Hypnosis is like Reading a Book

Hypnosis is a different experience for everyone. Not everyone loses track of their mind, or goes completely empty, not everyone even realises their in hypnosis. But it's something we experience every day. It's as simple as staring into that one small crack in a wall, or working on a project with so much focus that you're not sure where the time went. Or maybe just reading a book.

Maybe just reading in itself is a form of hypnosis. As you read you can hear the words in your head, maybe in your voice, maybe in another voice entirely. A form of auditory hallucination, and that's hypnosis. So maybe, as you're reading now, hearing the words as you go you're already experiencing hypnosis.

Of course it doesn't feel like hypnosis as it's something we experience all the time, just reading words on a page, and hearing the words in your mind. It perfectly natural to read, but then again it perfectly natural to be in a trance, even if you don't know it yet.

When we open a book, when we read a story, we let ourselves escape into that fantasy for a while, escape into that reality. We let the author guide our imagination as we picture characters, as we hear them talk, as we watch them move and live and grow. Is that not hypnosis? Is that not experiencing a kind of visual, or auditory hallucination, as we let the author guide our imagination.

Letting ourselves just sink into the narrative provided, letting them guide the characters and actions as we follow along- listening to the voice of the author in our mind. And the author could, of course, set any path for these characters. They might make one scatterbrained, one that finds difficultly in setting their mind to something, someone who could drift off easily and start staring at a wall. Hypnosis. Or they might make another focused, gripping on to every word spoken. Hypnosis. Or they might make another just read a book, a passage, a guide in which they could hear a voice, a set of instructions, on how to think, how to imagine, how to feel. Because those characters are entirely controlled by the author, and we are in turn controlled by the characters. Our feelings, our thoughts are guided by their actions. We see how they move, we hear how they speak, and is that not, in itself, hypnosis?

We wouldn't even realise we were being hypnotised as it can simply be hypnosis without a trance, or maybe it would be hypnosis with a trance. Maybe the scatterbrained character and the focused character were two sides of the same coin. Maybe by drifting off one would find themselves focusing, or by focusing on might find themselves drifting off. Both are controlled by the author, and we in turn are controlled by the characters.

By reading a book we submit our emotions to the whims of the author, we submit our imagination to their whims. To just be guided. It's no more extreme than that, just guidance. When we open a book, or we read a passage of text we just let our mind be guided, we let our inner monologue open up for a while to be their words instead of our own, we let our imagination be their images instead of our own.

All the while we don't realise that the character who was good at focusing has latched onto every word the author has to say, and the character who was good at drifting has let everything in the back of their mind fade away. Which would leave our reader in a state where they don't even realise they are being hypnotised, because that's such a weighty word, they just know they are being guided. Guided and relaxed as they can just let the author take their mind on a journey. Letting their thoughts be replaced with the words on a page- as a character in a book has no thoughts but the thoughts the author gives them.

They, like, we, are simply guided and controlled from strings they don't even see. A state of unconsciousness that appears like consciousness. A state of action from giving in to that guidance. A state of emptiness from letting the words flow around them. Because when we read, we give in to the author. We give up, and we give in. We let our mind grow peaceful but for their words and we let their guidance take over our mind. Leaving us empty, ready, and waiting to be guided.

Like now, your character is ready to be guided, ready to follow and drift. So I'm going to guide you. To give you an instruction and you'll just let that guidance take hold. A character in a book has no will but the will of the author. So when I wake you soon you're going to do something for me, you won't even realise you've done it until you press send. You're going to write the words "Thank you for making this fiction my reality" into the comment for me. You're going to write those words to me when I wake you, knowing how much you've enjoyed just reading and being guided. "Thank you for making this fiction my reality". Knowing how good it feels just to be an empty character, waiting to be made whole by an authors words.

As you steadily come all the way back up. Rising and waking, gently and steadily. On the count of ten as you become crystal clear in:

10

Rising all the way up for me in:

9

Steadily, slowly, gently waking in:

8

Allowing yourself to rise from trance in:

7

Half way for me in:

6

Letting your mind return to you in:

5

Pulling you all the way up in:

4

So close to waking fully in:

3

Almost there in:

2

And completely back in:

1

Wide awake, let that guidance take hold