Tonight’s Hypnotist’s MeetUp went really well for me. It started out with meeting my bud, S, outside the lobby of the building. He’d had a rough commute in and seemed to be feeling a bit subdued. He was definitely game to come to the meet and perhaps settle himself with a cold beverage while we were there.

M was already there at a 2-person table. All the other tables were fully occupied and I marveled at how full the café was. Perhaps it’s because the weather is much cooler and daylight is already gone, some more people who would be outside by the fountain are now taking refuge inside.

After some introductory conversation, M asks me if I’m ready to go, meaning, start doing inductions. I say “Sure”. Then neither of us say anything else and we’re just staring at each other from across a little café table. It had begun, but I’m still unsure about who’s trancing who. I start playing around with uptime trances and trying to focus my eyes behind his head. I see two eyes, then three eyes, then one eye. So I try to see if I can observe pupil dilation. I can see his pupil, but it’s hard to tell through his glasses. Occasionally, my vision, while peripherally expanded, sometimes begins to get milky around the edges and I feel sleepy. Then it passes and his cyclopian eye turns to triples again then for a second it’s back to normal vision. I’m pacing him and nodding silently to his every twitch and blink. We must’ve done this Elmer Fudd vs Bugs Bunny hypnotic duel for about 7-10 min and then I say “Sleep!” For a microsecond, M hesitates, the faintest smirk on his face as if to say, “Yeah, ok, I’ll give this one to you”, and then his eyelids close. I begin doing deepeners for a while and then bring him out. I’m still not sure if that was a dueling eye-gaze induction or what.

With S, I used the Hand Spread Induction and that worked pretty well. As it turned out, it was his first time experiencing hypnosis. I like to do that one by having someone look at their watchband at eye level and S was the only person besides myself wearing a watch.

When L arrived, I began to talk about an induction that I just composed only a few hours before. It’s an abbreviated progressive relaxation induction from the neck up. I got eye closure just before my induction mentioned her eyelids. After this point, I did some deepeners and then did my first attempt at what I learned from Nathan Thomas‘ blog about Igor Ledochowski’s suggestion about Magic Moments. Basically, it’s content-free changework, using the opportunity of access of the subconscious mind to let it actually select an issue or challenge and allow it to work it through. I’ll have to post that induction up here soon. One of the things L said afterwards was that she liked the metaphor that I’d used for going deeper. Something about a pebble in a lake.