Truth and Reconciliation Ch. 01

So, with that in mind, he wrote up a brief proposal and submitted his bid through the contracting website.

For about twenty minutes, Jason looked for more jobs to bid on, but his curiosity soon got the better of him. Returning to Google, Jason instead started searching for some examples of this brain wave bologna that he could use to test on himself.

It didn't take long. The internet was full of the stuff. Interestingly, most of it seemed to be marketed as a form of "hypnosis."

There was lots of stuff to help you study or to overcome anxiety. Interestingly, there seemed to be a massive subgenre of erotic hypnosis recordings that used binaural beats.

Being a man, Jason couldn't help but explore these so-called "erotic" offerings.

Most of them looked like garbage. And, upon clicking on a few, they sounded like garbage too. There was one he found that actually sounded pretty good, but it was just a "sample."

It did have lots of rave reviews, though...and it was only $10. Jason considered it.

To Jason, $10 was still a fair bit of money, but if he was going to do a good job on this contract—assuming he won the job—he should probably do a little research... Right? Yes, that's right.

Jason purchased the recording, "Discover Your Perfect Dream Lover Tonight," and downloaded it.

--

As Jason slowly returned to wakefulness, he noticed that things felt... different.

Firstly, he felt great, well-rested, and fully refreshed. That was not how he usually felt when his alarm jarred him from his slumber each morning.

Next, speaking of his alarm, it dawned on him that there was no blaring in his ear. In fact, all he heard was the sound of someone mowing their lawn somewhere nearby.

Then, speaking of "dawned," he noticed how bright and warm his room was. This was not his usual bright and early wake-up time. He had seriously slept in.

For most people, sleeping-in wasn't so strange an occurrence, but for Jason, who had a cruel taskmaster for a mother, sleeping-in just didn't happen.

Not that it was rare; it literally never happened. She wouldn't allow it.

As the sleep slowly cleared from Jason's mind, he realized he was almost certainly in for a severe scolding and a heap of additional "punishment chores."

Wanting to avoid the argument, he briefly considered remaining in bed, even if he was only postponing the inevitable, but he desperately needed to pee.

If things weren't already weird enough, the next shock came when Jason swung his legs off the bed before standing. His movement was constricted, and when he looked down, he realized that his boxer shorts had been pulled down around his thighs.

That might explain why his mother hadn't woken him up. She probably walked in on him with his shorts down and his dick out. Jason suspected that upon seeing that, she likely just decided to walk away and leave it.

Starting to feel a bit uneasy with all this strangeness, Jason tugged his shorts back into place, walked out of his room, down the hall, and entered the bathroom.

His final and perhaps biggest shock came next when he pulled out his cock to relieve himself.

His dick was covered in a cold, slimy goop, which could only be his own semen.

'What the hell?!?' Jason thought to himself.

Every guy has awakened to discover their shorts full of cum. It's called a wet dream, and it happens.

It usually happens until a guy learns to masturbate regularly. Then, with the need for release satisfied, there's no longer a need for his mind and body to produce wet dreams.

Jason hadn't had one in years.

Along with the realization that he must have had a wet dream, a vivid and detailed memory came rushing back to him.

Last night, Jason had downloaded the erotic hypnosis audio. He decided to listen to it in bed, so he put on his headphones and pressed play after climbing under the covers.

He remembered thinking the music was a bit cheesy but still mostly relaxing. Not something he'd seek out, but it wasn't bad per se.

That's all he remembered until some time later when, in the middle of the night, he was awoken when a woman came into his room.

He remembered her being beautiful, though now, in the light of the day, he couldn't for the life of him remember her face. It was just a blur amongst an otherwise completely vivid memory.

He clearly remembered she was wearing some sort of sheer lingerie. He couldn't make out the color—red, possibly black—but, even in the dark of his room, it served to highlight the incredible curves of her body.

It was the body of a woman. Broad hips and thick thighs contrasted with a moderate and matronly bust. Her waist was narrow and further accentuated her otherwise Rubenesque features.

