i like when hypnosis has a clear and well-defined goal, when the training is leading somewhere. don't get me wrong, i still enjoy when it's more of a performance designed to make you feel like you're being controlled, but when there's something you're actually working toward, when there's a direction, it's more like actual control, even if it more clearly requires your own cooperation and input. i want to steadily get better at something, to figure out what works for me, i want the hypnotist to try different approaches until something clicks. there's something about that genuine sense of usefulness, too. it's just interesting for the subject to have their own skills that the hypnotist doesn't. to not be a disposable toy, but someone who has potential that the hypnotist wants to take advantage of. it doesn't have to be in a sinister way, either, although it can be.
i think part of the reason i'm interested in this angle is because it's not one i see as much in writing (although maybe it's out there and i just haven't found it). the closest i've seen is probably the mechsploitation thing, but i don't have much interest in that - it's just not for me personally.
in general, i like ongoing hypnotic relationships. i like when there is a dynamic between the hypnotist and subject even outside of the hypnosis itself. i think it's just interesting, having a normal conversation with someone who's hypnotized you before, even having a conversation about hypnosis with them outside of a session. to talk about future plans, to talk about your progress, the same way you would talk about any other mutual goal or project.
maybe my interest in the mundane parts of it comes from the reading i've done about the clinical and experimental side of it, too. there is something about someone deliberately and methodically trying to alter your perception, just to figure out what's possible and how it works, to try to learn more about hypnosis and the mind in general. trying to hypnotically induce color blindness, hallucinations, changing your perception of time, making you forget various things. you going along with it with equal parts curiosity and skepticism. i don't know. i really might like that more than a sci-fi brainwashing experiment. the idea of genuinely being a useful subject, a willing subject, offering myself to be studied.
even in the times when they would demonstrate insensibility by sticking needles into people, there would be something about coming back from trance and feeling that pain, when i felt absolutely nothing before. there would be something about being the example used to demonstrate trance to skeptics. being introduced as a former skeptic and a reasonable man, and not a particularly good liar or actor, before being brought down in front of everyone, and used as an example. used as proof.
