Mindquake: Date Night!

Fancy or casual? Michael and Skye are ready for both. We haven't been on a date for so long, after all...

I've tried and failed to write this post several times. And the problem I'm having is that there's that much to talk about I just find myself diving down rabbit holes… let's try again.

Last weekend, I attended my first hypnocon ever, Charmed 2020, and it was glorious. There are so many highlights from it, it's difficult to pick them out, so in brief:

Highlights

Getting to play publicly with my amazing, beautiful play partner, the legendary and fabulous @lizzidoll (@tennfan2 called us "aggressively cute").

Getting to meet Lizzi's circle of friends: @enscenic, @zanydanger, @hypno-sandwich, @theleeallure, @carneggyblog, @tennfan2, @h-sleepingirl, cckitten… the list goes on.

Watching Lizzi's friends, most of whom she's not seen for some time, greet her with such genuine love and affection that it filled my heart with joy and brought tears to my eyes.

Being Lizzi's assistant / handler for the Gallery of Living Art, turning her into a poseable and stunningly attractive doll with a twist for those brave enough to investigate more closely.

Being sung down into trance by @enscenic, Lizzi, @theleeallure and @zanydanger — by far the most intensely beautiful hypnotic induction I've ever experienced, and a wonderful surprise which felt a lot like an initiation ritual.

Watching @zanydanger tie Lizzi in the dungeon in a scene that was so unbelievably fucking hot.

@hypno-sandwich proving that I am very responsive to a spiral drawn in the air in front of my eyes.

Demo-bottoming for Mazirian and Velvetine Rabbit's dual induction class — I was told afterwards that I had a hot trance face, much to Lizzi's agreement.

Trancing with and fractionating Blue Prime, which was a journey for both of us -- and for me, my first time solo-topping with someone other than Lizzi for the first time in far too many years.

Spending a few days post-con decompressing in Baltimore with Lizzi — we can firmly recommend Sullivan's Steakhouse and the Lump Crabcakes at Faidley's in Lexington Market.

What I wish I'd done

I don't know if it was the intensity of the experience, the jet-lag from flying 8.5 hours, or the late nights (most likely a combination of all three) but I spent quite a bit of time sleeping during class times. Next time I'd like to do more classes and less napping. But I love napping, so…

Also, I wish I'd have played with more people. That was partly down to my own insecurity — it was only thanks to Lizzi that I actually tranced with Blue at all — and partly down to the fact that even when I put my search for partners on Discord it was actually pretty difficult for us to find each other. Also, there wasn't really a quiet space to do random trancing in, which would have been nice.

What I learned

Oh, so much. I learned a bit of history, a lot of theory, a huge number of little tricks that I'm dying to try (even second-hand learning: @theleeallure apparently had a genius method for bringing someone all the way out of a deep trance which I'm going to keep in my back pocket).

Most importantly, though, I had it reaffirmed to me that I'm not alone in my weirdness. And that not only am I not alone, but that most of the people who are in this weird and kinky hypnoboat with me are thoroughly delightful human beings, around whom I want to spend more time ere too long.

General Thoughts

Charmed! is a great con, especially for a con newb like me. Sure, there could be some reorganisation of classes to make things a bit easier to access for journey-folk hypnokinksters like yours truly — being able to chop and change between -101 and -201 would have been great, for example. But that's a difficult thing to orchestrate.

Much was made of the new consent policy, which explicitly disallowed CNC play (or at least stated that "CNC is not an excuse in the event of a consent violation). I'm not going to go into that here too much — the ConCom took legal advice and were following it in the best way they could. Some CNC-playing people felt kink-shamed. I didn't, but I can see why people did. As far as I can tell, though, the consent policy didn't cause any actual problems, and was more of a problem in people's minds than in actuality.

What's next.

Slides are here.

When I first started reading hypnosis books, I was really put off by the way that every book started listing out people and dates, when what I really wanted to get to was the hypnosis.

Now I think I understand it better.  The history of hypnotism is bizarre, random, and arbitrary.  It’s driven as much by cultural forces as it was by individuals, and it wasn’t until the 1960s that it really got its act together.

Putting the talk together really made it clear that we are living in the Golden Age right now.  Recreational hypnosis may have been a thing in the past, but it is now a Thing.

Hey! Did you miss out on getting a Collectible Hypnosis Enamel Event Pin at Entranced this year?   It’s possible - you had to find me, or I had to find you, and the magic I had to employ to appear out of nowhere took a lot out of me!   If you didn’t see it, the pin has a nifty triangle indicator that you can wear to indicate your topness, bottomness, or switchiness.  It’s very nice.  I designed it, so it’s awesome and I’m impartial.   It was also mentioned on the Two Hyp Chicks podcast by @h-sleepingirl.  (I bought an ad. Support your favorite podcasts, followers!)

It’s worth noting that if you missed the pins - or want another one - you can get one at @sfmindquake in San Francisco November 1... and you don’t even have to find me.  You just get one for showing up.  It’s a hypnosis convention, it’s filled with kinky people, and you get the pin at no extra cost to you.

If you are in or around the San Francisco area, you’re a local and you should buy your ticket before the prices go up.  You can get details here:

https://mindquake.brownpapertickets.com

You have about a week to make up your mind if you want the early bird discount, and you do.  The team of organizers are very nice people, with very nice consent policies, who have been putting some incredible work into this new event.