Wednesday, January 30, 2013

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday, January 28, 2013

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.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

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.

Monday, January 21, 2013

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.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

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.)

Friday, January 18, 2013

First Times

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

Thursday, January 17, 2013

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.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

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!

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

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.

Monday, January 14, 2013

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

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Ropes

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

Saturday, January 12, 2013

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.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

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.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Three Points of View - First View

Before I  begin, a caveat:  I am writing without an outline, without a first draft, with no notes and barely any idea of what will happen.  I'll correct typos and spelling errors, but everything else is straight from my head to my hands to the page.  So be kind!  Also, the following contains ideas and situations of a sexual nature and is not suitable for minors.  Click at your own risk!

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Day 2 or Possibly 3

It's day 2 I think of a whole new world for me.  It might be day 3, but I honestly don't remember.  I have been fighting a cold, a sinus infection, and a pulled back for what feels like weeks now, which has made me short on sleep, which combined together makes me stupider than the average bear.

But I think it's day 2 of being masterless, adrift without a caretaker, without a security blanket, dependent upon myself and my own good judgement (ha!) to navigate this river that is my journey into hypnosis and  pleasure.  So many destinations beckon, so many disciplines and the natives unto, waving me over as I drift by.

And I'm so excited to try all I can, but every wary of potential danger, because I know I am still prey.  I'm lucky in that the friends that I made right from the start can be trusted, so I have resources for reliable information.  I am fighting hard the self-destructive tendency to jump into anything just to see what happens.  Oh, but it's tempting!  Only the knowledge that on the internet, you never know for sure exactly who or what you're dealing with keeps me from doing so.

Tonight I have my first ever chance to be actually entranced by a live voice, albeit via Skype.  I'm quite insecure about it, but only because I don't like the way I look on web-cam and don't want to disappoint.  Ah, well, I have a feeling any insecurities will be blown right out of my mind fairly quickly.  But there's a post in it, I promise you!

Monday, January 7, 2013

Changes

I know that I'm a person who rushes in, sometimes too fast.  At least at this point in my life I've learned how to look around once I've rushed in and then slowly back out again, being extra careful to not spook the wildlife. 

But now I kind of miss the wildlife.  Oh, it's natural, I know, to be scared of the new and unknown and want to cling to the familiar.  And that's my tendency anyway.  But the changes I've made were the right ones made for the right reasons.

So I'm just going to have to deal.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Running Late For Work

The following post contains sexual situations and images of a graphic nature.  Click at your own risk!

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

My First Induction

If you believe that you can't be hypnotized and that hypnosis is a bunch of bunk and flim flam practiced by con artists on gullible idiots, then read ahead with no worries and enjoy what to you will seem bad poetry.

If you believe that you can't be hypnotized but wish you could be or really want to be, then please make sure you are seated comfortably with both feet flat on the floor, facing your computer, in a position that you can maintain if you were to become extremely relaxed.

If you believe in hypnotism and want to be hypnotized please follow the above guidelines.

If you believe in hypnotism and have been hypnotized before, then you all ready know the drill! Enjoy!

A friend of mine, after reading my other blogs, challenged me to write an induction. Another first for me! So this is what I came up with. It is supposed to be very unthreatening, sex free, no triggers, and has one simple request for a message to me, nothing meant to harm or trick anyone. Let me know if I should keep it up!


Wine Country Induction



Hello
Hi There
And Welcome
Thank you so much
For choosing to trust me
Trust is important to me
And to you

I know
Coming here
Coming to visit me
Giving your trust to me
We trust
Each other
We are
In each other's hands

Here
Here in my place
Feel my world
Sitting here under the sun
Amongst the vines
The sun on the leaves
The heat on your skin

So
Relaxing
So
Warming
So
Caressing
So comforting

The air so still
It feels so good

So nice
Basking
Just basking in the sun
Breathing

Slowly and deeply

Carefully

Relaxing

Slowing down

Like Honey

Caught in the

Slow

Slow

Flow

Relax

Relax now

And listen

Relax and listen

Be Still

Your stillness

Profound

Listen

The bees are singing for you
(Buzzing as bees will do)

Droning

Humming

The bees in their hives droning

nbsp; Deeper
and
nbsp; Deeper
and
nbsp; Deeper
and
nbsp; Deeper
Deeper

So very deep

Let their song

Lull you

Deeper

Deeper

Deeper

Until the drone fades away

Until your thoughts fade away

Let the bees carry your thoughts away

And see only my words

Hear only my voice

You want to do that, don't you?
Let my words carry your thoughts away?

Now you are mine
And while you are mine

Here in this place
You can make me so happy

And I know you want me to be happy

Make me happy
Think of the perfect name for me

Tell me what your perfect name for me would be

Message me with that perfect name

Tell me why you chose it

And when you are done

(and not before)

When you are done
Then you may awake

Feeling wonderful
Feeling refreshed and full of energy
And so full of joy

Now Go
MAKE ME HAPPY

Tangent - Girls - Part 3

And the stream of consciousness continues.

I think it can be safely said that trust in one's hypnotist is a huge component of a successful trance. After all, you're putting something very valuable into someone's (possibly a stanger's) hands. And it seems that there is a near instantaneous decision on the part of the subject as to whether his or her trust will be given. I know that, having spent some little time on YouTube exploring different videos, that for me it only takes one or two sentences to decide if I am really going to commit to the experience or not. (And no, I don't watch the vids, I just listen to them. Honestly, the things people will put on a screen thinking your attention will be caught or your eyes will tire out are really amusing. As long as you don't have to look at them. I have a very nice paint splatter on my wall that works just as well, thanks.)

When I first started experimenting with hypnosis, I was genuinely curious about whether or not it would matter if the voice was male or female. The first files I listened to were all male, but but when a new female voice was recommended to me, I had a listen and was hooked immediately. There's something about a sing song intonation that, when coupled with a pleasant tone, really works for me, but she would have had me without that. Identical scripts read by different voices have different impacts of course, but what ever it is that makes one more effective than the other is harder to pin down.

