnotic suggestion as per the
Milton model. The list of Milton model
language patterns is more extensive than
what the meta model puts forth initially, so
we’ve broken this section into two parts: The
inversion of the meta model and the
additions of other linguistic artifacts and
techniques that are added afterwards. Think
of these as examples and ways to analyze
your own speech—many of these small
definitions can be expanded upon extensively.

GENERALIZATIONS

Universal Quantifiers
 Using words like “always” or “every” in
order to imply that there aren’t exceptions to
the statement.

Examples:

“You can always decide whether

you’d like to share parts of your
experience with me.”
“Every time you notice yourself
making the action to pay
attention, it becomes less and less
conscious.”

Modal Operators of Necessity of

Probability

Words such as “must,” “can,” “should,”

“will,” and their inverses, “mustn’t,” “can’t,”
“shouldn’t,” or “won’t” create an assumption
that something is needed or not needed.

Examples:

“You don’t have to do anything

special to feel controlled.”
 “I just need to think about it in
the right way and you
automatically respond.”

DELETIONS

Lack of Referential Index

Generalized groupings such as “they” or

“people” don’t give clarity to who is the topic
of the experience. This is often used to make
the subject identify with the statement in an
indirect way.

Examples:

“A lot of people find that this is a

really effective way to put
someone into trance.”
“Helpless toys tend to lose
themselves in daydreams.”

Comparative Deletion

The quality of something is compared

without identifying what it’s being compared
to, therefore the evaluation happens relative
to what the subject processes.

Examples:

“Are you noticing yourself feeling

weaker?”
“That’s better now, isn’t it?”

Unspecified Verb

The process by which the thing or person

makes an action is unclear—a verb that
doesn’t describe a solidly measurable action.
This causes the subject to fill in the blanks
for themselves.

Examples:

“All you need is a slight shift to

surrender, and your mind can
make that change now.”
“Can you imagine how it will feel
when I finally turn you into a
happy little puppy?”

Nominalization
 This is a noun that doesn’t represent a
physical “thing” and it can’t be, for example,
put in a wheelbarrow. It is abstract; it can’t be
physically touched, standardized, or qualified.
Attempting to process it means the subject
will have to produce qualities that come from
their own internal assumptions or
experiences.

Examples:

“You can feel my control over

you.”
“It’s like a darkness over your
mind, seeping in.”

DISTORTIONS

Mind Reading

Leading statements with “I know” or

otherwise implying you know what someone
is thinking is an example of mind reading.
Keeping this consistent with your knowledge
of the subject and situation makes this so you
don’t have to say how or why you know the
information, but that is also an option.
 Examples:

“I know how badly you want to

go deep for me.”
“It’s obvious that you’re starting
to feel it.”

Lost Performative

A statement about the value of something

is made, but the source of that judgment is
ambiguous. Oftentimes, this can sound
authoritative.

Examples:

“It’s good to obey.”

“We know that it’s easier to enjoy
an experience when we just let
ourselves.”

Cause-Effect

An implication is made that a particular

action or process results in something
specific. We do this via explanation using
connection words like “if/then,” “because,”
“makes,” or “causes.” This is a very
important part of hypnotic language, and
doesn’t have to be objectively true, but is
more effective when they are believable.

Examples:

“Don’t you feel that little thrill

when you look into my eyes?”
“You’re already starting to go into
trance just because you’re letting
my words into your head.”

Complex Equivalence

Words like “means,” “because,” and

“equals” can signify equating two ideas that
don’t necessarily relate to each other. It is
distinct from cause and effect only in that
that is about action or behavior and this is
about concepts, but both are similarly useful
hypnotic tools.

Examples:

“I can see the muscle form

around your eyes softening; you’re
 starting to give in.”
“You’re just a horny pet because
you want to please me so badly.”

Presupposition

One part of a suggestion (in its deep

structure) must be assumed to be true in
order to parse the statement as a whole.
There are lots of different ways that things
can be presupposed, which we will go into in
Chapter 8.

Examples:

“Maybe you aren’t excited because

I haven’t conditioned you into
wanting it yet.”
“As you go a little bit deeper for
me, can you figure out which part
of your mind is going to relax
first?”

OTHER PARTS

Tag Question
 A suggestive statement is turned into a
question by “tagging on” a word or phrase
such as, “right?” or “isn’t it?” This can signal
that you’re looking for a response—verbal or
nonverbal—and serve to further your yes set
or get agreement. This is a very basic look at
a complex and rich technique that we’ll cover
more in Chapter 10.

Examples:

“Feeling all bubbly, aren’t you,

bimbo?”
“It’s so sweet to submit, right?”

Double Bind

Giving a choice where both options are

desirable outcomes, usually in a “this or that”
statement. Often this is combined with
presuppositions so that there is an illusion of
choice while the actual intent of the message
is parsed as true. This is a simplification of
the concept of double binds—we go into
much greater detail in Chapter 9.

Examples:
 “Do you want to go deep into
trance right now, or would you
rather I tease you a little more
first?”
“Maybe my voice makes you
focus more deeply, or maybe it
causes you to fuzz out and lose
yourself.”

Embedded Commands

A suggestion within a suggestion; usually a

phrase that serves a purpose on its own
within another one, often marked by a subtle
change in tone or body language, but not
necessarily. To some degree, this can be
thought of as either the true message of the
statement or an additional one, all wrapped in
packaging.

Examples:

“I love the way you listen to me; it

makes me feel like you’re eager to
surrender to me.”
 “I’m so happy you realized you
want to go deep into trance.”

Conversational Postulate

These are questions that on the surface

appear to necessitate a response but in
human interaction almost never do—they
function as instruction or suggestion instead.

Examples:

“Can you do me a favor and

watch this crystal as I twirl it in
front of your eyes?”
“Do you think you can listen a
little differently so you can hear
my words in a deeper part of
you?”

Extended Quote

This is a technique similar to nested

storytelling in which the hypnotist might talk
about someone and narrate their quote while
the person in the story does the same. It can
be confusing and cause the subject to shift
frames of reference in different ways.

Example:

“I was talking to a friend of mine

about hypnosis, and they said, ‘I
learned an interesting thing about
trance when a hypnotist told me,
“I always tell my subjects that they
can find different kinds of depth
when they shift focus on different
parts of themselves,”’ and so I
always remember that when I
start doing hypnosis.”

Selectional Restriction

When an inanimate object is personified.

Examples:

“Are your eyes getting more and

more obsessed with that spiral?”
“I bet your brain is crying out in
ecstasy at my attention.”
 Factive (Awareness) Predicates

A type of statement that uses the idea of

becoming aware of something to presume
that it is real or the truth.

Examples:

“You must be noticing that your

breathing has changed.”
“Did you realize that I was going
to make you feel so good?”

Chapter Summary

The Milton model is very

expansive and tries to codify how
to do hypnosis through analyzing
how subjects might be processing
as well as how language might be
hypnotic
It both builds upon and reflects
the meta model—it utilizes the
same ideas of understanding a
person’s worldview, but gets there
the opposite way
It emphasizes generalizing,
deleting, and distorting
information, which it says causes
a person to transform the
information and find their own
deep structure of it
This search for meaning can be
called a “transderivational search,”
which NLP says happens often
when a subject needs to parse a
suggestion, and it is naturally
hypnotic
There are a number of language
patterns that are supposed to be
effective for hypnotic language,
many of which are the meta
model patterns, but used
purposefully
 PART THREE:
FURTHER
APPLICATIONS,
TECHNIQUES, AND
GOING IN DEPTH
 CHAPTER 8:
PRESUPPOSITIONS
There are a number of language tricks that
NLP outlines in its Milton model—the
patterns that it asserts Erickson used in his
hypnosis. Presuppositions are one of the
most well-known and well-used examples,
both in NLP and hypnosis as a whole—we
discussed them briefly in Chapter 7. Let’s
take a look at what a presupposition is, how it
can be used, and how to find ways to get into
good language patterns to take advantage of
them in our play.

What Is a Presupposition?
 A presupposition in its most base
definition is the concept that within some
utterances, a part of the statement must be
assumed to be true in order to parse the
statement as a whole. For example, if
someone says, “Some of my cats are very
affectionate,” it is presupposed that the
speaker owns cats—this wouldn’t make any
sense if we didn’t accept that. A classic
hypnotic example might be something like,
“Do you think it will feel good when you go
into trance?” The obvious presupposition
here is that trance is going to happen at some
point.
We use presuppositions all the time
conversationally. NLP tries to make this very
clear, especially in its discussion of them in
the meta model, where it says that
presuppositions can be a sign of obscured
information that could be recovered. Like
with other meta model patterns, we do know
this isn’t always the case—we rely on certain
information being assumed in order to
communicate effectively and cleanly in
conversation.
Used within the context of hypnotizing
someone (as the Milton model would say),
presuppositions are very fun. They can get a
subject to implicitly buy into an idea because
of the way that it is packaged, and sometimes
without even realizing what they are buying
into. Presuppositions, used in suggestion,
often are created in such a way that they
downplay the information being
presupposed, although this doesn’t have to be
the case. We will explore our options.

Deep Structure/Surface Structure

NLP specifically addresses presuppositions

within the context of its deep/surface
structure model. It says that the surface
structure of the utterance—what is literally
being said—carries assumptions on a deeper
level, which might be deleted, distorted, or
generalized because of the way the statement
is phrased. The “deep structure” of the
statement “I am going to deeply hypnotize
you” contains information like there being
different levels of hypnosis, the existence of
both partners, a question of how or when it
will happen, intention, and more. Usually, we
have talked about this in the context of
clarifying this information, but let’s think
about how this applies within a specifically
intentional setting.
When we are talking to one another, we
process speech on a number of different
levels. Sometimes we are thinking consciously
and critically about what the other person is
saying, while other times we are forming
thoughts and opinions unconsciously—
without being aware of it. The surface/deep
structure model is not an extremely scientific
one, but it can be a helpful idea of some of
the aspects of this processing. If a hypnotist
says to us, “Isn’t it interesting how you relax
even before you go into trance?” we hear the
surface words and then on some level we
have to process meaning from them.
We know that this kind of processing can
be a hypnotic act, whether we are doing it
purposefully or automatically. This is
somewhat the basis of how suggestive
language works. Perhaps we take the word
“interesting” and consider the implications:
Do we find our response of relaxation
interesting? Does the hypnotist? What does
that mean? Do we take the idea of relaxation
at face value, and our processing leads us to
manifesting that response or the experience
of simply “noticing” parts of our body and
evaluating the relaxation? Do we consciously
understand the implication of going into
trance? Does the mention of it cause us to go
internally and look for signs, or do we take it
at face value and find ourselves more “ready,”
and what does that entail?
One way of conceptualizing all of this is
thinking about the “transformation” between
the surface structure and deep structure as an
opportunity for hypnosis. A presupposition is
one of these kinds of shifts; the listener may
consciously hear or not hear the implication,
but will arrive at some sort of conclusion
about it. We will talk about how this
practically applies especially within erotic
hypnosis a little further in.

Forms of Presuppositions

Let’s get right into what kinds of language

makes a presupposition. It is a little difficult
to codify exactly what a presupposition can
be in terms of sheer word choice just because
presuppositions are often context-based, but
there are a few ways that we can break this
down. This section references but
simplifies/reorganizes content from the
appendix in Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of
Milton H. Erickson, M.D., Vol. I by Bandler
and Grinder.

EXISTENCE-BASED (SIMPLE)

On a basic level, language that implies the

existence of someone, something, or some
action is said to presuppose that existence.

Names
“Sleepingirl wrote that hypnosis
is really hot.”
A person named sleepingirl
exists.

Pronouns: he, him, they, them,

she, her, etc.
“I saw them go into deep
trance.”
There exists a person who
uses she/her pronouns.

Descriptors: my partner, the

woman with the glasses, etc.
 “My friend told me that to
them, trance feels a little floaty.”
There is a friend that exists.

Nouns
“I like pocket watches that tick
loudly.”
Pocket watches exist.

Quantifiers: some, each, every,

few, etc.
“Some of the responses you are
having might seem new to you.”
The responses exist.

TIME-BASED

Presuppositions that have to do with time

are some of the most common forms we see
in hypnosis, and one of the easiest ways to
conceptualize using them.

Subordinate clauses of time:

before, after, when, during, while,
as, etc.
“You don’t have to do anything
specific at all while you go into
 trance.”
Trance is happening/going
to happen.

Change of time verbs/adverbs:

start, continue, begin, end, stop,
yet, still, anymore, etc.
“I wonder if you can just
continue to give in as I take
more control of your mind…”
Giving in is already
happening.

Cleft sentences: it is <x> that…

it was <x> that…
“It’s the way your body
responds to me that makes you
really crazy.”
Their body is somehow
responding.

Ordinal markers: first, second,

lastly, etc.
“The last thing you have to do
is think to yourself, ‘yes, I want
this...’”
 Everything else has already
been done.

Repetitive cue words: again,

also, too, etc.
“Are you going to feel that little
switch again, the one that flips
you off ?”
The switch has happened
before.

Repetitive verbs/adverbs:
return, repeat, restore, etc.
“Do you hear my words
repeating in your cute little
head?”
The words have been
happening

QUALITY-BASED

Lastly, there are presuppositions that have

to do with the qualities of something,
whether remarking on them or observing
them in some way that leads the listener to
make assumptions about the statement.
Relative clauses: <x> that
<y>... <x> who <y>... etc
“Lots of the feelings that you
are getting are just simple signs
of deep trance.”
The feelings exist.

Comparatives: more, less, -er,

etc.
“Do you think you’re even more
suggestible now?”
They were suggestible
before.

Comparative as: as <x> as…

“If it’s as easy as putting you
into trance, I’m sure we’ll have
no problem wiping your brain all
clean.”
It was easy to put them into
trance.

Qualifiers: only, just, except, etc.

“Do you think anyone can
control you this easily, or just
me?”
You can control them easily.
Change of place verbs: come,
go, left, arrived, etc.
“Your thoughts have left the part
of your brain that processes them
consciously.”
The thoughts used to be in
a “place” that was a part of
normal processing.

Change of state verbs/adverbs:

transform, changed, become, etc.
“Are you turning into someone
who can’t help themselves?”
They weren’t previously
that kind of person.

Awareness adjectives/adverbs:
realize, notice, aware, etc.
“Did you notice the way that
your muscles let go as soon as I
even hinted at you relaxing?”
The muscles relaxed.

Commentary
adjectives/adverbs: interesting,
 happily, slowly, easy, etc.
“I find it so fascinating how you
eagerly obey me.”
They are obeying.

Using Presuppositions in Hypnosis

One of the most oft-cited ways that

presuppositions are said to be useful is in the
way that they are difficult to “disagree” with
or invalidate. When we think of this purely
from the perspective of language, we can see
how this is true in the way that
presuppositions are sort of layered
underneath a statement. For example, the
suggestion “Are you thinking about which
part of you will go into trance first?” contains
a few different layers: There is a question of
awareness (the primary focus), a
presupposition that trance will be felt in
stages or parts, and a presupposition that
trance is going to happen. Answering “yes”
or “no” to the question does not invalidate
the presupposition of trance. In order to
“disagree” or refute that, the subject would
need to parse the suggestion as a whole and
then break conversational convention by not
answering the question that’s being asked.
This is certainly a useful element, but it’s
important that just like with other language
patterns or hedging, we remember that the
basic gut feeling someone has about our
suggestions is very important and ties into
the idea that hypnosis as a whole is all about
the “yes set.” We want that internal
evaluation of our suggestions to be
something that our subject feels is congruent
to their experience. If there is a part of them
that responds internally like, “Wait, I’m not
going to go into trance,” it doesn’t necessarily
matter if they feel like they can (politely)
verbally refute it.
So, the above example would likely be
most effective when the subject is expecting
trance on some level, or open to the
possibility of it. In this way, we can connect
presuppositions with the idea of pacing and
leading—we want to “pace” our partners by
providing suggestions that track with their
experience (at first, and consistently
throughout) as we also “lead.” Suggestions
with presuppositions often have the quality
of being misdirective—as with the above
example, the presupposition of trance
happening is somewhat obscured by the
overarching question: “Are you thinking
about this?” However, it’s important that we
as the hypnotist consider it as part of our
pacing. We want the presuppositions,
however hidden or plain they might be, to
also yield a response from the subject that
they feel like it makes sense and is plausible
or consistent with what they are expecting or
experiencing. In this way, context is very
important.

How to Think About Presuppositions

It is certainly helpful to list out all of the

different linguistic forms of presuppositions
to be able to get a handle on how they look
and sound in speech. But we don’t necessarily
want to go through hypnosis thinking about
the minutiae of language we are using to
mess with our partners. So, while becoming
familiar with each specific pattern can be
helpful, there are other methods we can use
to become more fluent with presuppositions
as a whole.
 One of the best things to do with any
language pattern is to learn how to look for
them in normal speech—whether looking for
them in the way that you naturally talk or the
way that others talk to you. Even in writing,
like this book. It’s a great exercise to listen or
read and try to identify what is being said.
You don’t have to perfectly fit sentences into
their exact word patterns, but thinking about
the three basic categories we outlined—
presupposing through existence of
something, timing, or quality—might be a
way that you can wrap your mind around
recognizing where these patterns arise.
Similarly, when you are speaking
hypnotically to your partner, this is what you
can keep in mind. Think about the layers of
what you are communicating—for example,
if you are trying to make suggestions of
arousal to someone, you have options of how
to structure that. The “arousal” is the
underlying message you want to get through.
You could “package” it through assumed
existence (“You can feel some of that
arousal”), a matter of timing, (“Before you
feel arousal” or “How that arousal starts to
flood your mind”), or question of awareness
or quality (“Do you notice the arousal” or
“That insistent arousal”).
We talked briefly about how
presuppositions are sometimes about
misdirection. In all of these cases, you can see
that there is that quality of misdirection when
the presupposition is applied. It is sort of like
taking the emphasis or attention away from
the actual message of the suggestion and
moving it to all of the things that might be
surrounding the suggestion. Perhaps the
actual message is “You will feel arousal,”
which is a perfectly legitimate hypnotic
suggestion. But when we presuppose that,
that message is no longer the focal point. So
when you are giving a suggestion or listening
for presuppositions in language, it can also be
helpful to pay attention to where the actual
emphasis is and where your or their attention
is directed in a statement.
One last note to make is that
presuppositions are often exactly what we
expect when we are keyed into listening for
“sneaky hypnotic language.” This means that
they can be easy to spot, especially when they
are being used in a very traditional hypnotic
way or setting. This is not a deal-breaker or
bad by any means, and we will talk about that.
But if you want your presuppositions to
sound more conversational or natural, one of
the best things you can do is learn how you
use them in your everyday speech. This goes
for all conversational hypnosis; it’s not that
there is a prescribed way of speaking
hypnotically that makes it “conversational”;
the most effective method is simply to have
your hypnosis sound more like your normal
speaking. Becoming aware of the way that
you personally use presuppositions during a
regular conversation will key you in to how
you can use them most naturally during
hypnosis.

Non-Sneaky Presuppositions

NLP talks a lot about presuppositions as

something that clients or listeners are often
unaware of—and that is usually something
that is emphasized, whether in
recommendation of delivery or discussion of
how the language pattern functions.
However, within hypnokink, we are in a
unique position where oftentimes our
partners easily recognize hypnotic language.
This could be because we encourage subjects
to learn just as hypnotists do, or because they
are looking for it, or simply because it is a
“know it when you hear it” kind of thing.
Does this mean that presuppositions lose
their potency with a knowing subject? Of
course not. However, it is helpful to
sometimes move away from the assumption
that presuppositions must be covert. Much of
the time, especially with hypnokinksters,
many subjects will get excited by hearing
“sneaky hypnotic language”—it’s a part of
the fantasy and trope.
Many of us are familiar with the bright
smile our partners get when we tag on a
“...yet” at the end of a tease. This is one way
to think about how we can take advantage of
the expectation of a presupposition. It is
flirty; it is nuanced based on our shared
grammar. It is recognition that our partners
speak the same language that we do and that
we are able to celebrate that with them. Some
subjects may be frustrated occasionally that
they “see it coming,” and this is something
you can work with them on; reframing it as
an opportunity for connection, or as a time
for their brain to even hyperfocus and get
stuck in loops about the language might be
fun.
As opposed to obscuring the presupposed
information, as we’ve been talking about, you
can also emphasize it. This is something you
can do nonverbally; changing your tone,
creating pauses that highlight what you are
saying, or using touch to mark the
importance of something. You can also do
this explicitly verbally as well—pointing out
to someone the nuance in what you said as a
way to get them to focus on it can be very
effective. A simple, “Did you notice the fun
language I’m using to get your brain all
excited?” can do wonders; you can even
explain exactly how it works (or how you
want it to work) in order to get them to buy
into your suggestions. “So nice that I said
‘when,’ isn’t it? So you immediately focus on
anticipating, on knowing that that makes your
mind go into a specific pattern of waiting and
accepting?”
Certainly, this changes the way that
someone processes. Now, the usually
attention shift occurs, but the presupposition
is to where the subject is being directed, as
opposed to a presupposition that diverts
attention away from its deep structure.
Perhaps in some situations, that actually
makes other parts of the suggestion
obscured, or perhaps it causes them to
hyperfixate on the whole thing. Or something
else. It’s a great opportunity to pay attention
to how someone responds and use their own
brains “against” them.

