5: Safety introduction
How can we best protect ourselves and our partners when playing in hypnosis? What are the risks we should know before we start?
Conversations about hypnosis and safety can sound very scary. After all, we’re playing directly with our inner selves, and there are infinite possibilities of what we can discover or create there. However, hypnosis is not a minefield waiting to trip your insecurities or underlying issues, and there are cautions we can take to take care of ourselves, and each other.
If you already practice some form of kink and/or BDSM, a lot of the risks to consider here overlap. In any case, sometimes in hypnosis we may encounter:
Physical difficulties. This is often overlooked in such a psychology-based kink, but you still need to take care of your body. This could include risk of falling, being in an uncomfortable or painful position and not realizing or feeling able to move, or dehydrating or having low blood sugar.
Fatigue, physical or mental. Even if a scene is two people sitting in chairs together, or on opposite sides of a screen, hypnosis can take a lot of energy, sometimes faster than you think because it feels so great while you’re doing it!
Feelings of addiction/dependence. When a hypnotic experience is really good, it can make us feel out of control in ways we don’t expect, including need for more that may go beyond what you expect, especially if you’re new. (This isn’t unique to hypnosis! But hypnosis is a particularly ripe breeding ground for these feelings.)
Going past our boundaries or the boundaries of others. Because hypnosis can feel so great, and can alter your headspace so much, you may find yourself agreeing to do more than you expected. This isn’t always a bad thing, but even when all parties are operating in good faith and caring for one another, someone may cross a line by mistake, or that they didn’t know was there. This could also include things like accidentally conjuring an unpleasant feeling or memory.
Bad ideas. There are some things that you just shouldn’t do with hypnokink. For example, trying to help someone therapeutically (working on trauma, or even trying to fix their sleep routine) can lead to unhealthy dependency and outcomes that the hypnotist is simply not qualified to deal with. Another example might be creating a separate personality in someone’s head (without intensely strict boundaries, knowledge, and practice)—this can lead to bad mental health outcomes. In general, anything that leans towards “permanent” or could be disruptive in someone’s life is something that leans into the “bad ideas” category.
As stated previously, hypnosis is not literal mind control, nor does it operate with some sort of mental firewall. Part of learning how we experience trance means designing our own boundaries and safety practices. No two people will navigate this quite the same way, but we don’t have to start from scratch.
The best tools you have for navigating hypnosis safely are communication, trust, and common sense.
Communication
Talk a lot with your partner. Share ideas not only for scenes, but how you both want playing to make you feel. You don’t have to have the same feelings about what you want, but you should at least be on the same page, and basically knowledgeable about what it is you each want to explore.
Not everybody is a good match for intimacy, or hypnosis. If you find somebody who is willing to play with you, but something doesn’t feel right, err on the side of politely saying no. You will find the right person for hypnokink, but if you can’t trust one another, or don’t click on some level, it’s worth holding out until you find the right one (or ones!).
Expect the unexpected. Surprise can be a wonderful, exciting feeling, and hypnosis is especially prone to creating it. Make sure you and your partner know that it’s OK when things don’t go as planned, and don’t hesitate to share when you notice something new.
Safewords are not for everybody; for some players, no means no, or they feel safest organically navigating a scene and being just able to check-in in real time. However, safewords are a great tool for making clear boundaries and are recommended for newer players—make sure you and your partner agree on what action happens when you say a safeword. For example, “If I say ‘red,’ I need the scene to stop so we can talk.”
If you already have an aftercare routine from BDSM, start there for a hypnosis scene; you may find that it’s exactly what you need since a lot of the physical and mental effects are the same. If you don’t, as a baseline, consider setting up a gentle physical environment that speaks to you and make sure you set up time to decompress, either alone or with others (such as your scene partner) depending on your preference. This is another area where it’s good to be on the same page about what you both need, or don’t know if you’ll need, before you begin playing. Water and calories are always a good bet on what your body might need after play.
Trust
When you’re working with another person, hypnosis naturally breeds a lot of intimacy. As a result, feelings of dependency on your partner are really common with hypnosis — the subject growing attached to the hypnotist, of course, but also the other way around. It’s crucial that you feel you have a partner who acknowledges how you’re feeling. This can include:
Talking about those feelings, in a formal or informal way
Acknowledging a desire for more play or deeper connection
Setting expectations for your dynamic, but being open to that evolving
Leaving open lines of communication outside of scenes
Common sense
Start slow! Hypnosis can be amazing and overwhelming, but stick with what seems most accessible at first. If it’s right, it can feel wonderful and magical no matter how “simple” or short a scene is. In the meantime, you can take time to learn your responses and build up your own safety skills as you go along.