Even her stomach was womanly—soft and feminine while still being mostly trim.

He remembered laying there staring at her body, and when she noticed his gaze, she turned away slightly. It was merely a show at modesty, however, because as she turned, she bent slightly at the waist, allowing Jason to take in the full glory of her backside.

And it was indeed both full and glorious. Wide and round, the globes of the mystery woman's ass seemed to stand up on their own, defying gravity in a way that would make any Instagram "model" jealous.

Paralyzed with lust, Jason could only stare at the amazing spectacle before him. As he did, their eyes met...

Her eyes, there was something so familiar about her eyes. But, while Jason could examine every detail of this memory in his mind, the image faltered when he tried to look at her eyes.

It was a strange sensation because he knew that their eyes had locked, but he couldn't actively remember it for some reason.

She moved toward him and sat next to him on the bed.

Jason's memory was so freakishly vivid that he could remember feeling and hearing the bed shift as she said down.

He could also, even now, easily recall the perfume she wore. Subtle and sensual, the scent was slightly fruity, slightly sweet, and contained a hint of something...vanilla.

As he stood there in the bathroom recalling this strange nocturnal encounter, he was startled by just how much detail his memory contained.

He just couldn't believe it was a dream; there was no way. It had to be real. But how?

Jason pushed away the memory so that he could focus on his morning piss. (A task which was momentarily hampered by the burgeoning erection his vivid recollection was causing.)

That completed, he hurried back to his room, desperate for any clue as to whether his memory was fact or fantasy.

There were no signs, not that he was even sure what to look for. Unable to see any indication of her presence, he sniffed the air and the sheets trying to discern even a hint of his feminine phantasm's perfume.

Nothing.

Standing there, scanning his room in nothing but his underwear, the memory again flooded Jason's imagination.

Sitting on his bed and looking down at his prone form, the mystery woman ran her hands all over his body. As he recalled this, his chest, arms, stomach, and thighs could feel the lingering sensation of her remembered touch.

She then leaned in close until he could feel her breath on his lips.

Jason desperately wanted to kiss her but, struggle as he did, she was somehow out of reach.

Her hand then trailed its way down his chest and over his stomach until it came to rest on the straining fabric of his shorts.

Desperate for her touch, Jason reached down, pushing and tugging at the waistband of his boxers until his manhood sprung free.

He remembered feverishly willing her to touch him, wanting it, needing it. He also remembered a voice, though it wasn't her voice, whispering in his ear.

He couldn't remember what it said. Indeed, Jason was sure that, even in the moment, he couldn't decern the words or their meaning.

He recalled struggling to focus on that barely audible message, but as he did, the woman froze. Not only did she stop moving, but it was like her presence had faded, like she wasn't truly there with him anymore.

Started by that revelation, his attention turned away from the unintelligible sounds in his ear, and the woman's presence returned.

Her hand continued its descent, and a moment later, Jason felt her fingers wrap around his cock.

It felt...adequate.

It wasn't bad, but it was also kinda familiar.

Even so, Jason enjoyed her hand pumping up and down on his shaft. He was definitely going to get off, but it all seemed a bit...anti-climatic.

The memory fell apart there as Jason's full awareness returned to his bedroom.

'Strange,' he thought to himself.

Most of the memory was so...real, so...vivid. But there were a couple parts that fell short. The woman's face was a blur, and her touch was lackluster.

Why would those two aspects be so poorly "rendered" while the rest was in ultra-HD?

There were just so many questions, but Jason's time was limited. He needed to get his morning chores done then focus on earning some income before his mother got home.

He knew that he only had a week, maybe two, before she started to become suspicious. Obviously, she was waiting for him to get kicked out of school. Once he did, she would make up some lame excuse as to why she never paid the tuition, then laden him with more duties and responsibilities in an effort to eliminate any free time he might be able to dedicate toward earning money.

Jason didn't have a plan just yet, and he knew that he could never earn enough money to move out in only two weeks.

For now, all he could do was to get to work and hope for some miracle.