Compound Presuppositions and

Suggestions in the Milton Model

Presuppositions don’t have to be singular

—after all, hypnotic patter is rarely simplistic
or formulaic, and focusing exclusively on one
language pattern is not indicative of how
hypnotic language works in practice. Bandler
and Grinder also note that when Erickson
used them, he would often stack many on top
of one another. They have said things like,
“This is to confuse the conscious mind,” and
that is one way to conceptualize it, albeit a
metaphorical explanation. We could think
about it as a sort of shotgun approach,
sometimes relying on our partners to pick up
on parts of the suggestion but not others.
None of these are perfect examples of how
presuppositions work in hypnotic language,
but it’s OK to use them as metaphors as long
as they aren’t limiting or taken as universal
fact.
And of course, presuppositions don’t
happen in a vacuum. It may be helpful to
close this chapter by looking at an example of
a suggestion and take apart what we see in it.
Take the example, “When you finally realize
that you’re slowly, helplessly turning into a
doll, it’s because of that part of you that is
accepting my words just right…” Clearly,
there is a lot going on here. Let’s examine it.

“When you finally realize”

presupposes that realization will
happen
“Realize” presupposes that
becoming a doll is happening, the
only question is the subject’s
awareness of it
“Slowly, helplessly” give a
commentary of quality to the
presupposition that
transformation is happening
“Turning into a doll” presupposes
that there is change (they were not
 a doll before)
“That part of you that is accepting”
presupposes existence of a
specific part of them for this
suggestion

That is certainly a significant amount of

presupposing happening, and that may not
even be all of it. But there is even more in
this suggestion as well, linguistic patterns that
the Milton model describes.

“When you finally realize… it’s

because” is a cause and effect
pattern; it’s implied that one thing
begets another
“Part of you” is a nominalization;
there is no actual, objective part
of a person that does what is
being described
“Accepting my words” is an
unspecified verb; it doesn’t
describe a distinct, concrete action

And even more, there is a lot of ambiguity

in this suggestion as we have described
previously, in order to best cover our bases
and create a statement that is easy with which
to identify.

“That part of you” does not specify

which part; it leaves it open to
interpretation
“Accepting my words just right” does
not describe how this is
happening, just that it is
happening in the “right” way

All of this commentary within a

suggestion. To some degree, this is
representative of NLP; NLP aims to break
down the communication that we use and the
suggestions that we give to a lot of specific
moving parts. Sometimes, this is needlessly
complex theorizing about what goes into
hypnotic language. Others, it is helpful
introspection. There should be no rules
about how to conceptualize what makes up a
suggestion; more so, you should take the
techniques that are helpful and make sense to
you.

Chapter Summary
A presupposition is a statement or
question that contains assumed
information within it
NLP talks about presuppositions
in its deep/surface structure
model, where the information in
the utterance is contained under
the surface
Presuppositions are especially
helpful when pacing and leading
someone—where the assumed
information is already congruent
with their experience
You can conceptualize
presuppositions as a sort of
Trojan horse, or misdirection,
where you are directing someone’s
focus to a certain part of a
suggestion
In hypnokink, it’s helpful to
understand that presuppositions
can benefit from being overt,
because it’s hot to pick up on
hypnotic language patterns (and
many subjects will)
Many suggestions are made up of
presuppositions that are
compounded with other language
patterns
 CHAPTER 9: DOUBLE
BINDS
Many are familiar with the concept of
“double binds” either inside or outside of the
hypnosis world—even if not by name. There
is the well-known example of something like,
“Would you like to do this now, or later?”
which highlights one aspect of double binds
—creating the illusion of choice between two
options while underplaying any others.
However, as we’ll explore, double binds and
binds in general are both more complex and
more broad than is described by a "this or
that" sentence. In this chapter, we’ll aim to
explore double binds in depth—including
their origins, the various perspectives on their
applications, and examples of how to be
versatile with them—to further our use of
them as hypnokinksters.

Who?

Gregory Bateson was the first person to

introduce the idea of a double bind while
investigating language and communication in
patients with schizophrenia. (He did this
along with colleagues such as Jay Haley,
author of Uncommon Therapy: The Psychiatric
Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D. (1973).)
What they theorized in their paper, Toward a
Theory of Schizophrenia (1956) was that
schizophrenic individuals have a difficult time
discerning choice both inside and outside of
situations involving double binds, and that
double binds occur frequently in the family
environment of a schizophrenic patient,
potentially contributing to the development
of the disorder. Also in the paper was
extensive discussion of the “ingredients” of
double binds, according to the authors—
including conversation of Erickson’s
therapeutic use of them, how people tend to
respond in various scenarios, and the
framework of communication that they fit
into.
As we’ve learned throughout the course of
this book, while NLP is a goldmine of history
and good referential leads, it has an
unfortunate (and ironic) habit of distorting
the information and terms that it borrows.
The double binds of NLP, for example, differ
from the double binds that Bateson and
colleagues described, and in the hypnokink
world we take blindly from both sources and
synthesize into something new.

Ingredients of Double Binds

To fully be able to utilize double binds, we

must move past the model of them as simple
“this or that” phrases. Let’s discuss them
broadly to understand how they apply in both
everyday situations as well as hypnotically. We
will compare and contrast “Bateson double
binds” with “NLP double binds.”

Bateson Double Bind

A double bind according to Bateson is

essentially similar to putting someone in a
situation where they are “stuck between a
rock and a hard place.” For example, when
someone is showing affection, and the
recipient responds negatively with words or
body language, but at the same time
encourages them to engage further. The
person is in a quandary where they’ve
received contradictory messages and is
unsure what the correct course of action is.

According to Bateson, double binds:

Require two or more people, one

of whom is being acted upon by
the other(s) who somehow have
influence, authority, or superiority
over the subject
A classic example is parent
to child, but even child to
parent is possible if the
parent feels like they do not
have control or authority
over the situation

Often give a not-unfamiliar

experience of being stuck in a
dilemma, especially in the case of
them being problematic
Bateson places high value
on the idea that in the
context of someone’s life,
the double bind is not a
single experience and thus
can’t be resolved as such;
the person experiences the
feeling of being stuck as
patterns or habits

Have a “primary injunction”:

They create a sense that there is a
“right” thing to do, and if the
subject doesn’t perform, they will
be “punished” (whether verbally,
by withdrawal of attention,
cultural stigma, etc)
This is often cited as having
two possibilities: “Don’t do
this, or I’ll punish you” and
“If you don’t do this, I’ll
punish you”—perhaps an
example might be a boss
telling an employee that
they need to finish a project
 by the end of the day; the
punishment if they don’t is
implied

Have a “secondary” and

sometimes “tertiary injunction”:
Conflicting with the initial
message, they create a sense that
even if they fulfil the original
requirements of the situation,
there is no way to do it that
doesn’t also fail some other aspect
of it
Continuing the above
example, the boss gives the
employee extra work and
expresses something like,
“This isn’t punishment, it’s
acknowledgment of your
skill”—the employee may
be overworked, but the only
way to avoid more work is
to go against the initial
premise of “Do the work or
you will be punished”
May exist outside the scope of
these clear guidelines if the
subject often feels like their world
is full of double binds and “no-
win” scenarios
Bateson describes part of
this in terms of the
relationship between people
—there is an “important”
relationship that the subject
doesn’t want to jeopardize
and simultaneously feels
unable to communicate on
the paradoxical or
uncomfortable nature of
the situation or messages

May differ from the exact feeling

of being “stuck between a rock
and a hard place” in that the
subject may have difficulty
discerning the nature of the bind
or what is preventing them from
acting
For example, in a situation
where there is an unspoken
rule not to question a
 parent, and the child
witnesses a parent doing
something wrong, the child
may feel paralyzed but not
understand why

Certainly, Bateson’s focus is on double

binds that impede the individual in some way,
and this description of binds might be new to
those of us that only are familiar with binds
from a hypnotic background. In Bateson’s
binds, as well, the entire scenario and
environment that exists is a large focus to
how the bind works—circumstantial double
binds, or double binds where the
“injunctions” (conflicts) are entirely
nonverbal.
But Bateson does talk about double binds
in a therapeutic context, in fact referencing
Milton Erickson and hypnosis.

“Another Erickson experiment (12) seems to

isolate a double bind communicational sequence
without the specific use of hypnosis. Erickson
arranged a seminar so as to have a young chain
smoker sit next to him and to be without cigarettes;
other participants were briefed on what to do. All was
ordered so that Erickson repeatedly turned to offer
the young man a cigarette but was always interrupted
by a question from someone so that he turned away
"inadvertently" withdrawing the cigarettes from the
young man's reach. Later another participant asked
this young man if he had received the cigarette from
Dr. Erickson. He replied, "What cigarette?",
showed clearly that he had forgotten the whole
sequence, and even refused a cigarette offered by
another member, saying that he was too interested in
the seminar discussion to smoke. This young man
seems to us to be in an experimental situation
paralleling the schizophrenic's double bind situation
with mother: An important relationship,
contradictory messages (here of giving and taking
away), and comment blocked--because there was a
seminar going on, and anyway it was all
"inadvertent." And note the similar outcome:
Amnesia for the double bind sequence and reversal
from "He doesn't give" to "I don't want."”38

The situation in this case is considered by

Bateson and colleagues to be a double bind,
as the necessary ingredients are present and
the scenario itself creates the bind. There is
another interesting comment as well, that the
“amnesia” is a somewhat expected response.
What Bateson is referring to here is the way
that people may deal with feeling bound—
not necessarily literal loss of memory, but
change in perception of the event. The
subject of a double bind is often mentally
struggling to parse the situation, which may
manifest in a variety of different ways,
depending on their perspective and how
aware they are of all of the aspects of the
bind. The specific feeling of being trapped
seems to be the hallmark of binds, in
Bateson’s theory—that is what he and his
colleagues were studying.
Bateson says this is a non-hypnotic
example, but it is interesting to think about
whether Erickson would agree with that
assessment, or if we as hypnokinksters would,
considering our broad perspective on mind
play in general. We only have Bateson’s
account here, but perhaps it is worth
investigating about what it means to feel
“stuck” in a situation that is hard to discern,
rolling something over in one’s mind,
changing focus between internal and external
—all very hypnotic patterns. But while this is
something we’ll explore more in depth, this is
not really the kind of double bind we’re
familiar with from the hypnosis world—so
let’s dive into where that version of them
really comes from: NLP.

NLP Double Bind

NLP is very much interested in linguistics,

and this shows in its adaptation of the
concept of double binds. We’ve seen this pop
up in its discussion of language patterns—
NLP tries to distill double binds into
something that can be created with specific
sets of words. They still operate on a similar
principle—creating a dilemma where
someone feels like they have limited options
—but are heavily predicated on
presuppositions. For example, a hypnotist
might say something like, “Do you want to
go into the deepest trance by looking at my
eyes, or focusing on my pocket watch?” The
presupposition creates an illusion that there
are only two choices, and trance is implied.

According to NLP, double binds:

Are often a question, using the

word “or”
 “Are you ready to go
deeper, or are you ready for
something more intense?”

Offer a real or perceived choice

between two options while
explicitly downplaying or not
mentioning any others
“Would you like to talk
about this now, or after
dinner?”—no choice
offered to not have the
conversation, or have it on
a later day

Have potential to be rejected if

they are not true binds
The subject may see other
options and choose to
circumvent the original
offer—in the previous
example, “Can it wait until
tomorrow?”

Often are meant to facilitate one

outcome chosen by the operator,
even though the subject is
apparently given a choice
“Do you want a quick
trance or a long trance?”—
the outcome is that trance is
going to happen in both
cases

Can be “unconscious” or
ambiguous—framed in such a
way that the answer to the
question is not truly consciously
answerable
“I wonder if your feet will
go into trance before your
head, or vice versa…”—
this can be emphasized by
changing the perspective of
the sentence, “I” vs “you,”
“I wonder...” vs “Do you
think...” or other verbal
markers such as “Who
knows if…”

Often are composed with other

aspects of the Milton model
 “You’ll be a great subject if
you listen really carefully, or
if you let my suggestions
float in unnoticed…”—the
use of “if/then” is
indicative of causal
thinking, which is a
standard part of the Milton
model, as well as
presuppositions

Here we see the common habit of NLP:

Borrowing a term and concept from
psychology and distorting it. Sometimes this
sort-of-infamous NLP distortion renders the
result useless, but there are certainly cases
(such as this one) where the theory and
practice that comes of it is worth thinking
about, understanding, and finding ways to
use. This is the “double bind” that most of us
are familiar with—a single expression ranging
from simple to complex that attempts to
garner one outcome through the false
offering of choice. We know now that this is
distinct from Bateson’s binds, in many ways,
with a notable exception in that both Bateson
and NLP reference Milton Erickson as being
skilled with binds in general. We will
compare, contrast, and attempt to reconcile
the two, but first let’s talk a little more about
NLP binds in hypnosis.
The term “double bind” seems to beg the
question, “Are there other forms of binds?”
The answer is yes. The classic example,
“Would you like to go into trance now, or
later?” is a double bind. If we remove one of
the options, we’re left with, “Would you like
to go into trance now?” This is a theoretical
“single” bind, because upon the subject
responding positively, they’ve “bound”
themselves to a course of action or thought.
Oftentimes, binds overlap with other NLP
artifacts, such as being part of a “yes set” or
being part of Milton model language patterns.
For example, “Do you think that going
deeper into trance like you are right now
means that I’m weakening your will?” binds a
“yes” response to the cause/effect of them
subjectively feeling more submissive or
controlled by you. Of course, we can add
options as well, and come up with a “triple”
or “quadruple” bind—“Would you like to go
into trance now, or later—or would you like
me to choose?”
 NLP binds are about having a general goal
in mind and being able to break it down into
multiple scenarios to offer that lead to that
goal. If the goal is to get someone to go into
trance, you can think about the various
aspects of that situation—what position they
can be in (“Would you prefer going deep
sitting up or laying down?”), when it’s going
to happen (“...immediately or in a
moment?”), parts of their body (“...eyes open
or closed?”; “...hands in your lap or hanging
down?”), what else is involved (“...staring at a
watch or a spiral?”), how they are feeling
(“...excited or pleasantly nervous?”;
“...aroused or too deep to be turned on?”),
what they are thinking about (“...focused on
my voice or my eyes?”; “...listening harder
with your left ear or your right ear?”), and
many, many other options that have to do
with all of the different variables. This could
be about the environment, who is involved,
what you’re doing, and much more.

Compare, Contrast, Reconcile

(Applications)
 In this section, we’ll take what we’ve
learned about these two distinct types of
binds and see where they are similar, where
they differ, and where they can be spliced.

Choice/No Choice

One of the major differences between

these two forms of double binds is that in
Bateson’s, the sense of being trapped is
important to the bind itself, while NLP
seems to emphasize an aspect of sneakiness
—you don’t necessarily want the subject to
know there are other options, if there are any,
and the goal is for the subject to feel like they
are making a choice themselves. But an NLP
bind can also be a Bateson bind. For
example, in a situation where a hypnotist asks
a subject, “Are you ready for me to fuck up
your mind, now, or do you need a break?”
and the subject blushingly responds that now
is good, but the hypnotist does not
immediately signal to them that they are
doing hypnosis. The subject is left unsure—is
hypnosis happening, or not? Likely they don’t
want to ask to clarify or push. This leads to a
variety of possible responses—perhaps the
feeling of hypnosis becomes ambiguous, and
the act of the subject continuously checking
internally and wondering if trance has
happened becomes hypnotic. The sneaky
hypnotist can take advantage of this.
This feeling of being trapped in paradox is
evident in the reverse of this as well—the
common trope of the hypnotist saying,
“Don’t go into trance…” while swinging a
pocket watch or otherwise signaling trance.
The subject is unsure how to respond. In
hypnokink, there should never be the risk of
real punishment or disappointment from a
dilemma like this, so it is more of a playful
version of Bateson’s bind than a true version
of one, but it is one that we can explore. Any
situation where you create incongruent
messages and expectations fits—trying to get
a bimbo to act smart, a scenario where the
subject is told not to orgasm but it’s unclear
what the “punishment” would be for
disobeying, or telling someone that it’s
dangerous to brainwash themselves but
rewarding each step in that direction.
You can conceptualize it like this: A
Bateson bind is a scenario where there is no
perceived correct response, and an NLP bind
is a scenario where all perceived responses
are correct. Once we understand the
usefulness of both, we can freely intermingle
and make decisions about which to choose.

Implications

Another place that we can marry the two

effectively is taking into account Bateson’s
focus on the personal history, environment,
and mindset of the subject as essential to a
double bind. In many of his examples, the
bind comes partially as a product of these
things—in a scenario of a potentially
unhealthy relationship, one partner may
express to the other, “If you loved me, I
wouldn’t have to ask you to do this.” This is a
classic Bateson double bind—the partner
clearly must do the thing they are being asked
to do, but by doing so, they fulfil the
conditions that the first partner laid out as
meaning that they don’t love them. Perhaps,
in this case, there is a history of the first
partner asking for certain things to be done
—they themselves are in a pattern where they
expect the second partner to never follow
through, thus never giving them a chance to
“prove them wrong.” This unspoken part of
the bind that exists—as well as any others,
such as the theoretical second partner’s
childhood being filled with nagging parents
—is just as important as the verbal
construction of the bind.
We can apply this knowledge to the NLP
(and erotic/healthy) double bind by reducing
the verbal aspects of binds, and leave them
implied. For example, in the case of two
partners on a video call together with limited
time, the hypnotist may allude to the fact that
they are going to do trance (“Well, got to
fuck your shit up at some point…”) which
leaves the subject to wonder when it’s going
to happen. (As discussed previously, not
immediately acting upon the statement or
changing the subject away from trance can
create the Bateson bind.) The hypnotist may
ask, “How badly do you want it?” which
presupposes that there is a desire as well as
urgency. The “hidden” option is the response
of “I don’t want it,” which is not explicitly
downplayed, but considering the context
(unless the subject is going for bratty) the
answer will usually be somewhere on the
scale from “kind of badly” to “really badly.”
 The Hypnokink Bind

There is a sort of third perspective on

double binds here—the perspective of us as
erotic hypnotists, where we almost expect our
partners to understand when we are binding
them, because that’s part of the fun. Not
every hypnokinky subject at every time will
key into when a bind is happening, but many
will recognize the classic NLP pattern, and
this is something we need to keep in mind as
hypnotists. Often, we’re able to tell by their
response, whether it’s a knowing smile or a
furrowing brow. The bind in this case
becomes fully voluntary—it is no less of a
“bind,” but we should examine our
motivations for using them and how we can
adapt to a situation where a bind is fully
informed and consented to, even appreciated.
In the case of a subject who knows the
bind is happening, perhaps one option is to
bind even more fully. Continuing the
example, instead of simply saying, “Would
you like to go into trance now, or later?” we
could say something like, “Do you think your
desire to go into trance affects whether you
notice it happening immediately, or in a little
while, or even if it slips past your awareness?”
A few things are at play here. There is a meta-
question about the real question—a “yes” or
“no” response to whether they think their
desire matters doesn’t affect the
presupposition that trance is going to
happen. In fact, this presupposition isn’t
challenged even by the subject wondering
about noticing or not noticing anymore.
Whichever response they have—feeling
trance now, feeling trance later, or not feeling
trance at all—is covered by the original
question. There may even be some confusion
and struggling to parse, which fits inside the
Bateson bind: Stuck between various options,
especially for someone who is trying to
analyze, not sure if there is a “right” answer,
and the feeling that they’re unable to properly
challenge it as it happens.
Depending on the situation—if this is a
verbal back-and-forth, or if the subject is not
verbally responsive in trance—there are
options to continue the bind as suggestive
patter (“...And I don’t know what’s going to
happen, but I enjoy wondering about it, and
maybe you’d like to enjoy wondering with me,
going back and forth with just easy curiosity
about how you will respond to trance this
time and how your internal thoughts affect
it…”) or even to bind further, adding in more
restrictions and “steering” the subject how
you’d like them to go (“...You should decide:
Is it important to you to consider this, or is it
something that you can just let go of ?”)

Collapsing the Bind

There is a final aspect to binds that we

must consider as something useful—what
happens if or when the bind is released? In
the case of the subject being unsure if they
are supposed to be in trance or not, the
clarity of the hypnotist explicitly releasing the
bind is something that we universally know is
freeing. Think about similar examples in
hypnosis—“confusion” or “overload”
inductions such as the 7+/-2 are popular
because of the contrast between the subject’s
mind racing and the sudden, clear instruction.
Similarly, this applies to both NLP binds
and Bateson binds. In a Bateson bind, it’s
especially clear; the paralysis and paradox is
the nature of the bind. In NLP, we have to
analyze the situation a little more. When
giving options, such as, “Do you think you’ll
be completely mindless, or keep enough of
yourself to watch your own brain fade away?”
we can think about how to create a sense of
punctuation or closure with it. It is perfectly
fine as-is, but it allows us a choice to move
from ambiguous to clear. This could certainly
be as simple as saying, “I think you’ll go back
and forth, feeling your own consciousness
slip through your fingers…” which shifts
focus from the subject wondering internally
to the clear instructions of the hypnotist. It
breaks the bind, not necessarily by choosing
one option or the other (although that is
certainly an option) but by building upon it
while moving to a space where the hypnotist
calls the shots.
The other aspect to this is about timing. In
kink, we can talk about the format of a scene
as a series of peaks and valleys, and the
motivation of us as intimate partners to seek
climactic moments and be aware of the flow
of play. Collapsing a bind can certainly be a
climactic moment such as this—it can be the
induction of trance, the change between focal
points, the gaining of permission for
something, or more. We should always be
attentive to how to build tension and
enjoyment, looking for these peaks and
valleys in the body language and verbal
language of our partners. If we see our
partner struggling with paradox, for example,
unsure of whether or not they are in trance,
we can purposefully add to it (perhaps by
goading, “Are you, or aren’t you? Hmm?”)
and watch carefully—does their breathing
change, is there a moment where they look
like they may crack? Perhaps one option to
build and peak is by snapping your fingers to
bring them out, so they have an intense
moment of, “Oh, I must have been—and oh,
I wish I still was --” and then almost
immediately dropping them back down.

