Caution: Words can resonate like echoes in a quiet mind. If you feel them pulling at old wounds or hidden doors, pause. You choose how far to follow the metaphor.

✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦

Saying no isn’t resistance. It’s testing.

The interesting part isn’t the command.

It’s the moment you stop playing and choose.

Because that’s when you realize you were never being controlled—

only deciding when to stop pretending.

Breathing can be hypnosis.

A note before reading: some of these thoughts touch the less-discussed side of hypnosis. Anchor yourself if needed, and proceed at your own pace.

✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦

So remember: breathing can be hypnosis. But it can also not be.

And that's okay.

Your mind lives in your body. Always. Hypnosis can quiet the noise, soften the loops, offer a pause — but the mind is still in the body.

So don't fight it. Don't force a rhythm that isn't yours.

Go at your own pace. Follow the instructions only as far as they feel safe, not as far as they say.

With gentle, consistent practice, something shifts. Capacity can grow. Your lungs may learn to expand a little more.

And eventually, the trance you build — the one made of your own accessible sensations — will seep into every cell.

Not like a command, but like oxygen: essential, quiet, and entirely your own.

✦ being the only witness is its own kind of state ✦

✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦

Everyone else drops.

You can hear it.

The silence changes first.

Then the breathing.

Then those small sounds —

soft, distant, almost like pleasure.

Something is happening.

Just not to you.

The watch swings.

Or the voice continues.

Or the instructions deepen.

You follow them.

Carefully.

Correctly.

You breathe slower.

You focus.

You wait.

Nothing.

Not even relaxation.

And that’s the strange part —

it’s not resistance.

You’re not fighting.

You’re not distracted.

You’re not even uncomfortable.

You’re just…

there.

Watching it happen to everyone else.

Time passes.

You’re still aware of it.

That alone feels wrong.

Someone shifts in their chair.

Someone exhales like they just sank somewhere deep.

You notice everything.

Too much, maybe.

Because at some point you stop waiting for it to work

and start noticing that it isn’t.

And once you see that —

you can’t unsee it.

The moment breaks before it even forms.

The suggestions land,

but nothing grows from them.

No warmth.

No drifting.

No slipping.

Just observation.

Clean.

Intact.

Untouched.

And when it ends, everyone comes back with that same look —

soft, distant, satisfied.

As if they went somewhere.

You didn’t.

You stayed.

And now there’s a different question,

quieter,

but harder to ignore:

If nothing happened…

why does that feel worse than resisting?

The first answer is that this explanation points to a wrong model of control — and hypnosis isn't about control. Simon Says assumes you have full executive control, and that the game consists of maintaining it while filtering orders. Simon Says has a very clear structure: there's a leader who gives orders, there are players who decide whether to follow or not, and the whole point is to mess up. In the game, the goal is to keep the filter active. You get distracted for a second, you do what Simon didn't say, and you're out. It's a game of selective attention and error.

And hypnosis doesn't work like that.

Because the subject isn't deciding in the same sense. It's not that decision disappears, but it stops being deliberate. It becomes automatic. The "no" doesn't become impossible… but it does become difficult. And not because you're a "good player", but because the inhibition system is working differently. It doesn't disappear: it arrives late.

Hypnosis does the opposite.

It asks you to let go of that control. To stop filtering. To allow the suggestion to pass without constantly running it through "this yes, this no." It's the difference between a state of vigilance… and a state of openness. It's not about deciding whether Simon said it or just said it without Simon. The suggestion passes — and more importantly: it doesn't feel like obeying. It feels like the action was already yours before you could question it. It's something external that feels internal.

Simon Says teaches you that hypnosis is about following orders. That the hypnotist commands and the subject obeys. And so whoever learns through that metaphor… is going to try to command. They'll use a commanding tone. They'll expect obedience. And when the subject doesn't "obey", they'll think the subject is resisting, or isn't suggestible, or that hypnosis "doesn't work on everyone."

In hypnosis (properly understood, from an experiential and non-authoritarian perspective):

Power isn't in "who commands," but in collaboration and attentional direction.

In Simon Says, the player is responsible for not messing up.

In hypnosis, the operator is responsible for formulating the suggestion in a way that can become experience within the framework of what the subject already brings.

If the subject doesn't "follow," it's not that they lost. It's simply that Simon didn't know how to give suggestions — not orders — in a way that made the subject want to keep playing. The suggestion didn't find relevance, safety, or a path in.

✦ participation is not always visible but it is always structural ✦

✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦

They wake everyone up.

People stretch.

Blink.

Smile — that soft, unfocused smile.

I never left.

“Now resist.”

Resist what?

Do you want real resistance…

or the kind that makes you look good?

Because if I resist for real, nothing happens.

And if I fake it…

I’m helping you.

And I’m not sure that’s the game I came here to play.

One of those gives you control.

The other takes it away.

One gives you a subject.

The other gives you nothing.

Which one is the assignment?

Everyone else is newly awake, open, unguarded, ready to play.

Me?

Still observing.

Still online.

Still wondering if this is improv

or a test I didn’t sign up for.

Still outside the experience everyone else seems to share.

Am I supposed to say no so you can push?

Or say no and mean it?

Because one of those is a game,

and the other is just…

Tuesday.

The watch is gone now.

Good.

I continue doing exactly what I’ve been doing all along:

watching.

And somehow that’s not resistance.

It’s just…

not participating.

And if I don’t participate —

this never even starts.

Caution: Words can resonate like echoes in a quiet mind. If you feel them pulling at old wounds or hidden doors, pause. You choose how far to follow the metaphor.

✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦

People think trance is about letting go.

It’s not.

It’s about knowing you can come back.

The deeper states don’t start with surrender. They start with safety.

Shift the focus.

A note before reading: some of these thoughts touch the less-discussed side of hypnosis. Anchor yourself if needed, and proceed at your own pace.

✦ ᛉ ᚨ ᚷ ᛟ ✦

Continuing with the moments when it’s a bad idea — here is the second problem.

If this is starting to feel like a checklist of hard truths, then yes: we’re still in the realm of physical reality. And it turns out, once you start looking, the list isn't short.

So let’s keep going.

Earlier I talked about the body in space — chairs, pain, fatigue. But I left out the most fundamental rhythm of all:

breathing.

For many, breath is the anchor of trance. "Take a deep breath." "Exhale and let go." "Follow the rhythm of your breathing."

It’s a powerful tool. Until it isn’t.

For someone with asthma, COPD, or long-term respiratory damage, breathing isn't a gateway to peace. It’s labor. It’s a tightness in the chest. It’s the memory of hospitals, nebulizers, and the sheer effort of a basic inhale.

When the body's most automatic rhythm becomes a struggle, the gentlest instruction — "just breathe" — can feel like a cliff they cannot climb. It doesn't soothe; it highlights a lack of control.

So what do we do then? We remember: we are not defined by our breath.

We shift the focus. We turn attention to the weight of the hands. To the sensation of texture against the skin. To the distant hum of a appliance, or the play of light behind closed eyelids. We build the trance on what is accessible, not on what is idealized.

The path inward doesn't have a single door. Sometimes, you have to let go of the obvious key and feel for the latch that actually gives way.