--

The day turned out to be far more productive than Jason had ever hoped.

First, despite sleeping-in, he was able to complete his morning chores fast enough to give him four solid hours of "free time" before his mom came home.

Second, he got a bite from the holistic app gig. They asked him a few standard questions via email, then directed him to an online coding test. It was nothing new, and the whole thing took about an hour.

He probably should have spent the rest of the day bidding on more jobs. Still, for some reason, he had an excellent feeling about this app gig (and he had so many questions about last night's?dream?) that he decided to do more research.

After a good three hours spelunking the depths of the Internet, Jason started to get a much clearer picture of how this app might work and what he experienced last night.

One of the first things he did was listen to the recording he purchased again, though he made sure not to focus too intently on it.

He discovered a lot more happening in addition to the cheesy music he remembered from the night before.

The binaural beats and isochronic tones were clearly audible. Additionally, but much, much quieter was a speaking voice. Even when holding the speaker right up to his ear, he could only make out the occasional word.

At different times during the recording, he distinctly heard the words, relaxing, deeper, and sexy. Interestingly, as he listened, Jason sometimes felt like he could hear more but would lose it as soon as he focused. These were clearly subliminal messages.

Finally, about halfway through the recording, a woman's voice became plainly audible and performed a pretty standard hypnotic induction (stairways, counting down, etc.).

She then went on to narrate the experience that the listener was supposed to have. Her words seemed carefully chosen, sometimes deliberately vague, while other times they were quite specific.

Listening washed away any doubt that his dream was caused by anything other than this recording.

That settled, Jason began to look more deeply into the individual components of the recording.

Generally, he learned that the only aspect with any real scientific evidence behind it was hypnosis.

The audio tones had a very weak body of "evidence" with nothing conclusive. Not surprising when the only groups likely to spend the money to research it further were the same groups profiting from it.

Who would research themselves out of business?

A similar story emerged regarding subliminal messages. The only people touting the power of subliminals were the people selling them. And much of the "research" that those individuals cited was thoroughly debunked elsewhere.

Jason decided that those tools likely had a minor effect—at best. And, much like the recording he purchased, they were probably best used as one component in a broader protocol.

Hypnosis, on the other hand, was much more interesting. There was real evidence supporting its effectiveness (though mostly in areas like stress and anxiety). Jason also found—and bookmarked for later perusal—papers (even some official government documents) detailing topics like: Hypnotic Interrogation, Hypnotic Brainwashing, and Creating False Memories through Hypnosis.

There was a lot to read and a lot to unpack, but Jason found the whole thing absolutely fascinating.

As he stood up from his desk to begin his evening chores, Jason felt a tinge of fear. 'What if that recording fucked with my mind somehow?'

He only entertained that thought for a moment, though. After all, he had listened to it while awake, and the results were obvious. Maybe he'd be more worried if he felt compelled to buy more of their products or something. For now, though, it was a one-time novelty.

At present, he was more concerned about timing his duties in such a way as to avoid his mother. So, with that in mind, he got to work.

--

The next day was primarily a repeat of the previous. He didn't hear anything back about the gig, but again, he was feeling confident. And, even if it fell through, Jason was starting to think that his research into hypnosis might provide an answer to his maternal dilemma.

Consequently, he spent all of his free time scouring the web for more information, devouring what he found, and taking copious notes.

When he was ready to wrap it up for the day, Jason realized that he had learned quite a bit.

Interestingly, he had discovered why his erotic audio experience had been so vivid in certain areas but completely unremarkable in others.

As it turned out—and it was apparent when he thought about it—the lackluster parts of the "memory" were those with which he had no real-life experience.

One more area of Jason's life that his mother had managed to sabotage was his love life.

Jason had been on a few dates in high school and had even kissed a girl—if you could really call it a kiss. But, the ever-expanding list of responsibilities his mother heaped upon him made real dating impossible.

After all, he had no time, and even if he did, he had no money.

