My Two Cents on a Serious Subject

I don't often (or at all) post things that could be considered controversial, mostly because I don't like getting into arguments with people and, sadly, most people I meet are incapable of having a discussion rather than an argument.  I was raised in a household where someone always took the other side of an issue; we had domestic debates on a regular basis.   Imagine my surprise when I got out into the big, wide world and people thought I was trying to tell them they were wrong about their opinions just because I was trying to discuss the other point of view!  I found it disheartening and annoying and started keeping my opinions to myself.

However...

Earlier tonight I was strolling through Fetlife and I stumbled across a discussion that really inspired me to want to Say Something!  I am writing about it here because my opinion is likely to be too lengthy to be a comment on that post, (which if you are a member of Fetlife you can read here.)  The discussion in question is entitled "Reality check? Entitlement, disclosure, & the 'trans' hypno-fetishist" and covers whether or not a person who is trans-gender should be required to inform their potential hypno play-partner of their trans-gender state.  A recent book on erotic hypnosis, Mind Play, states that yes, they should, and there are reasons abounding both for and against this opinion playing out in the comments.  (Extremely well-written comments presented by people having a discussion and not necessarily an argument!)  I won't go into those opinions, I will merely present my own.

Yes.  They should.    But they shouldn't have to.  It's a slap in the face to have to say "I identify as a woman but I have (or once had) the physical attributes of a man" to someone, it's a step backward in someone's personal journey of gender identity to have to fight to be accepted for what they know they are, because it is fact, rather than opinion that leads them to identify as female.

But it is also fact, not opinion, that many people just don't get it.  They think that one day Sally woke up and thought to herself, "You know, being a woman really sucks.  I think I'll try being a man now."  They think that when Sally gets tired of being Steve she can just change her mind and go back to being Sally again.  Which means that when they find out that the person with whom they have forged a highly personal and intimate connection with through hypnosis is trans-gender they feel betrayed because they think the other person lied to them about what gender they are.  They think that they've been made the butt of a joke.  They think that the trans-gender person has been pretending to be something they are not, rather than someone whose anatomy has a truly terrible sense of humor.

I believe that it is foolish for someone who is trans-gender not to disclose this fact to their prospective playmate, because if they do make a meaningful and intimate connection with the other person then they had better be damn sure that their new friend isn't creeped out or wouldn't feel lied to about it.  And with the level of ignorance that exists at this time it would be nearly impossible to have that discussion without bringing their own gender identity into it.  Also, should a public relationship form, it's just irresponsible to put the non trans person potentially in the position of having to defend them in public without knowing what they are talking about.

Historically, the burden of societal change has fallen on the oppressed.  So, yes, it absolutely sucks that, due to the rampant ignorance and fear of the general public, a trans person should have to out themselves to prospective play partners, but until such time as we are all educated and informed about what it is to be trans-gendered it is necessary.  It's hard to be the pioneer.  It's a terrible burden to have to be the one educating the ignorant.  But it has to be done.  Because most people can't accept something new without it becoming familiar, and the only way for that to happen is for the unfamiliar to expose itself to public scrutiny.

The Experience of Feeling Normal (aka Friday night at WEEHU)

I am, in the words of every person, every where, who has ever started a blog, then ignored it in favor of other life events, really REALLY sorry that I disappeared for (gulp) 7 months.  +/- 10 days.  Or so.  I have a list of excuses that work well for me, I'm happy with them and will continue to use them in the future, the chief of which being that I had a lot of changes in my everyday life happen all at once and I don't handle change that well, so it took me quite awhile to get my feet back under me.

Or possibly it just took something really special to motivate me.

So (please refer to earlier blogs and reacquaint yourself with my tendency to over-use the word "so") this weekend was "WEEHU" the WEstern Erotic Hypnosis Unconference.  And it was AMAZING.  Who knew that all it would take to feel "normal" would be to spend a weekend surrounded by people often categorized by society in general as "abnormal"?  I have come to the conclusion that any time you get a community of people together that collectively is more creative and intelligent than average it will be inevitable that all the dimmer lights surrounding them will be blinded.  Or something like that.  I am also REALLY tired! So much of this non-pre-thought-out rambling will be neither original nor linear, but I can live with that.

Here is the anatomy of my weekend.  After working many, many days in a row in order to justify taking a lot of time off in a small period of time, I met up with my trusted traveling companions (thanks to Skyla and Naj for not, as my brother put it, reenacting the Saw movies with me) to drive to San Francisco.  Thankfully we were starting off in Portland, so it was a very manageable drive.  We had dinner, then got on the road and drove all night (Halloween night,) and got to our breakfast meet up by 9-ish.  Skyla and Naj went along without me to pick people up at the airport, and I had the pleasure of enjoying a wonderful sunshiny afternoon outside by myself, which frankly I really needed after all that working!  Then I got to commute the rest of the way with the wonderful Felix Krull, who MAY have tranced me a little bit on the way, something I have been looking forward to for weeks.  This weekend was actually the first time that I've ever had the opportunity to experience any hypnosis with a living, breathing human that I could reach out and touch, so I had a little impromptu list in my head of all the things I wanted to experience. Traveling-trance:  check!

That evening was the meet and greet and open halloween play party at The Citadel.  Is there a better place to have a costume party than a Dungeon?  I don't think so!  With that said, there weren't as many people in costume as I had hoped.  I am by nature not a 'mixer' (or a blender or a food processor) and spent most of the time sticking by the people I knew and letting them introduce me to the people they knew.  I lasted about 3 hours before being tired enough that I felt like I might pass out, and left to get some actual sleep.  Anyone I met Friday night, when I was covered in crystals and hopefully not looking as lost and out-of-place as I felt, but never said anything to again, it's most likely because I didn't remember meeting you!

I may <ahem> have gotten to have a wonderful experience outside of the play party that night which ultimately led to me getting a wonderful night of sleep.  Slept straight through 'til morning, which, as readers of this blog will know, is HIGHLY unusual, so pretty much the best first night of my first live get-together weekend EVER!

NOTE:  I started this Monday night, and it is now Tuesday afternoon and I find I'm having trouble writing it because it has sparked so many different ideas for other posts!  So hooray for that!  I will work on the rest of the specific WEEHU post offline and then post when it is more coherent.  For now, a million thanks to everyone who organized WEEHU and made it possible for me to attend.  The experience of feeling like a normal human, accepted and welcomed by the people around me, is one of the most priceless memories that I will ever have and I cannot really express how much it means to me.

Hypnosis And Cats

For those of you who read the last post and are concerned that I seem depressed, morose, and generally a big giant downer who needs to cheer up and play in the sunshine you are a) correct but b) over-reacting a tiny bit.  When I get down, I write about it, and that makes me feel better.  It's a system that works pretty well for me, so it will keep happening, because I do tend to have little crises of melancholy in the middle of the night when no one is around to talk to.

That said, I have been spending a lot of time in a chat room lately, learning how to be more social and generally being friendly with people.  Several of the people with whom I've chatted have kitty cat personas, which is interesting, since I'm not built that way, and it's ridiculously entertaining for me to watch.  (Actually, there's a ton of mutual entertainment happening between all the kitty cats, and that's what is really fun to see.)  So, I'm not a kitty myself, but I do have a kitty story...

I did get to do a little trancing the other night, which was wonderful, but had a pretty abrupt ending.

I'm sitting there, all relaxed and comfy, (and approaching hot and bothered), and vaguely aware that the cat is being pretty vocal in the background...but it really just didn't matter at the time.  So I have a little mantra I'm chanting (or trying to chant, talking wasn't my strong point at that moment) and the cat is adding a nice descant in the background (which I am hearing less and less) when...

CRASH!!!!!!!!

I'm pretty certain that what I said at that point was something reminiscent of a certain christian deity, got pulled utterly and completely out of trance, turned around and...

...well the cat was under the bed, and a lamp that shouldn't live on the floor was reclining quite comfortably there, and most of the small make-up items from my make-up table were strewn on the floor around it...but other than the yowling (which was apparently getting louder in real life while it was getting quieter for me) and the crashing, my hypnotist couldn't tell what happened, so I will have to use my imagination and extrapolate from the available evidence.

1- There are raccoons in my neighborhood this time of year.

2- My cat feels honor-bound to protect all living things from the horrors that are raccoons.

