Subject Skills: How to Surrender

What many of us desire from hypnosis is surrender. It is the allure of letting go -- letting go of the feeling of control over ourselves and our experience. Even when hypnosis is less about submission in an erotic sense, trance itself can feel much more real and intense when we lock into those precious moments of unconscious response and fully trust in ourselves and our partners. Let’s look at some concrete ways that this surrender is created and how we can improve it as subjects.

Ingredients of Surrender

Surrender is a complex experience with many moving parts. We also often experience conflict or variation between these parts, leading to a dynamic and changing experience. To start with, let’s look at some examples of aspects that might influence our perception of surrender:

• Trust
• “Resistance”
• Emotional and physical experience
• Perception of unconscious response

All of these aspects are of course multifaceted in and of themselves as well as holistic parts of the full response of surrender. As we move through this article, we’ll include an exploration of each idea as well as some exercises that you can do to “stretch” these muscles.

It’s very important that even as we may be looking inward to see what we can improve, we don’t look at this in a diagnostic way. We don’t want to reflect on something and think to ourselves, “I struggle with surrender because I have trust issues.” The reality is that everyone can benefit from working on each and every part of these ideas. Beyond this, the experience of surrender is something that is so subjective and so abstract that it is completely interconnected -- dependent on all parts meshing well in any given moment. It is good to identify things to work on; it is not as helpful to assume one thing is the only reason for not making progress, or assuming that you can be fully aware of some of the more unconscious aspects of this, or self-labeling to the point that you are perpetuating or even creating an issue where there wasn’t one.

The Exercises

The exercises provided are intended to build a familiarity and “muscle memory” to the skills contained in the concepts we are talking about. They are not scripts, but they are hypnotic -- as in, they exercise hypnotic skills. They may or may not induce trance; it’s not actually important whether or not you go into trance while doing them, so you don’t need to worry about that (however, if you’re experienced with self hypnosis, you may want to explore them in different ways).

Your mind will almost certainly wander during these exercises. This is completely normal and expected, and there’s no inherent advantage of doing them without sometimes being distracted. Just come back from your wandering thoughts to the exercise when you feel ready.

Feel free to change these up, add to them, or do something completely different. They are just starting points. It’s a great practice to see if you can yourself think of different exercises that “work out” similar component skills.

Trust

Being able to trust fully is often an intense desire that’s intertwined with our interest in hypnosis in the first place. It is, understandably, not always easy to be vulnerable and open, especially with such an intimate part of ourselves. The skills involved in this kind of trust are finicky, and all of us approach hypnotic interactions with our own baggage around opening up and letting go. But we can nurture this part of ourselves that desires it while learning to trust ourselves as well so that we can feel comfortable, confident, and able to give in.

Trust in a hypnotic relationship is related to expectation -- it’s the belief that you have a reasonable expectation of having a positive and fulfilling experience. This doesn’t mean that you are always “expecting” things to go right or wrong, or that you have some level of confidence in one way or another. It can be as simple as having some annoying habits of second-guessing yourself, or you have some discomfort around sharing parts of yourself.

Ideally when you go into trance, you will feel safe (or “in danger” in a way that you trust) and comfortable being intimate both with your own thoughts and the hypnotist you are working with. From here, we can identify some skills to work on.

• Being able to reject suggestions / pull yourself out

In hypnotic interactions, we can only have full agency over ourselves -- mistakes, miscommunications, and sometimes misguided or even malicious events can happen. Knowing how to respond to these things not only increases your actual safety, but reduces the stress that you will be caught off guard by something unwanted.

Exercise:

• This exercise is about imagining yourself practicing the skill of coming out of trance and rejecting suggestions. It’s important to remember that you don’t have to (and you’re encouraged not to) imagine scenarios that are upsetting. An easier way to do this is simply to invent a practice scenario.
• You can imagine that you are working with someone who is going to help you learn this skill, or imagine that you’re doing expert-level self hypnosis. You can add detail to the fantasy in whatever way you like, perhaps detail about the hypnosis itself, detail about you or your partner, or detail about the environment and why you are doing this. An example might be that you are in a private class setting with someone who is helping you (who doesn’t exist in the real world); they are kind and knowledgeable. There are two scenarios you might want to start with:
• 1) Imagine that you’re being hypnotized, and don’t go into trance. Maybe you imagine yourself feeling the pull of trance at first, and then you deny it from happening. Notice the difference in those two feelings, and repeat it several times in different levels of detail, focus, and speed. Is there a sensation or very subtle flexing of a muscle that you do when the imaginary you is waking themselves up? A word you think? What if you assign a sensation or a word to that wake-up? Does that change if you let yourself go fully into trance and then wake yourself up? Repeat this a number of times.
• 2) Imagine that you’re already hypnotized, and you’re given different suggestions. Because this is for the purpose of practice, remember that this isn’t about finding things that are emotionally difficult -- perhaps it’s something mild like a freeze trigger, and while it’s being given to you with full intentions, you’re supposed to deny it from happening. Do the same as you did with the first scenario where you imagine it beginning to take hold and then snapping yourself out of it. How would you do that? How would you communicate about it? What kinds of subtle things do you notice about your experience as you reject it -- what in your mind and body are engaging? Repeat this several times, again varying detail and speed in the fantasy.
• Don’t forget to thank yourself for your work!
  