Nowadays I'm mostly tranced by reading, which, as I have mentioned before, is something that I really didn't think would work. So it was incredibly surprising when a block of short, badly formatted text put me under. I was not completely unaware of who I was dealing with; I did, after all, read his profile, so I had a name, a pic, and an idea of his interests before I began to read. Did this effect things? I really don't know. Nor do I know how my mind decided that it was okay to make a personal connection with someone based on that scant information and a few lines of text. And no one I've asked has been able to explain just how that instant decision is made. I can't explain, and I'm the one who made it! Answers I've received from other people range from "I don't know" to "don't ask me because I can't tell you," so I guess I'll have to live in the dark on this one.

But wait you say! Isn't this blog supposed to be about girls? Where's the girl?

So I made a friend (SD) who agreed to put me under as part of research for this blog. I questioned whether or not I would go down deeply for her, if at all. Would it feel different? Without an audio track, I wouldn't be able to say that the intonation or the timber of her voice had been appealing as I had with the YouTube video.

Um. Well. Yes.

Quickly and deeply. Very deeply.

She engaged my trust completely and utterly. I came out of trance feeling wonderful (well, REALLY wonderful, if you know what I mean.) (And you do.) I remembered everything, which somehow made the experience more intimate, including the trigger she left behind should we play again.

Sadly, I didn't have the foresight to save a transcript of that session. Not sadly, the next day, with complete success, she used the trigger "just to test it out." And the next day, reinforcing it. Which brings us to this morning, New Year's Day, upon which I have gotten up obscenely early in order to write before I go to my day job. I was in the middle of posting a story on a different site when I glanced down at the chat window and saw my trigger from SD. And dropped incredibly deep instantly. It felt like that moment on a roller coaster when you start to fall and your stomach doesn't quite move with you for the first moments. With a few innocuous words she took me so deep I had tunnel vision. Deeper, if I'm honest, then anyone else has been able to do that fast. Some of that has to do with what I know her expectations to be; she prefers sensual to sexual which makes an experience with her unfraught with some of the expectations I find elsewhere. Some of that has to do with the fact that we have become friends and I trust her. But a lot of it has to do with that connection, that rapport, that came into existence after reading the first words of her induction.*

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* A little insight into just how suggestible I am--while describing this experience I went back under from the memory. This happens to me a lot.

Tangent - Girls - Part 2

Stream of consciousness continued...

You see them everywhere, that pair, the two girls walking together, on their way to class, going to a movie, shopping; it doesn't matter where really, you've seen them, the ones you look at and wonder, "Are they just friends, or are they more than friends?" Sometimes it's hard to tell what prompts the question. Is it wardrobe, body language, behavior? Is it the combination of those specific girls together, or is it something about one of them that really sparks your interest? Didn't you wish you could stop and ask them? If you had, you might have been told "why yes, we are more than friends," but often as not, the answer would be no. I should know, I am always one of those girls.

My closest and oldest friend and I for years got asked by strangers if we were dating. On one memorable occasion, (walking from the car to the movie theatre), we were nearly run down by a kid on a skate board who yelled out "Fucking lesbians!" because it was, of course, our fault for being on his sidewalk and that was the best insult he could come up with. I think it bothered her; I couldn't have cared less. When I played in a pool league, I had another friend who used to get teased by the all the drunk rednecks about how she and her girlfriend were doing and I know she hated it. Neither of them were comfortable with the thought that someone would think they were a lesbian, and in the latter's case she was outright offended because she would never do something disgusting like that, thank you very much.

I guess I'm lucky, because I got exposed early in my life to the idea that it was perfectly fine for a woman to love another woman or a man to love another man. I read a lot and way out of my reading level, prefering fantasy and science fiction by authors that treated all partnerships as acceptable. My parents, while disapproving due to their religious beliefs, kept their opinions to themselves on all hot button topics so carefully that I never even knew what their opinion was until I was an adult. I got to make my own opinions. Even though I was nominally religious (something I outgrew by the time I was in my 20's) I never adopted that pervasive christian attitude of thinking that other lifestyles to mine are evil. I might not understand, but in my world that doesn't equal "bad," it equals "educate yourself." Interning with a theatre company in my mid-20's further broadened my scope of experience. I met every flavor of gay there, got to be friends with people, was entertained by people (there's nothing quite like having a professional drag queen half out of makeup explain to you the best way to shave your legs when it comes to mind-expanding experiences.)

My theory on why I am always one of that pair of girls has a lot to due with appearances. My best friend for years was always the well-pressed, properly dressed, extra make-up, manicured type, while I prefer just to throw on jeans and a t-shirt, throw my hair up on my head, and run. So in this case I think it's the contrast. When she came to the California desert in 1999 to help me move back to Oregon, she wore tailored dress shorts, a nice shirt, lots of makeup, jewelry, fancy sandals, the whole nine yards. It was about 105 degrees out when we started driving. I was wearing jean shorts, one of my ex-husband's old army tees, and flip flops. We got asked if we were a couple every time we stopped.

It took me a long, long time to realize that maybe the reason that I am one of that pair of girls is that people are getting a vibe off of me that leads their minds in that direction. For years I said that I appreciated girls aesthetically; they were fun to look at but that was all. I got hit on by lesbians all the time, but it was never by someone who was even vaguely appealing to me. (I remember particulary a young lady with whom I worked who, one night as we dropped her off after a night at the bar, took my hand in hers and tongued my palm while smiling what she thought was enticingly up into my eyes. I suppose my skin wouldn't have crawled quite so much had I not known that she'd been puking in the bathroom of the bar before we left.)

For the past 4 or 5 years I have been single, celibate, and living pretty much like a hermit, having spent the previous 7 or 8 years living a life that was pretty poisonous to me. I finally got to the point where I had to excise all the crap, and my social circle dropped dramatically. Basically, I'd been wound as tight as a person could possibly be for years, refusing to admit it, and really hurting myself emotionally because of it.