So, when the dream had gotten to the juicy bits, his subconscious had no experiences to draw from. That's why the mystery woman was unwilling to kiss him and why her handjob had been so familiar. The only memories of sensations his subconscious had to work with were those of Jason spanking the monkey.

Far more interesting were the other things Jason had learned.

Jason had gone far down the rabbit hole of mind-control and brainwashing.

He was amazed to learn that not only were such things possible, but they were also widespread.

From seemingly extreme examples like religious cults and political movements to disturbingly mundane examples like team pride and brand loyalty, all had components of mind control.

And, even though such things were all around us, full-on hypnosis was rarely used.

Jason learned that if one willingly subjected themself to deep hypnotic trance states, powerful and permanent brainwashing could happen incredibly quickly.

Of course, there were tons of caveats that went along with those astounding facts.

Not everyone responded in the same way. Some people responded well to direct suggestions. Others required elaborate metaphors and inferences. And still others needed carefully crafted statements of logic to alter their reality.

Everything he had been learning convinced Jason that if he could somehow get his mother to submit to hypnosis, she could be convinced to set him free.

That was the hard part, though, getting her to go along with it.

From what Jason learned, she needn't be a completely willing subject, though it significantly helped the process.

Not that it mattered because, willing or otherwise, Jason hadn't the slightest idea of how to hypnotize his mother.

Regardless, it was time to set all that aside and get about his evening chores.

--

The following day was a Thursday, and Jason was starting to get nervous. He still hadn't heard back about the programming job, and he was beginning to fear that he wasted the past few days on pointless research.

Further, with almost one more week behind him, the likelihood Janice would realize that he was no longer attending classes was increasing... exponentially.

Motivated by fear, Jason began looking for contracts to bod on. But, he had only spent about forty minutes when he threw in the towel.

His heart wasn't in it. And, even though he knew he absolutely needed to find a contract, he wanted to work on something else.

He decided to start working on the code for generating hypnotic tones.

Like any good developer, Jason always started by looking to benefit from the hard work of others. A quick Google search lead him to two great starting points. LibBinaural was a library for Java that would do all the heavy lifting for him. He likewise found the AccelBrainBeat library for Python.

Python was the current darling of the programming world, and Jason certainly liked working with it. If he was going to develop an app entirely on his own, that's where he'd start.

But, he was still hoping that he'd hear back from the Holistic app folks, and chances were they'd want something written in Java. So, he started digging through the LibBinaural repository on GitHub.

The code hadn't been maintained in years, not too uncommon, but upon further inspection, he found that it actually wasn't that complicated.

And, after a bit more googling, Jason realized he didn't need it at all. Which may avoid complicated licensing issues for his potential employers.

In fact, the whole thing was simple enough that in just a couple of hours, Jason had the sound-generating portion of the software working and debugged.

By the time he had to stop for the day, there was a very rudimentary version running on his phone.

Generally, app development was not this quick, but it turned out that this app was doing some pretty basic stuff.

On a whim, Jason quickly recorded a video of the software (in its current primitive state) running on his phone along with a brief message.

In the message, he explained that he felt the app could do quite a bit more than just the tones. He suggested that it could even be used to deliver subliminal messages or hypnotic inductions.

As he spoke, the thought occurred to him that the app could allow the user to record their own messages and then play them back.

It seemed like a good idea, so he added it to his "sales pitch."

Then, with the video done, he uploaded it to YouTube, set it to private, and sent an email to his prospective employer asking them to give it a watch.

While he was glad he had taken those extra steps, it had cost him an hour. He would have to haul ass and disrupt his usual "mom avoidance strategy" if he wanted to dodge Janice's wrath.

--

A couple hours later, Jason was running the vacuum cleaner when movement through the living room window caught his attention. Glancing outside, he saw that it was Janice's car pulling in.

'Well, shit,' Jason thought to himself. 'I guess there's no avoiding her this time.'

He tried to hurry along, hoping he might finish the living room before she walked it, but if he didn't get every single square inch of carpet (she checked), there would be hell to pay.