• Being comfortable sharing yourself

Another element of trust is intentional vulnerability -- we want to be vulnerable in the sense that we feel like we are being open and easy to “see.” This isn’t always easy, especially with niche sexuality. One of the ways we can work on this is by exploring that vulnerability within ourselves first. The more we understand our own desires, motivations, and behaviors, the more easily we can let others inside to see them and know us.

Exercise:

• This exercise is about self reflection and imagining the ways that you can be comfortable projecting your feelings both to yourself and others.
• Take some time to think about what “surrender” means to you. What is attractive about the idea? When did you first discover it was something you wanted to experience? Have you felt it before, or have you fantasized about it or seen porn/read erotica that captured that feeling? Does it conjure up any images or feelings? Can you dig deep into your own personal history and discover something new about your ideas about “surrender” that you haven’t thought before (even just describing it in a different way, using different metaphors, thinking about it from a different perspective)?
• Imagine what it would be like to describe these answers to someone else so that they can better understand. You can write down your thoughts about it if you like.
• Imagine that you or someone else is being hypnotized in a way that makes you/them experience surrender. What would that look like from the outside? What would the hypnotist see and hear? What if that hypnotist was incredibly perceptive -- what would they notice? What if the person surrendering wasn’t held back by anything in how they responded?
• Thank yourself for your work!

“Resistance” / Being “Stuck”

When we think of resistance, we might first think of willfully trying not to go into trance or trying not to respond. But this idea of resistance can apply to things that we do unconsciously that are making it more challenging for us.

It’s very important that we don’t imagine this kind of resistance as something like a part of us resisting due to some unseen, core reason. For example, someone might say, “I think I am subconsciously resisting going into trance, maybe because I’m afraid?” There are certainly times when it is reasonable to work through fears that are preventing you from doing things (such as self-exploration and therapy). But it is a lot of guesswork, and it can be much more productive to instead try to identify what the actual patterns or behaviors are and interrupt them. Many times, there is not some hidden reason that, once solved, will make those patterns disappear.

In this way, it can be helpful to let go of the idea of this being “resisting” as a whole, and instead do self-reflection on what is concretely happening. We might want to relabel this entire category as being “stuck” -- particularly in patterns of thought that are somehow not contributing to the trance. Here are some examples:

• “Am I really responding/in trance? Am I doing it right?”
• “Did I forget about my laundry?”
• “I need to stop thinking, I’m ruining the trance!”
• “Am I being entertaining enough for my partner? Are they enjoying this?”

Exercise:

• This exercise is about “interrupting” your thoughts and transforming them into anchors that can create better habits of trancing over time. We know that trance isn’t about blankmindedness, and blankmindedness isn’t necessary at all to experience surrender -- so learning how to make your wandering thoughts more productive can be helpful. We’ll be exploring various abstract/subtle internal sensations of “switching gears” and changes of thought process so they are accessible when you are being hypnotized.
• Let your mind wander. If this seems challenging to do intentionally, that’s great, and you’ve already found a sensation that you can focus on and “explore” to get familiar with for later. If you need a kickstart, choose anything that’s been on your mind recently -- a story, something from work, something a friend said, etc.
• Practice interrupting your inner thoughts. You can do this in a variety of ways. You can simply think silence for a split moment -- doesn’t have to be long, just “cutting yourself off.” You can think to yourself, “I’m going to stop thinking.” If you are familiar with making yourself feel trance or hypnotic sensations, you can produce one (such as a wave of relaxation or stillness) to interrupt yourself. Experiment and do these multiple times to develop a little muscle memory for it.
• You can also practice transforming your wandering thoughts into trance anchors. Giving yourself a little internal monologue like, “Yes, my thoughts are wandering which means that my mind is occupied consciously and unconsciously and just running on it’s own, I’m going to keep thinking…” Thinking this affirmatively is important because it creates a connection between the thoughts and something productive towards trance. You could also make a little mantra: “Thoughts wandering; going deeper,” or something similar.
• One more thing that you can experiment with is identifying some of the thoughts that might get in the way during trance and using these techniques or others to transform them. For example, if you find yourself worrying whether or not you’re “doing it right,” you can imagine some deep part of yourself responding in a hypnotized thought, “Yes, I’m doing it exactly right.”
• Thank yourself for your work!