3- The raccoons like to tease my cat by perching outside the bedroom window and peeking in at her.

4.  The window sill on that particular window is about 2 inches wide

The cat's vantage point to see out of that particular window is on top of the cabinet/small fridge/toaster oven tower that I keep next to my desk.  She climbs up (floor to desk to printer to fridge to toaster oven) and can stare out the window.  When the raccoons are out, she stands on her hind legs on top of the toaster over and paws at the window glass in an effort to get to the evil vermin outside.

I think the raccoons were out there, and she, pushed to her breaking point, tried to get up on the 2 inch wide window sill and attack the furry fuckers.  And fell off, bouncing off the toaster oven and into the lamp, and across the make-up table and to the floor, at which point she decided she was under attack and ran and hid under the bed.  I think.

All I know is that the age-old question of "will Noelle stay entranced if something loud and unexpected happens in the background" has now been answered!

(And the cat is just fine.  I lured her out from under the bed with her favorite dead-fish tasting treat and that was enough to make her feel safe, and she has no broken bones or pulled muscles that I can tell, and is currently doing what she always does this time of day, namely sleeping.)

There may be more on what that session was actually meant to accomplish later...         

Meandering

I was really, properly grateful at work today for the time that I have spent learning about/experiencing hypnosis.  Right around two thirds of the way through the day I hit the wall big time and just wanted to keel over and nap.  On top of that, my neck and shoulders have been super tight and tense for about a month and a half now, mostly from stress, and I was sitting there between shifts feeling my muscles get tighter and tighter and really wishing that I had access to anyone at all who could put me under and help me relax.

It took me longer than it should have to realize that I could do it for myself.  (I get slightly stupid when I'm tired.  And hungry, for that matter, but that's another story.)  So, roughly 30 minutes later, crisis averted, and onward with my evening.  But I wish it hadn't come to that.

The fact of the matter is that I really miss the kind of trance-life that I used to have.  And even though I've learned valuable lessons and grown as a person because of my experiences and all those other pithy and pathetic cliches that one can use I really fucking detest the fact that I am now in a place where I have trouble trusting people and second-guessing almost everyone.  I am incredibly tempted to just throw myself to the sharks and see what happens; I'm too smart for that, really, but god the temptation!

And for anyone who might be curious, yes, the insomnia is back.  Too many thoughts in my head, too many fears in my mind, too much pain in my heart; it all goes around and around and around.  I think that maybe someday I will get control over it; I'm hopeful anyway.

So.  I've had a song stuck in my head for about a week now:  "I'm not missing you at all, since you've been gone away.  And there's a heart that's breaking, down this long-distance line tonight.  I'm not missing you at all."  Etc, Etc, Etc.  It's a great song (the original version, the Brooks and Dunn cover...not so much...)  And it applies to an awful lot of things and people in my life that I have had to walk away from or let go of or bury.  And I know that everyone's life consists of chains of events and people and things that will be left behind as we meander through our individual journeys.  Sometimes we get lucky and our wanderings cross the path of someone else and we can meander together for a small while.

And sometimes when we are truly blessed beyond belief we can meander with some of those people forever.  Our family, our friends, our loves, the people that make the journey worthwhile and the destination worth striving for.

I would like to be that lucky.

Working On Easter (A Departure)

This post departs completely from my usual areas of interest; rather, I'm going to write about my real life a little bit, because something that happened at work yesterday really bothered me (and continues to do so) and writing about it will help.  An awful lot of it is written in a very sarcastic tone, because that is how I deal with being upset about things. (Well, that and cussing, but I'm trying to tone the cussing down.)

But first, here's something that relates (a little bit) to my experience yesterday--

An amazing woman, Yvonne Brill, who was a pioneering rocket scientist before anyone knew how cool it was to be a rocket scientist, passed away recently, aged 88.  The New York Times published a long and glowing obituary for her, as one might expect.  And in the original piece, made sure to point out (right at the beginning, so that we would all understand how very much more important it was than the, you know, ground-breaking scientific achievements) how great her cooking was.  Yup, Yvonne apparently made a killer beef stroganoff.  Also, she somehow managed this feat, as well as the, you know, science, while being a super supportive wife and mother.

For some reason, woman all over the globe were a tad bit offended by the New York Times' intrepid obit writer choosing to commemorate Yvonne Brill's accomplishments in this manner.  It's like all the women suddenly were over-taken by a need to be defined by their actions and not by their gender.  Or their husband.  Or their children.  Can you imagine a world wherein a person can be called a "scientist" instead of a "lady scientist"?  Apparently, that's just crazy talk.

Here is the Ottowa Citizen's obituary of Yvonne Brill.  Good job, Ottowa Citizen!  And here you can find an article about the New York Times piece that contains the texts of both the original version as well as the version that went up once the shitteth had truly hitteth the fanneth. 

So, you may now be asking, how does the obituary of Yvonne Brill relate to my experience at work yesterday?  (Actually, by now, if you're anything like me, you've already forgotten what you read at the beginning of this blog, right?)

Yesterday, (aka Easter Sunday, aka a former pagan holiday that celebrated fertility), I drove a coworker to quitting his job.  Inadvertently.  And I want it clear from the start, I don't like the guy.  Haven't liked him from the moment he started.  I found him patronizing, rude, a dash incompetent (and nothing irritates me quite as much as having to work with people who are bad at their jobs but make no effort to improve), and quite lazy.  Now in real life, the life where I actually earn money to pay my bills and hypnosis is something I talk about in the context of therapy and not crazy fun erotic hijinks, I wait tables.  Already a situation fraught with the potential to be disrespected by the clientele, people to whom I am paid to suck up in the hopes that they will reward me with a fraction of their hard-earned cash.  I expect my coworkers to treat me with respect.  After all, we're all in this together, yes?

So this coworker who quit yesterday, let's call him "Joe" (no, that's not his real name) likes to call me "girl" rather than by my name.  Since he started, I don't recall him ever actually using my name, or any form of it.  It's not like he doesn't know what it is, it's written on my shirt after all.  And it's not a complicated, hard to remember name by any means.  But to him, I am "girl".  Yesterday, I had to work in a section with him, and run a large party of happy easter guests with him, a task that required us to communicate pleasantly with each other.  I asked him before we started to please use my name, rather than calling me "girl" all day.  He said something along the lines of "sure" or "okay"--and then proceeded to spend the next 3 hours calling me "girl", while I got more and more irritated.  (And yes, part of the irritation was at having to do a lot of the thinking for our large party, having to explain to him that he actually had to physically go back to the table and ask people if they needed anything for example.)  I finally asked him again to not call me "girl", and his response was spectacularly not cool.

     "You need to relax." Quoth Joe.  "You really need to relax.  I don't know what kind of bad things are happening to you in your personal life, but you need to leave that stuff at home when you come to work.  You are so negative.  You just need to relax.  That's all I have to say on the subject."

     Um.  What?  I would have been perfectly willing to accept something along the lines of "It's a habit, I'm sorry I offended you, I'll try harder."  Or even "It's a habit, I don't even realize I'm doing it, I'm sorry."  Note the key element of apology in my dream scenario.

Next thing I know, he's in the office complaining to our Culinary Manager about how negative I am.  Next thing he knows, I'm in the office repeating to our General Manager the conversation that Joe and I have just had.  The GM basically told him to can it, to use people's names, and if he heard another complaint about it then Joe would get a written warning to go along with the verbal warning he was already receiving.  (The GM was kind enough to fill me on this conversation later.)  Joe told the GM that it was just a habit, that it didn't mean anything, to which the GM replied "And I'm telling you it's not a habit anymore."

You see, I saw Joe stalk out of the restaurant and thought he had been sent home.  Joe's wife is pregnant, he needs the work, I felt bad, because honestly all I wanted was the apology.  So into the office I go again, and hear about Joe's conversation with the GM.  Turns out Joe up and quit on the spot.  Walked out on Easter Sunday because it was so unfair that he should be expected to respect his female coworkers enough to use their names.  I actually felt a little bad about him quitting...until I heard this:

     "And I'm telling you it's not a habit anymore.  You won't be doing it." My GM said to Joe.

     "Well what's her name even?" Joe responded.  "Am I supposed to call her 'Noelle', or 'Elle', or 'Ellie'?"