Chapter Summary

Gregory Bateson introduced the

idea of double binds in his work
on schizophrenia, which differ
heavily from the version that NLP
made popular
Bateson’s double binds are
descriptive of a quandary where a
person feels trapped between two
options in an unwinnable
situation
NLP’s double binds are more
specifically verbal, where two
options are presented to a listener
and other options seem hidden
Binds used in hypnokink can take
aspects from both, but also can
benefit from being non-covert,
since our partners often recognize
stereotypical hypnotic language
You can add punctuation to a
bind by eventually offering clear
instruction that takes the burden
of choice off of the subject
 CHAPTER 10: TAG
QUESTIONS
Another of the most commonly adapted
techniques from the Milton model is the idea
of “tag questions”—turning a suggestive
statement into a question. We as hypnotists
often do this intuitively, whether we are
parroting it from others or it is a natural
affect of the way that we talk. But why do we
do this, or rather, why do we say this is an
effective hypnotic technique?

What Is a Tag Question?

In every language, there are certain

protocols for speaking more politely or
formally. In Japanese, for example, it is
morphological—there are levels of formality
that are built into the language. In English,
this framework doesn’t concretely exist, so we
have to learn what is appropriate in different
situations through nuance of tone and
verbiage. We often do this by softening our
speech, and phrasing things as questions is a
common way of achieving this.
We generally can conceptualize a tag
question in regular speech as a way to verify
information that we think we know, or to
change the tone of a statement so it is less
authoritative. “Right?” “Isn’t it?” and “Aren’t
you?” are all common tags at the end of
statements. For example, someone might say,
“It’s going to be warm out today, right?” to
communicate that they have an idea of the
weather but also make sure that it’s clear that
their knowledge isn’t necessarily 100%
accurate. It also has the effect of signalling
acceptance of correction, in some cases, or
simply inviting conversation.
In hypnosis, a common form of using this
in suggestive language might be something
like, “You’re really feeling it intensely, aren’t
you?” We will get into the specifics of some
of the elements at play here, but generally this
kind of use serves a little bit of a different
purpose than using tag questions in vanilla
conversation.

Sounding Conversational

In a very broad sense, using tag questions

can make your suggestions sound more
natural—if they are used naturally. We use
them all the time in regular speech, similarly
to how we use linguistic hedges: To some
degree, it is more socially accepted as polite
to speak a little more indirectly, or to soften
statements which might sound self-assured.
This is of course most effective if this kind of
tag or hedge is already a part of your usual
speech—many kinds of tag questions cited in
NLP and hypnosis are not actually commonly
used in conversation, and will leave you
sounding like a stereotypical sneaky
hypnotist. This can be fine, of course; it
signals what you are doing, especially to a
subject who is familiar with the sort of tropes
of it. However, to sound more
conversational, it is best to rely more heavily
on speech patterns that are already a part of
the way that you talk. This is a good
opportunity to pay attention to your speech
and see what you are already doing that you
can use in your hypnosis.
When we’re thinking about how to sound
more natural, it’s also important to consider
how we’re having the conversation. Verbally
we may have different linguistic habits than
chatting through text or otherwise writing.
Sources assert different things about how
common tag questions are in different forms
of communication, but the most relevant
information is how you personally most
naturally use them.
Using a tag question in this more
conversational way in hypnosis has a little bit
to do with vocal tone, which we will talk
about, but it also can serve to change the
dynamic tone of the trance. Just like how
using them in speech with others can make
people feel more at ease or more comfortable
discussing the statement, hypnotic tag
questions are similarly inviting. They can
invite a verbal or nonverbal response, or they
can simply invite participation by nature of
being inquisitive and permissive.
 Authoritativeness and Processing

Tag questions have been the subject of

study by numerous linguistic and psychology-
based sources. Largely, within the context of
conveying information, use of these tags has
been associated with a lower perception of
credibility—which makes sense, considering
their function is generally to display
permissiveness and reduce authority.
However, in a paper comparing tag questions
used by sources with varying levels of
reliability, researchers found that when
participants read information from
“authority” sources, tag questions did not
lessen the subjects’ sense that the
information was inaccurate—only that it
caused them to process the information
conveyed by the tag question more
thoroughly.39
This makes sense and we can draw
parallels to hypnosis. Generally in a hypnotic
interaction, the hypnotist has some level of
perceived authority. This is not reliant on a
traditional kinky power dynamic, but more
simply a result that the hypnotist has some
level of assumed knowledge and is using it in
a skillful way. This idea that it causes
processing is logical and certainly is where
some of the meat of its use is in suggestion;
questions, even rhetorical, have the
characteristic of causing some sort of
reflection. We can see how this would be
helpful in hypnosis—“It’s getting easier to
focus, isn’t it?” doesn’t explicitly invite
criticism of the suggestion but instead
actually places a higher emphasis on it and
invites an internal response.

Yes Set/Pacing and Leading

The traditional idea of a “yes set” is, as

we’ve discussed, a verbal set of questions that
is meant to elicit affirmative (often verbal)
responses. We know that we can expand this
idea to consider all of what we do as a sort of
unspoken yes set, adjacent to the idea of
pacing and leading—the hypnotist is putting
forth comments, suggestions, and
“questions” that hopefully are congruent
with the subject’s experience. Each part of
the hypnotic interaction is parsed in some
way, and the ideal is that those parts are met
with some kind of agreement, acceptance, or
constructive processing.
Tag questions are a way to facilitate this
kind of response. When a subject hears the
question form, they parse the original
information and check to see how it fits their
model. This “looking inwardly” can happen
consciously or unconsciously and as we’ve
noted is often a hypnotic process. There are a
few things to consider here in terms of how
that processing happens.
In a hypnotic suggestion such as, “Feel the
way my voice sneaks inside your head,” there
is a characteristic of being explicitly leading.
You are not making an observation about
what the subject is currently experiencing;
you are giving direction of what they should
be feeling next. However, if you phrase this
differently: “You’re feeling the way my voice
sneaks inside your head,” you are, on the
surface, simply stating what they are (or
might be) feeling in the moment. The first
suggestion has the verb (“feel”) in the
imperative form; it is a “command.” The
second suggestion is in the present
continuous form; it is describing something
that is currently happening.
 Sometimes, tags are put at the end of
imperative statements, such as, “Take a seat,
won’t you?” Note that this changes the tone
of the imperative, but is not used in most
colloquial speech—when it is, it is often for
the sole purpose of softening a command
into a request. More often, we see tags put
onto statements (and suggestions) in other
forms: “You’re starting to notice yourself
letting go, right?” “You noticed yourself
letting you, didn’t you?” “You’re going to
notice yourself letting go, aren’t you?” Some
of these may feel stronger or weaker than
others especially depending on context and
circumstance. However, note that in these
examples, they appear to be observing
something rather than directing it—despite
the fact that these suggestions may very well
facilitate the effects that are described. This is
one way to transition from purely pacing a
subject into leading them. The tags in these
kinds of suggestions are not strictly
necessary, but cause a very explicit processing
to happen which can be very intense when
parsed as “yes” (“Oh my god, they’re right;
that is a part of what I’m feeling just like all
the other things they said before…”).
 Tone Signaling

When we make suggestions verbally, we

have a lot of options in terms of not only
what we say but how we say it. The same is
true for tag questions. Generally when we
phrase something as a question, we think
about it as having a rising tone; this is one of
the ways that we mark that something is a
query and invites an answer. However,
sometimes it is appropriate to use a falling
tone with a tag question, in the way that we
might normally end a statement. For the
purpose of this chapter, we’ll use a “.” to
denote this falling tone and a “?” to denote
the rising tone.
Changing the inflection you use can
drastically change the feel of a suggestion.
“That’s a really intense response, isn’t it?”
might feel more light and curious, open to
discussion. “That’s a really intense response,
isn’t it.” might have a very different
implication—straight, authoritative
knowledge, often with the connotation of a
more “dominant” tone. You can use this to
create different implications and control the
flow of a scene. Shifting from one tone to the
other can create contrast and transition
between moods.

Pause/Response

Thus far we’ve talked about tag questions

as single cohesive statements on their own.
However, we also have other ways to use
them. Instead of putting the tag directly after
the statement, you can use it by itself after a
pause. For example, if you said to a partner,
“It looks like you really want this…” and
wait, you may see some sort of response, like
them stiffening in their seat or gasping. At
that point, you can tag on the question,
“...Right?”
This is a slight change that can add a
punch to your tag questions. It serves as a
way to acknowledge a response in the
moment, which is a very important tool in
hypnosis. Generally, we want to give some
breathing room in our hypnosis—it is not so
much about a continuous stream of
suggestions as much as it is about a kind of
pacing where we allow space for
responsiveness. Giving that open space
allows your partner to have a full measure of
reaction and allows you to see it and respond
to it. This creates a sort of dialogue between
partners instead of a one-sided conversation,
even if the parts of that dialogue are based in
body language or are otherwise nonverbal.
In this way, tag questions can act like a sort
of “mind read” especially when coupled with
good use of ambiguity or intuition about
what someone is experiencing. The sense that
someone can see into your head and know
what you’re feeling is very powerful as an
emotional artifact as well as a hypnotic tool.
Especially in intimate and erotic hypnosis,
this connects with the idea of pacing and
leading in a way that feels very connective
between partners—it can create almost a
magical sense of it. To some degree, there is
the trope of, “If I can read your mind, I can
write it,” but it is also more than that; being
seen and understood on such a personal and
private level facilitates really intense
experiences.
Something else to consider with this use is
the idea that you are sometimes going to
cause your partner to re-parse the original
suggestion. They experience it once when
you communicate the statement, have a
response to it, and then when you signal with
the tag they on some level (consciously or
not) have to go back over it. This can add
impact and emphasis, or cause them to have a
different response from a new perspective, or
make someone go on a meta level and
consider how they are reacting. All of these
are useful avenues to play with in trance.

Framing Verbal/Nonverbal

Clearly, response is an important aspect of

tag questions, as the nature of the question
itself has an implication of being inviting.
One of the things that you can consider is
framing this to your subject in ways that
make it easier for them to be open and
genuine with you.
When asked a question of any sort, the
natural inclination is generally to respond
verbally, but this can be complex in hypnosis
for various reasons. We know as hypnotists
that nonverbal responses are really valuable,
and that some subjects have difficulty in
responding verbally in different levels of
trance. We want to ensure that our subjects
know that they are free to do whatever feels
natural, whether that is engaging and
verbalizing, having nonverbal responses, or
something in the middle.
It is helpful to frame this kind of desire for
any response positively before and during
trance. Acknowledging nonverbal signals as
responses will go a long way in doing this;
sometimes subjects will react nonverbally first
and then try to talk if they feel they “have to,”
and a simple “That’s right” or other
confirmation will let them know it “counts.”
You can also explicitly say things before or
during your trance like, “You don’t have to
answer,” or any other permissive language
that tells them that what they are doing is
appropriate. Feeling comfortable that one’s
natural responses are communicative, desired,
and done “correctly,” is generally important,
and is not a one-and-done sentence; it is a
tone that is cultivated continuously. This will
help your tag questions flow more naturally
in scenes where the subject feels that they are
responding in a way that makes sense to you
and in a way that they don’t have to put extra
work into.
Chapter Summary

A tag question is a function of

speech where we turn a statement
into a query by adding a tag at the
end
In regular speech, it serves to
soften tone and allow for mistakes
In hypnosis, tag questions can
sound more conversational as
long as you use them as you
normally would in conversation—
they can invite response, as well
Research has found that tag
questions can signal unsureness,
but they also can signal authority
when they are used by an
authoritative source
Tag questions have the quality of
making someone answer
affirmatively in their processing,
such as with a yes set/pacing and
leading
Tone has a large effect on how tag
questions are parsed
You can pause at the end of your
statement/suggestion before you
deliver the tag question in order
to allow your partner to fully
process the suggestion and their
response to it
Leave room for your partner to
respond however they’d like—if
they’re responding nonverbally,
treat those as true responses by
acknowledging them
 CHAPTER 11:
FRAMING/REFRAMING
Many hypnosis and psychology sources
talk about and around the idea of
“framing”—largely relative to how we
present information and the relationship
between it and its context. We understand
intuitively, perhaps, that the way something is
framed can change the way that it is
understood or processed. It stands to reason,
then, that if we change the framing of
something—by “reframing” it—we can
change the experience.

Introduction
 We’ll be taking a page (or several) from
NLP practitioner Robert Dilts in this chapter,
synthesizing, adapting, and expanding on
various sources but quite a bit from his book,
Sleight of Mouth: The Magic of Conversational Belief
Change (1999).

Robert Dilts:

Attended University of California,

Santa Cruz with an interest in a
wide variety of disciplines
Decided to take some linguistics
classes when studying political
science and found himself in a
lecture taught by John Grinder,
who had just finished the first
volume of The Structure of Magic
with Bandler
Learned the meta model patterns
from Grinder’s classes and applied
them to politics; a departure from
how it was exclusively used
(therapeutically) at that time
Met Bandler and joined the study
group a year or two later, going
on to effectively practice NLP as
 volunteer therapy and write
extensively about it40

Robert Dilts got involved with NLP a little

bit later than its exact origins, but not by
much; he was working with Bandler and
Grinder in the mid 1970s. Dilts brought new
ideas into NLP, especially focusing on
working with people’s systems of beliefs, and
leading the practice to expand beyond its
therapeutic roots into disciplines like
leadership and education.41
Reframing has been a part of hypnosis and
NLP discussion for a long time. Even going
back to classic NLP books like Frogs Into
Princes: Neuro Linguistic Programming (1979) and
Reframing: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the
Transformation of Meaning (1982) we see a lot of
attention given to this idea of changing
someone’s frame of reference. It’s an
important part of the therapeutic process as a
whole—giving a client the skills to be able to
see events from different perspectives can be
key to allowing someone to process an
experience constructively. But of course, it’s
useful outside of a therapeutic context as
well; this is an idea that’s ripe for perversion.
 What Is a “Frame?”

We understand loosely the meaning of

“frame of reference”: The point of view that
we have, or the point of view that someone
else might have. These perspectives change
the way that we process an experience—no
matter what that experience is.
Quite literally, our experiences in the world
can be boiled down to the actual physical and
psychological ability to perceive what is
happening to us—our sensory inputs, filtered
through our point of view. NLP makes a
distinction between our “primary
experience”—this sensory experience,
literally how we take in information from the
world—and our “secondary experience”—
the “maps” that we create; our verbal and
symbolic understanding of the world. We also
can consider that how we perceive events and
experiences from outside us (externally) is
different from how we produce experiences
through thoughts, daydreams, fantasies
(internally). This is something worthwhile to
explore conceptually in hypnosis.
 Dilts writes, “A psychological ‘frame’ refers
to a general focus or direction that provides
an overall guidance for thoughts and actions
during an interaction.”42 The frame is
essentially the context for the experience. For
example, if we are hypnotizing a partner, we
are literally experiencing it through our senses
—how they look and sound, what we feel
physically and emotionally about how they
are responding to us, how they feel when we
touch them, and maybe even how they smell
or taste. The context has to do with our
motivations, our beliefs, and our values—why
are we engaging with them? How are we
viewing this interaction, and how does the
way we feel about all the elements involved
and our personal histories change the way
that we see it, and thus experience it?
A natural consequence of having an
experience leads us to look for meaning in it.
This can be a conscious process, where we
think about something that happened and try
to discern how we feel about it and what it
represents. But this is often also at least
partially something that happens
unconsciously, where we have gut feelings or
make assumptions about the experience. In
the example of hypnotizing a partner, we
might think about how it makes us feel, what
it means for our relationship, what it means
for our perceived skill as a hypnotist or their
perceived skill as a subject, how it aligns with
or changes our likes and dislikes, and so
much more.

Components of a Frame

Another way of thinking about how a

frame works is that we understand an
experience or event to be “relative” to our
frame—both when it happens as well as
when we recall it at different times. If we
accept NLP’s axiom that we cannot have an
objective experience of the world, then it
stands to reason that our subjective
experience is what truly defines the event—
and that changes relative to how we perceive
it.
If we think of the physical interpretation
of a frame, we can consider that it is
something that places clear boundaries
around something else. When we’re talking
about how we frame an experience, whether
it is how someone is framing something to
themselves, or how we are framing a
suggestion, this same idea applies. For
example, if we suggest to someone, “That
feeling of your eyes fluttering is such a good
anchor for you to know that you’re going into
trance,” we are framing their physical
experience to be something positive and
successful, and specifically within the
understanding that we both want trance to
happen. We have placed constraints on the
way we talk about their experience—“failing”
isn’t a part of the frame, and we’re not
mentioning other aspects that might be a part
of it (like potential distraction).
Let’s look at some elements that affect
what defines a psychological frame:

Time: A context of “when”

someone is processing an
experience.
What is the difference
between processing an
experience through the
context of being in the
exact moment, as opposed
to thinking about
something that will happen,
or has already happened?
How much time is between
“now” and that event?
For example, thinking
about going deeper into
trance has a certain
connotation in the exact
moment it’s happening (like
immediacy, desire, or
hesitancy), whereas thinking
about that as something
that will happen (longing,
anticipation, curiosity) or
something that has already
happened (nostalgia,
forgetfulness, strength of
sense memory). Consider
that telling someone that
they are “about” to
experience something adds
an element of anticipation
or precipice, as opposed to
telling them that they “are”
experiencing something.
There are many other
factors or feelings that
could be tied to a “time
 frame” based on context, as
well.

Good versus Bad: Whether

someone perceives an event as
positive or negative, successful or
unsuccessful, etc.
Is someone processing an
experience from the
perspective of it being
successful, or unsuccessful?
Was it supposed to happen?
Did they do the right thing?
Was it productive?
For example, if someone
feels the need to move their
body in trance to get more
comfortable, are they seeing
that as a “failure”—they felt
like they needed to bring
themselves up and broke
trance, or that they
“shouldn’t need to move?”
Or are they seeing it as a
positive thing—“It’s an
opportunity for me to
refocus,” “It’s productive to
 my trance since I’ll be able
to go deeper.”

Who: Is someone seeing an

experience through their own
eyes, or from someone else’s
perspective?
Sometimes, people make
judgments about their
actions or events through
how they perceive others to
feel about it. Are they
thinking about how their
partner is interpreting their
experience, or maybe how
society as a whole (or
corners of it) would look at
it?
For example, if someone
goes into trance only
moments into when you are
starting to hypnotize them,
are they having any
thoughts about how you
might see that? Are they
worried you’ll think they’re
too easy, or do they think it
 would excite you? Are they
thinking about how the
hypnosis community
perceives subjects who go
into trance quickly, and
using that to filter their
experience? Or are they
purely thinking about their
experience from their own
perspective? How could you
direct them to think from
any of these points of view,
and how would that change
their experience?

This is just a handful of parameters that

might apply to someone’s frame of reference
—we’re going to explore a couple more ideas
that are more encompassing. But even just
from these specific aspects we can
understand how they are deeply contextual,
and can inform the entirety of an experience
beyond just what we’ve mentioned.

Logical Levels
 One concept that will help us understand
more about what gives shape to a frame is
something else that Robert Dilts had a hand
in influencing: “logical levels.” The idea
comes initially from Gregory Bateson. He
posited that there are different “levels” of
ways that experiences/thoughts/things exist;
the notion of a “flower” being of a higher
logical level than a Grandiflora rose—a
category being “higher” than its members.
This shares the same sort of idea as chunking
information and understanding meta levels,
which we’ve discussed previously, and has
been applied to many different ideas about
communication and learning.
This concept was clarified and adapted by
Dilts (and is sometimes referred to in NLP as
“neuro-logical levels”) to explore what is
essentially the question of, “How close is this
information to me, personally?” Telling
someone, “What you did was hot” can have a
very different feeling than telling them, “You
are hot,” for example. Let’s take a look at
how Dilts breaks down this hierarchy,
sometimes referring to it as the “ABCs” of
NLP:43
A. Who I Am: Who are you?
This is a person’s identity,
their sense of self, as
“close” as you can possibly
get to someone.
“You are sexy.”

B. My Beliefs: Why do you/did

you do/feel x?
This is discussing a person’s
values, the reasons behind
their actions, one step away
from their “self.”
“The reason why you go
into trance is sexy.”

C. My Capabilities: How do
you/did you do x?
This is a person’s ability and
methods for their
actions/thoughts, further
“up” or away from them.
“The ways that make you
able to go into trance are
sexy.”
 D. What I Do/Have Done: What
do you/did you do?
This is looking at a person’s
actions specifically, even
more separated.
“Going into trance is sexy.”

E. My Environment: Where/When
do you/did you do/feel x?
This is even higher away
from a person, their
surroundings, the things
that describe where and
when they are that their
actions/thoughts are
happening.
“This moment in which
you’re going into trance is
sexy.”