But I really did spend all that time discovering new things about myself. And one of those things is that girls are more than just fun to look at. At the risk of sounding ridiculously cliched, it's what's inside that counts, and while gender may contribute to your persona it doesn't define your attractiveness to me.

So. I am, in fact, that girl indeed. Better not walk too close to me in public if you're uncomfortable with the idea that someone is going to think that you're my girlfriend, because it will happen.
 

Tangent - Girls - Part 1

I'm having trouble deciding how many parts this sequence should have, and in what order they should be posted. So I'm going to treat it a little like stream of consciousness rather than in the more measured, rhythmic way I try to normally write. It may turn into that at some point; we shall see. I will, however, still overuse the word "so," especially at the start of paragraphs.

So. The first thing that comes into my head isn't about me. It's about a friend I knew as a child, with whom I re-connected in adulthood. We first met each other when I was 10 years old, she would have been 11. At first, she was mean to me, taunting me in the playground with the words most perfect for tormenting me completely. That didn't last though. We got to know each other better; we liked the same books, we liked to play the same games, she played piano, I played piano, and most importantly, the private school we attended had very few students, so since know one else shared our interests we naturally gravitated towards each other.

During sleep-overs, I thought she was very modest. We'd get ready for bed and I'd change into my pajamas without even thinking about it but she'd do it where I couldn't see, often in her large closet. We'd both developed early, and I remember she used to leave her bra on under her pjs until the lights were out. I thought it was odd, but never asked about it, it seemed too private of a thing to question. Her parents were more devout than mine, I think I just assumed that they had taught her that gettting undressed in front of people was wrong.

Three years later my family moved to a different state. My friend and I got to see each other several times a year, but 'out-of-sight, out-of-mind' definitely held true for us and our friendship lagged. When I graduated high school and ran away to college, it was to the same one she attended, but she had a crowd of friends that I didn't feel included by and we kept to our own circles.

One of the reasons that I had let us drift apart was that some of her behavior while in high school really bothered me. I knew she was rebelling, I thought it was against her parents and their strict religiousness. I remember her proudly explaining to me how to rip off an ATM by pretending to make a deposit, then going to several different sites to withdraw the funds before the bank had caught up with the transaction. (This was the 80's, for those of you accustomed to instantaneous transactions at the bank, take it from me, it tweren't always so.) On another occasion, through clever manipulation of a receipt, she received a full refund for a garment that she never actually returned. She also taught me how to steal expensive items from public lost and founds; her example was Disneyland. She and her friends shop-lifted, drank what they shop-lifted, and basically ran wild. All of this behavior was perplexing to me, but it never occured to me to say anything to any adults. And because I would never act that way, I judged her rather than feeling concerned for her, and let us drift apart.

Before I started college, I went to visit and slept on the floor of her dorm room while I was there. Her room mate was gone one night for some reason, and after we'd turned the lights out that night, she confessed to me that all through high school she'd been extremely promiscuous and had in fact had two abortions about which her family and most of her friends new nothing. I didn't know what to say. I'm afraid I probably said next to nothing out of shock. I hope that I thought to ask her if she was okay, but at 17 I was incredibly clueless so I'm sure that I did not. I thought about that night often, though, and some time in the next five years or so quietly decided that something terrible must have happened to her when she was a kid that had hurt her badly enough that she needed to resort to that behavior. Maybe she was trying to get her folks' attention? Maybe she was screaming out for help? I didn't ask then, and I can't ask now, so I'll never know.

Over the last 15 years or so we've had sporadic contact. We were always living in different states and never saw each other. I got a call from her one year, begging me to come home for the reunion of our little private school, but my marriage was floundering and I basically brushed her off and forgot about it. When my marriage finally ended for good several years after that and I came back home to Oregon I made an effort to put a note in her parents' mailbox and shortly thereafter I got a call from her, and she and her fiance came to visit one afternoon. I was shocked that she was getting married, I was even more shocked that she was getting married to a man old enough to be her father. Even though we hadn't been in touch and I couldn't claim to know her well anymore, her getting married to this older man felt really odd and out of character. I was invited to the upcoming wedding, but already had a commitment, and we lost touch again.

In 2009 or thereabouts I got on Facebook, my intention being to keep in touch with friends who were out of state and my family. One day I got a friend request from my friend and now we are friends on Facebook. We don't talk or hang out or see each other any more than we used to, but we are at least keeping up with each other's lives and interests through posts and likes and comments.

But something interesting happened in between 1999 and 2009--my friend came out of the closet, and by the time we reconnected on Facebook, was in a committed, long-term, and most importantly, healthy relationship. I wasn't surprised. In point of fact, my first thought was "Oooooohhhhh, maybe that explains it all." Because as I said in my "Some Women" post, sometimes all the mistakes you make and dangerous behavior you undertake happens because you have to trek through a wilderness in order to get to the person you really are. And maybe it really explains everything, all the way back to two little girls in a bedroom, one of whom was too shy to undress in front of the other. Maybe the way she teased me at first was her way of dealing with the fact that she liked me in a different way. That's what we always got told by our Moms when the boys were mean, after all. I'll never know, because I'll never ask, but I'm mightily curious about how things might have turned out if she hadn't had to slog through that wilderness for so long.

Seduction

This entry is just for you. For now, it's set so only you can see it, because this level of feeling on my part makes me feel too vulnerable to expose myself to anyone else. Maybe with you someday I will be brave enough to let everyone see how I feel, maybe as I take this journey of self-exploration I will learn that people seeing the emotions that I consider my weaknesses is not a dangerous thing. For now, it's just for you.

There is nothing in this world that you could have offered to me more seductive than the idea of a permanent attachment and the life and family that I thought I had lost forever when my ex-husband died. No, there was no chance we would ever be together again; even though we stayed friends, the man left me twice, and twice is twice too much. But I really believed deep down inside that he was the best chance I had at being loved and cherished taken care of throughout my life. And that is what I want: to be loved and cherished and taken care of. It's quite unacceptable in this day and age for a woman to stand up and announce that what she wants is to be kept by someone, that she is willing to be the subservient one, that she wouldn't mind being the Mom and staying home to nurture her family, however it is comprised.