     "Those are all variations of her name that people use, any of them would be fine." The GM patiently explained.

     "Well I can't do that.  I quit." Joe said goodbye to no one as he stalked back out to the parking lot on his last day of work.

WHAT.  THE.  HELL.  

Now folks, I worked in the South of this fair country for just over 4 months some years back, and all the gents there (the ones who stereotypically would or should have been calling me "girl") managed to use my name.  I have worked as a waitress for the restaurant that I am with for 13 years and have always managed to be called by my name.  I call other people by their names, and defend people (like my friend who really does kind of look like Harry Potter) when people push too far with calling them things like..."Harry Potter".  When I am asked to do something or change a behavior because it is offending someone I try my best to do it, and when I have hurt someone's feeling I apologize for doing so, even when I don't understand why their feelings were hurt.  I own my actions.  

What I want to know, Joe, is why (WHY?) in this day and age do you not realize that it is inappropriate to define people by their gender?  Or their religion?  Or their sexual orientation?  Or their skin color?  Or their weight?  Or their ethnicity?  Or their taste in clothes?  People should be defined by their actions.  If that  means you have to get to know them before you can come up with a working definition of the kind of person they are, then good.  Get out of the cave, or the box, or the crevice within which you have been living and learn.

Also, kudos to writer Brian Bendis of Marvel Comics for pointing out in the latest issue of All-New X-Men that "Lady Mastermind" was always a dumb name.  After all, they didn't call her father "Dude Mastermind".

Tickling

I have finally been inspired to write something erotic again.  Hope you enjoy!
(The following contains sexual situations that may not be suitable for minors.)

Retracing My Steps

One of the side effects of my February hypnotist disaster has been the tainting of my hypnosis fetish.  I had only been exploring hypnosis for a little under 3 months when I started working with him, and a ton of what I learned that I liked and what worked well for me I learned with him.  Not everything, thanks goodness, but enough that for the last month it has been really hard to be in trance without his specter sort of lurking in the back of my mind.  Mind you, this is after the other person with whom I work helped root all the left-over suggestions etc that had been left behind out of my head.  I decided that I needed to re-write the program, as it were, so that is my new adventure.  Same as the old adventure, just from a different direction and, unfortunately, without as much trust in myself or for new people as I had.  I miss the kind of innocent enjoyment I was able to bring to things before, and I may never forgive him for the loss of that, but I know that I will be better off this way.

So, I went back to the beginning.  Which for me, was YouTube (you can all stop cringing, there are worthwhile videos to be found there.)  I'm re-learning how to go into trance trusting myself, and I am trying to do the same with my other friend/hypnotist, who has stuck by me through all of this and has been a rock and a pillow all at the same time.

The hardest part has been having the sheer joy I found in the erotic aspects of hypnosis be diminished.  When I lost my trust in people that was the first thing that was affected, and has proven to be extremely difficult to work through.  I was never interested in being the person who tranced alone from a file to get my rocks off, I relished the human connection that I had found and even more the friend that I thought I had found through it, and losing that broke my heart.  It also slammed home just how lonely I had been before I started my hypnosis adventure, and made me enormously grateful for the friends I have made who didn't disappear on me, even though I have been weepy and whiny, selfish and scared, and more than a little bit over-sensitive.  (Or, as one person put it, complicated.)  I am a very, very complicated person.  Yes.

The other major thing that has been bothering me is that (because I am insecure) in my imagination my ex-hypnotist tells other people to stay away from me, that I am bad news, that I am crazy, that I am the kind of person you don't want to get mixed up with (which is how he made me feel about myself when he left.)  There are a couple of people who, before I met him, I had been interested in getting to know, in being friends with, and because I know he is friends with them/associates with them I feel like I can never pursue that avenue.  I feel like I have my own version of the scarlet letter floating ahead of me everywhere I go, and that this herald of my presence will color every interaction I try to have in the future.

But I do understand that I feel this way because I lack self-confidence.  I do understand that I am insecure and that most of the time no one will care what has happened to me in the past or about with whom it happened.  It's the one person who will care that I think about.

My friend last night told me something amazingly and agonizingly important:  feeling this way, feeling in general, IS COMPLETELY NORMAL AND ACCEPTABLE.  (I had to capitalize that for myself, to help it sink in a little more.)  Feeling how I have felt over the last month, and the way I felt through the 5 weeks before that--all completely normal and acceptable.  And it's not my fault if other people can't deal with it.  The only things within my control are how I feel and how I choose to react to those feelings, and I have handled that in the most honest and ethical way that I know.

And for now, that is enough.

Categories

Hello.  I know it's been a while since I wrote something happy, or smutty, or happily smutty even, and I promise that those days are returning.  I got a little depressed, a little enraged, a little cranky-and-out-of-sorts, which dialed my creativity down to -10, but I'm rebounding a little now.  I have plans, ideas, topics even, and will write, at some point, about all of them.  They can be broken down into categories (of course they can, I'm a compulsive maker of lists) as follows:

• Erotic - Three Points of View (views 2 and 3), Mirroring (not to be confused with 'Mirrors', a post I've already uploaded), On Kittens and Puppies, and Predators (which may or may not see the light of day.)
• Deeper  (Yeah the book that started this all off lol) - I know how Jilly met Nathan now, and why the overly-cute waiter is important, and also it turns out that Karsten *really* likes mermaids.
• Subject's point of view - on trust, on proper after-care, on being observant, notes for hypnotists

Don't know which will be first, but something is coming, (and it's not winter.)

Also...there are frogs in my backyard.

Intensity - Originally written Friday, February 8th

I wrote this after a particularly intense (and wonderful) trance experience that will now never be repeated.  I have changed nothing from the original text.  I was told at the time that there were important reasons to not post it, as far as I'm concerned those reasons no longer exist.  Enjoy.

Let's pretend that this is a real blog that will be posted for everyone to see, shall we?  It won't be, mostly for the reasons we discussed previously, although I reserve the right to post it in the future.  But for now, it's all yours.

I don't know why I understand the cat in you.  I suppose it could be as simple as "I'm good with animals" and "animals like me" both of which I've said to you (although half in jest.)  It could be a little bit that you make very realistic noises, and as I can't see you it's very easy to imagine you-as-cat as opposed to you-as-man.  But most of it is that you believe it.  And, especially while entranced, what you believe I believe.  (This I think is also a key to why we interacted so successfuly the other night.)  What you believe, I believe, and what I believe you believe, at least within the confines of that tiny (and immeasurable) time that we call trance.

So.  Yes, the animal in you appeals to me.  The sound of the growl/purr/rumble in my ear makes my muscles clench and my breath come fast, as you undoubtably have noticed.  I like the strangeness of it, the danger of it, the language of it; I like the idea that since you know it's real I can be drawn in to that knowing so easily. 

And my descent into sharing that space (headspace?) with you happens frighteningly quick.  You say 'pinned down', and I can feel a paw the size of my head pushing my chest into the bed.  You talk about teeth, and I can feel them hovering over every part of my body that you describe.  You ask me if I know what I am, and I don't even have to think about it.  I know I'm prey.  Every bit of me knows, and it's titillating and terrifying all at once.  My chest gets pressed deeper into the bed and you keep asking me if I know I'm prey, do I know what happens to prey, do I know what you will do.  I know it in every bit of me, every atom screaming in fear but not wanting you to stop.  But you make me say it, you make me answer, you make me really, viscerally, deep in the part of my brain that only knows to run or fight know that I am prey and that you are a danger to me.  Because I surrendered to the cat the first time I ever asked for the growl.  I laid myself out for it, knowing the danger, because it was intoxicating and arousing to know that I responded so strongly.  And yes, it sounded like panic, but it wasn't.  I couldn't have used my panic button if I'd been ordered to, because my ability to think like a person was completely gone.  I don't know what you made me, but it was something other than human.

And bringing me back, calming me down, taking me deep, and then leading me ever-so-carefully back to that point where I knew in my gut that I was prey.  Asking me if I wanted to run, as if I was capable of answering you with anything resembling speech.  Of course I wanted to run, but I couldn't figure out how I could do that and still be pinned to the bed.  How I could be the person listening to your words as well as the creature quivering in fear and desperate to race away.