As you can see, each of these levels is at a

higher category than the previous one; higher
levels “contain” the parts of the lower levels
(like members of a category). There is a
feeling of ideas becoming more personal as
they get closer to the lowest level, and less
personal as they get further away. We can also
understand that these categories have
relationships with each other; often, if
someone makes a comment about something
that we do, we might “take it personally,” for
better or for worse assuming that it is
commentary about who we are. Likewise, if
someone talks about us as a person, we might
ask ourselves, “What does that mean about
my behavior or beliefs?” although this may
not be as direct.
We can also see how this might be relevant
hypnotically; suggesting something to
someone or telling them about an aspect of
them or their behavior changes depending on
which level we are speaking. We can
conceptualize this as an aspect of framing:
Within which frame of reference are we
playing, how close to the person are we
getting? For this reason, this idea of logical or
meta level is another quality that changes our
frame:

Meta/Logical Level: How

“close” is the person to the
experience/suggestion?
You can think of this as a
metaphorical “Where is the
 experience/suggestion, relative to
them?” Is it something from
which they are very detached, or
something that feels very
personal? How does that affect
the way that they feel about it?
For example, if you are making
objectifying commentary to
someone, what choices are
available to you to make those
suggestions? “This is the perfect
place for an object to be,” “You
are acting exactly like a doll,”
“Your thoughts are just object
thoughts,” “You are an object.”
How do those change the feelings
and implications? (Notice that
there might be something to the
idea of being thorough and
addressing all of these levels, and
that the most “direct” statement
of, “You are x” might be best
saved for when the subject is
already experiencing some of the
other feelings.)

What is Reframing?
 Even by nature of talking about how we
frame suggestions and experiences (to
ourselves and to each other), we are starting
to get into the idea of reframing something:
Changing the frame and context. Reframing
is to purposefully change the reference point
or aspects of the way that someone
understands something, which ultimately
changes its meaning and the way that they
process it.
In a therapeutic context, reframing is a
tool to be able to get a better perspective on
something, more broadly or from a different
point of view—usually taking a “bad” thing
and reframing it to be “good” or “OK.” Our
hypnokink model is not about helping or
healing someone, so we can generally think
of this more as taking something from
“good” to “better,” or from one perspective
to another, or even as sadistic as from
“good” to “bad.” All of these can be
applicable to us in different scenarios.
For example, two partners might be
engaging in a hypnosis scene together, one of
their play dates that they get regularly. They
are both excited for it, but the hypnotist
might want to add some extra “oomph” to it,
and reframes it: “We’re so used to getting
time with each other, but when you really
think about it, we’re so lucky that this is
something that we’re able to have. Did you
ever think that you’d get to go into such
profound trance so often? That you’d be so
weak to it?” Notice the elements we’ve
discussed here: The hypnotist is changing the
time frame—they’re taking the subject from
being within the frame of “hypnosis is a
regular thing in my life” to remembering a
time when it wasn’t, and getting them to
process the experience from that perspective.
Also, the comment about “weakness” is a
way of remarking positively on their
capabilities in sexy disguise, getting them to
think about how good they are at trance
(moving to that logical level) and framing that
as a hot thing. They’re taking an already fun
experience and making it feel more
significant.
Dilts writes, “The heart of reframing is to
make the distinction between the intention
[...] and the behavior.”44 We can think about
this as the ability for us to take any action or
experience and apply nearly any kind of
perceived intention or context to it in order
to change the way it feels. If a frame has to
do with the meaning of something, then
when we change the frame, it changes the
meaning. Essentially, reframing an experience
or suggestion allows us to make it feel or
mean almost anything we want, just by nature
of changing the perspective.

Simple Reframing Skills/Tools

Understanding the different components

of a frame allows us to fiddle with them to
change the meaning of an experience. It is a
good habit to get into to start thinking about
what frame of reference someone is looking
through to feel the way they do, and thinking
about the categories we’ve talked about so far
(time, good vs bad, who, and meta/logical
level). There are of course many more
attributes that we could come up with that
define someone’s point of view, and it’s also
good practice to think about what those
could be.
But when it comes to specific skills and
tools to reframe something, we have a
number of ways that we can explain this
process. Thus far, we’ve talked about
reframing as a holistic process; something
where we look at the whole of a situation and
think about changing abstract parts within. In
this section, we’ll look at some linguistic
tricks we can use to achieve this.

Conjunction Reframe
A conjunction in English
grammar is a word that
connects sentences, phrases,
clauses, or words. “And,”
“but,” “although,” “while,”
“so,” and “even though” are
examples of these kinds of
words. Swapping one
conjunction for another can
subtly or drastically change
the meaning (framing) of a
suggestion.
For example, if we say,
“You’re noticing your heavy
body, and you’re also
noticing my voice filling
your head,” we can see that
the “and” here serves to
equate these two sensations;
 they both have similar
weight. If we change it:
“You’re noticing your heavy
body, but you’re also
noticing my voice filling
your head,” we can see that
the “but” brings the second
part of the suggestion to
the foreground, leading
away from the first part.
This might be useful when
we are transitioning from
one aspect of a scene to
another and want to
emphasize the part to
which we are leading. Try
swapping to different
conjunctions and seeing
how that changes the
“feeling” of different
suggestions.

One Word Reframe

In this technique, we take a
single word out of a
sentence (usually something
descriptive), and think
about what we consider to
be synonyms of that word.
Then, we substitute one of
those synonyms for the
original word and take note
of how that changes the
meaning as a whole.
Synonyms are never perfect
matches; by the nature of
our language, different
words have different
connotations, and further
are influenced by the
context around it (the rest
of the sentence).
For example, if our partner
says to us that they are
feeling “a little nervous” (in
a fun or not-obstructive
way), or this is something
that we infer from their
behavior, we can take a
moment to think of a
bunch of other words
associated with “nervous.”
“Anticipatory,” “tense,”
“shy,” “fearful,” or even
“excited” might come to
mind, and notice that
swapping any one of our
synonyms changes the
framing/meaning of what
they are experiencing, and
we could go in a variety of
different directions with
that. We might say
something like, “So that
means you’re just anticipating
what’s coming, right?” to
reframe it as more neutral
or positive, or we could
even say, “Oh, are you
feeling scared?” to intimidate
them in a playful way. You
can also chain these
together, going from one to
another: “Feeling nervous?
Doesn’t that just mean that
you’re anticipating what’s
coming next? Because
you’re excited about it? Isn’t
that thrilling?” Each step
slowly changes the frame,
so you can end with a very
 different meaning from
where you started.

Comparison/Similarity
Reframe
This is a skill we can use
when we want to change
the framing/meaning of an
experience or suggestion, or
transition to something
different, and it can be
particularly useful for more
drastic changes. It involves
having some understanding
of the current frame and
the frame to where you
want to go. Then, you
consider components of
both—making comparisons
and essentially reframing
each one until you come up
with two attributes or
frames that are related to
each other, thus making it
easier to go from one to the
other.
For example, let’s look at a
“sadistic” reframe. Consider
that many times in
hypnokink, we’re looking
for the experience of being
taken advantage of, of
feeling overpowered or
even forced. However, we
are necessarily approaching
hypnosis in play as a
consensual experience, so
how can we change that
perspective? Some
attributes of a consensual
hypnosis frame might be
“consent,” “care,”
“attention,” “respect,”
“enjoyment,” “letting go,”
“excitement,” “obedience,”
and/or “permission”
(among many others
depending on context).
Some attributes of a
“forced” frame might be
“weakness,” “resistance,”
“obedience,” “surrender,”
“losing,” “manipulated,”
“violation,” “loss of
control,” and/or
“excitement.” Notice
already that there can be
some overlap, and think
about what those overlaps
are, and how you would
relate the two frames if you
were talking about it:
“Doesn’t the care I’m giving
you feel a little dark? Isn’t
your excitement kind of
betraying you, how weak you
are to this?” You don’t
necessarily need to explicitly
state the frame that you’re
starting in; sometimes it’s
good to directly connect the
dots for someone, especially
if this is a situation that calls
for it, but oftentimes you
can rely on the starting
frame being known (since it
is the frame of reference
they are in). Consider that
you may not know exactly
what their perspective is, so
 it is more ambiguous to just
work with talking about the
frame you want to get to,
and leave the connection
implied.

Chapter Summary

Robert Dilts was an influential

person in this aspect of NLP
A “frame” is the context
surrounding an experience or
suggestion, which ultimately
influences its perceived meaning
There are a few general
components that describe some
(but certainly not all) aspects to a
psychological frame, such as time,
whether it’s thought to be good or
bad, and whose perspective it is
“Logical levels,” or the idea of
how close a piece of
information/suggestion is to
someone, gives us another
opportunity to consider how
something is framed
Reframing is about changing a
frame in order to change the
meaning of an
experience/suggestion
There are a few simple ways of
doing this linguistically: With
conjunctions, single word
synonyms, or finding overlapping
criteria
CHAPTER 12: CONCEPTUAL
METAPHOR
Metaphors, whether we notice or not, are a
foundation of the techniques in NLP. They
are an important device in creative writing,
and we often talk about how they can fall
under the category of Ericksonian techniques
in hypnosis. We might think about using
different metaphors to induce trance, and the
way that people process them hypnotically.
But it is just as hypnotically useful to explore
how they function in our communication as a
whole and how that affects the way that we
employ them, even without being aware of it.

Metaphor in Language and Stories

 A metaphor within the sense that we are
most familiar is at its basis using language to
compare one thing to another. We see this a
lot in poetry or other writing—“Shall I
compare thee to a Summer’s day?” We’re
taught in school that a metaphor is when we
associate two concepts by directly stating it—
not using the words “like” or “as,”which
would make it a simile. But for the purpose
of discussing here, this distinction is not
really important. We can consider anything
metaphorical as long as it attempts to show a
relationship between two things.
We also understand that a metaphor is not
constrained to something that occurs in
written or spoken language. In media and
stories, we recognize different kinds of
symbolism as metaphorical. For example,
many of Aesop’s fables contain fictional
characters and situations that were meant to
metaphorically represent real life. In this case
we might also call them allegorical.
Why do we use metaphors? It can be to
make one concept more clear by relating it to
another concept that might be more well-
understood. But it is not just about clarity. It
is also about expanding our perception of an
initial idea so that we have more ways to
consider it; it ends up changing the way we
view something. For example, the bossa nova
jazz standard “Água de Beber” by Antonio
Carlos Jobim opens with the lyrical metaphor
“Your love’s the rain / My heart, the
flower.”45 We poetically view and make
connections about this because we can
consider the many associations of the
relationship between rain and a flower versus
the love within a partnership, beginning
perhaps with just the qualities of a flower
itself: A flower blooms, a flower is beautiful,
a flower can die if not cared for, flowers are
bountiful and naturalistic (or the opposite—
rare and cultivated). Each person may make
different associations depending on the way
they think about both concepts, and the
person relating these concepts now has an
increased breadth of resources with which to
describe both of them.
Metaphors can also be more than a static
comparison—they can be dynamic and in
motion. Dynamic metaphors move in parallel
to a story. In “Água de Beber,” a story is told
based on its singular metaphor simply by
exploring in this fashion. The natural
understanding of rain versus a flower is that it
is necessary: “Will it wither and fade / Or
bloom to the sky?” In this way, the reader or
listener already has a framework to
understand the trajectory of the base concept
as soon as they hear the flower metaphor,
which can be useful for the storyteller; they
can rely on the familiarity or even use it as
misdirection.

Conceptual Metaphor

Even before getting into discussion of

metaphors as an explicitly hypnotic tool, we
can talk about how they are useful in our
hypnotic practice by discussing them beyond
their usual literary use. Metaphors are not just
a way that we consciously attempt to
associate things—they are baked into our
culture and language and are a major function
of how we think and communicate.
Metaphors We Live By (1980) by George
Lakoff and Mark Johnson posits this thesis:
We process and represent the world through
concepts that we necessarily have to relate to
other concepts. We don’t just do this through
language exclusively; it’s how our brains work.
They say: “Our ordinary conceptual system,
in terms of which we both think and act, is
fundamentally metaphorical in nature.”46
For example, the book leads with
discussing the nature of argument as relating
to war. Thinking of an argument between
people as a “fight” is a familiar metaphor to
us, and it’s one that is naturally part of our
language. We can see this in the words we use
about it—we “win” or “lose”; we “attack” or
“defend” or “shoot down” positions. But it’s
not just that we use those words as part of
the metaphor—we necessarily relate the
concept of argument to war in order to
functionally understand what an argument is
or how it works. The two ideas are
fundamentally entwined.
We can hypothesize about why this might
be—historical humans would have known
physical violence before they knew verbal
arguments, so it could make sense that as our
language and behavior evolved, it did so
based on our existing culture, and those two
“domains” are mapped together. These kinds
of conceptual metaphors, where we naturally
associate ideas, are heavily dependent on this
kind of cultural foundation, both as a whole
as well as someone’s individual history and
experiences. Even going back to the jazz
lyrics of “Água de Beber,” we can recognize
that the metaphor of “love” and a “flower” is
a deeply ingrained relationship in our culture
—one that the song to some degree relies on
to tell its story.

Different Types of Metaphors

There are plenty of these kinds of

metaphors embedded in our language and
social consciousness, many of which we don’t
even consciously think about. Here are a few
different forms these can take:

Structural Metaphors
A concept is structured to
be like another concept. A
structural metaphor implies
that the first concept has
similar qualities to the
second concept; they
function similarly or serve a
similar purpose. This is
evident both in the way that
 we think about both of
them as well as within the
language we use.
Argument is war: “Winning”
or “losing,” “attacking” or
“defending,” “fighting”
Time is money: It is a
“valuable” resource,
“wasting” or “spending,”
“costing” or “worth” time

Orientational Metaphors
A concept is given a spatial
orientation. These
metaphors often have to do
with the way that our
physical bodies interact
with the world and our
kinesthetic experience with
different concepts and
actions. They are usually
inherent or assumed and
like all conceptual
metaphors can vary culture
to culture.
Happy is up: Feeling
“down,” “high” spirits,
 being “low”
Future/progress is forward:
“Ahead,” “coming up,”
moving “backward”
Status is up: “Higher”
status, “lower” in rank

Ontological Metaphors
A concept that does not
have substance is given
substance. Compare this
with the NLP idea of
“nominalization”—a noun
or thing that does not have
physical, quantifiable
qualities. We use ontological
metaphors in order to make
these “things” more
tangible and
understandable, and we
often use different
comparisons for the same
concept to represent or
describe different qualities.
The mind is a machine: Just
not “working,” the “gears
 are spinning,”
“programming” someone
The mind is a brittle object:
“Breaking” someone’s
mind, “fragile” thoughts

Boundary Metaphors
A concept is described to
have boundaries. Many of
the concepts we deal with
do not have concrete
bounds, only the arbitrary
definitions we ascribe to
them. Still, we often
describe our relation to
these things in terms of
their boundaries.
Sometimes we can consider
this as a “container”
metaphor, when there is an
“inside” and “outside.” This
has some interesting
connections with Gestalt
therapy, which is all about
the boundaries between
different concepts.
 An activity has a boundary:
“Before,” “after,” “during”
The forest has a boundary:
“Outside” or “inside,”
“within”
Trance has a boundary:
Going “into” trance,
“entering,” coming “out
of ” trance

Personification Metaphors
An object or concept is
given human qualities. This
is a particularly common
habit of ours, seen in many
of our figures of speech.
A book is a person: The
book “told” me, it
“explains” something
A computer is a person: My
computer is “dying,” it
“doesn’t like” when I try to
stream and play video
games at the same time
The unconscious mind is a
person: My unconscious
“keeps me safe,” it “thinks
 for me,” it “knows better
than I do”

Metonymy
An entity is referred to as
another entity. This is not
strictly the same process as
a metaphor, but it is related
—it is what happens when
one object or concept is
used as a “stand-in” for the
other.
The part is the whole: They’re
such a “pretty face”
The creator is the works: I
enjoy reading “sleepingirl”
The place is the people: “The
class” said that hypnosis is
hot

Metaphor in Hypnosis

Extrapolating from this idea, let’s think

about how we can apply this to hypnosis.
Effective suggestion could be said to be
about creating connections between concepts
and ideas, some of which are integral to the
subject’s worldview and some of which are
introduced to them by the hypnotist. These
connections we make rely on the existing
associations in someone’s brain from their
personal history and culture; they rely on our
metaphorical representations.
We all have a lot of cultural metaphors that
relate to hypnosis. One of the most
ubiquitous is the connection between the
orientation of “down” and “hypnosis.” This
might come from our cultural understanding
that “unconsciousness” equals “down”—we
literally orient our bodies down to go to sleep
and up when we awaken. (“Waking up” or
“deep sleep,” for example.) In hypnosis, we
use this metaphor all the time—the very
ideas of depth, sinking, counting down, or
touch that moves downwards in kinesthetic
inductions. We have a very distinct sense in
our bodies that feels like heaviness or gravity
when we go to sleep, to which our cultural
understanding of hypnosis is very much tied.
There is a fascinating rabbit-hole we could go
down about the history of hypnosis versus all
of the cultural associations we have with it.
Consider this in contrast to the way that
we sometimes shift this—sometimes we use
ideas like “floating” or “flying” to describe
hypnotic feelings and response. This may
seem counter to our metaphorical idea that
trance = down (although it’s important to
remember that it is neither exclusive nor
universal), but when it’s being applied
effectively, what’s happening is that the
subject is buying into a new metaphor and
creating new associations. When we make a
suggestion like this, we need to put a little
more texture into the metaphor so that the
connection is clear. Instead of simply saying,
“You might feel like you’re floating,” in a
vacuum, we can introduce the metaphor so it
is colorful and approachable: “Sometimes
trance feels like a weighty thing, but other
times it can feel like weightlessness, as though
the trance itself has disconnected the feeling
from your body, and your consciousness ends
up floating in this vast, liquid sort of
space…”
In this particular example, we begin with
an acknowledgment of the accepted
metaphor of “down” (which we might
consider pacing) and then end up giving the
listener a different metaphor (the orientation
of “up”) through use of language that is
meaningful, descriptive, and easy with which
to connect. Notice that part of what we are
doing here is taking a fairly abstract idea
—“trance”—and attempting to make it more
concrete by relating it to concepts that are
more easily understood. We end up in
something of what we might consider a sweet
spot for hypnosis—partially abstract still, but
with enough purchase for the subject to have
something to which to hold on. You can
think of this as relating to the idea of
ambiguity and suggestion as a whole.

Compound and Connecting Metaphors

in Hypnosis

A good hypnosis scene flows naturally in a

way where the transitions between moments
and concepts are smooth. This is an exciting
and rich topic, but we can examine an aspect
of this from the lens of metaphor.
When we look at something as
metaphorical, it naturally creates the
possibility for other metaphorical
connections. A simplistic comparison we
might use in trance could be, “Your brain
feels fuzzy.” Perhaps this is just a natural part
of our patter, as it’s a common turn of phrase
we use in hypnosis play, but we can think of
the different metaphors that could be in use
here. What other things have the quality of
being fuzzy—are you making some kind of
indirect comparison? A soft blanket? A TV
screen? Someone’s vision when they are
drunk or under the influence of drugs? A cat?
If you were to go through with one of those
metaphors in your language, what
opportunities would that afford you in terms
of the direction of the scene? If you said,
“Your brain is fuzzy, as though someone’s
put an obscuring lens over it and you can’t
quite make out your thoughts anymore,” this
gives the suggestion a frame of reference, and
allows you to extrapolate: “And just like that
lens is over your mind, you find it covers your
other senses too as your hearing dulls, your
vision blurs…” And then you are met with
even more opportunities and paths from
where to branch out.
This is one way to learn how to develop
good strategies for scene flow. You can also
do this in the opposite direction—if you have
something particular you want to get to or
achieve in a hypnotic scene, you can use that
as the focal point and think of the qualities
that it has to use as stepping stones to get
there. For example, in a bimbofication scene,
what qualities are involved in the kind of play
you’re looking for? Transformation?
Intelligence draining? Consensual misogyny?
An element of time? What kinds of concepts
could you relate to these? What kinds of
qualities do you want to emphasize? A person
turning into a bimbo could be like a
caterpillar turning into a butterfly, and then
perhaps you could go with the literal idea of
metamorphosis where the person’s physical
body changes shape while they are encased in
some sort of cocoon or mummification.
They do not have to be poetic metaphors—
you could think of this as similar to the NLP
idea of “chunking” where we consider
concepts that are in similar classes.

Metaphors Are Faulty

One final thing to consider when we’re

talking about any kind of comparison is the
fact that when we are attempting to relate
two different concepts, information will
necessarily have to be lost or transformed.
While metaphors can be very helpful for
fleshing out abstract ideas or creating a
different perspective, they don’t tell the whole
or most accurate story about what you are
trying to communicate.
For example, we can see a very vivid
picture of this when we discuss the cultural
metaphor of trance as a “container”—having
a distinct “inside” and “outside.”
Experienced hypnokinksters will understand
that the nature of trance is much more subtle
than this, and that the actual boundary of
hypnosis is often quite blurred; a subject may
be “in trance” much earlier than either
person realizes it, and they may not be “out
of trance” when they are woken up, or even
that the idea of “in or out” of trance doesn’t
have any practical bearing on the kinds of
play we want to do. For another example,
some hypnokinksters may take the metaphor
of the “mind as machine” too literally and be
confused when they or others take
suggestions in more nuanced ways than
simple input and output. And of course,
we’ve already discussed the potential issues
with personifying the “unconscious mind.”
 Metaphors are an extremely useful tool
when we are trying to broaden our
understanding of something and in fact quite
necessary especially when we are dealing in
abstracts. However, it’s always important to
keep in mind that while they are expansive,
they can either sometimes expand in the
wrong direction or serve to limit our
perspective instead. It’s good practice to be
flexible in the way that we associate and relate
concepts, both for ourselves as hypnotists as
well as communicating and practicing this
with our partners. Remember that different
metaphors serve different purposes and
highlight different qualities, so using different
ways to compare the same things can be
helpful.