The truth is, I'm too smart for my own good, but lack the ambition or single-minded obsession that would allow me to really excell in a specialized field.

Which is just a fancy excuse for being afraid. Afraid of both failure and success, of being shown that in reality I'm just not as smart or talented as I think I am. Which is why the writing is such a big deal to me right now, because the only thing that has kept me from being a working, money-earning, day-job quitting professional writer is the fact that I haven't finished anything. Because even though I say I can write, what if I finish something and no one likes it and I get told that I should really go be a game warden of something?

But I digress. Although all of that mental baggage is certainly pertinent to the situation, it's only peripheral. The important thing is this: I have a history of jumping into relationships (which this, while not what I am used to, certainly is) and giving everything I have to someone with very little information on which to go. I met my ex-husband at the end of September, moved in with him just after Christmas, and had committed to marry him and move halfway across the country by February.

I feel exactly the same with you at this early part of our acquaintance as I did with him at the corresponding point in that relationship. And that is the most awe-inspiring and terrifying feeling in the world.

So these are my questions, all the serious things that I came up with tonight while smiling at strangers and giving them wine.
What exactly is your definition of vanilla? Are you talking about sexuality and sex games and the like, or are you also referring to the normal day by day stuff that comprises life?

Do you understand, really understand, that more than anything in this world what I want if I have a child is a relationship that is a family, with everyone living together and nurturing and caring for each other, all the normal old-fashioned stuff that people now save for tv sit-coms and don't really believe can exist?

Is your intention to eventually have increased my submissiveness to the point that I will be agreeable to all of the things you enjoy, even the ones that I have already said I have no interest in or no understanding of?

Did I ever actually tell you being deeply entranced is like a drug to me and that I miss is more and more because your focus seems to be more and more on preset triggers?

Can you accept the fact that in public or in family situations I would prefer to almost always be treated/seen as your equal, while in private, especially the bedroom, submitting to you utterly?

Because you have managed in one week to get so far under my skin that these are the things that I am struggling with. And several of them are deal-breakers if we aren't in agreement.

But the biggest question of all, the biggest deal breaker of all, is about love. Because I don't want to be your slave permanently if I fall in love with you and your feelings towards me are that of an owner to a possession, or only the fondness that a master feels for a favorite pet. And the moment I asked you about children I kicked the door that seperates me just having fun from me committing my heart and soul wide open.

I went back and read the transcript of this afternoon's chat, and every single word was clear. I thought that I'd remembered it all and had to go back to check, just to make sure I wasn't tricking myself somehow. So even though these are the kinds of questions that I really prefer to ask you face to face (I mean in the same physical location as each other) I am asking them here, because you yourself made it possible for me to think of them and then ask them. I want to be able to discuss them all with you, seriously and thoroughly, so that the steps forward that I take from here are heading in the right direction for me.

(Also, if you're interested, I started to go under again while reading the transcript in the exact same place as before, and probably sat here for a good 15 minutes just thinking this through. I'm not under now.)
 

I Should Be Asleep

Create me
Recreate me
Destroy me
It's the same thing
In the end
We're all ashes again.

I'm so tired that I'm tping with my eyes shut, which is ackward because lately the "y" key on my laptop has been sticking, and with my ees shut I can't tell if I've typed anything. I've been up most of the night, (who am I kidding I've been up all night) and I just can't bear to let go and sleep. It's not the temperature in room, wich, as alwas, is cold, nor is it the snoring of m roommate upstairs. It's me. I have so much in my head again that, even though I can't keep m ees open, my thoughts are active and moving, a whirlpool current that leads to one place.

You.
 

What I Did When I Woke Up - My First Attempt At Erotic Fiction

The following entry features graphic sexual content.

Suggestibility

I learned to trance with audio files and videos. For some reason I thought that my ears were an essential part of my hypnotic process. Why wouldn't I think this? I had no information other than my own limited experience. Without really thinking it through, I concluded that if the pattern of my sessions changed that I would somehow fail to be hypnotized, so I tried to never deviate from it. I had already forgotten what I started out knowing: that hypnosis is listening and following directions. You can do that sitting, standing or lying down. Curled up on your side, leaning against a tree, floating in a bath--it's the mind that is important. I made the error of focusing too much on the word "listen", but that's not the only way we enter information into our brains, is it?
As you might suspect, being a writer started for me with being a reader. I learned to read as a very small child, sometime between ages 2 and 3. Sounds ridiculous I know, but according to my family I was reading street signs on car journeys at 2 and I know I read simple story books to myself at 3. As a kindergartner I was probably reading at a 3rd grade level and the gap between my age and my ability continued to widen as I got older. I'm not bragging; it's just something I have a knack for, just like people who are good with languages or can do complex mathematics in their heads. I have been using my eyes for 95% of my life to gather information, but for some reason I really believed that it would be hard to hypnotize me with the written word.
This is where we should all now stop and laugh our asses off.
When I ventured into an on-line community of hypnotic fetishists, the first time I tranced was by reading a very short paragraph that I received in a personal message. I honestly did not think it would work. I also happen to read very quickly. Skip the following paragraphs if you don't want to know the process by which I read; I think it's very pertinent though, so you may want to slog through it.
When I read my brain automatically skips useless, space-filling words like "the", "is", "and", "for", etc--the words that you can supply for yourself through context rather than needing to consciously read them. I also to tend to look at blocks of text rather than one sentence at a time. It's the same as looking at a photo. Someone sends you a picture they took on their vacation of a beautiful landscape and you maybe glance at it without really looking for details. Right off you can tell it's a picture of a river running through the countryside, with a bridge and a boat or two, clouds in the sky, maybe a flock of sheep on the hillside. Then, as you take a closer look, you see the smaller details that helped your brain immediately identify the scene, such as the sheep dog with the flock of sheep, the picnicking couple at the riverside, the birds flying in the distance. You didn't need to notice them at first in order to identify the scene. When I read, whole paragraphs are for me what the photo of the river is for you, and the sheepdog, the picnickers, and the distant birds are all the little words that only exist to connect the nouns and verbs and adjectives together.
Incidentally, did you see the river just now? It won't be the same river as mine, but I'll wager you saw it just the same.
So I'm reading this short paragraph, and I'm really reading it. Every single word. I remember observing that and being surprised, but for the life of me I cannot tell you what that paragraph said.
Do I really need to point out that I always remember what I've read?
It comes down to this. In the end WE HYPNOTIZE OURSELVES. We make the decision to experience trance, and even if we say to ourselves "I don't think it will work" we still make the decision to try, and unless you are specifically trying to thwart your hypnotist,you have by putting yourself into his or her hands already tacitly agreed that you will be hypnotized to some degree.
And that brings me to suggestibility.
I have been speaking with my Master via Skype. Don't worry for now about what we get up to, there will be other posts for that. The important thing now is that, while I have a microphone, he does not, so he communicates by text while I squint at the tiny little letters and answer by voice. Quite by accident, last night, we discovered that he can manipulate my actions using nothing but hand gestures. This is not something we had previously discussed or that he had set as a trigger. He made an offhand gesture in response to something I said rather than typing, and it evoked a physical reaction in me. So he experimented, and the more things he tried the stronger my reaction.
It felt like magic.
And then, just to see what would happen, he began to type out descriptions of how my body should behave. Ever play Dungeons & Dragons? Then you know the type of phrasing to which I refer. "so and so picks up his broadsword and faces the troll" or whatever.
Suggestions.
Not orders. Never once was I ordered to obey.
And I never once thought to myself "I should do that." Or "I want to do that." Or even "Why on earth would I do that?" What I found instead was that after reading something similar to "the foot you are holding onto moves to the side" that I was suddenly fighting to keep my leg from moving. I didn't even notice it moving at first! My attention was on the screen. Then my master asked "Are you trying to fight it?" and I was looking down at my hand trying to hold my leg and saying "yes" at the same time. I literally realized what was happening only because I heard myself answering him. And fighting the compulsion just made it stronger.
It felt like magic.
It felt wonderful.
I was in trance and had been in trance, without an induction, without a trigger, probably from the moment I first opened Skype and placed the call.
It was so much fun I can barely handle waiting to do it again.
 