And bringing me back and calming me again, taking me deeper, and moving that line between standing strong and flight just a little askew, so that I could enjoy the experience through the fear.  You said the noises sounded different, and that's because they were.  I made the only noises I was capable of, instinctive and completely removed from any semblence in my mind of speech.  Still knowing that I had to be quiet so that my roommate wouldn't feel the need to come down and ask why I sounded like an animal being hunted--which is why I don't think you realized that from the moment you said 'cum' that is all I did, over and over, a full body response that was a final release from fear more than anything else.

I quite enjoyed it.

But it was incredibly intense, and incredibly foreign to waking me. 

 

I hope that this kind of description is what you were looking for; I very much wish that you could do the same thing in return for me.  I'd love to have a guide to all the different sounds you make.

 

Text me on my phone if you want when you get up; I would love to start my day with your opinions on what I wrote.

 

and--

 

ASTERISK

 

which means something to me

and something to you

maybe not the same thing

but I know that eventually

you will tell me.

Dilemma - Part 2

I'd like to thank the several very sensible people who have talked with me today, all of whom very rationally pointed out to me that trying to keep future badness from happening by starting fires meant that I was avoiding acceptance of both the situation as well as my feelings.  So no burning bridges.

Much.

I do have something I want to say however, and as I suspect that I will never have the opportunity to do it in private, here it is in public:



You say you cannot give me what I want, which is odd, because what I wanted was exactly what I thought I already had.  What I wanted was the eventual resolution that you said was already in motion.  It never occured to me that the outcome you meant was my sacrifice and not my integration.

I want something different now.  I want honesty and respect (both of which I thought I already had,) a display of some sort of ability to handle the situation like an adult, and a show of intelligence.  I believe that I will get these things, and for that, I thank you.

I need one question answered:  why is friendship impossible?  Because not being considered a pariah and a persona non grata would go a long way in preventing me from hating you.


That's all.  No fireworks, no revelations, no crying hysteria (where anyone can see it.)  The only part of this mess that I will air is my own, because ultimately lashing out would just make me feel even stupider and less capable than I already feel.


But I'm not saying that there won't be a "dilemma - part 3" either.

Dilemma Part 1

I have a way of dealing with potentially embarassing situations.  I prefer to put things out in the open before anyone else can, that way it's me who starts the rumor, me that feels in control of an essentially uncontrollable situation.  The situation I am in now is so utterly out of my control that all I want to do is lash out with everything I have and cause as much pain as I have been caused.  I want to cause ruin.  I want to create a cataclysm.  I want to blow a crater a million miles down into the world and sink everything I'm feeling as well as the person who made me feel this way so deep that there is no chance for recovery.  Because the most embarassing thing that could happen to me now would be for him to decide that this sacrifice of my friendship was too much, that he went too far, that he regrets his loss of me and wants my friendship back.  Because I would accept it.

So.  This is my dilemma:  do I live in hope, hating myself for being willing to even entertain the thought of putting myself back into his circle, or do I burn every bridge leading to him so completely that the possibility of hope is eradicated? 

How many people do I hurt in an attempt to protect myself?



And now I have to go to work.  So I have all day to write in my head, and then to decide just how much havok I would cause in trying to save myself.

Heartbreak

I have a few rules about how I write, which extend by association to how I present myself in the hypno community at large.
First of all, for those of you who aren't aware, Noelle Carson Nicholson is my pen name.  I use it on my favorite hypno sites because I wanted to remain anonymous but still be treated like a person.  For whatever reason I felt that if I chose a clever user name that was a pun, or a character, or something along those lines that I would be treated as less than human.  Likely silly, I know, but that is how I felt.

Likewise, in writing this blog I made a decision to be completely honest in whatever I wrote, so that even though the name I presented was a little bit of a lie, the 'me' that I presented would be complete truth.  I have done that.  I have posted things that are incredibly hard for me to share, things that are embarassing, things that are painful, things that hit me so close to my breaking point that the only way I can do it is because I have the tiny camouflage of that fake name.

Some people know who I really am.  I felt like, if we got close enough, that if I trusted them enough to let them rummage around inside my head on a regular basis, that it was only fair and right that I share my true self with them.  This is always a giant step for me, and one that I don't make lightly, and with a huge amount of fear and trepidation.  It never occurs to me that it's a foolish thing to do, that if something goes wrong then someone who I don't want knowing me any more knows exactly who I am.

It hurts more knowing he knows me.

It hurts knowing that I am the brave one, and that I am the one who tries, and that I am the one willing to risk even when it hurts.

It hurts knowing that when I stand up for myself the response is abandonment.

It hurts knowing that I am the grown up.

This feeling is why I was so scared to expose myself to the world in the first place.  This feeling of betrayal, this sense that I am not worth enough in his eyes to speak to, to try for, to be truthful to.

Yes.  This is extremely vague.

Because even though I am being honest about how I feel, I will not break his trust the way he has obliterated mine.


Because I am the god damn grown up.

Mirrors

There is an acting exercise with which anyone who has ever taken Acting 101 should be familiar.  (Joey did it in an episode of 'Friends' once as well, so probably familiar to anyone really.)  Working with another person, you say something, a line from whatever you're working on maybe, whatever's in your head, perhaps the teacher told you what to say; it doesn't really matter so long as you say it to the other person.  They repeat the line.  You repeat the line.  And with each repetition, the intention behind the line changes and you start to communicate how and what you are feeling without ever needing to change the words.  The connection that grows between the two in that series of moments can become penetrative and contemplative, intimate and efluant, fluid and overwhelming--and often exposes feelings that the actors never realized they had before beginning the exercise.

Sound familiar, hypnotists?

We are your scene partners, your mirrors, and we give back tenfold what we receive.  So when you think you are hiding, safe behind your facades of control and technique, remember, we are seeing you. 

The Solipsist's Lament

Here's a side effect of having new experiences and making friends that physically live far, far away.  When something horrible is happening in their lives, there isn't a god damn thing I can do about it.  This is when people pray or chant or send good vibes or whatever floats your boat, and all I can do is sit and wait and be ready to listen when needed.  I want to give in, I want to succumb to the urge to believe that something I think here can effect someone hundreds of miles away.  I want to embrace everything I believed as a child, that I can feel someone's pain from so very away, that I can touch them without touching, that I can fix it or heal it or change it just by wishing for it.

It's not true.  None of it can possibly be true. 

I used to believe that if I sat quietly with my eyes closed and just listened that I could feel the pain of the world around me.  That every time someone cried if I listened just right I could cry along with them.  That I could tell when someone was in pain just by walking past them.  That I could reach out and touch whatever was hurting them and feel it for myself.


Until one day I couldn't.  Until one day I didn't care about those around me.  Until one day I became content to be alone.  Until one day I accepted my inability to deal with more than one person at a time.  Until one day it occurred to me that I couldn't be hurt because it
just
didn't
touch
me.

Until one day
(today)
when I can't tell if I am merely feeling sympathy or actually feeling what someone else is feeling.  So I think I'll sit here and be quietly terrified at the return of something that doesn't exist.

Becoming

Sometimes I feel like I have spent my life punishing myself for not feeling enough.  And sometimes like feeling too much is my punishment for some unknown, inadvertant mistake.  I swing between the two extremes, never quite able to find a happy equilibrium, a place where I can walk through my life in a glide rather than a run, a steady pace rather than continually trying to edge backward.  Does everyone feel this terrible paradox of racing forward yet retreating?  Does everyone exist only at the widest point of the pendulum's swing?  I try to let myself experience the center place, the quiet that comes from peace and the concert that comes from contentment, but I find myself dropping off at the apex of the swing, the place where the most damage can be done when I finally hit the ground.

I keep thinking to myself that this cannot be healthy.  That the best thing to do is cut and run, go back to living the tiny yet exquisitely safe life that used to be mine.  Put out of my mind what I would lose, stomp it into the ground and leave it there to rot, convince myself so utterly that it's not worth having (or that I am not worthy of having it) that I am never, ever tempted to go back.

It wouldn't be the first time.

But I'm not sure that I know what 'healthy' feels like.  I have been alone for so very, very long, walking through the crowd but maintaining my autonomy.  Paring away anything that made life too complicated, but using crude cuts that took the good as well as the bad.

It is second nature to me now.

