Learning Deep Metaphor

Learning Deep Metaphor by sleepingirl

We incorporate different topics in our trances to add flavor and description to the way a person feels as they’re being hypnotized. We might use the idea of a placid lake to do a long trance, or throw in a short line about someone’s mind being drained out like water in a tub. Metaphors are great tools for us in hypnosis, but developing sophisticated comparisons is not only a skill that will improve our patter, but one that will teach us different ways of thinking about hypnosis in general.

Surface-level Metaphors

There is nothing wrong with a simple metaphor -- one that looks at the surface attributes of something and uses them as a hypnotic focal point. With the topic of art, for example, a hypnotist may create patter based on directing someone to focus on a piece of art, how it makes them feel, the visual aspects like color and shape. They may do something like telling the subject to imagine themselves being painted into the picture, or painted into trance, or reflecting themselves off of the image.

The fundamental, unspoken question they are working off of might be something like, “How do I incorporate this art into my trance?” It is a matter of figuring out what in the art is good as a hypnotic focus, and how it can be compared to hypnosis.

Deeper Metaphors

We are interested in taking this much further -- looking at topics that we may usually use for fixation and breaking them down to a point where we can talk about them in a more philosophical way. In the art example, we want to think conceptually:

• What is the definition of art?
• Why does a person feel the need to make art?
• How are they reflecting themselves in the choices they make in art?
• What does a person feel like when they are creating?
• Why can humans create profound things with mundane objects?

These kinds of questions are so relevant to us in hypnosis; they help us move past more simplistic suggestions that are often based on sensory modalities and basic focus. The key is to be able to ponder them and ask yourself how they relate to hypnosis. For example, how is the definition or qualities of art similar to the hypnotic experience?

“Art/hypnosis is a way that people decorate space and create beauty; art/hypnosis is the translation of internal ideas to external reality; art/hypnosis is an attempt to communicate something in an abstract way with multiple meta levels of communication; art/hypnosis creates an unexpectable response; art/hypnosis responds back to the people observing it; etc.”

All of these individual ideas are rich places to explore in terms of hypnotic patter and suggestions, and we can see how going down any of these paths would create subtle textures to the trance experience. Working with your partner to flesh out these kinds of interesting details to the sensation of trance can be quite profound.

It can be challenging especially at first to figure out how to elongate and slow down your hypnosis scenes. We are often so goal-driven that we don’t even know how to take time and meander through. But the truth is that most subjects, especially hypnofetishists, absolutely love when a hypnotist savors the process -- and doing that by waxing philosophically about the nature of trance (or the nature of the suggestions you are giving) can make it exciting and easier to sink into.

Aspects of Hypnosis

Doing this requires a couple of things: the mental muscle memory to think about various concepts in an in-depth way, but very importantly also a well-developed sense about what the hypnotic experience even is.

Take time to sit and think about the qualities of hypnosis -- various theoretical models we use interchangeably to describe how it works, concrete subjective qualities, abstract broad qualities that we can describe a given experience with. For example, hypnosis is:

• A collection of abstract and concrete sensations; physical, mental, emotional
• A process that utilizes a person’s full psychology and personal history
• Always changing/transforming someone even in a subtle way
• Inclusive of a change in perspective that translates to a change in experience, capabilities, and reality
• Operating based on “the map is not the territory”
• A shifting of focus between the external and the internal
• Partially conscious, partially unconscious
• Created by a relationship between the people involved
• Ever-changing and dynamic, not a static experience (objectively or qualitatively)
• A process that could be described as engaging different parts of a person
• A process that involves association/linking of concepts and/or behaviors
• A learning experience

This is of course a long but non-exhaustive list, and many of these concepts can be further broken down. When thinking about what hypnosis “is,” you can get quite far simply thinking about what it feels like and what is actually happening (as opposed to trying to define it in a rigid model). For example, instead of trying to fit it into an overarching definition, think about how there is communication happening, and processing and focus, and what all of that feels like.