Tangent - Scary Junk In My Mind

"I like to watch the right decisions dance around my head
And sit around reflecting on the ones I made instead.
I got lost in thralldom right away and look at where I am today
Fingering a thin and fraying string forever."*
I am finding out some scary scary shit about myself. I suspect the last 15 or so years of my life would have been dramatically different had I immediately gone into therapy after my first real relationship ended. I honestly thought that I was past that, I thought that I had dealt with it. (Despite refering to him as "the asshole" rather than by his name all this time. Despite someone very wise saying to me at least a decade ago "how can you say you're over it when you won't even say his name?") I can admit it today, I did not deal with it. And he's still here in my head, and it's going to take a lot of work to get him out, but having recognized the problem now it can be dealt with. If I'm brave enough.
"And if it drags me down what can I do but follow
To swim against a vortex or to lie me down and wallow?
The big wide empty...
(lie me down)
The big wide empty..."*

So I have a Master now. Not something I ever thought I'd say. And the really weird thing is it wasn't really me who made the decision. (It was, really it was, don't panic, I will explain.) More of my education in hypnosis: I have a conscious mind and a subconscious mind. Which I knew already, but never ever thought about how great a divide there could be between the two. I don't know how it is for other people, but my subconscious feels an awful lot like a completely different person to me. At one point, my Master actually said I sounded like I had a split personality. I don't. But one of my favorite YouTube vids has to do with strengthening the subconscious's control over the body, and it works really really well. In trance with my Master my subconscious has been doing all the hard work. It is the most eerie feeling. I end up staring straight ahead at the top edge of the laptop (not the screen, mind you) and everything in front of my eyes turns 2D and looks like it's sliding back and forth. If I were sitting here now typing and that happened I would freak out, but when it happens and I'm in trance I can't look away. And my subconscious types responses while I'm staring at a wall. (Well, a bulletin board, but you get the idea.)
"Brought up in seclusion
California breeds confusion
When your fossil fuels run dry meet me under the delusion
We could leap off of the infrastructure
Choose our words less carefully
The music of a thrumming nerve
a rhapsody."*
So back to the scary shit. I was a loner as a child, sheltered (see my post that starts out "some women..." because obviously a lot of it was about me), emotionally immature, and stifled and angry and unhappy with it. I ran away from home at 17 ( well went to college but it's the same thing in this context.) I had never had a boyfriend. Never been in love. I had never masturbated. I was completely ignorant about how my body and had been raised to think of sex as a bad thing. I was going to stay a virgin until I married, of course.
"I cannot see the edges and I cannot see the guts
No, I cannot see the rivets and I cannot see the struts
And the line between open and embarrassing is hard to see at best
and ever-narrowing..."*
His name is Brian James Adams. I met him when I was 17 and he was 23. He had just gotten out of the Army (this will turn out to be a trend in my life) and was starting as a freshman even though he was older than the rest of us. He was shorter than me, and unattractive, and I disliked him on sight. He followed me around (we shared two classes) and said that he would keep trying until I would agree to go on a date with him. He bought me flowers. He called me beautiful. He became my friend. I let him kiss me, because I didn't want to never be kissed. I know now that I felt no passion for him, but only in retrospect. I didn't know what passion felt like. I let him finger me on the floor of my dorm room. I may even have orgasmed. I really don't know. Afterward, I lay on the floor and shook and I don't know if it was from climax, or from shame, or from fear, or from some combination of all of these.
"My dear old friendly passing acquaintance, it's really good to see ya.
It's been a while, to say the least
(is always a good idea).
We knew how we felt and what to say
and look at where we are today:
waiting for the string to break."*
A week later, or thereabouts, I had a panic attack in his dorm room. Out of the blue. I don't know what sparked it. Paramedics were called. I refused hospital treatment because I was too ashamed to let my family know that I had freaked out. I will never forget that one of the paramedics took me aside and said to me "sweetheart, your body is trying to tell you something important here. get out of this situation." I can honestly say I didn't have any idea what he was talking about. And a month after that, I let him take my virginity while I pretended to sleep, so I wouldn't have to acknowledge any responsibility for what was happening to me. And there was really no going back after that was there? At least that's what I thought. He had a roommate that was never there, and I had a roommate that I couldn't stand, so I basically moved into his dorm room. His bed was more comfortable than mine anyhow. At Thanksgiving I told him I loved him. I really believed that I did. And missed him with every fiber of my being, like being without air or heat. My midterm grade in my best class went from an A to a D because I didn't go to the final exam and wasn't allowed to make it up. Still trying to escape? I think so.
"And if it drags me down what can I do but follow
To swim against a vortex or to lie me down and wallow?
The big wide empty...
(lie me down)
The big wide empty..."*
It wasn't until after Christmas that he asked me to do anal. He heard me gasp when his penis accidentally brushed my buttcheek and interpreted it as a sound of pleasure. It was not, but I agreed to try anyway. It was the single most horrible thing I have ever experienced in my life. Knowing now that I felt no passion for him, that I wasn't physically attracted to him in anyway, it's not surprising that I didn't like anal sex with him. I told him I didn't like it and he said we wouldn't have to do it again.