Am I one of the healthy or one of the sick?  I read that in a magazine article once, written by a woman who had become a psychologist in order to help people who had been hurt the way she had been hurt, and only years later discovering that she had never found the time to get help herself.  She thought that she could do it all alone, and had found out the hard way that she couldn't. 

No one can.

I don't know how to change, but I think I have put myself into a position where I will have to change, to learn, in order to survive.  It's a terrible and awesome feeling, and one that I'm not comfortable with at all. 

I suspect that it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Extraordinary Things

I have had an extraordinary day (that has stretched into an exraordinary night) and like many extraordinary things is proving very difficult to write about.  Exraordinary things have been happening to me daily ever since I discovered hypnosis; I am constantly surprised by the next thing that comes along.  Just like I can always go deeper so can I always find new territories to explore.

So, an update on the life of Noelle.  I am no longer seeking out new trance partners.  (This doesn't mean that I won't trance with someone new, but it does mean that if you chat me up with the sole intention of trying to entrance me that you will be sadly disappointed.)  I have found two wonderful friends with whom I can play with total trust and respect and that is sufficient.  They are very similar in some ways, but also dramatically different in others.  It keeps it interesting for me, interacting with these two points of view.  Keeps me on my toes, as it were.

The novelty of being a science project has worn off, especially as I've discovered something that I am not good at at all.  Turns out I'm lousy at being blank--that complete mindless state that some people seem to achieve without effort.  I want to be able to experience it quite a lot;  someone saying "freeze" and me being frozen and mindlessly unaware of the passage of time before someone says "unfreeze."  I'm having a lot trouble with the 'mindlessly unaware' aspect.  We're working on it and I know that someday we'll manage it, but until then I am being childishly impatient and not a little bit demanding of myself.

I've rediscovered some things about myself that I should have already known from my 'real' life but hadn't really expected to deal with in my hypnotic life.  Stupidity annoys me, as does neediness and unfounded arrogance.  (And by 'annoys' I really mean 'angers'.)  I seem to attract men with the mentality of little boys who are looking for a Mom, or arrogant jerks who think they are god's gift to any woman with a Skype account.  Strangely enough, in a community that practices an art to which listening is integral I have encountered very few people who actually bother to listen.  Maybe it's because so many people rely on scripts posted online and read blindly by someone with no connection to the original hypnotist.  It's a mystery to me.

But as I said, extraordinary experiences.

Having all my senses heightened to unbelievable levels and then orgasming like something supernatural.

Being taken so deeply into trance that all I remember is the sensation of water and some pretty lights.

And feeling a connection so strongly with someone that I would have sworn he was in the room with me, so close that I should have been able to just...reach...out...

Asking myself again how it is that I have this mighty rapport with two people whom I've never met?  (When I crack that mystery I'll have the keys to the universe.)

It's already tomorrow, so I suppose I'll have to look forward to today for any answers.  Or more likely, more questions.


p.s.
*licks from the base of your skull to the bottom of your spine*

Deeper - Chapter ? - First Draft

Jilly follows the tide as it moves in and out across the shore of her ocean.  The water holds her up, lapping against her skin, coating the downy hair on her arms, weighing down her clothes, holding her immobile yet unafraid in the darkness.  With every movement of the waves, every small swell of the tide, the water pulls at her feet, a little more each time, until finally her toes are pulled beneath the surface.  The balance shifts, her world tilts, and she slides smoothly between the waves and into the depths.

She spins slowly downward;the silver lures on her Grandad's fishing line had spun like this, slowly spiralling through the water as they were pulled ever downward.  Shining to light her own way, Jilly did the same, twisting in the currents and going around and around, lower through the limitless deep.  She no longer knows if her eyes are open or closed; these waters are so dark that her eyes would be useless here.  She relies on another sort of vision, letting her awareness drift and eddy around her, noting the other creatures that keep pace with her on her journey.

To her left, a cloudy horde of jellyfish, tentacles weaving messages of greeting to her as they propel themselves along her path.  To her right, the eels, undulating like inky ribbons, sparks glistening along their edges as a warning to all who might approach.

Above, the great white predator, circling endlessly, ever-vigilant and ageless in its need to watch over her.  And below, the massive whale, the dogfish, the holder of knowledge that waits for her to sink into its domain.

The whale floats unmoving below her, and Jilly finds to her surprise that a stone has been tied to her feet, that the stone is dragging her down to the whale, deeper than she ever could have managed without it.  She draws even with the whale's great eye, and stares, fascinated, at this orb that dwarfs her body.  It shines with its own light, just enough to illuminate her skin, and Jilly watches, awestruck, as her pale arm, glowing in the eye-light of the whale, begins to rise up to touch the skin of the beast.  Before she can touch it, she sinks again, the current pulling her toward the front of the creature's head, the stone falling away from her feet as the whale seems to yawn, wider than the whole world, and pulls Jilly into the cavern of its mouth.

Spoiled

I had just decided to write a blog about how spoiled I think I am that I was able to find two people who want to spend (a sometimes significant amount of) time both trancing me as well as being my friend when I got this message:

want to sspend the afternoon a little less then solidly here?

(The answer to which is always always always going to be yes.)   So here I sit, writing rather than planning, typing rather than doing the sort of over-complicating organizing that has been keeping me from writing, all while having that "fuzzy not quite here feeling."  I quite like it.

I have been very frustrated by the time difference between myself and a couple of people with whom I thought I was building friendships, and getting a little whiny about it, and had to forcibly stop myself.  It's a hold over from being the kid that didn't know how to get along with everyone; I always thought that no one wanted to have anything to do with me and I've never really escaped from that over the years I suppose.  I forget that people have lives and jobs and other friends and interests that take them elsewhere.  I was falling into the trap of thinking that it was about me when we failed to connect, which is a silly attitude to take but one I fall into easily.  (As well as feeling sorry for myself.)

And I have absolutely no reason to feel sorry for myself, for the friends that I am making/have made are so worth the times when no one is around.

I know this doesn't make a lot of sense, but this is how my thought process works.  If you're looking for coherence and some sort of linear pattern, you are so out of luck!

Dreams

I finally remember part of a dream and this is what I get?

I dreamed I was the male part of a couple, and we were quietly breaking up in the bathroom of a hotel room while our female friend slept just outside the door.  So we were being very calm and very quiet, unnaturally so.  I was trying to convince my girlfriend that I would start making better (or any) decisions, and she was casually putting on false eyelashes.

So.  What do you all make of that?

A Poem (with bonus lack of practical jokes)

　

Untitled

can you imagine a page for each day of your life?

your pen would break, your ink would dry, you'd have to turn to blood

and reams and reams of parchment could never stand the flood

insistent words, consistent lies, persistent loves, and failed tries

an endless battling dance between what should have been

and never was.

(a tiny thought recurrent

a tiny doubt infectant)

can you set on the page every twist of the knife?

the blood that flowed, the tears that fell, the shattering of hearts

the desperate calls for help made by your smallest meanest parts

compliant nerves, reliant tears, defiant words, and common fears

an acrobatic turn atop a trembling wire

of failing thoughts.

(a tiny need expectant

a tiny hope concurrent)

can you recall the page once it's turned on your life?

the dreams so short, the joys so brief, the spaces in between

the vivid moments spotlit by your memory's wildest sheen

resistant minds, assistant hands, existent sighs, and final stands

an over-arching tribute to the consequence

of being seen.

　

　

　

　

　

　

　

Things In My Head

I haven't written in awhile,spirals I've meant spirals spirals I've got so many ideas in my head that it's been hard narrowing down spirals one.  I have spirals extended scene with karsten in the works, spirals unfortunately it keeps wanting spirals come out in another writer's voice.  (Spirals bitch spirals it is that I can't remember which writer; when I finally remember who I will be able spiral eradicate their voice from my story.  Spiral something like that.)  It starts out like this right now:

Karsten dreamt spirals mermaids.  In her dream spirals mermaids danced spirals spun in spirals water near spirals shoreline, spirals shoreline that looked suspiciously like her own backyard, except with more water.  Each mermaid had spiral tail in spiral different color.  Spiral mermaid in greens spirals blues, that mermaid spirals reds spirals yellows, that one over there spirals beautiful shade spirals purple.  But not candy colors like on spirals children's toy, rather these colors were spirals swimming sheen spirals oil slicks spirals soap bubbles, spirals colors left behind by pollution.  Karsten didn't know why her mermaids were set up in colors like that, spirals why she kept dreaming spirals them, spirals she had done so spirals weeks on end.