Many of the items we explored above are true for experiences that aren’t hypnosis as well -- that is actually very helpful for us to think about too. You might want to consider how these more broad qualities are specified in hypnosis. For example, why is hypnosis a learning experience? It’s a learning experience for the subject, who needs to learn what hypnosis feels like, how hypnosis works, how to respond without feeling self-conscious, how to develop trust, individual skills relating to responding to suggestions, learning what their partner likes and how they communicate in and out of a hypnosis scene, etc. It’s also a learning for the hypnotist in a lot of different ways, and perhaps even collaboratively for the partnership.

Aspects of a Concept

The meat of this comes from when we are able to connect the experiences of hypnosis with other concepts that may not seem related on the surface. To some degree, this is a mental exercise about breaking down and identifying qualities about all sorts of things -- hobbies, skills, objects in your room.

This is something that we may be more used to doing with various hypnotic props like pocket watches, spirals, or candles. We think about the qualities of motion and how to relate that to trance (like swaying, a kind of “sucking in,” or flickering), and we may even think about our partner’s connection to the prop as a fetish object, or its associations with hypnosis.

Going further means exploring all sorts of different aspects of a fixation. We can ask ourselves questions like:

• What does this object/concept represent in different contexts?
• What is the cultural association with this object/concept?
• What is the personal association you or your partner have with this object/concept?
• What is this object’s/concept’s purpose?
• What are the various functions of this object/concept?
• What does this object/concept generally make a person feel?
• What are the byproducts and responses of engaging with this object/concept?
• Does this object/concept belong to a higher class of objects/concepts? Can it be broken down more specifically?
• How does this object/concept engage all of a person’s sensory systems?
• How was this object/concept made?
• What is profound or poetic about this object/concept?

For example, a candle can be a light source, decoration, hypnotic fixation, ritual object. It creates light in places that are dark and casts shadows of itself and other objects around it. It is responsive to wind or even subtle breath and produces motion in the flame. The way the flame flickers is both predictable and understandable, but often impossible to fully anticipate. It can be lit or snuffed out repetitively. It requires a source of fire to be lit and external action to be snuffed out. It consumes oxygen and melts its own wax/body down. It can create a certain atmosphere of calm, or elegance. It has a warm-colored glow and is physically hot if you get close to it. It was made from a need to have light and through repetitive dipping of a wick core in wax that builds on itself.

Connecting the Two

Any of the above qualities of a candle could easily be used as part of inducing trance. You could think about a candle as analogous to trance itself: a process that both consumes and produces, that is predictable but unpredictable, that is responsive to subtle changes and breath, etc. Or you could think about it like a hypnotic subject: someone whose mind is flickering responsively, who has parts of themselves that are in light as well as those that are obscured by shadow, who inevitably over time will melt down into themselves in trance.

The key to using these techniques is not just asking yourself, “How could I use these aspects to hypnotize someone,” but two related questions: 1) “How is this object/concept like hypnosis?” and 2) “What can this object/concept teach me about hypnosis?”

For the first question, you can think about various aspects of hypnosis and compare them to an object/concept, such as:

• Does this object/concept include a sense of motion through space or change over time?
• Does this object/concept require or facilitate learning?
• Does interacting with this object/concept include conscious and unconscious behaviors?
• How does perception of this object/concept vary from person to person, from context to context?
• Are there aspects to this object/concept that are subtle and abstract in ways that are difficult to describe?

For the second question, you can start with the object/concept and think about its qualities to try to fit them into the framework of hypnosis. What can music teach you about hypnosis and psychology? A human need to look for patterns, or the predisposition find certain patterns attractive? A willingness or desire to sit and listen to something pretty? The thing someone’s brain does when it is expecting a musical phrase to end a certain way and the notes, chords, or key changes? Because hypnosis is a holistic function of human psychology, everything we learn about the way our brains process things applies to hypnosis.

