Hypnotizable

A Deep Trance

My heart was racing, though otherwise my body was relaxed as it had ever been. My eyes must have closed right away, either on their own or else in obedience to some instruction that never made it to my conscious mind.

Remembering what happened next is like trying to remember a dream. There are so many bits and pieces, but they don't quite fit together, and there's always the nagging feeling there must have been a lot more.

He told me to imagine myself flying, and I imagined it so vividly that it almost felt real. I pictured myself putting a seat belt on and looking out an airplane window, following his encouragement to always stay calm. He told me flying could be a great experience, and he said to channel any left-over anxiety into exhilaration. He asked some questions and I gave him some answers, but there's no telling what they were.

After that, it gets even harder to remember. There were things that didn't seem to have much to do with flying. He asked some more questions. Maybe some of them were about things that had happened a long time ago. My eyes stayed closed most of the time, but they opened now and then. I moved around occasionally, always at his suggestion. Maybe I even took some steps around the room, still deep in my trance.

His voice was the one constant, my only guide. It never occurred to me to question anything he said. It never occurred to me that I could fight to regain control, or that I should hold on to what was happening and make sure to keep it in memory. With all that he said, only a few words submit to recollection. "Good," "you'll feel like it," "it won't bother you." And, at least once, "What do you really want?" Whatever I said back to him is the hardest of all to remember.

There wasn't any thinking, not really. My mind had surrendered. I didn't ask myself what being hypnotized felt like--I just felt it. My heart must have stopped racing at some point, or at least slowed down. My breathing had gotten very deep. At the same time, an incredible arousal had spread out to fill my whole body. Far underneath the calmness, a tremendous undercurrent of excitement kept flowing. If it was slow, that only made it all the more powerful.

Finally there came a feeling like I was floating up from the bottom of a deep lake, towards the sunlight above. I could hear Dr. Lawson's voice, sounding like it was coming from a long way away. "Five, four,..." I opened my eyes and blinked. "Three, two, one."

I blinked again and looked around. The room was the same as before, or was it exactly? I still couldn't believe all this had happened to me, to me. It was hard to grasp how far under I'd gone, just from listening to someone say the right words. How much time had passed was a mystery. It could have been ten minutes, or ninety.

"I'm afraid the time's about up," he said.

So. Closer to ninety. I stretched and stood up, trying to catch a glimpse of the outside world between the window-blinds. Maybe that would help tether me to reality.

"You're an excellent subject," he said. "Extremely susceptible, once you got past your initial hesitation. You went into a much deeper trance than most people do."

I blushed, something I hardly ever did. He must have noticed. "Nothing to be embarrassed about," he said.

Helplessly, I kept on blushing. It was a vicious cycle, being embarrassed about being embarrassed. Or maybe there was something else. I had a hollow feeling in my stomach like you sometimes get from being really turned on.

"I have another client in five minutes," he said.

I paid him in cash.