Nathan had told her that spirals was perfectly natural spirals dream spirals not understand why.  "Thousands spirals people every day wake up, never knowing exactly why spirals was that this night of all nights should be spirals one during which they dreamed spirals something out spirals their experience.  Don't worry about spirals, Karsten", he had said, "calming her so easily with simple words.  I'd let you know if you were completely bonkers."  Karsten knew he was right, spirals deep inside she still worried.


I have no idea how mermaids fit into this story.  What I should do spirals continue to write spirals out spirals see what happens, that would be spirals clever thing spirals do.  Spirals maybe I don't want spirals be smart!  Maybe I want spirals dream spirals mermaids myself spirals let them inspire me.


I also have spirals poem that I'm meant spirals be finishing.  That was actually my plan for spirals evening, finishing spirals poem, but I let myself get distracted.  Spirals was spirals long day working, spirals all I really want spirals do right now is sleep, or at least pretend spirals sleep until my mind believes what my body already knows.

Spirals would be really easy spirals me spirals say that I will go back spirals blogging daily, but spirals truth of spirals matter is that sometimes I just need spirals take spirals break rom it.  My mind gets over-loaded, spirals is dealing with too many different ideas, spirals just needs spirals break.  I'm almost asleep even writing this.  Something about sitting here where it's warm spirals lulling me spirals sleep.  I don't want spirals fall asleep at spirals computer.

I honestly don't even know what I am blogging about at this point.  Sorry spirals anyone who comes here spirals read something interesting.  When I've had some sleep, I'll try again, maybe then it will make sense.

How I Spent My Day Off

I ahe a third ambusher.  I mean the alwoed kind.  And I have spent a day and a hafl in and out of thrnace, losing an hour here and an horu there, and had a lot of fun doing it.

At the meerest glimmer of th epossibility of going under I went uner.  If I thought about what it felt liek th elas time I ewent udner then I went under.  I played a prank on muserlf (as anyoen who erad the previous blog knowsl) and apparently I am plaing a pran on myself now.  I am normally pretty ananl retetntive abot umy typing, and someone has gone to some effor t o make this blog as interestingly typed as posbienl.

Or, as I aliek o call it, unreadable.  (Sure that woreld comes out clearly.)  So I can't acutally type nromeally and I can't fix it but I can write the shaoreitkkk bog ever.

Tnks, jsut thnks.

Isn't this fun?

I think Noelle needs a little poem to commemorate this morning:

the lake spinning and shimmering and shining
ripples of light tracing across the water
patterns of fractals, disturbed by skating insects
ducks drifting along
lurking plants under the surface that grab your legs when you swim
so stay out, just watch the water
from your place
behind the glass
where it's warm
and the small waves that drift back and forth
the shimmer around the island
the reflection of the sun as it rises
ever-rising
ever-drifting
ever-shining and shimmering and spinning
for you


Poetry that isn't structured is good too, you should remember that.

Something About Sleeping

"Something about sleeping?"  I asked.  He smiled and just continued with the conversation, eventually saying good night and signing off.  The yawns that had begun to overtake me moments before continued, unabated, as I got ready for bed, wondering how on earth he had done this wonderful thing.  And after climbing into bed and sliding between the sheets, my whole body just seemed to collapse in on itself; I might have, no, I must have been asleep within minutes, but only the cat knows and she's not telling.


I have always had a terrible relationship with sleep, this I have made clear before now.  I won't dwell on my past reactions to insomnia or reiterate anything I've said before.  Instead, I want to address what caused the problem in the first place.

Or rather, in the second place.  I have no idea what caused the problem when I was a child, I just remember not being able to sleep.  But as a teenager and upwards I'm reasonably certain that it's fear to do too much of something that I like too much coupled with the thought that I might not come back from it.  (Not death per se, for those of you remembering right now that sometimes people have referred to sleep as a little death.  I have no problem with the other thing called a little death either, nor am I scared to die.)  No what worries me is that I'll come back  different, changed, not myself somehow.

Ironic, isn't it?

I am discovering that this is also my number one fear with hypnosis:  coming back different and changed and not myself.  I don't my mind being fiddled with, I just don't want it taken away.  No matter how many times I say or think that I would like to try being blank and mindless and everything that goes along with it, when the time came my subconscious balked.

It's why I don't experiment with drugs.  Or drink too often.  Because I already know I like it too much.

It's why there's at least one blog that I read for awhile and then ran from, screaming.  It was very very good, and very very dangerous. 

And it's ultimately why I am being so stubborn and persnickety about how people treat me when they are chatting me up about possibly trancing.

If I am going to let you try and take my mind from me, by GOD I am going to trust you to put it back when you're done with it.

(I have had several trance experiences recently for those of you keeping up with such things.  One panic button incident based on the above-mentioned issue, and not the fault of the tist; it was this incident that helped me narrow down what the issue actually is.  Several "meh, whatever", experiences, and two people who are loads and loads of fun.  (One of whom gets me to sleep, so let's be honest, he's my favorite.)

First Times

The following post may contain subject matter that might be considered inappropriate for minors.  Click at your own risk.

I'm Not Sure Why I'm Here

There's nothing quite like going to bed sad and slightly turned on for ruining sleep.  And I did try to sleep, I really did, I was asleep, I'm almost positive.

Until I wasn't anymore.

Times like right now are when I actually feel my age.  All the achy places that I know 20 years from now will be the problem places where I might need surgery bother me a little more.  (I swear my skin looks just a little more wrinkled too right now, but I don't care as much about that.)  All the oddities of behavior that are uniquely mine, the little tics that I won't want to control or won't be able to control later are just a little stronger right now.  The only reason it bothers me is I can see in my mind's eye what kind of an eccentric old woman I shall be, and it's perilously close to the kind of scary crone that small children avoid and older children dare each other to hurl stones at.

Bah.  How ironic is is that in order to have a really satisfying experience with trance I need to feel like I can completely trust someone yet there is such a giant lack of people whom I feel I can completely trust elsewhere in my life?  The point where the two lives meet has proven problematic (thank you so much Joss Whedon for introducing that word into my life.)  Times like this I can't quite remember why I thought it was such a good idea to throw myself out into the world in the first place.

But I'm sure I'll feel better in the morning.

A Few Thoughts On Being A Science Project

Oh, the things about hypnosis that you don't learn from the media are so important!  That includes popular entertainment as well as written research.  Those things are entertaining, and in some cases accurately informative, but you never really know, just from reading, just what it is truly to be hypnotized.

I want to acknowledge that apparently I have a gift, hence the title of this entry.  Every time I trance, every time, I end up thinking to myself  "and again, I'm a science project."  Sometimes it's because of something the hypnotist says to me, sometimes it's because of something I noticed in myself, but it always happens.  I feel incredibly sad for the people whom I've gotten to meet since starting this journey who tell me they can't be tranced, but they want to.  And some of them want to so very, very badly, and I am at a complete loss to explain what it is that makes me different to them.  (And also different to a lot of other subjects as well.)

When I started, I thought it was simply a matter of wanting to succeed.  I know better now.  I thought it was a matter of just listening carefully and reacting to what I heard.  And that's true, in part, but that's also a description of how to be an actor, and it's so much  more than that as well.  I thought a certain type of voice was important, or a certain kind of prose, or a certain kind of intent.  All not important to me in the long run.

I have felt, as I believe I have mentioned before, like I'm swimming in an unfamiliar ocean surrounded by sharks.  Because of this, I have made sure that certain safe guards are in play.  (My panic button works just the way it's supposed to by the way.)  And it's more important than ever that I have those safeguards, because I am starting to get just comfortable enough with  my ocean and my circle of sharks that I'm starting to swim out to the open water a little bit.  Just a tiny little bit, but you never know which shark is going to be the dangerous yet exciting yet good one, and which shark is going to be the one that grabs hold of my leg and drags me away, bleeding.  (So if we are chatting and for some reason I call you a shark, but I'm not shutting things down, congratulations, you are apparently dangerous and exciting, but don't come across as bloodthirsty.)