You may find that certain objects or concepts are more naturally suited to be compared with hypnosis. Art, music, or other creative concepts for example, or objects like mirrors, water, honey, etc. While it’s a great exercise to think about completely unrelated concepts, it is helpful much like with conditioning to consider a sense of relevance to the things you choose to use. We might call this something like “poetic relevance” where the connotation of the topic fits the mood and theme of what you are doing.

For example, using a metaphor of a bag of chips, while totally possible, is not terribly sensual. On the other hand, you could use a metaphor of a vibrator which would be quite overtly sexual, perhaps even overshooting that sort of liminal space of sensuality that trance can evoke. There are certainly ways to fit pure sensuality into both of those, and there’s nothing wrong with going for either a) a playful, nonsensual trance, or b) a fully-sexual trance. But just take the time to think about what kind of feelings you might be playing with.

Aspects of a Suggestion

Thus far, we’ve talked about suggestions that lead someone into trance -- we’ve been focused on the experience of trance itself as opposed to any other kinds of effects of hypnosis. But of course this is a useful technique for making all kinds of suggestions.

We can think about any kind of suggestion we make in this more qualitative, deeper way. For example, if we’re doing pleasure suggestions, we might ask ourselves questions like:

• What is the transformational aspect of experiencing pleasure? Is there transformation before the pleasure and/or after or from it? Is it in the body and/or mind?
• When is pleasure dynamic and moving versus static?
• What are the conscious and unconscious aspects of experiencing pleasure? Can pleasure be unnoticed, or happen in a way that feels uncontrolled? Does conscious observation change pleasure?
• How is hypnotic pleasure different from and similar to self-stimulation or sex?
• How does someone’s focus shift around as they fantasize and experience arousal/pleasure?
• How do inhibitions/expectations or comfort/lack of expectation change pleasure?
• Contextually, what is the role of pleasure in the scene you are doing? What is pleasure being associated with? What are your partner’s existing associations with pleasure in general?
• In what situations does a person or your partner specifically experience pleasure?
• What is the general purpose of pleasure physiologically and psychologically?

We want to again think about this idea of “poetic relevance.” What kind of textures are being added depending on what metaphor we choose to utilize? For sexual pleasure, a sexual metaphor is perhaps most suitable -- for example, perhaps we talk about their favorite sex toy. The purpose of a sex toy is to create pleasure as its only purpose and design, it does so through motion and use, it does so partially automatically and partially through intentional manual use, thinking about using a sex toy changes the experience as opposed to sort of just seeing it as part of masturbation or sex.

What part of them are we comparing to a sex toy? Their brain, producing pleasure automatically? Their genitals? Their entire body? Some metaphysical or psychological part of them?

Some other relevant metaphors for this example might be:

• Their brain/body is one big sex organ
• Their brain/body is an orgasm
• Their brain/body is the act or concept of masturbation
• Their brain/body is that of a sex doll

You could of course use less directly sexual metaphors to intersperse -- in that case, we still want to choose comparisons that have a sexual tone. “Sweetness” might be a concept we associate with sex and pleasure, so things like Jello (which is bouncy) or candy (which is sucked on) could be good choices. Or we could add a completely different tone by throwing in robot/computer metaphors. Perhaps even something as simple as fire, or a flower blooming.

Adding

This question of “what does the metaphor add?” is crucial when we are using this kind of technique. Metaphors like this teach you about different perspectives and textures of hypnosis, but they also bring their own flavors to the table. For example, a trance where you spend a long time talking about trance being like a thunderstorm, what kinds of unique sensations and emotions does that evoke? The quality of awe and power from nature; a kind of helplessness against an unstoppable force; etc. Melding that with trance creates opportunities for hypnosis that feels wild, natural, intense, beautiful.

Relatedly, consider as well: what is the metaphor associating with the suggestion? If you do a scene where your partner is being compared to a soft stuffed animal, how are they going to feel the next time they see a plushie? Is it going to feel different when they lay down in bed, or when they masturbate? The feeling of their own body and self-image? Emotional associations with objects, or the sense of being an object? Metaphors like these open up doors to all sorts of triggers/anchors (unconscious, subtle; or intentional and specific) as well as powerful transformations of self-perception and the world.