Emotional and Physical Experience

“Trust” and “resistance” are elements that can contribute to the experience of surrender -- but what is the actual experience of surrender itself? It is an abstract nominalization (something that does not have concrete meaning), and often it’s one where you “know it when you feel it.” Even then, it can be difficult to describe what you are actually feeling.

Something that will help improve any aspect of your trance that you want to intensify is spending time to sit with your perception. Learning how to identify certain feelings, what kinds of aspects they contain, how they change, what they actually make you feel -- all of these things will give you a greater awareness and thus allow you to feel them more fully. For this reason, it’s good to take time to just think about it in and outside of trance. Self-analysis is a powerful tool, and it can even help you to reframe your analysis as something that broadens your ability to notice and experience things.

Emotions and physical sensations are connected. An emotional experience is a physiological one -- chemicals are released and we have sensory perception of emotion (that is often something we need to “learn” to notice especially to manage strong emotions). For example, anxiety is not just racing thoughts; we may feel stiffness, discomfort, aches, or other things in our bodies. Similarly, “positive” feelings like happiness or excitement produce different sensations. On the other side of things, something that we may think of as a physical feeling, like arousal, can make our cognitive process change.

In the case of “surrender,” a highly subjective experience, there may be all sorts of psychological and physical feelings that key you in to the idea that you’re feeling it. Here are some examples of emotional feelings that might be associated with this:

• Happiness
• Relief
• Arousal
• Excitement
• Submission
• Fulfillment
• Spirituality

Physical sensations that accompany emotions tend to be subtle and harder to codify. For this reason, the exercise here will be about learning to identify more about what those feelings are and where they are in your body -- plus, how to broaden and deepen them.

Exercise:

• This exercise is about learning how to body scan, notice your own process, and find interest in the sensations you’re feeling that are associated with your emotions.
• First, draw your attention inward and ask yourself how you’re feeling emotionally right now. You don’t have to put a name to your emotions if you don’t want to; just notice what you’re thinking about, what your thoughts are like, and what you’re feeling.
• Do a body scan -- starting from your head, your toes, or anywhere on your body, pay attention to what you are physically feeling and move your attention through your body. You can narrate this in your head (“My legs feel…”) or you can do it “nonverbally.” Go as slow as feels comfortable to start with. Did you notice any sensations that you weren’t aware of before? Did scanning change anything?
• Body scan faster -- a quick rundown of your physicality. Are there any places on your body that seem to draw your attention most? Do this until it feels comfortable. (You can do this in your day-to-day life every so often to practice.)
• Next, start to think about, fantasize about, or (if there’s a good memory) remember the concept/feeling of surrender. When you notice something change in your body or mind when you are thinking about this, take note of it. What kind of bodily sensation is it? Where is it in your body? Does your emotional attachment to the concept/feeling fit any of the emotions we listed above, or is it something else? Do this several times -- paying attention to your body can get your mind off-track, and you want to practice this “noticing.”
• Change up the thought/fantasy/memory. Make it more appealing or change elements inside of it. What changes in your body scan? What changes in your “emotion” scan?
• Thank yourself for your work!

Unconscious Responses

Perhaps the actual most coveted aspect of trance (that is more than surrender but often included in it) is responding to suggestions in a way that feels like you’re completely not doing it yourself or playing along. This is where the “magic” tends to happen for us as subjects, when we really feel that we are well and truly hypnotized and controlled. Often, a feeling of surrender either comes before or after one of these unconscious responses -- surrender can trigger us to get “in the zone” hypnotically, or realizing that you’re not controlling the trance anymore can trigger a feeling of surrender.

An unconscious response is highly perceptual. It is that cognitively and consciously, you feel as though you are not driving the bus. So the thing to work on is developing skills around your perception -- not necessarily the hypnotic responses themselves, but the way that you feel and think about them. This might be an effect of dissociation, or some other psychological process where you’re able to be in a space separate from your own responses or behaviors.

Expecting fully unconscious trance responses to happen 100% of the time is unrealistic. However, it is something that can come easier with practice. The way to develop this can be very personal, and you’re encouraged to experiment, but here are two options for exercises to play around with -- one working with the ideomotor response, and another with developing internal unconscious thought.