I feel like I have enough data now to talk sensibly about my experiences as a subject.  First:  induction style.  I can tell pretty quickly now if someone has been trained/certified rather than tried to pick it up as they went along.  There's a certain cadence to the words, whether spoken or written, that stands out.  And yes, I prefer those people, although I have also met several people who aren't officially trained/certified who were obviously well-educated and fun to read/listen to.

People keep asking me what style of induction works best for me.  The honest answer is I still don't know enough about the subject to say.  (Or to even know what people mean by 'style.')  What I do know is that if I'm reading a script, it needs to be broken up into chunks, with some sort of rhythm and flow.  If I'm in chat, it needs to be continuously feeding lines to which I can respond.  And if it's person to person, well, I rather fancy pocketwatches, although that isn't necessary.  But even the hardest to follow script worked for me.  And in that case it really is because I wanted it to work.  I wanted it to work so much that I helped it along, but was never truly satisfied because I was unable to completely let go.  I could go into trance right now if I wanted to, and when I knew I would be encountering this particular person I made sure that I was already there every time.

So.  How it feels to be a science project.  You know those Japanese paper screens, the ones that slide, that they use instead of doors sometimes?  I feel like there's a screen between me untranced and me entranced and at any given time all I have to do is reach out and slide the screen away.  The paper is so thin that I really don't even need to slide it away, but the action of doing so just makes everything better.

I don't start off feeling light and floaty, although people seem to think I will.  I feel like the world has dropped away beneath my feet, but that I am still sitting here solidly, even though there's no ground.  I feel a flipping of the muscles through my core, starting at my groin and going all the way up the center of my body, kind of like that moment of vertigo when you first tilt over the top of a drop on a roller coaster.  If I'm in chat, my arms get incredibly heavy resting on the keyboard; one of the ways I can tell I'm going deeper is when I am compelled to move them before they fall, and then bringing them back to the keys is a struggle because it feels like time in that small space between me and the keyboard has slowed to a different pace than everywhere else.  And in chat, my eyes completely desert me.  I need to have them open to read the words, but I have to have them shut to keep from being in pain, because blinking hurts.  One eye is always out of sync with the other one, and even though I feel like I'm looking straight ahead when my eyes are shut, as soon as I open them I realize that they have shifted sideways somehow and only the opening of my eyelids can draw them back.  It's hugely disconcerting.  In a lot of ways, having to keep paying attention to the screen drags me deeper, because while I'm doing that my focus is distracted from everything else that may be happening to me.  I sway a lot,  I've felt like I'm underwater being moved back and forth by unseen currents, and I've also felt so completely impaired that it was like being frozen.

So in a lot of ways it's a relief to use Skype, where I don't have to worry about a pesky screen or a keyboard, and can be as relaxed and comfortable as necessary.  My eyes don't bother me, although I can feel them moving under my eyelids, and my right hand has a tendency to twitch.  This is when I feel light and floaty, when I am able to let everything go, and even then light and floaty aren't the best words, just the only available ones.

It's not like my body is asleep and my mind is awake, which is what some of the readings I've done have said.  It's more like my body is asleep and my mind is observing while something else becomes stronger and more in charge. (And yes I know that that would be my subconscious, thanks.)  It's a wonderful feeling, being asked questions while in that state.  Ask me a question out of trance, and if it's something factual I will give you way more than you want to know, if it's something personal or an opinion then a lot of the time I am at a complete loss.  But in trance it doesnt' matter how long it takes, eventually there will be an answer, and there's no thinking about it, it's just there, all I have to do is wait for it.

The most important aspect of me being a science project is the speed at which I go down.  I cannot emphasize how important it is to have a good rapport with a hypnotist that you trust, because that, of course, helps, but even with people whom I've barely met, if I've decided it's okey for them to trance me it takes less than a paragraph.  And person to person?  Seconds.  (And now I'm curious, I'm going to have to ask just how long it really was.  But it felt like seconds.)

I feel like I'm not explaining this as well as I wanted to.  I'm leaving a lot out, I know, but I'm hitting the highlights.  I'll probably think of  a ton of stuff later on to add, but for now I will ask that people who read this, if you have any (specific) questions, it would be really great if you could comment and I will try to answer.

Thanks!

Deeper - Chapter ? - First Draft

This scene is the first glimmer I had of a novel with hypnosis in it.  For everyone who is used to my fiction being more erotic than this, please know that the book I intend to write will have some of that, but a lot of it will just be people interacting with people.  And a lot of that will be happy people interacting with other happy people, but this is not that scene.


Nathan watched the line under his shoes as he walked. Every hallway in this hospital had a colored line leading from the elevators, from the stairs, directly to whichever area a vistitor needed to go. The line he followed was blue, meant to be soothing, he supposed, although it was silly to think that anyone would be looking down as they walked. Anyone other than himself anyway. But he had to keep watching his feet carry his body down the line, it was the only way he could get himself to keep moving forward.

They were clustered together, what must be her family, some holding paper coffee cups, some gripping crumpled tissues. They looked immovable, as if their grief had concentrated them into a solid wall that no outsider could ever breach. He almost turned back, considered pivoting on the spot and fleeing back the way he'd come, so he wouldn't have to face what was inside that room. But that was not an option.

He drew closer, and one by one the faces turned his way, some curious, some hostile, some not really seeing him, looking blankly through eyes that had cried too many tears. Nathan refused to let himself slow, and continued toward them, unconsciously remaining at the center of the blue line. One of the younger woman broke off, came toward him, extended her hand.

"Are you Nathan?" she asked, taking his hand in hers when he nodded. "I'm Meredith, we talked on the phone?" She had obviously been crying, her grey eyes were blood-shot and red-rimmed, but she smiled at him anyway. "She asked for you again this morning. I'm afraid the family doesn't really understand." She swung her hair back over her shoulder so she could look Nathan in the face. "You...don't really look how I expected. I hope you don't mind me saying that. You looking so...normal...will help I think."

Nathan sighed. "And how am I supposed to look? You were expecting some sort of monster? Someone who looked like a carnival freak or a drug addict? Yes, your sister and I know each other because of things that you don't understand and don't want to admit exist, but we're no less normal than you."

"I know that , and I'm sorry." the young woman apologized. "It's just so hard with her slipping away like this, and finding out she had this other life, this lifestyle, and so many people that are her friends that we never knew about, and now she wants to talk to all of you and not us..." Her voice got louder and higher the longer she talked until she began, quietly, to cry. Nathan gently took her in his arms and held her, surprised that she let him, but unable to ignore her pain. They stayed that way for just a few seconds, but it was enough for Meredith to collect herself. She pulled away and wiped her nose on a ragged kleenex, then said, "C'mon. I'll take you in now." She led Nathan past the family and through the door, blue like the stripe on the carpet.

Inside the room it was as if blue, or any other color, had never existed. Everything was white or grey, as if whoever had designed the room had wanted to avoid the stark contrast of black and white and had instead chosen to cloak the room in a strange homage to winter. Friends and family had obviously tried to brighten the place up; there were flowers and get-well cards on the deep window sill, and someone had strung a garland of paper flowers from the ceiling. The bed was off to one side, and was the only thing not bathed in white. Again the family must have been at work for the bedding was emerald green, glowing in the lights from the nearby machines.

The woman in the bed lay curled on her side. Like a child or a small animal, she seemed to be hiding from something that she couldn't see, and was making herself smaller to avoid being seen by it. Her strawberry blonde hair and pale skin stood out in glaring contrast to the green; Nathan knew it was her favorite color and had to stop and swallow hard seeing her like this. Her favorite picture to share with close friends had been of her reclining in a sea of emerald satin, but there the green brought out the color of her eyes and made her skin glow like a naiad recently escaped from the ocean, not like this sad transparent wreck of a woman.

"Hello, Jillybean," he said, smoothing back her hair. "I came as fast as I could." The bruised eyelids raised a sliver. She had been awake after all.

"Nathan," she whispered. "You came all the way here?" Her eyes, almost closed, slowly started to leak tears. "I didn't think anyone would come."

"Jilly," he said through tears of his own, "We love you, we all love you. Everyone would have come if they could have. They all send their love, they all send their prayers, if you'll take them."

"They want me to speak with god." Jilly hissed, almost sounding healthy. "They keep coming in here and asking me if I want to speak to god. No one has the balls to come out and say it's because I need to find him before I die, but I know that's what they mean."