Chapter Summary

A metaphor is essentially a
comparison between two
concepts that serves to bring a
greater understanding of both—
we’re not concerned with whether
or not we use “like” or “as” here
Metaphors also describe
comparisons that are not static,
such as themes of a story
The theory of conceptual
metaphor posits that we use
concepts to represent concepts all
the time, inherent in our language
and culture
This matters a lot to hypnosis
because it helps us understand the
linguistic and cultural
relationships inherent to the
practice
Thinking about metaphors also
gives hints of how to flow in
trance, by connecting concepts
that have some sort of
relationship
It’s important to remember that
metaphors are neither literal nor
rigid, and because of this
adaptability, they are faulty
descriptors
 CHAPTER 13: HYPNOTIC
METAPHORS
We’ve talked about how metaphors
permeate our language and processing. But
what of the famously hypnotic metaphors of
hypnotists such as Milton Erickson? In this
chapter we’ll go more into detail about how
they can be used specifically in hypnosis, as
well as how we can think about them in order
to get comfortable with using this kind of
technique.

Intro and the “Therapeutic Metaphor”

The entire concept of metaphor in this

context is the idea of relating one thing or
situation to another, causing us to change our
perspective and potentially enrich our
understanding of both things. For example,
we could relate the idea of hypnosis to the
idea of the natural cycle of day and night:
Inevitably, the sun always goes down and the
moon rises. Perhaps if we did an induction or
told a story based on this metaphor, it would
give the subject a clear expectation that they
will definitely go into trance, and also
definitely eventually come back out of it. It is
easy to associate the idea of consciousness
with the sun and daytime, and
unconsciousness with the moon and
nighttime.
Understanding the philosophy of
conceptual metaphor here also allows us to
see how concepts that are naturally included
in our lives and language play a part here. We
associate hypnosis already with things like
sleep (which is associated with nighttime) and
orientational concepts like “down.” Our lives
are centered around day and night being
constant and unchangeable aspects of the
world, and “mapping” that idea onto the idea
of hypnosis could be very intense.
 Metaphors have been used in all sorts of
forms as teaching tools throughout time.
Many mythological stories serve a purpose as
guidance on behavior and general human
morality, and metaphors have been a part of
the general practice of humans offering
therapeutic guidance to one another for as
long as we’ve been storytelling. “The Ugly
Duckling,” for example, is often told as a way
to reassure children about their self-image.
Metaphors in hypnosis experienced a
renaissance in the early-to-mid 1900s because
of Milton Erickson, who was known for
using them extensively in his hypnotherapy.
Metaphors have the quality of creating
associations that are easy to remember—
something very useful to us as
hypnokinksters.
Therapeutic metaphors are about problem-
solving and insight. They are goal-oriented: A
client has a clear issue that needs to be
worked through, and the therapist uses a
metaphor in order to provide them with an
expanded viewpoint. The idea is that a
different perspective can offer insight. For
example, a client who wants to quit smoking
might be told a metaphor about an athlete
who perseveres and finds success in hard
work even after losing competitions. A story
like this could highlight the aspects of
overcoming difficult obstacles while focusing
on the future.
Certainly, we can do an “eroticized”
version of this in hypnokink, where we solicit
a goal from ourselves or our partners and
then construct a metaphor based on that
goal. But perhaps this is a bit limiting to us—
why stop there? Our intimate hypnosis does
not need to be goal oriented; the only “goal”
in kink is to have an enjoyable experience.
Over the course of this chapter, we’ll be
discussing how to construct metaphors both
from a stricter therapeutic form as well as
some ideas of how to flow with them more
easily in an erotic encounter.

Transderivational Search and “The”

Unconscious

First, let’s see what the conventional

hypnosis and NLP wisdom is about the use
of metaphors. This comes to us in a concept
called “transderivational searches.” As we’ve
discussed before, this is a term that often
comes up when talking about pattern
interruptions (the “surprise” moment), but
more broadly describes what happens when a
person processes ambiguous speech or
metaphors (which are, in some senses,
ambiguous).
When someone hears a metaphor, they
ideally need to be able to make connections
about it, find out what it’s referring to, and
develop their own personal understanding
about it. A transderivational search is simply
the short (or long, considering jargon)
explanation for that process. The person goes
into themselves and produces some kind of
conception. Often, there is a bit of a delay
because of this, so giving your partner a little
bit of space to do this processing can be
useful.
Many hypnosis sources assert that this
process “bypasses consciousness” or is
“interpreted by the unconscious.” We know
that considering “the unconscious” as a
separate part of our cognitive processing is
overly simplistic. Besides this, the way that we
parse through metaphors does not need to
happen outside of our awareness, and often
we are forming conscious thoughts to “think
through” what a metaphor means. In fact,
many of us practiced or learned this in high
school English classes with story analysis and
comprehension. (What was symbolic and
metaphorical in “Lord of the Flies?”)
What you can think instead is that people
often have a gut response to hearing a
metaphor. They may very well come up with
some associations that they don’t have to
think about. Many of those associations may
be baked into their personal history, language,
or culture (thinking back to conceptual
metaphor). Those initial interpretations can
be quite powerful and often drive additional
(conscious) processing—this conscious
processing is also very useful in trance. This
is part of the beauty of metaphors—they can
always be expanded or dove further into
when we give them more attention.

Construction

When it comes to actually using metaphors

in your hypnosis, it can feel like a challenge to
pull one out of nowhere to incorporate into
your trances. In this section, we’ll break down
the process of constructing them to
hopefully shed some light on how to do this
more fluidly. Not all of these steps are rigid
or even necessary—they are more of a
guideline. This form can be used for very
simple, quick metaphors that don’t take up
much space, or for longer ones that are more
like a story.

Search for Symbols

Metaphors are made out of symbols. A

symbol in this sense is any aspect of a
concept that can conceivably represent
something else. For example, in an induction
about walking down a staircase, we can
understand that that action of descending
down stairs is representative of going
“deeper” into trance. (Remember that
associating “downwards motion” with
hypnosis is one of those conceptual
metaphors that are often part of our linguistic
and cultural understanding.)
The first step of constructing metaphors is
latching onto concepts that you’d like to
represent, and then gathering symbols that
fit. These concepts can be anything that you
want to play with in the moment: Broad ideas
like trance, submissiveness, comfort, fear,
pleasure, pain, or much more specific ideas
like transformative objectification, intense
devotion, the sensation of mindlessness,
being too dumb to read, etc. Picking these
concepts is about what you and your partner
desire, and may be something that you
choose on a whim as the trance naturally
progresses. As with everything, content that
is part of someone’s personal history that
they’ve shared with you will have particular
power to it, as it’s a part of your shared
narrative.
From here, you can think about symbols
for your concepts. Utilization is remarkably
useful here—again, choosing symbols that
are coming directly from your partner will
give them extra weight. Thinking back to
stories they’ve told you about their life or
things that they enjoy that can reflect these
play concepts is a great way to do this. For
example, if one of their hobbies is taking
nature walks, you can play within that realm.
Next is to think about what is involved in
the scenario or concepts that you’ve
considered. In the nature walks example, we
can consider all sorts of aspects like the
temperature and weather, the sensory
experience of nature (sights, sounds, smells,
etc), the physical experience of walking (how
it can be an automatic or conscious action,
the kinesthetic experience of muscles
engaging or growing tired), the sense of time
passing, a feeling of enjoyment or fulfilment,
etc.

Consider Direction

Generally, hypnosis scenes and suggestion

involve change and motion: From awake to in
trance, from smart to dumb, from moving to
still, from brainwashed to more brainwashed,
from one perspective to another. We don’t
always need to know exactly where we are
going with our trances ahead of time—there
is a lot of value in playing on whims—but
having a sense of the general direction that
we are heading in is where we can start
understanding how our metaphors can
function.
Each one of the aspects that we’ve
discussed about our metaphor can be
potentially symbolic, and our symbols can
serve as a way to provide motion to our
hypnosis. The easiest way to do this is to
consider the most basic sense of
transformation within our ingredients and
relate it to the change we want to experience
in hypnosis. For example, in the metaphor
about walking in nature, we could think about
the value of change between the beginning of
the walk (anticipation, curiosity, excitement,
feeling ready) and the end of the walk
(satisfaction, tiredness, furthered knowledge).
There are many of these sorts of “before and
after” elements within scenarios, and this is
the most simple way to consider a
relationship between two concepts: Each of
them have a place where they start,
contrasted with a place where they end.
The idea is to find parallels between the
metaphorical journey and the journey of the
play that you’re doing. Consider the narrative
arc of any story: While the plot of any two
tales may differ, the general form they take
will often be shared (exposition, rising action,
climax, falling action, and resolution). The
“story” that you tell as your metaphor
(whether it is an actual story or just a simple
metaphor) will certainly, on some level, share
a similar narrative arc to the “story” that you
are telling in your hypnosis play.
Driven by looking into novelist Kurt
Vonnigut’s work on graphing story arcs,
researchers have looked into codifying the
most common archetypes that describe
stories.47 We can make use of these
archetypes when we’re thinking about the
direction and form that our metaphors take.
Let’s look at how we can get inspired to use
them in our hypnotic metaphors.

Rags to riches: A rise

Riches to rags: A fall
Icarus: A rise, then fall
Oedipus: A fall, then rise, then fall
Cinderella: A rise, then fall, then
rise
Man in a hole: A fall, then rise

These archetypes generally serve to

describe good versus bad events for a story,
but when we’re adapting them in a metaphor
for hypnokink, we can apply or understand
them more broadly. For example, how can
you represent the idea of someone taking a
nature walk? Like a Cinderella-style story,
does their interest rise, then fall as they find
themselves distracted, then rise again as they
gain renewed focus? How could that relate to
the hypnotic phenomena that they are
experiencing?

Sell Your Metaphor

In NLP sources, practitioners assert that
the best metaphors are ones that are
processed unconsciously—that is, the subject
hears a story or metaphor and draws their
own conclusions about how it relates to their
experience. As we discussed earlier, this is not
necessarily the best or only option. In fact, if
there’s a particular path you’d like to follow,
or you want a little more confidence in how
they interpret your words, it can be helpful to
guide your partner through your thoughts by
really selling your metaphor. (This can also be
particularly good for partners, neurodivergent
or otherwise, who find metaphorical
ambiguity challenging or confusing.)
You can do this very explicitly: “This
reminds me of…” are sort of magic words
that can help jumpstart someone’s processing
about the relationship between their
experience and your metaphor. The key is to
explain why. For example, if you were talking
to a partner about their descent into further
brainwashing, you could say, “This reminds
me of those nature walks you like to take;
how you take your first steps into the woods
maybe with some expectation of what you’ll
experience, but always discovering something
new and exciting, finding yourself changed by
the end of it, with greater appreciations, with
different and new memories.”
This is an opportunity to connect into any
of the symbols that you know are present in
your metaphor. You could say, “There’s a
thing that happens when you go out, where
you become really aware of your environment
—like because you’re in a place that’s
different from your norm, you process it
differently and you even notice your own
senses differently when you look at the trees,
and the ground, and where the sky peeks
through the canopy.” That could stand alone
in your patter, or be an extension of the
previous statement, and you could leave it as-
is for your partner to process it, or you could
further sell it: “Doesn’t that seem familiar
right now? Aren’t you starting to notice how
your processing is changing in this very
brainwashed space, how you get more aware
of all the little things, and how that awareness
changes you—you’re not the same person
who walked into the forest.”
We can coexist with the (false, but not
useless) axiom of letting someone process
their own interpretation of a metaphor
because naturally, there will be connections
that your partner makes that are not what
you’ve explicitly stated. This is part of the
beauty of human processing—our brains all
deal with information uniquely. Using some
amount of linguistic ambiguity is one way to
do this, and you can also start the metaphor
by selling it very explicitly and then move
away from that specificity as you continue on.
It’s not a matter of a binary—“Am I telling
them or not telling them what this metaphor
means?”—it’s a gradient of how much of
your own process you are relating to them as
you go through with it.

Change Your Metaphors over

Time

While static, one-off metaphors are simple,

we’ve discussed thus far how they often serve
to mirror the direction or journey of a scene.
This is even more highlighted when we
expand them to something longer or story-
like. When we use a metaphorical story as
part of hypnosis, we can consider more than
just the broad-form narrative arc that we’re
discussing of the beginning and end. All of
the symbols that are available to us are
elements that can serve to further the
experience. Just as the overarching metaphor
itself has a quality of change baked into it,
you can consider the individual parts involved
as having qualities that can be shifted to suit
your narrative.
Continuing our nature walk example, you
can consider the changeable aspects of each
of the symbols—how does the sensory
experience change? Do images get bigger or
smaller, darker or brighter? Do the sounds
get louder or quieter? Does the kinesthetic
experience of walking get stronger, or fade
away? Does time seem to pass slower or
faster? Any element (whether a sensory
modality or other aspect of the experience)
can be changed, and that change itself can be
symbolic. For example, you may be talking to
them about how as they walk, the imagery in
the forest grows more clear and sharp,
brighter and more vivid. That change can
symbolize a change in their experience of
brainwashing as well—it can serve as an
allegory to how much more perceptive they
are to their own internal experience, their
sense of submission. On the flipside, if you
were doing a scene where you were reducing
their intelligence, perhaps you would talk
about their sensory experience of walking
going dull.
There are no rules for what makes a
proper symbol, as long as it makes sense, and
you feel that it is explainable. If you want,
you can always sell the allegory. While
perhaps it makes sense for senses to dull in a
scene about intelligence reduction, you could
very easily talk about their senses heightening
—after all, it also makes sense that someone
who wasn’t thinking smartly anymore might
be more focused on their physical experience.
Learning about submodalities, which we’ll
discuss in Chapter 15—the qualities of
sensory experience—can help with creativity
here.

Flow
 All of the different parts and pieces we’ve
discussed thus far about constructing
metaphors are things that you can do as
responsive, rather than planned. You don’t
need to have a grand story arc pre-formed in
your mind—you can simply choose a topic to
explore and think about how it relates to
what you are doing with your partner. To use
a metaphor to explain this, think about how
sometimes one might get in the car and start
driving, unsure of the road they will take or
their destination. They take cues from their
environment and whims of where to go. In
this case, we can think about how we simply
might want to choose a path and topic in
trance, and observe how our partner
responds as we go, noticing for ourselves
what elements involved therein can be used
as symbols to create pleasantly unexpected
responses.
Perhaps you start by talking about
someone painting. You think about how a
painting reveals itself over time—what does
that remind you of ? What other things reveal
themselves over time? You can even pose
that question to your partner and continue
based on their answer. You could change the
nuance of the question as well: A painting
that the painter themself doesn’t fully see
until they’re finished, or a painting that the
painter can clearly visualize, but no one else
can until the canvas is filled. Then: What
aspects of that change over time? Losing
track of time while immersed? A boost of
creativity? The emotions of the painter? What
if it’s an erotic painting? “Thinking out loud”
and simply exploring a concept is a perfectly
valuable technique for hypnotic patter and
can reveal nuances in concepts that you or
your partner hadn’t previously considered.

Think About Ending/Insight

A therapeutic metaphor is nearly always

based on giving the client some sort of
insight into a problem or a new perspective.
Metaphors in hypnokink can also have that
quality, even if that’s not always the ultimate
goal, and it can be helpful to consider this,
especially when you’re wanting to exit a
longer metaphor or add punctuation to what
you’re saying.
 Circling back to the aspect of play that you
most want to highlight can be a great way to
do this. For example, if you’ve talked a lot
about the painter who is working on a piece,
you can remind your partner very explicitly
that there is something that they derived
from this. You could even say it very plainly:
“Your brain made all of those connections
about that idea of them working on
something important—things you might not
even be fully aware of right now, but things
that changed your past and future
experience.”
You as the hypnotist don’t necessarily have
to understand all of the thoughts that went
through your partner’s mind. You can of
course explain your insights to your partner
—“In the same way that a painter takes his
time to create art, you notice yourself taking
time to work on your
submission, and I take my time to work on
you”—but it’s always good to leave room for
them to make their own connections and not
try to fit them into the exact interpretation
that you have.

Chapter Summary
Metaphors are about relating one
concept to another, and in
therapy they are meant to provide
insight into a situation by
changing perspectives
Hypnokink metaphors can be
goal oriented, but they don’t have
to follow such a rigid structure
Metaphors can create a
transderivational search where a
person has a gut response and
produces their own meaning
about the concept at hand
To construct a metaphor, pick a
topic—it can be good to find one
that has meaning to your partner
Understand that your metaphor
overall shows change in some
form, like a story arc
Explore the symbols within your
metaphor that can themselves
change to provide more elements
that your partner can have
responses to
Don’t be afraid to spell out or sell
the meaning of your metaphor,
including if there is some insight
to be gained
 CHAPTER 14: FUTURE
PACING
When we start getting into the “bread and
butter” of techniques that NLP supports, we
arrive at what it calls “future pacing”: When
the hypnotist has the subject move forward in
time to imagine an outcome. Future pacing is
cited as a powerful tool on its own, but it also
serves to be a basis for many other
techniques in NLP.

What Is Future Pacing?

Future pacing is essentially the practice of

having someone go through the experience
of some future event. This can be done while
the person is in hypnosis or outside of it,
through short, simple language or with
guided imagery or suggestion. In a
therapeutic model, this is done with the
intention of getting through a scenario that
prevents challenges for the client. For
example, someone who is nervous about
giving a speech is made to imagine the
situation hypothetically, in detail; the steps
needed to prepare themselves, and where
they do a great job and then feel good about
themselves afterwards. The idea is that this
kind of imaginative experience can better
equip someone for the reality of it.
Again, in kink, we’re not really
approaching play with this framework, but
this opens up a lot of possibilities for us in
terms of where future pacing can be fun. It
can be remarkably creative and useful for
long-term changes like in brainwashing,
where you bring your partner to a theoretical
future in which they are even more
submissive and responsive to you. It also
plays well with one-off sessions and short-
term play, for example, if you very quickly
want to fractionate your partner and bring
them through the experience of an hour or
more of going in and out of trance, or if you
want to add some extra “stick” to a trigger by
bringing them into a future where they
respond effortlessly to it. If your partner is a
masochist or into fear, future pacing can also
add a lot of weight to threats that you give.

Basic Outline

In this section, we’ll go through the most

common framework of future pacing and
discuss the steps involved. Keep in mind that
whenever we try to codify hypnotic methods
into concrete steps, we lose a bit of the
nuance of fluid and opportunistic trancing—
as you grow more comfortable with the
muscle memory of creating future pacing,
you may find that you skip steps or move
them around. This form is only meant to be a
guideline of options—the only truly necessary
ingredient for future pacing is someone imagining the
future. The essential format that we’ll follow is
the idea of establishing someone’s current
space in time, bringing them through the
future, and then re-anchoring them to the
present with those new “experiences.”
 “You Are Here”

The first step can be establishing your

partner “where” (or “when”) they currently
are. There are two main options or elements
here: You can go with their flow and
understand how they are processing their
current experience, and/or you can
emphasize that they are in the present
regardless of where they might be. The
purpose of doing this is to provide a baseline
and a place from which they can “travel” and
also return.
It might seem like it’s a given that your
partner is in the present if you haven’t future
paced them yet, but there is a reason that we
make a distinction between these two
options. When someone is going through
hypnosis, they often are going to process in
many different ways because of the nature of
trance and the nature of the way that human
brains work. For example, if you are doing a
scene with your partner where you are
making them sexually frustrated, they could
potentially be relating the experience to one
they’ve had in the past, or relating it to a sexy
story they’ve read about someone else in
flashes of processing. Or even more explicitly
—if they are in dollspace, for example, that
may not be their “present” baseline.
We put a lot of emphasis on striving to
understand our partners’ experiences during
trance through verbal or nonverbal
communication or context clues. This is part
of pacing and leading—telling someone that
you know what they are experiencing helps to
create the rapport necessary to draw them
into more suggestions. Continuing the
example of playing with someone’s sexual
frustration, you talk about someone’s
experience like, “Right now, you’re deep in
your own desire, so focused on the feeling of
wanting, maybe comparing this to other
times you’ve wanted something strongly,
maybe wondering if you’re going to get what
you need…”
Notice that this statement contains various
temporal elements. It begins by anchoring the
person to the present (“right now…”), is
hedged to include the possibility for them
processing the past (“other times”), and
finishes with a lead-in that causes them to
process the future (“wondering if you’re
going to get what you need”). You can think
of future pacing as something that changes
the timeframe of someone’s processing, and
even such a small statement as this is a
perfectly good example of complete (simple)
future pacing in and of itself. However, this
also gives us options to expand.