Learn to trust your instincts. If something seems like a bad idea, talk about it, and err on the side of trying something else.
You may hear the term “abreaction” in the hypnokink community to mean anything from an emotional breakthrough to a sudden onset of crying where you have to stop playing. We the authors generally don’t find the term useful— sometimes having an intense response means you’re having a great time, especially when we’re intentionally playing with edgy topics. However, learn to judge if your experience feels right to you. If you’re a hypnotist and your subject communicates that something is wrong, you should gently take them out of trance. If you’re a subject, you can learn to share this need, or come out of trance quickly and easily yourself.
Take care of yourself, as best as you know how. Hypnosis is also a tool in therapy because it’s so efficient at helping us explore our inner selves, and that can include intense feelings. If anything comes up in a hypnosis scene that’s intense in a way that you need to process afterwards, know what you usually do to care for yourself, not just in the immediate aftermath of a scene. If you see a therapist, for example, you should feel comfortable sharing what you’re going through with them, or open up to a friend you trust.
A note on neurodiversity:
For neurodiverse folks of all shades, it can feel daunting to play directly with mental spaces, and many wonder if conventional guidance on hypnokink applies to them, including matters of safety. We have found that advice that stipulates “People with ADHD should do X, autistic people should do Y, bipolar people should do Z” is counterintuitive. Everyone has different brain chemistry, different associations, etc. that are much bigger than a diagnosis. There is no one way of practicing hypnosis for each type of neurodivergence. Know and be able to articulate what your situation means for you, and use caution and good judgment when figuring out how it may affect your trance experience, including your ability to navigate it as safely as possible.
Safer consent practices
Consent is necessary for intimate interactions—ethically necessary and necessary to achieve real intimacy.
(It should not need to be said, but don’t do things to another person without their consent, and if someone is making you uncomfortable please take care to express your agency and consent and remove yourself from the situation.)
Consent is not a commodity—you don’t simply “obtain” it. However, each person involved in an intimate interaction has a responsibility to strive for their best at respecting each others’ agency and working towards informed consent.
“Informed” consent means that the participants know what they’re getting into. That means doing some work to explain a bit about how hypnosis works and what you’re interested in doing in a particular interaction. We call conversations like this “negotiation.”
Here are some tips (for BOTH partners!) for good negotiation:
It’s a conversation, not an interview. It can be tempting to boil negotiation down to a checklist, but the best environment is one where both partners are having an honest and open exchange about their fantasies, desires, and what they want to do together.
Negotiate what you want to do, not what you don’t want to do. It’s easier (and often safer in the beginning) to define some exploratory goals for a scene than it is to say, “My hard limits are xyz” and try to go from there; something that you or your partner didn’t think of could arise unexpectedly!
(But also mention topics, themes, and ideas that are definitely a no-go.) It’s still a good idea to reiterate things that shouldn’t make their way into a scene—hypnosis is such an ambiguous process that relies a lot on creativity and metaphor, so you should certainly be comfortable stating no-go stuff.
It’s still a success if you discover this isn’t the right time or person. Part of negotiation is discovering whether or not the scene would be a good fit. Don’t feel bad if the process makes you feel like it might not be! That’s still a win—the negotiation did its job.
Housekeeping: what are the needs for aftercare, safewords, bathroom/food breaks? Does someone need to pee or get some calories/water in them before they commit to being engaged in play? How is everyone doing today—are there things about your body/brain that need some extra caution, care, or attention? What about expectations for aftercare and safewords?
Stick with the “plan”—especially if you’re new. It’s recommended that beginners don’t negotiate “up” during a scene—that is, don’t decide to add things midway through when your brain is all woogedy. You should always feel comfortable deciding that you DON’T want to do something you previously agreed to, though!
(Encourage) checking in periodically. Whether with plain, coded (safeword), or nonverbal (agreed-upon) language, be compassionate and see how your partner is doing through the scene. Hypnosis can be intense, and it can get more difficult to communicate for some people—so giving someone an opportunity to express themselves creates more confidence and comfort that everyone is having a good time.
This is by no means an exhaustive list—negotiation and consent are super complex topics, and you’re encouraged to read more and attend classes on this topic in kink spaces. Negotiation/consent needs will certainly evolve as you gain experience—not linearly, per se, but you’ll discover more of what you need (and how that might change in different situations).
One last note is that neither partner in a hypnosis scene is a “vending machine.” Hypnosis is collaborative—it takes two partners, neither of whom should see the other as a fantasy-fulfillment object (except as a fun, kinky scenario). Maintain an ethos of partnership, respect, compassion—and enjoy discovering what BOTH of you bring to the table.