We did it again.

And again.

And again.

Why did I do it? I laid down willingly and begged him to stop the whole time he was doing it. And he ignored me. I cried and huddled in a ball until he was finished and stayed on the floor hiding from myself while he cleaned himself up and walked away. Every time. I so desperately wanted him to prove that he really loved me by listening to me and stopping that I gave him the opportunity to do this to me over and over.

I have always believed that I raped myself.

I let him do it. I let him into my mind and let him fester there and grow while I tried to go on with my life. He broke up with me because he'd gotten another girl pregnant, but had me one more time as a goodbye.

Until this morning I didn't realize how he had continued to govern certain aspects of my life for over 20 years. I'm not going to go into what happened last night or what happened this morning in response to it except to say that my Master asked my subconscious what the problem was and the answer was "Brian."
"And if it drags me down, what can I do but follow?
To swim against a vortex or to lie me down and wallow
The big wide empty
(lie me down)
The big wide empty
Tonight I saw the edges, 'cause tonight I finally tried a bit
Look what came of it"*
I only have one question now: would I be trying this adventure if Brian hadn't happened to me?
*Big Wide Empty by Harvey Danger from the album Dead Sea Scrolls. Do yourself a favor and discover this band.
 

What I Can't Articulate

I feel stupid when I talk with you. Please don't mistake me; you do not make me feel stupid. And to me, "stupid", may mean something different to what it means to you. Growing up, in my family "stupid" meant "not using the brain god gave you." Everyone else seemed to think that stupid equalled unintelligent. My family is quite tolerant of unintelligent people, especially when they think to their full potential. So please believe me when I say I do not feel unintelligent in your presence.

I feel stupid when I talk with you. I feel like I can't access my brain. Words that I can easily write don't exist for me in speech. When I do think of them, I can't seem to chain them together. It really scares me, misplacing my mind. I told you that I don't get scared by tangible things, but I am absolutely terrified by the abstract. I didn't realize how frightened I could be of myself until last night.

I feel stupid when I talk with you. I am making life-encompassing decisions with barely any forethought. I am making choices based on little or no information and trusting that you are someone safe. That you are someone honest. I do not do this. I do not do this. But this journey of mine, this trek through the wilderness, is about embracing the unknown. It's about recognizing that what I always thought were weaknesses are actually integral parts of my essential self, without which I have been unable to function as a complete and fulfilled being.
I am terrified.

I am titillated.

I am so very, very ignorant.
I feel stupid when I talk with you. I know nothing about this environment into which I am trying to insert myself. I have been welcomed. People keep using the word "safe" when greeting me, which both reassures and unnerves me. What is becoming clear is that in your world I am prey. I am prey and I am too ignorant to recognize the predators. I need a teacher, a guide, a mentor, a friend. Are you these things? You are the first person with whom I interacted. Why did I bond so quickly with you? Why are there so many whys? I feel like I'm lost because I don't know what the rules are and I don't know how much power is mine and how much power is yours. I feel like a fraud because triggers don't always work. Am I doing something wrong? Am I going to displease you? Am I risking not being accepted because I don't do things right?

I feel stupid when I talk with you. I have spent all day clenching in anticipation while at the same time being scared half out of my mind. I long for this and I dread it. I want it and I want to run from it
But my fantasy is to be terrified. So I have precisely what I want. Which terrifies me even more.
 

I Have Stepped Into The River, And Luckily I Floated

It's the middle of the night/the wee hours of the morning on Christmas Day (or Mithrastide as I like to call it when I'm being really obnoxious) and I should be asleep.
I.Should.Be.Asleep.
And I can't sleep for several reasons, some what you'd expect and some not. The obvious reason is because I waited until the last minute to work on a project that is meant to be a gift for someone in (aarrrggghhh) approximately 6 hours, and, even though I started today with plenty of time to spare, is not done yet. Because I let myself be distracted in the middle of it.
Oh but it was so worth it!
So let's recap, shall we? I'm Noelle, and I want to write a book featuring hypnosis. In order to write intelligently on this subject, I decided to experience hypnosis for myself, and rather than spend a lot of money on a professional appointment turned instead to YouTube ('cause that's always safe), where I immediately (it took three videos) became enamored with hypnosis, specifically with being entranced. (Ironically, I have an Aunt who is a certified hypnotist. Yes, I can hear you laughing. Stop it! Stop it right now!) But soon just listening to files on YouTube wasn't enough, so I went searching for a more personal connection. Or rather, I was thinking about searching for a more personal connection, when someone whom I'd never met in my life private messaged me and wanted to know if I wanted to be hypnotized by him. Then, after chatting a little bit via pm, he apparently decided that my lack of experience was going to be a problem and never got back to me. Cue sad violins and mournful dirges. But you can't miss what you don't have, it didn't break my heart because I don't have one (just kidding, calm down!) and I soon found some new videos to experience. And the man who made those vids is a genius, let me tell you. As I started by using the actual YouTube names of people I will continue to do so now, if anyone ever reads this then maybe they will want to go check these vids out, yes?