Slowing Down

The ability to take it slow is one of the best things about this method. Doing this can be about “zooming in” to one or a few of the aspects of comparisons that you are making. For example, if you’re talking about trance that is like taking a drug, there are all sorts of qualities you can talk about:

• Drugs as transformational to someone
• Drugs as changing the balance of conscious/unconscious thoughts and behavior
• Being intoxicated as something that happens no matter what as soon as you take the drug
• The way people view/interact with an intoxicated person
• The concept of a drug as a compound that physiologically alters perception
• The feeling of anticipating taking a drug
• Etc

Any of these can be broken down and explored extremely thoroughly. For example, transformation: “Taking a drug changes you; when you do it for the first time your identity changes to someone who has taken drugs, someone who is doing something a little bit socially unacceptable, even shameful, and yet someone who has a better experience of what their own brain is capable of; it changes you physiologically and the chemicals and pathways in your brain, it gives you an experience you can’t access normally but is impossible not to access when intoxicated, impossible not to have the memory of; it changes your entire perception of reality and even the way you view your own perception, as ‘I am drugged, I am altered, this is happening to me’; it changes the way you feel in ways that are obvious and ways that are unconscious and subtle…” And so on and so forth.

And of course any of those individual qualities could be expounded upon. You can practice going off on tangents in your head with these kinds of comparisons, zooming in and just seeing where the ideas take themselves.

Any time you use deeper metaphor like this, you will start to notice places where there is an opportunity to create suggestions beyond “trance” -- qualitative feelings certainly, but also places where you can move into more direct responses. For example, the metaphor where someone’s identity is “transformed” by taking drugs/hypnosis could easily lead into personality play, brainwashing, addiction play, a guided fantasy, catalepsy, pleasure, emotional play, etc.

Direct versus Indirect

A lot of nitty-gritty language has been left out of this article -- doing hypnosis like this where you use your own words to compare, philosophize, and go off on tangents is what really makes it pop and work. But the final concept we want to address is a technical one: the choices we have to use these metaphors more directly or indirectly.

One of the most famous tales about Erickson is the time he did nothing but talk about a tomato plant to help alleviate chronic pain with a client. This is classic, indirect Ericksonian storytelling/metaphor, and while it’s not exactly the same as the metaphors we talk about here, there is a lot of overlap. He utilized the deeper aspects of the concept of gardening (as well as its personal relevance to his client) and saw the narrative, transformational arc of it.

Leaving out the sort of connecting words and details -- when we don’t spell out these comparisons -- leaves room for more conscious and unconscious interpretation. On the flipside, making these metaphors more directly provides clarity and direction.

There is a time and place for both, especially throughout a single process. A simple set-up where you clarify the metaphor -- “The way you are going into trance right now is not unlike a flower unfolding petals” -- lets you talk more indirectly later so your partner can draw their own conclusions from it. For example, “The image of a flower in slow motion, moving almost imperceptibly, taking from both the ground and the sky, closed bud hanging down heavy, something alive but unable to move of its own accord, transforming slowly into a thing that is beautiful and colorful, that someone may keep in a little pot to nurture and gaze upon, an object of nature…”

Moving between direct and indirect comparison is where shifts in tone and intensity can happen. Taking a while to indirectly talk about trance and then bringing it to the “here and now” for someone -- “And that’s you, isn’t it? That’s your trance right now” -- moves a person’s focus from a kind of inner hallucinatory experience to something that is more concrete, where they have to acknowledge themselves.

On “Utilization”

As a quick end-note, this idea may seem to overlap with a popular opinion about what “utilization” is (“utilizing” objects/concepts/etc that are in the space with you and your partner as you do hypnosis). Keep in mind that this is not the most useful definition of utilization, which instead comes from Erickson: hypnosis is a process that is/utilizes the entirety of a person and their psychology and history. In this vein, using metaphors that are directly relevant to your partner, as well as tailoring them to be more directly connected -- such as Erickson did with the client who was a gardener -- can add more weight to this technique.