Exercise #1:

• This exercise is about using an ideomotor response (making unconscious motions) to develop a sense of unconscious responses. Ideomotor phenomena are well-documented in psychology, hypnosis, and esoteric disciplines and can be a relatively easy way to watch yourself respond unconsciously -- thus getting you a little more familiar with it. (As a side note -- it’s important to remember that the “answers” you get from an ideomotor response do not necessarily represent something that knows more than you do consciously.)
• For this exercise, you’ll need something to serve as a pendulum -- either a traditional crystal on a chain or anything with a bit of weight (but not too much) on a string. To test if it’s a good weight, hold it still. Without intentionally moving your hand, think about it swinging from left to right. A well-weighted pendulum will start to swing in the directions you think about after a few moments without you really feeling like you’re moving it. This is called an ideomotor response.
• Before you start, experiment with making the pendulum swing back and forth horizontally, then vertically (towards and away from you), and then in a circle. Do this by looking at the pendulum and imagining it moving in the way that you want it to move.
• First, we will be “setting up” the pendulum -- essentially, assigning meaning to the three motions that it can make. Usually with pendulum work, we are looking for “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.” While holding the pendulum, focus on a question where you know the answer is 100% “yes” -- “Is my name <name>?” or “Is the sky blue?” Wait for the pendulum to swing; the direction it swings in is your “yes” direction. Repeat this process for “no” and “maybe/I don’t know.”
• If you want and you have some curiosity or experience, you can play with this as a divination tool (and using it this way -- or any other way that utilizes the ideomotor response -- works to develop unconscious responsiveness). However, one of the ways you can use a pendulum in hypnosis specifically is using it to self trance.
• When you are in a space where you have the time and desire to do self hypnosis, you can focus on your pendulum and ask it questions that will put you into trance. For example, questions like, “Do I want to go into trance?” “Do I want to wake up?” “Do I want to go deeper?” “Do I want to feel more sensations of hypnosis?” “Do I want to feel like I’m in control of my hand?” “Should I feel a wave of hypnosis?” “Should I feel things I’m unaware of?” and etc.
• Do this at a time where you are excited to self hypnotize and explore framings of this exercise that work for you. For example, maybe you want to think that a part of you deep inside is controlling the pendulum responses, or your hand is being guided by some unseen force.
• Take it slow, and when the pendulum answers your questions confirming that you should go into trance, notice how that makes you feel. See if you can develop an awareness of the way that you start to naturally respond in a hypnotic way. Do you feel yourself going deeper when it says, “Yes, you should go deeper”? Is there a point where you feel dissociated from your hand? What do all those feelings feel like in your body? Is there a point where you don’t feel like you’re “driving the bus” anymore?
• This is an exploratory practice and one that can be very effective for self trance given some time and if the exercise fits you well. If you have some experience with pendulums or you’re really comfortable with this exercise, a variation you can try is assigning mantras/anchors to the pendulum swing directions instead and let the pendulum dictate which one you respond to.
• Thank yourself and make sure you give yourself some time to reorient out of trance!

Exercise #2:

• This exercise is about pushing yourself to think a lot so that your brain notices and produces “stuff” without you feeling like you’re doing it fully consciously. While a lot of trance is “supposed to” involve separating yourself from your thoughts or observing them without interacting with them, this can be an easier way of getting some unconscious responses. (This is similar material to SIX DAYS ASLEEP which is longer and can be found here: https://sleepingirl.carrd.co/#sixdaysasleep)
• Start off by asking yourself what you want to think about. It could be something self-reflective, philosophical, sexy, productive -- anything that you’re genuinely interested in. It could be something like, “What does surrender mean to me?”
• Begin a thorough dialogue with yourself in your head. Pretend you’re interviewing yourself about this topic and your own thoughts on it. If the topic changes, that’s fine. The important thing is that you’re thinking about what you want to think about. Ask questions about what you’re feeling, ask questions about the value of the ideas you’re having, ask questions about the meaning of the topic as a whole, and use all of your answers as jumping-off points for the next question.
• At a certain point, the way you’re asking or answering these questions may change. Sometimes it will feel like you already “know” the answer to a question even before you ask the question, and sometimes it will feel like you have to think it through. But sometimes it may feel like the questions or answers are coming from a different “place” or “voice,” or that you’re not exactly controlling the dialogue as much.
• Acknowledge those feelings later as ones of unconsciousness. Thoughts popping in from elsewhere -- whether simple and random or complex and topical -- are unconscious responses. Doing this practice regularly will cause them to come more easily and let you have experiences in hypnosis where it feels like your process has more unconscious elements to it.
• Thank yourself (especially for this one)!