So I discovered a man called kaos ocntrl. Who has a great voice with a great accent and a great style of hypnotism and whose vids work really really well for me. And he has a blog, which I read, which lead me to a community of people on this great big world wide web who like what I call "smutty hypnotism" as much as I do. Although they call it a fetish. Which it is. I have a fetish now! Fetishes are cool! Actually, I have several, but I digress. But not by much, as I will soon divulge.

I made a profile. I was very honest in this profile, because this is the kind of community that is accepting of this kind of honesty. And so they have proven to be. I have a great pic that I found ages ago, before I embarked on my hypnotism adventure, that is eerily prescient, which I am using as my avatar, and have already made several connections with fascinating people.

(Somewhere my dead ex-husband is laughing his ass off right now.) I understate. I joined this site on 23 December (two days ago, and not early in the day, either) and have 1- discovered things about my mind that I was completely in the dark about and 2- acquired a Master. Or he acquired me. And I'm scared and nervous and exhilerated and wound up and so many other things that I just can't make the words fall into line. I did things tonight that I have barely imagined, (not dangerous things, no need to worry about me yet), but things that were new and different for me. And what I have discovered is that this man who I met on the internet less than 48 hours ago is more accepting and compassionate than any of the stellar examples of manhood who have shared my bed over the last 12 or so years. And yes, I do believe the brief sample I have so far is sufficient to make this judgement. I can be honest with him about what I want and don't want, about what scares me and why, about things that no one else knows about me.

A caveat; I communicate fantastically through text. If I can write I can make myself understood. And most of our communication thus far has been through chatting. I suck at speaking when the subject is important to me, I gibber. It's not pretty. But again, I digress.

So do I share this blog with my new friends? Am I still writing a book? Yes. Are any of them in it? No. Do I intent to write here about a lot of what happens to me with this adventure? Well, yes. Names may have to be changed.

But for now, I have a text message waiting for me, as well as 3 or so hours of sleep.

Happy Mithrastide!

Deeper - Such A Versatile Word

I had to take a break from writing. Actually, I got a little disheartened, because very few people actually still read anything on LiveJournal. Apparently. Bloggers I respect make jokes about people who post on LiveJournal. Hmmph. My favorite blogs are here, and that's why I decided to post here. Maybe at some point I'll do duplicate posts on blogger or, god forbid, spring for my own domain. But for now, here is where I'll stay. For one thing, while writing for someone else to read is the whole point, believing that no one is actually going to read any of this is very freeing.

I wanted to write a slightly smutty book that featured hypnotism. And somehow, on the very first page, it got less smutty and less hypnotismy. 'Cause that's a real word. My protagonist is a hypnotist, and there is at least one other character that he knows through that practice, but it's really about assumptions. And the truths about people that we only discover if we're willing to look...deeper. (That might be the back cover blurb. Right back there. What I just wrote. Hmmm.) Deeper is, of course, where you go in trance. Down, down, deeper, deeper, and the deeper you go, the better you feel, and the better you feel, the deeper you go. If it weren't for the fact that at some point every hypnotist on the planet has used that phrase I would feel like a plagiarist. Also, deeper than you've ever gone before. And, no matter how deep you go, you know you can always go deeper.

Which is true, by the way.

Also, I never heard back from my prospective hypno-smut buddy. How's a poor sheltered female supposed to get debauched if she gets virtually stood up? (Still trying to pursue this experience, or one similar to it. I will keep you updated.)

For now, I will have to get by with my imagination. And YouTube. Which is working out quite well for me.

Notes On The Nature Of Reality

How much of what I write here is true? Is this a journal designed to titillate with fictional descriptions of things that could have happened, but didn't? Or is it an accurate account of things that have happened but with some dodgy names thrown in to obscure the identity of the writer? Or am I writing down things that I have been told by someone else? The answer to these questions is, of course, yes. It's a little of all that, because I want to titillate, I want to entice, but I also want to remain anonymous. I never expected to enjoy my research quite so much, nor did I expect to have my research branch out in quite so many different directions. What started as an idea for a short story about hypnosis became an idea for a book about hypnotists, which is slowly but surely turning into a book about sex that happens to have hypnotists in it. At least in the first draft.

Why this disclaimer? Weeeeelll...today I got private messaged by a complete stranger who'd read some of the comments I'd left on various hypnosis videos and wanted to know if I was interested in being hypnotized by him. And I want to have this experience, partly to lend more reality to my writing, and partly because I think I'll really get off on it. And I will share that experience here, of course, because it should fulfill the brief set out by question one quite well. At least I will as soon as YouTube stops doing maintenance.

It seems that each day I write it's on a different topic, so I have officially decided to continue this trend. Monday will be the day I talk about erotic experiences I've had in the name of research. What happens on Tuesday? Damned if I know!

Deeper - Chapter 1 Part 1 (Draft 1)

