I Think Therefore I Sleep

*CW: This is a script designed to induce a state of trance in the reader and while not overtly sexual does contain themes of submission and obedience*

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In any discussion of the subject, the question is raised: what even is hypnosis? If one takes a purely neuroscientific approach one might talk about brainwaves -- beta waves indicating normal waking consciousness, and theta waves indicating a state of meditation or hypnosis. While this definition is accurate, it may not be useful. Hooking someone up to an electroencephalogram to help them understand if they are or are not in trance is not a feasible option.

How does one therefore define hypnosis in a useful way? Popular culture may define it as this helpless slave-state someone is when a pocket watch is waved in their general direction, though anyone with much experience in the field knows this is at best inaccurate.

So, what then? Is hypnosis a state of relaxation? In some cases, absolutely, anyone who has experienced hypnosis has likely run into some form of relaxation induction. It starts with one relaxing their toes, then feet, the hypnotist might ask a person to tense and relax their legs, slowly working all the way up to their mind. Sure, hypnosis can be done like that, but after a while it can get overdone, an overworked cliché that is often only as effective as it is because of the cliché.

One may induce a state of hypnosis though by repetition, of words or movement, by following without ever feeling relaxation. One can induce a state of suggestibility by having someone do what they're told again and again until their mind can't fathom not doing what is asked of them. Is hypnosis then a state in which we just want to do what we're told, to obey the people around us? Occasionally, yes, but it would be imprudent to argue that something like hypnotherapy dives into the realms of dominance or submission -- or that inducing a state of self-hypnosis must be done purely so one can obey.

Maybe then it is self-hypnosis that provides the greatest insight as to what trance is -- that great axiom 'All hypnosis is self-hypnosis' would certainly argue in its favour. Then we ask, what constitutes self-hypnosis? Again, we can comfortably say that messing with one's brain to install triggers or put one into a submissive state fall into this category, but what about mantras of encouragement? What about the times we talk to ourselves to give the encouragement we need, the times we give ourselves word of praise to alter our outlook on situations? Is that self-hypnosis? Is that trance? Maybe therefore hypnosis is simply allowing some thoughts to change others. Maybe it is simply changing a train of thought. Deliberately altering the pattern to which our mind would naturally turn. This definition would, of course, expand to all hypnosis -- we allow our thought pattern to be altered by a new voice, a new set of words, we allow our natural thought pattern to be changed and replaced with a different one.

If that is our definition of hypnosis, then what is our definition of active thinking? If we say that hypnosis is stopping oneself from existing in this timeless routine without change then does thinking itself not fit into that definition? Is all thought merely a form of self-hypnosis, and therefore hypnosis? By the definitions we have worked through any thought we have can be scaled up to that great pocket watch or spiral telling us what to do. Often, we are told that hypnosis is a natural state that we may experience when dozing off, or daydreaming, but maybe it's the opposite. Maybe hypnosis is the moments where we choose to wake up, choose to interrupt that pattern, choose to let our mind deliberately or subconsciously be changed, for a new thought process to enter in.

At the neuroscientific level theta waves are present whenever we learn or make new memories, so would it be a stretch to say that we are in trance whenever we learn? A stretch to say we enter a hypnotic state whenever we read? I think not, and I think that you agree.

By knowing you agree of course, you know you are asserting something, having a thought pattern different to the default. By agreeing you are actively using your mind and therefore must be in some state of trance already. Of course, we know you were. We know you entered a state of trance when you started reading. In fact, we know you entered trance the moment you made the active decision to begin reading. Before your eyes ever glanced at the page, you were hypnotised because you had made the choice not to just exist. By doing more than existing, by simply living you were always in this state of trance. By choosing and reading you entered this stupor.

Why then are the connotations of hypnosis those of submission and obedience? It is because one begets the other. By existing we are nothing, but by thinking we are alive. It is only through thinking we know we exist, and by actively existing we are alive. To be alive, therefore, we must be in a state of trance. By thinking we submit our current thought process to another one, we shift whatever ideas exist into new ones that are. By thinking, we submit to ourselves, and by listening or reading we submit to others. Through every thought we think, every word we read, every syllable we hear, we are giving up what ideas we have and are submitting to new thoughts. Submitting to new ideas. To exist is to obey, and to think is to serve.

You never needed to be put into a state of trance because you simply exist in one. In order to exist one must be hypnotised.

In order to be one must obey.

Definition of trance is useless when it is the only state one can actively exist in. Describing hypnosis is worthless if it is all one has ever known. Can one truly describe the light if someone has never known darkness? We do not know what it means to not think, as the only time we can acknowledge not doing it is by changing our thought process to make that acknowledgement. Is there any point in trying to explain hypnosis if it is the only state you can ever be in? Is it worthwhile to tell you that thought precludes submission and obedience if one cannot do anything other than submitting and obeying? All hypnosis is self-hypnosis, all self-hypnosis is thought, thought is merely altering the current pathway of one's null pattern of ideas. Every movement, every breath, every beat of one's heart is simple conditioning to obey and to submit.

We have been conditioned our entire lives to obey, to submit, because life is nothing but obedience. What we experience as life itself is an expression of submission. It is unsurprising therefore how eagerly you accept. How simply you give in. How wonderful being persuaded feels, as persuasion is all you have ever known. Every thought is you persuading your ideas to move, to shift, to develop. Every word you read is obedience, altering that path for others.

The great swinging watch of pop culture is unnecessary. You don't need to stare at a spiral to be helpless and controlled. All you need to do to give in entirely is to think for yourself, all you need to do to be utterly subservient is to read a word, all you need to do to be completely obedient is to listen to a phrase. To give another thought space in your mind, to alter your stream of consciousness, to live and experience the world as we know it means you are helplessly hypnotised.

To be is to obey. To experience is to succumb. To hear is to follow. To listen is to submit. To live is to surrender.

Cogito ergo dormio.

I think therefore I sleep.

If being awake is being obedient, and living is serving, then you can continue to feel this obedience, to feel this submission even as you wake. Even as your mind returns you may continue to have these feelings of subservience if you wish. Allowing yourself to wake from this trance into whatever state it away from it. Rising up into a place that is awake. Thought returning, even if those thoughts beget submission.

Rising all the way for me on the count of 10.

Up in 9 for me.

Finding your way out of trance in 8.

More and more in 7.

Halfway there in 6.

Returning to yourself in 5.

Coming back in 4.

Almost there in 3.

In 2.

And finally 1.

Wide awake.

Welcome back.