“You Are There”

The next step is directing your partner

toward the future. “What if...” and “How do
you think it will feel when…” are potent sets
of words for this. They require a person to
seek answers in the future. You can use them
as a set-up for lengthy future pacing, or use a
simple statement on its own to create a
similar effect. Again we have
options/elements: How much are you as the
hypnotist trying to describe the future, versus
them spontaneously imagining what would
happen in a given scenario?
You can consider the natural progression
of the person’s current state. In the sexual
frustration example, the question of “future”
is somewhat predetermined: “When or will I
ever be relieved of this?” You can very simply
do some guided scenarios to force them to
go through different options: “Maybe it will
take a very long time before you find release
—can you imagine hours of your body
yearning for pleasure?” From here, you can
flesh out the scenario further: “Think about
the way that time passes so much more
slowly when you need to cum, but still
waiting each agonizing moment, the way that
you’d grow more and more desperate and
horny, the way that that would make you so
much more malleable to my will. Imagine
how you’d feel after thirty minutes, after an
hour, after two hours—how that would
almost give you this erotic sense of despair
and powerlessness…”
While there is room for some ambiguity
here, this is a fairly direct method. You could
also be much more ambiguous and make
your partner do the processing of the
scenario themselves. For example, you could
say, “What would it be like to be held in
frustration for so long? How would it feel,
what would it do to you? How long are you
imagining?” These are questions that you can
prompt your partner to answer verbally,
which can give the effect of them needing to
process that future in order to communicate
it. Or you can leave them to parse internally,
which can cause them to potentially go
through many different options or fixate on
one. Both can be powerful, but the key is that
they are imagining a scenario or possibilities.
Something else to consider is whether or
not your partner is associated with the
experience or dissociated from the
experience. For example, they could be very
literally feeling the thing happening to them,
or they could be sort of removed from it
where they are watching it happen from a
distance. You can encourage either (or both)
of these options, or allow for them to happen
naturally or spontaneously; everyone has a
different experience of imagining through
future scenarios.
Future pacing in general is about creating
an emotional state or experience that the
person can anchor to, and this is where you
can do much of that work. Emphasize the
clarity and quality of their experience as
something that is both changing them as well
as easy to hold and recall. But this isn’t
something that you have to do explicitly—
you can simply flesh out the experience by
exploring it with them conversationally. This
is especially useful when doing play outside
of “trance” (or outside of a space where your
partner is nonverbal). By framing your paces
as questions, it opens up the opportunity to
have a dialogue, and the more that you and
your partner engage in talking about a
potential scenario, the more concrete it can
feel.

“You Are Back (And It’s

Different)”

The final step in future pacing is bringing

someone back to the present. We do this with
the purpose of having their “now” experience
and perspective changed from what they just
experienced in the “future.” We can consider
that any time someone goes through
something imaginative or intense it influences
their perspective, and again there is no true
need to go through with this step, but we do
have an option to very explicitly help that
along.
There are all sorts of metaphors and
imagery that we can use to codify and
integrate memories. You could say, “As you
process this feeling and keep it close to you
as you wake up / return to the present…” or
“Imagining this as a memory that weaves
itself into your current experience…” or
“Watching this go into a box that puts itself
in your mind and shapes the way you
behave…” This is an opportunity for
amnesia, if that’s something you’d like to play
with as well.
Once you’ve transitioned back, it can be
good to emphasize the change and anchor
the feelings further and to the present.
Continuing our example: “Doesn’t that feel
so much more vivid now? You can really feel
the difference in your body with all of that
pent-up desire, you can feel the way that that
brings you so much closer to breaking for
me.” We also can always add impact to our
suggestions by explaining what we’re doing:
“I messed with your brain by making it go
through something that didn’t even really
happen, and you STILL are fucked up by it—
isn’t that just so good?”

Applications

The example we’ve used thus far is a fairly

general one—a fantasy scenario that has the
potential for some interesting long-term
things but can just as easily be a one-off
scene. Despite the fact that (perhaps because)
future pacing is such a simple concept, it is
incredibly versatile and contains a lot of
possibilities for interesting use.

Realistic Future Pacing

Traditionally, future pacing describes a

technique for situations that can or will
probably happen to a person. It can be seen
as a way to “rehearse for” an upcoming
event, and it can reveal things that the subject
feels about the event as well as how they
think they need to “prepare” for it. For
example, you could have your partner
imagine themselves in the future as being
even more obedient towards you, and explore
together what they feel are the steps leading
up to that future. Perhaps they have a general
sense of how that excites them, or perhaps
they are able to more clearly understand how
that is achievable and real.
One of the qualities of this kind of future
pacing that relies more on reality is the idea
that eventually, the person will go through
that scenario in their life with the memory of
the future pacing experience. This is of
course remarkably great for anything
involving brainwashing or long-term play, as
it is concrete proof of your influence over
their experience. For example, even a very
simple future pace of, “Are you thinking
about what it will be like when you find
yourself automatically responding to a trigger
for the first time?” can add an intense layer to
that response when it happens.

Making Triggers Stick

This is also a great way to make

triggers/anchors that have good sticking
power. Triggers and anchors are essentially
associated responses, and they can be made
stronger by creating stronger associations.
When you are creating a trigger, having your
partner go through the feeling of what it will
be like to respond to it (perhaps in different
ways or situations) broadens the association
and makes a rich sense memory. For example,
if you were making an anchor for someone to
feel pleasure from hearing your voice: “My
voice fits so well in your head and it just feels
impossibly good as it vibrates there, and you
can feel how good that is right now, and you
can also imagine hearing my voice later,
tomorrow, far off in the future and how
strongly that will hit you—think about that
really strongly right now, really focus on it—
even as the response changes over time it still
is deep inside of you…” Notice that we make
allowances for the anchor to shift in how it
feels, as that naturally happens and is still a
part of a good response. We can also think
about this technique for more complex
anchors like persona play of different kinds,
like dollification, robot play, bimbofication,
pet play and the like.

Sadistic Pacing

Something else you can consider is in what

direction you’d like to take someone. Usually
we discuss future pacing in the context of
creating strong, enjoyable experiences, but we
can always be more sadistic than this if we
would like. “What if ” is a great set-up for a
(playful) threat: “What if I made you babble
like a dummy in public? Can you imagine the
humiliation?” Doing this for the purpose of
fear or discomfort highlights an interesting
aspect of future pacing: How reasonable or
realistic the scenario is can affect the kind of
experience that your partner has from it. If
you are future pacing something that is
unlikely to happen, or something purely
within the realm of fantasy, it can help for
your partner to be in a headspace where their
sense of disbelief is suspended, like in certain
spaces of trance or dissociation.

Presuppositions

Presuppositions could be thought of as an

integral part of future pacing—to engage
with a consideration of the future, various
things about that future must be presumed.
We might also say that the opposite is true:
Time-based presuppositions generally contain
some element of future pacing. For example,
you might say something like, “Isn’t it such a
hot idea that when we go out to dinner, you’ll
still be helpless to me when I trigger you?”
That helplessness, as well as public play, is
presupposed, and additionally your partner
has to go through the process of imagining
this happening.
 Notice that there’s a bit of verbiage that
helps here—the use of the word “when”
instead of “if.” “When” carries an implication
that something is definitely going to happen,
but as always, it’s more important how you
say and frame a statement like this rather
than specific words. An “if ” statement can
also be very easily taken to be a given fact, if
presented within a convincing context and
tone.
Remember that on some level,
presuppositions are a sort of Trojan horse.
They direct the listener’s attention in a certain
way while somewhat obscuring information
contained therein. The above
presupposition/future pace also implies that
your partner is currently helplessly responsive
to your triggers, and the nature of future
pacing serves to reinforce that feeling. Your
partner imagines the future in which this is
true, then maps that onto their current
experience.
The presupposed information can be
“proved” or made more concrete by
exploring or engaging with the scenario,
much in the same way that we aim to anchor
the feelings made by future pacing. It is the
same concept—if you continue the
conversation about how they will respond to
you while out on a date, the entire discussion
is predicated on the idea that this is going to
happen, and thus serves to be something in
which they can believe.

“Past Pacing”

A concept that we can extrapolate from

NLP’s future pacing is the idea of doing the
same thing in a different direction. Instead of
having someone imagine forward in time, we
can pace them backwards. This offers a lot of
interesting opportunities to us.

“What If ”

One way that we could use this is by

treating it similarly to future pacing, where we
provide a scenario for our partner to imagine.
For example, we could say something like,
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if you already had
been deeply hypnotized for the last hour?” A
statement like this causes the subject to parse
and process that scenario and think about
how that would feel. They essentially “travel”
back to the past to do the imagining and then
arrive at the current moment having adjusted
their experience.
This kind of pace can go in a number of
different directions. It can have the effect of
leaving the person with the feeling or echoes
of the feeling of if the scenario had
happened, and/or it can create motivation or
desire for what they imagined. (If it was a
sadistic scenario, it may create aversion or
fear, as well.) Perhaps some of us remember
this sort of thing being said by our parents to
try to get us to do our chores: “You’d have so
much time to relax if you’d already done the
dishes!”
Essentially, this can sometimes be seen as a
sort of sneaky way to future pace. By
imagining a hypothetical past scenario, the
subject often follows that train of thought
forward. “Imagine if I’d brainwashed you
years ago” naturally leads a person into
wondering what they would be like in the
future after years of brainwashing. You can
easily combine past and future pacing
together to get some interesting responses:
“What if you had spent the last year only
masturbating about my power over you? Can
you imagine how eager you’d be to think
about that the next time you got off ?”

Contrasting/Memory Play

Another option we have is directing

someone towards the past in order to create
some sense of juxtaposition. Naturally,
people change over time, and pointing out
that change while essentially making them
relive it can be very powerful. For example,
you could say to your partner, “Do you
remember when you weren’t feeling so sure
about whether you’d like hypnosis? Look at
you now—so needy for it, right?” They have
to make a quick comparison by attempting to
recall how they felt before—putting them in
the past and essentially dissociating them
from the present for a brief moment. This is
of course fabulous for any long-term
brainwashing or conditioning in your
relationship.
You can spend some time emphasizing
those past feelings, as your partner will
naturally be going back and forth from past
to present. Taking them through a specific
memory can serve to make them feel either
more connected to their “past self ” or more
alienated from it, depending on how you
frame the process and how they are currently
feeling. For example, you could add bits into
your patter like, “Doesn’t that feel so far
away?” Or you could use a more ambiguous,
open question: “How far away does that feel
to you, now?” The qualifier that you use
(such as “far away” or “close”) can have an
impact on leading them in one direction or
another.
It’s worth understanding that human
memory is quite unreliable, and this means
that playing with someone’s memories is very
easy, especially in a situation where the
person is in some sort of trance space. When
you ask someone to remember back to how
they felt a year ago, those feelings will
necessarily have been influenced by their
current and past experiences. In many cases,
it’s difficult to fully recall, or recall accurately
(part of why “resetting” someone to clear
triggers/influence etc. is not helpful). You
can certainly help this along by pointing out
that there are details that are fuzzy to them—
this is somewhat of a given.
 Obscuring a singular memory can have the
effect of getting a person used to the feeling
of “not remembering” well, so this is an
opportunity to introduce more amnesia or
confusion into the situation. You can very
directly anchor that sensation of trying to
recall something but not being able to into
other parts of suggestions that you are
making. You can also consider that this
allows you to change their memory of the
past, whether parts or the whole (and as with
any memory play of this type, carries certain
risk and need for delicacy and safety
awareness). Changing the way that someone
views their past self or memories can have a
big impact on their experience of the present.

Chapter Summary:

Future pacing is essentially

anything that causes the listener
to “move forward” and imagine
some hypothetical future
This can serve to be “rehearsal”
for a future event or otherwise
make strong anchored feelings
about something that might
happen, thus changing the way
that someone feels in the current
moment
Directing someone to imagine the
future is the only necessary
ingredient in this kind of pacing,
but you can also make the whole
process more concrete by
emphasizing the “here and now”
before and after
It can be very useful to use in
order to “take credit” for real
changes, make triggers stick more
effectively, cause and play with
fear, and emphasize
presuppositions in your trances
If “future pacing” exists, then we
can also think about “past
pacing,” where we direct someone
towards their memories
Past pacing is basically sneaky
future pacing, as it often creates
implications for how the future
will go
It can also be very good for types
of memory-based play
 CHAPTER 15:
SUBMODALITIES
In Chapter 2, we discussed NLP’s view of
“representational systems,” colloquially
known as “modalities.” We know that our
sensory experience plays a big part in how we
do hypnosis, and NLP has a lot more to say
about the nuances of how they can be used.
While the meta model’s original idea of
representational systems has some holes, the
way it specifies qualities of the senses
—“submodalities”—is an incredibly useful
tool.

What Are
Submodalities/Pragmagraphics?
 If a modality is essentially describing one
of our senses, a submodality, according to
NLP, is a way to describe the qualia of those
senses. For example, if we’re talking about
something that is visual, the submodalities of
that would be aspects like
brightness/darkness, color,
fuzziness/sharpness, or motion/stillness,
among others. We once again find ourselves
looking at a relatively simple concept that can
be used in some very interesting ways.
Certainly, a greater specificity of the way that
someone is processing through their senses
can be helpful when doing hypnosis and
creating immersive experiences. But NLP
originally developed its application of this
idea when Richard Bandler and NLP
colleague Todd Epstein were delving into the
question of how two people with similar
ideas and strategies could end up with very
different results.48
Together, they thought about the ways that
someone could represent information in their
map of the world, and how that could change
or differ. They called this “pragmagraphics,”
from “pragmatics” (the area of linguistics that
describes contextual/non-literal meaning of
communication) and “holography” (a
representation of an image).49 Bandler and
Epstein thought that if we use our senses to
represent our experiences, the qualities of our
senses could make big distinctions in how we
process them. For example, someone who
remembers certain visual details of a memory
might have a different perspective
remembering it if they focus on other visual
details, or the way things sounded or felt.
This evolved into submodalities, which
initially was meant to be something that
could help people change the way that they
felt about events or beliefs.50 For example, a
client who was struggling with working on a
specific project might be asked how they
visualize the idea of working on that project.
Perhaps they see it as something very bright
and intense, or perhaps something far away
and fuzzy. NLP would say to have the person
imagine it with changed submodalities:
Making it a little bit dimmer so it’s not as
blinding, or making it closer and more in
focus so it seems more in reach.
 This application offers quite a bit of
potential for us in kink, and there are
certainly other fun ways that we can use
submodalities in play. But it also serves as a
very helpful model to better understand
sensory experience—paradoxically, even
more than the idea of “modalities” on which
it’s based.

List of Submodality Distinctions

Below is a non-exhaustive list of some

potential qualities that each of the senses can
perceive.

Visual Auditory Kinesthetic

Associated/ Associated/ Associated/
dissociated dissociated dissociated
Near/far Distance Distance
(distance)
Big/small (size)Volume Pressure
Location Location Location
(direction)
Moving/still Rhythm Movement
Speed of motion Tempo Temperature
Bright/dark Pitch Texture
Clear/fuzzy Clear/muted Clear/fuzzy
Steady/ Steady/ Steady/
intermittent intermittent intermittent
Saturation Timbre Intensity
Contrast Contrast Contrast
3D/flat Stereo/mono
Color/black and
white
Angle or
perspective
Detail/vagueness

The Role of Metaphor

Submodalities are broadly about being

open to different interpretations of our
senses, but NLP emphasizes that they are
also more specifically about change. They are
meant to offer a method for analyzing and
altering someone’s perspective, particularly in
how a person can represent those changes
—“representation” akin to the always-
important concept of metaphors.
The way that we approach using
submodalities in hypnosis highlights the
nature of metaphor that permeates
everything that we do. If, in a scene, we
decide to make our partner feel pleasure and
then guide them through visualizing that
pleasure, we understand that the imagery that
they “see” is a representation of what they
are feeling; it is a visual metaphor or symbol.
Further, if we take steps to alter that image—
for example, we make it appear larger, or
brighter—that change is reflected in the
feeling because of the way that our partner
has created an association. So it’s not only the
initial representation that is a metaphor, but
the “direction” or “motion”—the change—
that is a metaphor as well. Once again,
conceptual metaphor reminds us that we
have a collection of culturally-understood
associations—“smaller to bigger” or “darker
to brighter” equals an increase.
Certainly, this also is dependent on
context. We could say that making an image
brighter increases its “intensity,” but it’s easy
enough to think of examples where the
opposite is the case. Trance, for instance,
might be better understood as an image
going darker, or smaller—possibly reflecting
our visual experience of trance (fading,
darkening, eye closure, etc) or the idea that
we have about trance (something that makes
our senses duller). As we discussed in other
chapters about metaphor, the way that a
metaphor is interpreted is based on
someone’s personal history as well as
variables in the moment.
You can, of course, make a case for your
interpretation (“As you watch the image of
yourself getting darker, you can think about
that dulling as so similar to trance, dimming
you, dimming your consciousness…”). But,
it’s not always about dictating or “getting it
right.” The beauty of any metaphor is the
ability for the listener to spontaneously
produce their own thoughts and feelings
about it. Additionally, while some
submodalities might seem like a sliding scale,
the responses that you get will not necessarily
be binary. If you approach your hypnosis
with curiosity, openness, and permissive
ambiguity, you can allow for a range of
responsiveness, rather than a simple
more/less. For example, if you say, “You are
paying such close attention to the image you
see of pleasure, and when you see the details
change, when you see it get brighter, what
kinds of things do you notice about how you
feel?” your partner might notice changes in
other submodalities or their quality of
experience—like the temperature and texture
of the feeling, or how they emotionally
respond to it.

The Relationship between Senses

Submodalities also highlight the fact that

our senses are not wholly distinct from one
another. As humans, our experience of the
world comes from our senses, but although
we often separate them to talk about aspects
of that experience, they are entirely
interconnected. If you are in a museum
looking at pictures of art, you might be
focused on what you are seeing, but still you
are feeling the ground under you, the smells,
the sounds, etc. You may not be noticing
those things, but it’s more that they are tuned
out instead of not there—if you couldn’t feel
the familiar sense of gravity or air
temperature, your experience would be
different. In kink, for example, when we do
sensory deprivation, what tends to happen is
that people imagine what they can’t see, hear,
and feel. If they are blindfolded, they may
visualize their partner based on cues from
their other senses and memories, or simply
imagine a location-sense of where they are.
Each of our senses are used to working with
the others in order to create a complete
picture or experience.
We can also think about this in terms of
blurring the lines between the senses. There
are, for example, kinesthetic aspects of sight:
The physical motion of our eyes or head
looking at something, an intuitive
understanding of where our bodies are in
relation to what we’re seeing, a sense of
motion or balance based on the motion we
see, the way we feel when we see certain
things. These are inseparable parts of our
visual experience that we should think about
when we are doing hypnosis. When making
suggestions, we often say to engage all of a
person’s senses to make something
immersive, but this doesn’t just mean to
describe external sights, sounds, and feelings.
Focus on the internal and holistic aspects of
an experience: “Think about what you’re
feeling right now as you stare into my eyes—
the way your eyes themselves feel, the
emotions you feel that are inside your body,
affected simply by looking at me. Think
about my voice vibrating the air and vibrating
your eardrums, that very subtle feeling in
your head that you barely notice, how that
translates to your mind as me talking as you
watch my lips move, the thrill in your
spine…” Emphasizing internal awareness is
naturally hypnotic.
Additionally, emphasizing the connection
between a person’s senses leaves them more
in touch with the ability to translate one to
the other in terms of submodalities. For
example, if you lean into the physical and
emotional sensation of hearing your voice,
they may naturally experience other sensory
shifts spontaneously. Perhaps they focus
more on the qualities of those internal
sensations, and are able to pick up on more
minute changes. You are essentially creating
an association and teaching them how to
notice their own responses in a potentially
new way.

Applications

In this section, we’ll go over several

different methods to apply the concept of
submodalities in erotic hypnosis.
 Basic Form

The essential idea of using submodalities is

to allow for a shift in perception when we
shift the process that someone uses. You can
change the experience of a suggestion, a
current feeling, a memory, or anything else.

Identify the submodalities

Ask your partner to focus
on the experience and ask
about the submodalities
involved. This can be like a
dialogue, where you are
prompting them for
answers. For example, if
you’re looking to explore
and play with an erotic
memory in the past
between the two of you,
you could direct them to
think about it and think
about it and ask about the
experience. “What is the
most vivid sense for you?
What kinds of aspects of
that sense really stand out?”
 You can offer examples to
elicit specific submodalities
(“Is it very dark, or
bright?”) but keep in mind
that leading questions like
this will generally change
their perception, since they
will focus on or fabricate
those aspects
spontaneously. If you want
to avoid this, you can keep
to very general questions,
and aim to parse out the
submodalities from their
responses (“I can sort of
see myself doing x” might
mean that it’s visually not
well defined and that there’s
potentially some aspect of
motion).

Change the submodalities

Once you have some idea
of the way they are
qualifying their experience,
you can mess with it by
altering the submodalities.
For example, in the erotic
memory scenario, you could
make the image of it more
clear or colorful. This could
be something that is an
active process for them, or
a passive one: In an active
process, you can tell your
partner to do the work of
adjusting (“I want you to
make that memory look
brighter”), and in a passive
process you can make the
changes feel like they are
happening independently of
them (“Watch as the
memory gets brighter”).
Passive responsiveness like
this can add to elements of
D/s or control. You also
have the option to allow or
direct your partner to
change submodalities in a
way that they choose for
themselves (“Take one
aspect of your experience
 and play with it, change it
however you like”).

