🌀 On Possessiveness in Hypnosis
Note: this piece contains soft hypnotic language and may feel trance-like.Read only if you’re comfortable, and proceed at your own pace.
The famous phrase “when I, and only I, say it” is fascinating, and it serves several purposes.
First, it has a practical function: if the trigger depends on one single voice, it prevents accidental activations.
If someone is highly susceptible, or listens to multiple hypnotists, something from another voice could interfere, so to speak.
This helps to define when trance is and when it isn’t.
In a way, that’s why hypnotists develop a different voice from their ordinary one —to mark the boundary between daily life and trance space.
But that’s not all.
The “only I” blends authority, fantasy, safety, and possession.
It’s the moment when the hypnotic subject becomes symbolic property of the hypnotist —and that’s why it’s when I say so.
It appeals to submissive subjects and to hypnotists who think more like Mesmer: dominant, paternal, guiding.
And then comes the timeless question:
Do people want to be gently guided… or firmly led?
Another angle is possessiveness itself.
Don’t hypnotists ever get jealous when their subjects go to others?
Because if you don’t integrate your own triggers, should I assume you don’t care if I leave?
Dr. Milton Erickson —often called one of the fathers of modern hypnosis— did something quite different.
He left long, strange, almost poetic triggers, so that they wouldn’t depend on his voice.
His approach was therapeutic:
“You can depend on me for a while, but not forever.”
And that’s the real question.
Do you want a trigger for everyday life, or for the erotic?
If it’s for daily use, maybe it shouldn’t depend on one voice.
But if what you want is to be wrapped in a velvet tone and a command you can’t ignore…
then you already know which side you’re on.