"Jilly, you don't have to speak to god, but it would have been good for you to speak to someone, just to help your peace of mind."

"My peace of mind?!" She would have been yelling if she'd had the air. "My peace of mind? My mind is killing me!" Nathan heard Meredith start to cry behind him, and realized that she hadn't been able to bring herself to leave the room. "And it hurts, Nathan, it hurts so much!"

"I know Jillybean, I know. I'd like to try and help if I could." He continued to smooth the hair at her temple, the only locks not concealed by the bandages around the terrible wound in the side of her head. "Do you want me to try, Jilly? Do you believe I can help?"

"I wish, I wish you could help, but nothing helps, not anymore. They want to give me morphine, Nathan, they want to give me morphine until I can't feel anything anymore, but I know I'll never wake up again if they do!" She started to shake under his hand.

"Shh, Jilly, shh, it's alright, they don't want to hurt you," he soothed. "I can always try, and maybe it will help a little bit, maybe it won't, but I hope it will."

"Okay, but don't let me go, don't let me fly away yet, okay Nathan? I don't want to go yet."

He continued stroking her hair. "I won't Jilly, I won't let you fly away. There's a string holding you here with me, a green ribbon just like for your hair. And green like your meadow, and green like your forest, and green like your sea.

We've been to the meadow before, you and I, with the wind blowing the long grass, watching it ripple like waves on the ocean, sitting in the long grass, feeling the warm wind as it blows the waves of grass towards the sea.

We've been on this journey before, you and I, under the trees in the forest around the meadow, with the branches undulating like tendrils of seaweed drifting in the ocean current, drifting on the wind that blows the leaves on the trees towards the sea.

We've been to this seashore before, you and I, letting the wind at our backs blow us into the water, sinking into water warm like blood, warm like the ocean inside ourselves, sinking deeper and deeper, beneath the current that takes the unwary over the waves and out to sea.

We've been in these depths before, deeper and deeper beneath the waves, through the glowing green light of tiny creatures who never see the sun, down so deep that everything is silent except for my voice and our hearts, beating to the rhythm of the waves far above.

We've been sinking deeper and deeper, so deep now that we've never been this deep, and now the water, dark and mysterious, black like the heartsblood of the world, is becoming colder, so cold, so much colder that it numbs everything it touches, takes all the heat and poison out of everything and turns it to ice, turns the poison and the pain to pieces of ice, pieces of ice that slide so carefully out of you and float away.

We've been sinking so deeply now, so much deeper than before, that everything is completely black, everything is dark to your eyes the way that silence is to your ears, and while you float here in the depths of your ocean, I am holding your hand, I am holding your hand and I won't let you fly away, I'll keep you here beside me for awhile until you're ready to go, and for now we will float here and let the ice slide out of you and drift away."

Nathan looked down at Jilly's pale face, at the freckles that he knew she hated, at the scar she'd gotten from a flying horseshoe at a summer barbecue, and saw that she appeared to sleep. He didn't know if he'd helped, but he imagined that her face looked a little less strained anyway. Carefully he stood up, and turned to find Meredith leaning against the wall by the door, holding herself and silently crying.

"I don't understand!" she whispered harshly. "I thought you were some sort of, some sort of, sadist or something, someone she was embarassed to even admit she knew and you come here and tell her a story and she sleeps?! She doesn't sleep! Not without drugs!"

Nathan didn't bother wiping away his own tears before answering. "I am many things, but the most important thing I am right now is your sister's friend. I have been your sister's friend for a long time, longer than I think you realize. She's had a lot of horrible, painful things happen to her and I like to think that I've been of help to her with them, a kind of help that she couldn't find from you or the rest of her family. That little story, as you call it, is something that she and I came up with years ago, to help her create a haven from the nasty things that she had been subjected to in her life. If it helps her now, why should you care if I am some kind of, as you say, sadist." He opened the door, but not without turning back to say one last thing. "And I'm not the sadist here. She is." Carefully closing the door behind him, Nathan returned to the blue line, letting it take him around the corner from the family, knowing he would have to come back and face them for real if he wanted to keep on helping his friend.

An Open Letter To Those Who Like Ambushes

Dear Asshats,

Here's a tip for all you troll-like sub-human twats who think it's a good idea to tell a woman how smart she is, then turn around and ignore everything she just said by trying to unethically trance her by sneaking an induction under the radar.

 

I AM SMARTER THAN YOU

 

 

Are we clear?  Good.  Yes, I can be ambushed.  By two people who have made the cut, who have bothered to get to know me, who have bothered to build an honest, friendly rapport with me, and who, most importantly, do not treat me like a toy they found in the the street.  I'm sure that at some point someone else will make the list, because I really enjoy the feeling of minding my own business (or at least pretending to) and having someone swoop in and take me.

 

But you?  The tiny male mind saying "who me?" and looking around while feigning innocence?  Or you over there who is soooooo sorry, you don't know what came over you, you promise you won't do it again?  (Which, by the way, is what men say to women after they've hit them, as well.)  And even you, wondering how you came to be included in this group when all you did was ignore me when I said no and keep on asking and asking and asking?

 

 

NEVER YOU.

 

And stay away from anyone I know, too.  While you're at it, stay away from anyone I don't know either.

 

Thanks,

 

Noelle

Ropes

The following contains sexual situations and ideas that may not be suitable for minors.  As always, click at your own risk.

Insomnia Bounce

1:56. AM.  What is it that keeps me from ever, ever, sleeping like a normal person?  I can remember as a child, oh maybe 2nd or 3rd grade reading Heidi for the first time, coming to the part about how she was so tired that she was "asleep before her head hit her pillow" and recognizing it for the unmitigated bullshit that it so obviously was.  (It's also the first time I'd ever been introduced to the cliche of 'asleep before your head hits your pillow' and I think it scarred me for life.)  But I digress. 

Usually my problem is that my body wants to sleep, feels all nice and relaxed, but my mind is going, going, going; for a long time I fell into the trap of getting angry which of course unrelaxes the body and gets you riled up in general. I've learnt not to do that, I just get up and find something to do, like read, or watch, or blog. 

And I've had this problem my entire life.  I can remember one night, desperate to sleep, where I whammed my head against the headboard of my bed hard enough to daze myself.  I'd been hoping to knock myself out entirely, not understanding yet exactly what mechanism made that happen or what kind of damage I could do myself.  I discovered that I really don't like hitting my head against a solid surface, so I suppose I accomplished something.

I've actually had several times in my life where I landed on my head in one way or another but didn't knock myself out.  Head first off a trailered boat onto a concrete driveway is the infamous one in my family.  About twelve feet or so up, I was around 2 or 3.  I don't remember it, but apparently survived with nothing worse than skinned up knees and elbows.  Because toddlers bounce, doncha know.

And in the first grade, so 6 years old, I went over straight backwards while on roller skates at the local Skateworld.  Bounced the back of my head off the training rink.

Okay, so not several times, two times, but still, either of those could have done me in.

Or maybe they're responsible for the way I am now.

5 AM

So.  Apparently it's my new habit, my new thing, to wake up around 5 in the morning and not be able to get back to sleep for a while.  Just a fascinating new development in my eternal cycle of sleep/not sleep.  Ah, well, it could be worse.  I'd much rather awaken now and know that sleep will return than struggle to sleep in the first place (which I have also done on many occasions.)

And I'm not waking up in a panic, which I have now experienced one too many times.  That is, once.  And I wasn't exactly aware until later of the panicking part, but I know it now and that's enough.  You see, the other week I needed something out of my 'sent message' folder and found an email that I had apparently gotten up that morning and sent without realizing it:

it's not a dream i am awake and in my bed

it'd not a dream i am awake and in my bed

it's not a dream i am awake and in my bed

not on a table not like this not like this

i am awake and in my bed

i am awake and in my be

too much too much toomuch

i am aawake and in my bed i am awake and in my bed i am aawake and in my bed i am aawake and in my bed

 

 

Bad poetry but a simple sentiment.  And reading it absolutely fucking terrified me.  And I'm still not one hundred per cent sure what prompted it, although I have an idea.

 

I seldom remember my dreams.  For a short time, we tried to change that.

 

And now I'm leaving it alone.

 

But I still wake up around 5 AM.