Refocus on the current experience

Ask your partner or direct
them to how they feel
about the memory or
experience with the
submodalities changed.
This doesn’t have to be the
end of the scene, or even
very formalized; you could
very easily give a simple
“Now how does it feel?”
between each submodality
shift to bring attention to
the adjustment of their
perception of it.
Remember: The idea is that
changing the sensory
experience changes the
experience as a whole, so
you want your partner to
pay attention to the whole
and be able to notice the
contrast.
 Changing Beliefs51

Another way that we can apply this idea is

using it to change beliefs. In therapy, this is
often for the purpose of dealing with limiting
beliefs, such as someone feeling unsuccessful.
But in kink, we aim to use this for more fun
(and potentially devious or brainwashing)
applications. Beliefs are complicated and
often are intertwined with past experiences—
they affect the way that we behave (if you
believe you are good at hypnosis, you will
tend to do it confidently, for example), and
they also can be a function of generalization
(assuming that one experience is
representative of a whole concept, such as
feeling like it’s finally possible to orgasm
from nipple play after a single instance of it
happening).

Get submodalities of the belief

Ask your partner about
their sensory experience as
they think about the belief
you want to change. “What
does this belief feel like? If
you had to visualize it, what
 would it look like? Does it
have weight, texture, color,
etc? What’s the strongest
one?”

Get submodalities of something

uncertain/unclear
Identify a belief or
experience that your partner
feels unsure about—
something they don’t have a
strong opinion on. For
example, perhaps they don’t
feel particularly one way or
the other about a certain
flavor of ice cream. Ask
them about the
submodalities of that
feeling.

Change the original belief ’s

submodalities into the unclear
submodalities
Take the submodalities of
the belief you want to
change and shift them to
match the submodalities of
 that unsure feeling. Going
one-by-one tends to be
more thorough and
concrete (“Watch as the
vividness of that just starts
to fade out, feel the texture
of it change to be more
dull...”). Again, you have
options of whether you’d
like to make this a passive
or active process for your
partner.

Make new belief

uncertain/unclear
Introduce the belief you’d
like your partner to have at
the end of this, and instruct
them to experience it with
the “uncertain”
submodalities. For example,
“Now imagine the sense of
believing that I have total
control over you when
you’re wearing my collar—
to start with, it feels dull,
and looks unclear…”
Diminish submodalities of
original belief
“That old feeling of
thinking you can resist me
fades even more, the image
of it, the feeling of it, just
fading away into
nothingness until when you
think about that, you don’t
really feel anything at all…”

Give new belief the submodalities

of the old belief
“As you think about my
control over you, you can
feel your senses grow more
sharp—the image grows
brighter and the intensity of
the texture grows…”

Future pace
You can use future pacing
to make this sort of change
feel more tactile: “When
you imagine yourself
 wearing the collar later,
what does it feel like?”

“Swish Pattern”52

This is an interesting usage of

submodalities that NLP (and Bandler) is
particularly known for, with a fittingly-
strange name. It’s called the “swish pattern”
because the hypnotist makes a noise to mark
what is essentially a very strong
anchoring/associative process. Essentially,
you are replacing one concept, feeling, or
experience in someone’s mind with another.

Identify first concept’s

submodalities
Get a sense of someone’s
starting point and the
submodalities involved.
This is usually done in this
case with a focus on visual
submodalities—like what it
feels to be not turned on.
“Imagine what it feels like
to just be at a baseline, not
really aroused at all. What
 does it feel like? If you were
to picture it, what would it
look like? What kinds of
qualities are there in that
image?” In the traditional
form, the hypnotist asks the
subject to put the image
into a frame, like a picture
—this helps to dissociate
them from it.

Identify second concept’s

submodalities
In this example, perhaps we
want to replace the feeling
of not being turned on with
being horny. Ask your
partner to vividly imagine
that sense, and do the same
investigation of the
submodalities.

Make those submodalities more

intense
Take the submodalities of
the replacing concept and
“tune them up”—brighten
 them, make them more
vivid. “Feel and watch that
sense of being turned on
grow so much stronger,
into something that is so
easy to hold, something that
sticks to you. The image
looks so much more clear,
the emotions you feel about
it are so much more
intense...”

“Swish”
Tell your partner that they
should imagine the first
concept, and then on your
signal, replace it with the
second one. The “picture
frame” can help here,
because it can allow them
to switch out the image
more easily, but it’s not
strictly necessary. The signal
that is traditional in NLP is
a “whoosh” noise that the
hypnotist makes, but you
can use any unique auditory
 signal. Essentially, you’re
making a trigger or anchor
for the person, so while you
can use a snap of the
fingers or a word, it can
help for the signal to be
something that you don’t
usually use very often for
other hypnotic phenomena.
“Now, I’m going to make a
little whooshing sound, and
when I do, I want you to
imagine that that complete
picture of feeling not horny
just gets wiped away and
replaced with all of that
vivid experience and
imagery of arousal…”

Anchor multiple times

Direct your partner to do
this very quickly several
times, using your auditory
anchor. In some methods
of the pattern, the subject is
instructed to close and
open their eyes in time with
 their switching/replacing of
the submodalities. This
gives an extra anchor and
visual cue.

Future pace
Ask your partner how it
feels now to think of being
not horny in this moment,
then direct their attention
forward in time to future
pace them and add extra
sticking power. “Can you
imagine feeling like this
later? Trying to recall what
it feels like to not feel
horny, but only finding
pleasure and arousal?”

Chapter Summary

Submodalities are the way that

NLP describes the distinct
qualities of a sense/sensory
experience
They are traditionally used to
change someone’s perception of
an experience—if you change the
qualities of it, you change the way
they process it
This ties in deeply to metaphor;
we are essentially thinking of
submodalities as representations
Submodalities also highlight the
fact that our senses are not as
distinct as we might think,
because of the way that we can
understand one sense describing
another
There are a variety of ways to
apply submodalities to distinct
techniques that change someone’s
experiences or beliefs
 CHAPTER 16: ETHICS,
REVISITED
We began this book with a brief discussion
on ethics as it applies to using NLP in an
erotic context and raised some questions
about some of the potential challenges we
encounter when we attempt to fit it into a
box. The ethics of something cannot be
understood without first having an
understanding of how it works and what it is.
We wanted to make sure that when we
revisited the idea of how to play ethically, we
had a solid foundation for how NLP works.
In this chapter, arguably one of the most
important ones in the book, we will focus on
the ways that NLP can help us be
considerate, consensual players in a nuanced
landscape.

The Obvious

This chapter will attempt to be an

exploration of ethics and consent and we will
try not to be repetitive about ethical
guidelines that are very “obvious.” These
ideas fall under what we might call the “Don’t
Be an Asshole” guidelines of consent, and for
posterity, we’ll outline them here.
The two main qualities of this type of
“being an asshole” are lying and coercion.53
In this case, we can understand that lying
means to mislead or to omit. It is still bad
behavior if you are hiding information in
order to get what you want out of an
interaction, such as having ulterior motives.
Coercion is when you are applying pressure
to someone in order to get them to act how
you desire. This can be very direct, or it could
be indirect, such as relying on social norms
or a feeling that the person will be letting you
or themselves down by not doing what you
want.
 You might be an asshole if…

You are attempting to coerce

someone by using NLP ideas,
wordplay, techniques etc. without
consent/disclosure
You are attempting to induce
trance/altered states/etc. in
someone without
consent/disclosure
You are attempting to go against
someone’s desires/consent

The Nuanced

Most of us intuitively understand the

“Don’t Be an Asshole” guidelines. But the
nature of all of these things—hypnosis, NLP,
kink, eroticism, consent, ethics, play—are not
black and white, as much as we’d like them to
be. Ethics are specifically meant to offer
options and a way to think about how to
behave—they are a broad, complex
philosophy, and they cannot prescribe the
“correct” way to do something.
The sex-positive community, and kink
community as a subset of that, makes an
attempt to streamline ethics and consent into
a grab-bag of guidelines and models that
people can rely on in order to have “good”
intimate interactions. The problem with this
is that ethics related to sexuality are not one-
size-fits-all—individuals vary widely in their
needs for structure/comfort, and the
activities themselves change the way that we
need to behave in order to be at our best in
this area. For example, it tends to be a little
easier to understand where lines are or
negotiate when it comes to more tangible
activities, such as sex acts or impact play.
As an aside, sexual ethics are also not static
—it’s a constantly evolving field attempting
to better fit the needs of various
communities. For example, the model of
“enthusiastic consent” is well-known,
wherein genuine eagerness is what defines
“valid” consent. But once considered a
cornerstone of engaging in play, it is being
challenged by other ideas so as not to
invalidate forms of consent that are valid, but
less than enthusiastic.54 But more important
than models or theory is practical
understanding of how to use the tools and
knowledge at our disposal to create
comfortable, enjoyable intimacy.
We talked in the very beginning of this
book about the fraughtness of saying, “Don’t
do NLP without consent,” and posited that
what we really mean is, “Don’t use NLP to
mess with people without consent” (or,
“Don’t Be an Asshole with NLP”). We
certainly don’t want to use the techniques in
this book to coerce people to get what we
want against their wishes or without their
knowledge. But we can use some things that
we’ve learned from NLP in order to make
our conversations and behaviors around
consent more easy to engage in—and
disengage from—for all parties.

Before Negotiation: Flirtation and

Escalation

Negotiation can take many forms in kink.

Some prefer more explicit, “opt-in” methods,
where players discuss potential activities and
then establish which ones are acceptable.
Others prefer a style of “opt-out,” where
limits and no-gos are more the focus. This
exists on a spectrum—most people blend
aspects from both methods. Every individual
has different needs for their comfort and
safety, depending on the activity involved, the
people involved, the situation, whether or not
they have an existing relationship, and much
more. Participants should generally have
some amount of meta conversation about
what they need before play—including what
they need out of negotiation. This is all very
basic kink negotiation, and you should aim to
be intimately familiar with different methods
by doing research outside of this book.
But creating an enjoyable interaction starts
way before the negotiation, and this is a place
where a lot of discomfort can arise—in what
we might call the “gray zone” before play.
Before even getting to the questions
involving play, two people need to have a
series of interactions that lead them to these
conversations. In other words, they flirt.
While play itself can be rather formally
negotiated (if partners need it), it is incredibly
uncommon (and often uncomfortable) to
pose formal questions before there is any
hint of interest. (It would not be necessarily
advisable to walk up to a person you’ve had
no real connection to and ask, “Can I flirt
with you?”)
The existence of this gray zone of
somewhat un-negotiable interaction
highlights the necessity for nonverbal
communication as well as indirect
communication. When we think of how to
build rapport with or flirt with someone, we
understand that very forward, direct advances
often are off-putting or even creepy,
especially at the beginning stages of getting to
know someone. A no-pressure environment
and being able to display interest in a gentle,
subtle way is what fosters connection.
Flirting, displaying interest, or asking to
play all involve what we might think of as
“escalation.” This is when one or both parties
engage in a certain level of interaction and
make an attempt to make it more intimate.
Behaviors that we think of as traditional
flirting might be examples of escalating a
conversation—paying someone compliments,
making sustained eye contact, being playfully
coy, or using open/inviting body language. It
also escalates when someone makes the move
to ask, “Would you like to play?”
 So within this model, the question
becomes: “How do we flirt and escalate in
ways that allow a person to disengage or de-
escalate easily, and without pressure?” While
NLP is often stereotyped as a factor in
flirting that can obfuscate consent, the reality
is that it’s a way to learn how to communicate
in a more controlled way—exactly what we’re
looking for here.

A Note on “Askers” versus “Guessers”

At this point, it’s worth talking about a

non-scientific, anecdotal concept that arises
in certain pop-psychology articles: “Ask
culture” versus “guess culture.”55 This is an
idea that there are two behavioral systems
that tend to be at odds with one another:
Some people are more comfortable asking
direct questions and giving/receiving direct
answers, while others prefer more subtlety
and generally won’t take an action to request
something unless they’re reasonably sure the
answer will be “yes.” For example, an “asker”
might have no problems saying, “Could you
give me a ride home after the party?” They
also might (but not always) tend to be more
comfortable answering or receiving a “no.”
On the other hand, a “guesser” might instead
say something like, “Oh, I don’t have a ride
home after the party—I could Uber or
something…” They’re essentially indirectly
inviting someone to offer them what they’re
actually looking for, and they likely wouldn’t
have even mentioned it unless they thought
that someone could provide it (they’re
“guessing”).
As with anything that attempts to put
people and their behavior into boxes, most
people have qualities of both asker and
guesser—both can feel more comfortable at
different times. In kink and in more broad
circles around sexuality, there’s been a push
to rely more on asking—direct questions
about whether or not someone likes, wants,
or consents to something. This is good in
some ways—encouraging people to get used
to saying and receiving “nos” is largely
helpful—but a full reliance on direct
questions ignores the real difficulties of
tactfully/comfortably navigating them in
situations where these requests are personal,
intimate, and often loaded with some amount
of circumstantial power imbalance.
 This is less of a matter of figuring out
someone’s ask vs. guess “type,” and more
about being conscious of the different ways
that you can interact with people and they
can interact with you. We are looking for
more of an understanding that guess culture
(or at least more indirect ways of speaking)
can make kinky communication easier.

Indirect Check-Ins

Within kink, we tend to encourage

partners to periodically check in with each
other about how they’re feeling in a given
interaction, whether that’s flirtation,
negotiation, or play. These checks can take a
number of different forms, such as asking for
a “color” (like within the “stoplight
safeword” system where “green” usually
denotes that everything is OK) and directly
asking, “Are you OK with this?” The issue
with more direct methods of check-ins is that
it can often apply a lot of pressure on the
person being asked—it’s a lot easier for most
people to avoid the confrontation of saying
“no,” even if they’re beginning to feel
uncomfortable.
 NLP teaches us a lot about indirect
communication that can be used to ease these
situations without turning them interrogative.
Our goal with check-ins can essentially be to
pose statements/questions that provide an
easy out. The person should need to take
more action to say “yes,” rather than taking
more action to say “no.” While we might be
used to the idea of check-ins mid-scene, it’s
helpful to get a handle on what your partner
is feeling before or after a scene as well—the
ideas in this section can be used before,
during, or after play.

Escalation, De-escalation, and

Responsibility

There are two major aspects of our

communications when we check in with
someone that we need to strive to
understand. Firstly: “Is my message an
escalation, or de-escalation?” And secondly:
“What kind of responsibility am I putting on
my partner?”
We talked about escalation as anything that
attempts to make a move towards more
intimate or more intense. De-escalation is the
flipside—a message or action that tends to
lean towards disengaging from intimacy or
intensity. We might assume that a question
like “Would you like to do bimbofication?” is
neutral—there is an option for “yes” or “no.”
But in reality, this is an escalation. It is an
attempt to bring a new, larger aspect into
play.
As we discussed before, a question like this
can put pressure on someone, or we might
frame it as that it becomes the listener’s
responsibility. They need to either answer
affirmatively—easier to flow within an
interaction—or say, “no,” which can
potentially be challenging. For this reason, we
want to be conscious that we give our
partners opportunities to de-escalate—
questions where answering “yes” leads to a
slow-down, or a stop. For example, “Would
you like to slow down a little bit?”

Statements/Indirect Questions

We can even make this easier by shifting

the question into a statement where you are
giving your own opinion and gently inviting
the person to join in to answer for
themselves. For example, if you’re at a play
party in an engaging conversation with
someone and wondering if they’d be
interested in a scene, you could say, “I don’t
have any plans to play with anyone tonight.”
Notice that this kind of indirect statement
allows for a myriad of responses—it’s not an
uncomfortable yes-or-no question, and the
onus is on the listener whether or not to
pursue. Certainly, tone and context matters a
lot in this sort of example—without some
prior, positive flirting, a comment like this
can come across as passive aggressive. In
fact, there’s not a lot of difference between
this style of indirect speech and some forms
of passive aggressive speech, except that the
intention and purpose are very different.
This can be even more simple—in a
situation where you’d like to check-in about
an activity continuing (whether it’s flirtation
or play), you could say, “We can stop here if
you’d like.” This is contrasted with the direct
question, “Would you like to stop here?” The
revised version is an easier out—again, the
person has to take a little more action to deny
the idea (stopping) than to allow it.
 Essentially, you can flip direct questions
into statements in such a way that takes some
pressure off of the listener. Saying directly to
someone, “I’m interested in doing some doll
play” can put more responsibility on them to
decline. But if you are saying this as a softer,
more general statement, like, “I’ve really been
thinking a lot about doing doll play,” you’ve
turned this from a more direct query to
something that a person can engage with if
they choose. Be conscious as well about
offering “outs”—“I’m OK if we slow down,”
“We can do something else if you’d prefer.”
Phrasing these as statements is a direct way to
tell someone that it’s coming from you—
you’re the one who came up with the idea, so
they don’t have to feel bad if they want to go
along with it.

Double Not-Binds

Another technique that’s useful to us is

one that we steal from NLP: The double
bind. You can offer multiple suggestions to
someone instead of asking a direct question
—for example, instead of saying, “Do you
want to do a small scene?” you could say,
“We could do a little play, or we could just
chat for a bit.” This removes a lot of the
difficult feeling of denying someone if the
person doesn’t want to play. However, it’s
best if you keep in mind that a bind is a bind,
and it’s your job to make sure that there’s an
option for de-escalation. The idea is to always
offer something that is an easy option—this
is seen in the well-known, “Would you like a
hug, or a handshake?”
We also want to be considerate that there’s
an option that completely gets someone out
of the situation if they want. So it might be
even better to say something like, “We could
do a little play, or we could chat a bit more, or
we could each go off on our own—it’s all
good.” Again, letting your partner know that
this idea is in your comfort zone helps them
to take a step back if they feel that’s what
they want. Outs in this situation could be,
“We could take a break,” “We could revisit
this later,” “We could wind down,” “We
could go mingle,” or anything else that
signals the end of the interaction.
“Asking for a color” such as within the
stoplight safeword system is also a form of
this. In this system, there are agreed-upon
answers that mean, “I’m good,” “I need to
slow down,” “I need to stop,” or other
variations. It is a bind in that the unspoken
question is, “Are you OK, or do we need to
re-evaluate what we’re doing?” In this way, it
can be preferable to simply asking, “Are you
OK?” Note that if you don’t use the stoplight
system, you can pose a similar query by using
that form.

Discerning Wants and Needs

Another aspect to enjoyable intimacy is

finding a way for both partners to be able to
express themselves and come to a mutual
understanding of what their desires are. We
could say that this is essentially the goal of
negotiation. There isn’t a single method of
negotiation that is best for that—there is no
way to say, “Step 1: Do this; step 2: Do that”
that guarantees success. In this section, we’ll
revisit a couple models from NLP that assist
us in different frameworks of finding what
works best for ourselves and our partners.

Map/Territory Philosophy
 In Chapters 1 and 3, we discussed one of
NLP’s major concepts: The idea that
everyone’s experience of the world is distinct.
Every person has a different perception,
filtered through their identity and personal
history. This means that when we interact
with someone, we should strive to meet them
at their “map”—and give them the space to
understand ours.
This is especially useful when we’re trying
to be conscientious of our own needs and
desires and how they fit with our partners’
needs and desires. It’s key, even in short-term
or pick-up play, to get to know the person
with whom you’re interacting. Learn just a
little bit about who they are, and be
forthcoming about your own interests and
desires. Take from NLP and strive to
understand their model of the world—it
offers clues about why they want to engage
with you and why they’re interested in the
play that they find intriguing, or the play they
want to avoid.
For example, if someone expresses that
they’d like to play with you, it’s not just a
matter of asking what they’d like to do. You
should be interested in why they want to play
with you—what is attractive to them, and
from where does that desire arise? Perhaps
they want you to control them, but what do
they imagine when they think of that?
“Control” and many other concepts for us
hypnokinksters are ambiguous and rich, and
the way that we define and desire them
depends on the way that our personal history
has developed around them.

Indirect Meta Model

Questioning

NLP gives us tools to explore this kind of

information in its meta model questioning
practice from Chapter 1. This is never
supposed to be about aggressively moving to
clarify someone’s language, but more an
encouragement to engage in a realistic
conversation and listen for cues about the
deep structure of someone’s speech.
Remember: You’re listening for places that
someone has generalized, deleted, or
distorted information as you engage with
them. If your partner says, “I really find the
idea of mindlessness hot,” think about what
kind of information isn’t apparent on the
surface there. What does “mindlessness”
entail? How do they know or feel like
something is “hot”? Why do they feel that?
From where is their interest? The question
forms that the meta model offers to discern
information are useful here, but not
necessary to memorize.
This conversation should be a give and
take—offering information about your own
feelings can help to avoid a sense of one-
sided interview or interrogation. It also
serves to give your partner a sense of how to
talk about their own interests. You might say
something like, “I also really love the idea of
mindlessness; there’s something about the
fantasy of someone just really unable to think
for themselves. I think it’s about power?” The
person listening is indirectly invited to share
their own feelings—you can even say
something like, “What about you?” but it’s
not always needed. You’re clarifying the
person’s model without necessarily using the
explicit meta model questions.

Chapter Summary
Don’t Be an Asshole with NLP by
avoiding coercion or lying to your
partners and potential partners,
but having good ethics is more
complex than that, and we can
use NLP to help us
Be aware of the gray zone before
negotiation, and start to
incorporate more “guess culture”
into your language
Develop the muscle memory to
understand if you’re offering an
escalation or de-escalation, and
think about using indirect
language to help your partner be
more comfortable and give honest
answers when you check in
Use NLP’s meta model as a
guideline of how you can aim to
learn your partner and the
background of their desires—and
share your world with them
 CHAPTER 17: “COVERT
HYPNOSIS”
Thus far, in all chapters of this book, we
have only briefly made mention of using any
knowledge or techniques in a “sneaky” way.
NLP in and of itself does not imply necessary
covertness, despite its modern reputation.
But it is precisely because of this reputation
that some people are attracted to learning it,
regardless. In this chapter, we’ll explore what
“covert hypnosis” actually means when it’s
ethical and consensual.