 "Hello, Slave," Nathan whispered into his lover's ear. He had anticipated this moment all day long; sneaking up behind Erik as he waited on the veranda of their favorite cafe, caressing his ear with the softest of voices, and watching as Erik's hands clenched the edges of the table in reaction. That was what was supposed to happen, but in reality Erik jumped like he'd been bit somewhere tender, dumped his cappucino in his lap, and threw himself up and back to escape the hot drink, driving his head into Nathan's chin as he did so. Nathan dropped instantly, not exactly unconscious but not really aware of his surroundings either. Erik was in too much pain himself to notice, and as Nathan slowly began to come to his senses, the first thing he saw was Erik being fussed over by a handsome waiter who dabbed at the top of Erik's head with a damp towel while Erik mopped the coffee from his lap. Neither of them paid any attention to Nathan, who carefully stood up, using the decorative railing around a nearby tree for stability. "Are you okay?" He asked Erik. "Erik! Are you okay?" Erik stopped cleaning himself and turned to Nathan, patting the arm of the helpful waiter as he moved. "I'm fine. What were you thinking? You know I hate it when you call me that! And look, I'm bleeding!" The waiter brandished the towel, which might have had a trace of blood on it, in Nathan's direction. "And my slacks are ruined. This coffee is going to be impossible to get out. I'm going to have to buy another pair, and do you know how hard it's going to be for me to find this exact style again? I can't even talk to you right now, I'm too upset." He stalked off the veranda, followed by the helpful waiter, leaving Nathan alone and stunned, trying to figure out how his little fantasy had gone so completely wrong. He and Erik had been dating for 9 months, and while Erik had in fact mentioned that he didn't like it when Nathan called him "slave", Nathan had thought he was joking. "Slave" was Nathan's pet name for Erik because that was how they'd met, corresponding on YouTube, where Nathan had a hypnosis for entertainment channel and Erik had been one of his subscribers. Nathan's slave hypnosis videos were quite popular, both the vanilla variety and the videos for more mature viewers. Erik had left a funny comment on one of those videos, Nathan had answered him, and they had kept the conversation going in the comments for days, until one of the other subscribers had none-to-politely suggested that they take their talk elsewhere. Nathan had never figured out if Erik had actually watched the video on which he had commented; when they finally met up in real life Nathan had greeted Erik by saying "Hello Slave" and Erik had laughed in response, so Nathan had kept doing it. It had been six months into their relationship before Erik had finally admitted that he hadn't actually seen the video, that he had been at a friend's house and commented after his buddy had watched the video, and that he actually thought that the slave hypnosis videos and the people who watched them were kind of twisted. He had assured Nathan that he didn't think that Nathan was twisted, on the contrary, he thought that Nathan had excellent business instincts, and had started making the most popular kind of videos in order to make more money. That wasn't precisely the case, but Erik brushed Nathan off every time he tried to explain, and eventually he stopped trying. But Erik had never seemed to mind being called "slave" until just a few weeks ago, and had said so in a oddly flippant tone that Nathan had never heard before so he hadn't taken the incident seriously.
"But apparently I should have," he said later to his friend Karsten. "He was really, really angry with me. He didn't even notice that I was hurt, he just kept going on and on about his damn pants. Those pants aren't even that special." Karsen nodded sympathetically from behind her glass partition. She was the receptionist for Nathan's dentist, and he had loosened a crown when his jaws had been knocked together by Erik's head. "He doesn't even know I'm at the dentist. He doesn't even care."
"Well, Sweater, I wouldn't want to be called "slave" either, but I understand why you thought it was cute."
"As long as you keep calling me "Sweater", I don't think you get to have an opinion about what I call people. I'm tired of being categorized by the fashion choices I made during the 90s. And my sweaters were nice."
"Yes, they were very nice, and if I recall correctly, you had a different one for every day of the year, hence the fuzzy nickname. And, I might point out, even though I know you don't like it, I'm going to keep using it, because even though you grumble I know you love me too much to really fight about it."
"You think Erik doesn't love me."
"I know Erik doesn't love you, and so do you. He doesn't say he loves you, he doesn't act like he loves you, he treats you like dirt, and you bend over backwards and let him every time. And what's more, I don't think you love him either, I think you just want to have someone around so you won't have to listen to your own thoughts."
"There's nothing wrong with my thoughts."
"How would you know, you've never stopped to listen to them. Now go back and sit down while you wait for your appointment, I've got work to do up here. I buried today's paper behind the knitting magazines for you, no one's done the crossword yet."
"Fine, I'll go sulk by myself."
"You do that. Love you Sweater."
"I love you too, Karsten, but I'm not sure why."

Tangent - Some Women

Some women go their entire lives shrouded in an invisible layer of apprehension about their sexuality. Maybe something happened to them as children; not something bad like molestation, but simply a lack of information. Maybe their families, especially their mothers, were self-conscious and embarrassed by sex and lust and need and everything that goes along with that. Maybe when their daughters saw something or read something that they didn't understand there was no one to talk about it with. And maybe all the information available from other sources, like neighbor kids or television, was slanted in the direction of "sex is bad", especially when women were involved.

Maybe the message at home was that only bad girls had sex before they were married, and that desiring someone that you didn't love made you bad, and that acting on that desire made you a slut. Maybe all traces of sexuality and desirability were treated like bad things that should be hidden, because after all, you wouldn't want to corrupt the children. Maybe, because of a religious belief, it was taken as a given that sex, both wanting it and having it, was the source of all that was wrong in the world, and that the only thing worse than fornicating with someone was to pleasure oneself, and that the only thing worse than that was to talk about it.

Maybe they never thought they lived up to the physical ideal of what a desirable woman should look like, the desirable woman that they were taught at home was bad but that they were told everywhere else was the standard of beauty. Maybe they felt like they were being bad for wanting to be desirable, even before they knew that "desirable" was what they wanted.

Maybe they were taught that only one kind of race or religion or gender was the "proper" one to desire, and that any other feeling or need was wrong. Maybe they were taught that any deviation from the "proper" path made them wicked, or useless, or damned.

And then maybe they grew up, went out into the world, and tried to manage as best they could. Maybe they married the first man they ever kissed and stayed together forever. Maybe they were raped by the first man they ever kissed and had no one to turn to, and let that event effect every other intimate encounter for the rest of their lives. Maybe they rebelled against what they had been taught and became promiscuous and wanton and reckless, exposing themselves needlessly to disease and unplanned pregnancy and heartache, because the path they needed to follow was so far removed from the one they knew that they had to trek through a wilderness to reach it.

Maybe they were so insecure about how they looked or acted or felt while aroused that they could never surrender to the pleasure of a complete sexual experience. An experience with no fear, with total acceptance for themselves and from their partner, and no shame in how they felt or in how they acted upon those feelings.
And people wonder why erotic fiction is so very, very popular right now.