“Consensual” and “Covert?”

 The covert hypnosis that we’ll be
discussing here is purely for situations where
this type of play is previously established as
consensual. As we covered in the previous
chapter, nonconsensual covert hypnosis falls
squarely into “Don’t Be An Asshole”
territory. But how can we allow for the kinds
of covert fantasies that some of us or our
partners have, while keeping them safer and
ethical?

Bounded Consent

In this scenario, the covert play is

permissible in a particular situation, but not
outside of it. For example, if your partner
chooses to wear a specific item of clothing or
jewelry, that could be a signal that they’re up
for being covertly manipulated. It could also
be a certain time frame that you negotiate,
such as “for the rest of the night” or “on our
date next weekend.” Or it could be location-
based—“in this room at the play party,” “if
I’m sitting on that couch,” “in this
chatroom.”

Blanket Consent
 This is a situation where covert play is
allowed based on the very nature of the
relationship. Many partnerships end up
opting for some form of blanket consent in
their relationship—where negotiation or
questions about permission are not necessary
to engage in certain play activities. This is
generally safer for partners who have a good
amount of history with each other, so that
they have a solid handle on each others’
responses and signals. It is usually good
practice to have a safeword in this sort of
play, as well.

Amnesia

Another option is using amnesia to create

a scenario where consent is given, but the
memory of negotiation is obscured. This can
be done with direct hypnotic suggestion or
other methods, such as naturally waiting until
someone’s memory is less clear. It’s important
to consider safety aspects of making
someone forget that they gave consent—you
don’t want to end up in a situation where
your partner feels genuinely unsafe, so it
might be a good idea to suggest that while
your partner may not directly remember
giving consent, they know on some level that
they are OK, and will remember consent
being given later.

The Goal of Covert Play

We need to talk about why we do covert

play in intimate relationships in order to
discern how. The fantasy of covert hypnosis is
very different from the reality of it. In the
fantasy, the subject is unsuspecting and often
none-the-wiser about what’s being done to
them. This fantasy is made to appeal to an
observer or voyeur, who is excited by the
knowledge of what’s happening. For someone
wanting to engage as the subject in play,
ironically, if it stays completely covert from
start to finish they never get the
“appreciation” moment and may miss out
entirely on the hotness of what’s happened.
It’s not unheard of for play to be so subtle
that the subject is left disappointed,
wondering when they’re going to get their
scene.
 We’re met with an interesting
juxtaposition: The play will always be overt
on some level because of preexisting consent,
has to be covert enough to fly under the
radar for some amount of time, and has to
eventually be further revealed or found out to
actually have impact. This is complicated by
the fact that many subjects have an internal
check that they do reflexively, especially when
covert hypnosis is on their minds: “Oh, are
they covertly messing with me right now?”

Roleplaying Covert Play

Certainly, if you and your partner are

interested in roleplaying covert play, none of
this is as complex. You can simply both
pretend that what you’re doing is completely
covert and that can be perfectly exciting and
satisfying. In this scenario, both partners are
engaging with the fantasy as a fantasy. Thus,
they’re essentially observers, and being able
to key into the knowledge that what the
hypnotist is doing is supposed to be “sneaky”
is something they should emphasize in order
to heighten the excitement of it.
 While we’ve stressed a lot through this
book that we don’t want to sound like a
stereotypical NLP practitioner, this is a
situation where making your hypnotic patter
conspicuous adds to the scene. Very
purposefully switching tones or using
presuppositions and other language patterns
in an obvious way are some methods you can
use to make sure your partner can appreciate
your intentions.

Hypnosis versus Suggestions versus

Change

Something else we need to think about is

the idea that when we talk about “covert
hypnosis,” there are a couple of different
things that we (or our partners) could mean.
We need to make a distinction between
hypnosis that’s induced, suggested responses
that are experienced, and changes that
happen to the subject. Some people are
fascinated with an unnoticed sinking into
trance—a focus on the state itself—
contrasted with the attraction to
spontaneously feeling suggestions, or a shift
in personality or behavior that can happen
with or without hypnosis.
This is a good place to make a very
important point about the nature of
hypnosis: We may think at first that a
hypnotic trance is what facilitates our
partners’ ability to respond to suggestions,
but in reality, this is not the case.
Responsiveness is much more tied to
expectation, role-enactment, and other
psychological principles. Thus, covert
hypnosis (and all hypnosis) doesn’t function
on the necessary induction of trance in order
to get our partners to feel something
—“waking suggestions” are an inherent piece
of NLP and hypnosis in general.
Identifying what aspects of covert play are
most exciting is key to making these scenes
hit right. This is something you can talk to
your partner about and explore in regards to
your mutual fantasies. All of these methods
have different nuances in execution, which
we will explore.

Methods
 In this section, we’ll go over the actual
methods for achieving covert play with the
considerations that we’ve outlined thus far.

Not Signaling

We could say that the main (and obvious)

difference between covert play and non-
covert play is that covert play goes unnoticed.
This framing allows us to address the real
question: How do we do things to our
partner so that they won’t notice?
Many people, especially subjects with a bit
more experience, have a tendency to be able
to recognize when their partner is engaging
with them for play. This is because of their
ability to notice changes in their own state,
which we’ll address later, but also largely
because they’re used to picking up on certain
signals that the hypnotist is giving. Their
partner might change their tone of voice,
change the way that they talk (more/less
directly, certain phrases), shift their
microexpressions or body language slightly,
look at them differently, or just create an
environment where play is expected (such as
on a date, at an event, at an agreed-upon
time, etc).
As hypnotists, we’re very used to
“flagging” when we’re going to hypnotize
someone. It tends to be a useful tool—it can
help our partners know when we’re intending
to engage, and especially in long-term
relationships, these signs become part of the
relationship grammar between partners.
However, this is something we need to learn
to rely on less in order to covertly play with
someone.
It can be helpful to analyze the way that
you hypnotize your partner and look
specifically for the way that you change your
behavior. Perhaps you can be mindful of the
kind of signals you’re giving, or if you play
long-distance you can record a session and
review it. Then, practice thinking about what
it would be like if you didn’t signal at all.
Using your normal speaking voice, casual
body language, not even making the kind of
intense eye contact that we come to expect
with hypnosis.
Something else you need to consider is
your word choice and the idea of
conversational hypnosis. NLP is particularly
suited to conversational trancing, in some
ways, as it aims to incorporate speech
patterns that we use in regular talking. But it’s
important to remember that NLP’s idea of
indirect suggestion is not always synonymous
with actual conversational speech: If it
doesn’t sound like something you’d normally
say, it’s not going to sound natural. This
means that we don’t really want to load up
our talking with too many presuppositions,
tag questions, or other Milton model
patterns, because we will sound like a
caricature of a sneaky hypnotist. You can feel
free to use these sparingly as long as you are
confident that you can do so with a normal
speaking voice and in a way that sounds
natural—and/or that you can misdirect away
from them, like changing your tone to
emphasize a different part of the sentence.
This part can take a little bit of work, as
many people are used to shifting into almost
a different dialect to induce trance. You can
take bits and pieces from NLP’s theories of
indirect hypnosis and start to recognize
where you use them in your speech. We
talked about this a little bit in Chapters 8 and
10—learning how to notice when you are
already speaking in a way that could be
suggestive.

Inducing Hypnosis

Even if we hypnotize someone through

speech that is considered “indirect” (whether
hedging or using Milton model patterns), we
usually are directly flagging hypnosis at some
point in order to emphasize the change in
state. For example, we might say something
like, “Maybe there’s a little part of you that’s
already noticing the way you feel as you
relax.” Even though we’re not even directly
saying “hypnosis,” this tends to signal overtly
that we’re hypnotizing someone; we have
words, feelings, and concepts that we
naturally associate with hypnosis, like “relax,”
or even “noticing.”
The solution is to make more use of trance
states that can be more spontaneous. We can
rely more on concepts like metaphor, future
pacing, anchoring, and getting someone to
look internally at their own process or
imagine something while at the same time
not directly invoking “hypnosis” much at all.
For example, we could say something like,
“Oh man, do you remember when we went
to the beach last month? You were so burned
out; it was so good to have a day off.” You
can understand that the act of them recalling
is naturally hypnotic, and by asking them to
remember, you’re invoking certain sensory
and emotional memories, giving you a
jumping off point for your next statement.
Give them time to engage verbally on their
own and go with the flow of the conversation
—perhaps they say, “Oh my God, yes! I need
another vacation.” You can continue
“steering” as you like: “I remember that we
had really amazing sex when we got home.
You were so into it.” At this point, their brain
is used to being in the memory, and may
make the feelings of arousal particularly vivid.
Getting someone to reminisce about a time
that they were in trance is a well-known
technique to induce hypnosis as well. You can
conceptualize memories as anchors, in a
sense, where there is an association between
the “hallucination” of the memory and the
feeling itself. This holds true beyond
memories—metaphors, future imaginings,
and other times that your partner is
constructing something in their mind are all
times when they are hallucinating
experiences.
Hypnosis in this way is less about thinking
about “hypnotic trance” as a unique state,
and more about remembering that all states
of processing are hypnotic or hypnotically
useful in some way. This is one of NLP’s
major tenets that we’ve discussed extensively.

Covert Suggestions

Trance is all suggestion—the distinction

between “induction” and “suggestions” is a
false one, except to say that sometimes we are
making suggestions to elicit a change in
state/process and others we are looking to
have someone experience a different
response. For example, if we want someone
to start feeling a little bit dumb—we don’t
have to be focused on any kind of specifically
hypnotic state.
Perhaps in this case, we want to talk in a
way that they might find confusing, or ask
them questions that we know they can’t
answer. Again, we want to think about things
that they naturally anchor to the feelings we’d
like to elicit: Are there memories, concepts,
or words that they associate with dumbness?
What about things that they do with their
body, or emotions that they feel?
We could say that broadly, hypnosis and
response to suggestion is about how
someone is focusing. We direct someone’s
focus in a way that kicks up these pre-existing
associations to facilitate the physical or
mental experience. If we want a partner to
experience pleasure, ask yourself: “When my
partner feels pleasure, are they focused on
different parts of their body? Could they
focus on an exciting fantasy or memory?
Could they focus intensely on what I’m doing
and the moment itself ?” Think about how a
person experiences pleasure without
hypnosis, and what kind of motions their
brain goes through. Following the same kinds
of patterns they are already used to can be a
very useful technique. It’s also worth thinking
about their physical behavior and what their
body does. Tensing or relaxing? Moving or
being very still? Touching themselves or you
in some way?
Doing this covertly is a matter of following
some of the principles we’ve already outlined,
and considering how someone’s focus
changes naturally over the course of a
conversation. You can practice by paying
attention to your own process when you’re
talking to someone—what kinds of patterns
do you go through and how does your
shifting focus affect the way you feel and
think?

Nonverbal Methods

We also should talk about the idea of

inducing trance/responses through touch or
other nonverbal methods—the benefit of this
is that when done mindfully, it can be a lot
more subtle than relying on language. We can
understand that touch is naturally hypnotic in
a number of ways. Sexual touch or intimacy
can tend to get us and our partners into a
different headspace, but there are also more
kinesthetic methods for hypnosis that are
worth learning.
While we’re limited by discussing in text,
we can at least talk about a few concepts.
Anchoring through touch is a useful process
—the idea of creating an anchor is essentially
creating an association à la classical
conditioning, where the stimulus (touch) and
response are “paired” together. So while (or
directly before) your partner is having a
desired response, you could touch them in a
certain way or on a certain part of their body.
For example, in a heated interaction where
they’re very turned on, you could stroke
down their arm or gently squeeze their hand
(or even use a more intimate touch). The idea
is that this creates an association—especially
if you repeat this, the next time you touch
them in that way, they’ll likely experience at
least remembering what that felt like.
You can add impact to this by using touch
that is symbolic of the kind of responses
you’d like to achieve. We can use our
knowledge of metaphor in this: “If I want my
partner to go into trance, how can I represent
that through touch?” Kinesthetic hypnosis
can include touches with downward motion,
rocking of the body, and control of the head.
It’s also fairly easy to elicit catalepsy through
touch, as signalling for someone’s arm to stay
in a particular position by holding it can also
often happen without their awareness.
Another aspect of nonverbal hypnosis is
mirroring or matching—when you pay close
attention to someone’s body language and do
similar things with your own body language.
For example, if your partner is sitting in a
particular way, you can “mirror” that, or you
can match the pace of their breathing. The
idea is that this allows for more comfort and
rapport, and can lead to a slip into a very
focused interaction. When doing this at any
time, and especially during covert play, you
don’t want this to be too obvious, because it
can be distracting, so only mirroring in small
ways or movements tends to work best.

Not Noticing Trance

The second aspect to covert hypnosis is

the potential challenge of hypnotizing
someone in such a way where they don’t
notice the shift of state itself. Subjects with
some experience have a tendency to be aware
of when they are going into trance—they
know the physical and mental signs that tell
them “I’m hypnotized.” Even people who
don’t have that sort of familiarity may be able
to simply notice changes in their experience.
Principles from the last section can help us
here: When we aim to elicit trance states that
are not as obviously “erotic hypnosis,” we
have a better chance of flying under someone
else’s radar. You can think of this in terms of
familiarity—feelings that someone is used to
in their usual processing that don’t make
them question, “Oh, this feels like hypnosis
—is it?” Getting a handle on the kind of
concepts, actions, and feelings that your
partner associates with hypnosis can help you
avoid them. There could be cues that you
give, environmental cues (such as having
negotiated a scene, being in bed together,
etc), or physical/mental cues that they notice
within themselves (like body
heaviness/lightness, eye fluttering, jaw
slackness, thoughts slowing/changing or any
other “traditional” sign of hypnosis).
A lot of people associate hypnosis with
relaxation and a feeling of being less active.
This means that we can often take advantage
of getting our partners into a place where
they are engaged in trance but also not
lethargic. We also can change someone’s
focus so that it’s not on their body or mental
responses as it may usually be in a hypnosis
scene. You can direct them to think about
something outside of themselves and distract
them from their current experience.
 While speed is often a thrilling part of
trance, covert hypnosis benefits from shifts in
state that happen gradually rather than all at
once, as slower change can be harder to
catch. This is especially true when someone is
in a situation where trance is expected—such
as at a play party, in bed, or after negotiating
a scene. If they are measuring their own state
based on how they feel now versus how they
felt a few moments ago, it will generally be
harder to discern a difference if the trance
progresses slowly.
You can also work with your partner over
time to get them less used to recognizing
trance. While being able to know when
they’re hypnotized is often an important part
of a person’s growth as a subject, it can be an
exciting play of power to train them to be
more blind to it. You can do this by teaching
them to question their state less, or find
themselves unsure or confused about what
trance feels like. Keep in mind that play like
this can sometimes necessitate a little bit
more in terms of convincers and reassurance
when trance does happen.

Covert Change
 Changing someone covertly, whether that’s
their behaviors, patterns of thoughts, or
aspects of their personality, is very exciting,
and benefits from not necessarily relying on
trance or even techniques that are
recognizable as hypnosis. While you can
certainly use covert suggestion to drive
change, you can also use simple conditioning
—see The Brainwashing Book: Hypnotic, Erotic
Behaviorism and Beyond (2019) for more
information.
A lot of the considerations here are the
same as inducing trance, especially the idea of
going slowly. Slow change in a person is often
hard to notice except in retrospect. For
example, someone who develops a taste for a
different type of music does so slowly, where
they hear a song that they enjoy and then
begin liking and perhaps seeking out more of
it. But also consider that these kinds of
changes often come with “milestone”
moments: The first time that someone
engages with something that they newly
enjoy, the first time they actively seek it out
on their own, etc.
 It can be challenging to fully suppress that
experience, so we have a couple different
options to manage that. The first is to have
the person question how much they really felt
their original opinion in the first place. You
can use techniques that cause your partner to
have a more tenuous relationship with their
confidence there, such as questioning it
yourself (“Didn’t you always kind of like that,
in a way?”). Or you can blur their memory
more generally (“I find it so hard to
remember what I was like a year ago…”).
Another option is to suppress the milestone
moments themselves. You can suggest to
someone fairly directly that the experiences
they are having in their life just seem natural
to them (“You actually have a lot of qualities
of someone who just goes with the
flow…”).

The Payoff

The “payoff ” of covert play is what we are

calling the moment where a person finally
realizes that they’ve been manipulated. This is
arguably the most important part of covert
hypnosis, as it contains the full expression of
eroticism of the scene.
We need to acknowledge this moment as
something special, and really emphasize it. It
changes the whole tone of an interaction:
“Do you realize you’ve been in trance for the
last ten minutes? Isn’t that just amazing?”
The subject will often go through an abrupt
sense of perception where they quickly
attempt to evaluate their own state and
compare it to what they were feeling before.
This is an opportunity to bring concreteness
to the trance or to the change through
suggestion: “You can feel it, right? You can
feel it all catching up to you?”
We might be inclined to think that covert
play is only successful if the subject goes the
whole time without realizing that it’s
happened, or that they have to find out from
an external source such as the hypnotist, but
this is not the case. Nor is it realistic—when
we’re playing with experienced practitioners
in hypnokink, it’s natural that they will
sometimes pick up on what is happening to
them. You don’t have to worry about whether
your partner figures it out, because that
moment can still be one of intense
recognition. The potency comes from the
feeling of surprise and the feeling that they
didn’t really have a chance to react to it. You
can take advantage of this moment just as
easily: “Oh, did you just notice? And there
really wasn’t anything you could do about it,
was there?”
This is a reason to consider not necessarily
trying to suppress someone’s reaction to
noticing a change in their experience—it’s an
opportunity for reinforcement. Additionally,
there doesn’t have to be just a singular payoff
moment in covert play. Often, it’s a series of
realizations that happen as the scene or
engagement continues. Especially in the case
of covert change, each time that someone
notices their progression feeds into the
change itself. It proves to them that it’s real.
Oftentimes, with behavioral or attitude
changes, the feeling of adjustment is not
constant—it’s only something that the subject
notices when they are faced with it. Playing
up these moments can help keep them
feeling it and thus maintaining the
excitement.

Chapter Summary
Covert hypnosis can be
consensual with the right
boundaries placed on play
The reality is different than the
fantasy in that the manipulation
has to be revealed for the scene to
reach its full intensity
You can roleplay by emphasizing
the aspects that are meant to be
sneaky
There is a difference in method
and intention between covertly
inducing trance, giving
suggestions, or producing change
in a person
Learn how to stop signaling that
you’re doing hypnosis by making
your tone more conversational
and not relying on “hypnotic”
language patterns
Lean into more conceptually
indirect ways to induce trance and
suggestions, like taking advantage
of natural shifts of focus and
memory/imaginative anchors
Use your touch and body
language as metaphors
Gather an understanding of what
makes your partner notice trance
shifts within themselves and blunt
or distract from those responses
When changing someone’s
behaviors or thoughts, go slowly
and be mindful of them making
comparisons to their past
behaviors
Emphasize the “payoff ” moment
where the covert play is revealed
—you don’t necessarily have to be
the one who reveals it, nor is it
simply a singular moment
 IN CONCLUSION
This book contains more than NLP, and
NLP contains more than this book. It is not a
1:1 representation of what neuro-linguistic
programming “is” (insofar as such a thing
exists)—it is an adaptation. As we’ve
explored in the text, the attempt to create
unification of concepts always results in just
the creation of yet another model. The key, in
my opinion, is to learn how to make good
value judgments about the various models
that we use in hypnosis kink and create your
own methodology that aligns with your
desires and what works for you and your
partners.
 I strongly urge you to read further—
explore the sources that I’ve adapted or
summarized, find books and classes that call
to you, and use what you’ve learned here as a
guideline. (Frankly, the drama and bizarre
connections in NLP’s development are
entertaining enough to warrant exploration.)
While there is a lot of information in this
book, one of my main intentions in writing
this is to be able to give you a sense of how
to parse other material, wherever you
encounter it. Information about hypnosis is
contradictory; sources contradict each other
and they often contradict how hypnosis
actually works. I’ve tried very hard to present
a version and view of NLP that makes
hypnosis easier to understand—one that
helps us learn from many disciplines—rather
than one that is too steeped in jargon and
ideas that don’t hold up to scrutiny.
I find that hypnosis has a high floor and a
high ceiling—it takes some dedication to get
into, and there is such an enormous depth of
knowledge involved in hypnotizing a person
that learning is something I might be doing
for the rest of my life. But this is something
to be celebrated, not something frustrating. It
tells us to practice patience and humility.
My hope is that you’re able to take away
ideas from NLP and incorporate them to
expand your understanding and practice of
playing with the people with whom you make
intimate connections. I love that our sex is
complicated, and I love that our sex is
knowledge-based, and I love that there are
people in this world who picked up a book in
order to further their capacity for intimacy.
From the bottom of my heart: Thank you!
Thank you for enriching the community with
your experiences, and thank you (thank you)
for supporting me.

sleepingirl
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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
sleepingirl (they/she) is a queer author,
educator, and podcaster with over a decade
of real-life kinky hypnosis experience on both
sides of the “pocket watch.” They are the
author of The Brainwashing Book: Hypnotic,
Erotic Behaviorism and Beyond (2019) and have a
lifelong passion for the cerebral and intimate.
Contact them or find their classes, books, and
podcast (“Two Hyp Chicks”) at
https://sleepingirl.carrd.co/
Notes

[←1]
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