Crafting Musical Inductions was first taught by @digitalswitchgamine and @enscenic at Entranced 2017. Please enjoy our notes and feel free to write us with any comments/suggestions you may have. Thank you for our demo subjects who helped make our first edition a success by being our human xylophone: @minddiver, @lily-ackerman, @arihi, @hypnokittencalico, and @sex-obsessed-lesbian A special thanks to @minddiver for his help with musical fractionation, and being the guinea pig in our Music in Trance experiments.
Auditory Modality
Auditories are people who experience the world most strongly through sound. They may remember sound particularly well or be able to recreate sound easily in their heads.
Describing Sounds in Induction: using the description of sounds to set the stage for a description i.e. sounds that one might hear on a beach.
ASMR- Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response: this response is usually described as tingling or a lovely, relaxed, meditative state. Sounds a lot like trance, right? It’s usually triggered by whispery voices, ambiguous touch, crinkling, ticking, tapping, etc. It can be useful in getting trance response in certain people
Binaural Beats: When two different tones below 1500 Hz are played, one in each ear, the brain will detect an auditory illusion of a third tone. There are some studies that suggest that binaural beats can induce a non ordinary state of consciousness or make someone more suggestible to hypnosis.
Inductions
Auditory fixation induction: Using sound as a point of fixation instead of a visual focal point. You can also use a visual and auditory fixation i.e. spoon in a teacup, or a metronome.
Pattern Interrupt
Transderivational Search:The “what-the-fuck” moment when the pattern that your brain anticipated isn’t completed. It is a moment lasting about 1-2 seconds where the brain is prime to any suggestion to complete the pattern. Here are some ideas to induce transderivational search in a musical induction:
Railroad Tracks
Coming in on 2 unexpectedly. Ex: Wait for It- Hamilton. Learn- Alanis Morrissette
Not completing a well-known melody or musical pattern that you’ve established. Ex: Who Framed Roger Rabbit
@sex-obsessed-lesbian‘s “Hamilton Induction:”@sex-obsessed-lesbian demonstrated how to interrupt “Alexander Hamilton,” from the hit musical, Hamilton on the word “drop.”
Overload/Confusion
An induction that seeks to overload or confuse the mind until it gives up trying to make sense of things
Cacophonous overload of complicated harmonies and rhythms
Swelling dynamics that can create overtones that confuse the brain. Ex: Bach Again
Panning in recordings that make sound swell from one ear to the other.
Post-hypnotic suggestions that include the perception of panning volume from one ear to the other
Sensory Deprivation
The cessation of sound as trance inducing
Ex: @deeperforme‘s “Noise Canceling Headphone Induction,” where he uses the cessation of ambient noise, to send subjects into trance. This works best with headphones that have a noise canceling button.
Deepeners/Awakeners
Scalar motion can be used to signify deepness vs. awakeness. A scale can be used with anything that happens on a spectrum. Ex: intelligence
Ascension vs. Descension: some folks prefer low numbers to be going down into trance, some people prefer it the other way around. The same applies in music. You can ascend or descend into trance. Whatever you’re into.
Word Painting: the technique of writing music that reflects the literal meaning of the song. Ex: singing “up” or “rise,” over an ascending line
Cadences: chords that compose the end of a phrase or song. Often V-I or IV-I. These can be used to signify the end of trance.
Experimenting with timbre: the quality of the sound. Ex: Glockenspiel vs voice vs whatever Instrument
Rhythmic deepeners and awakeners: the slowing of rhythmic snapping. You can also adjust speed of speech or song
Fractionation- The process of bringing someone in and out of trance in quick succession, causing them to deepen more into trance each time. You can use a scale to fractionate someone by dropping them to different degrees of the scale and jumping around within the scale. Try using different types of scales (major, chromatic minor). Try playing/singing in staccato and legato.
Increasing Suggestibility
You can use music to enhance emotional content of trance
You can use trance to enhance the emotional content of music
Triggers
Reinduction Triggers- You can use a phrase or short melody to reinduce trance quickly.
Physical Triggers: Ex: take my breath away for breath play
Lyrical Triggers: Triggers within the lyrics of a song
His hand is on your thigh and his face is in your hair. “You’re aroused” he says. It’s as much a statement of fact as a command. You nod.
“Feel yourself getting hotter… hotter.“ You writhe as he runs his hands over you and whispers to you about how good this feels, how much pleasure you feel. You are squirming and making little moans under his hands. You know this is going to make you cum. He’s going to make you cum.
“The first one is free” he says “You’ll let me know when you’re ready to cum. You will say ‘l’m ready.’ Hotter, now. More and more aroused.”
You whimper and push your body closer to him. You’re close.
“Closer.” He orders. You collapse into the bed and he moves so he’s completely on top of you. All of your muscles are tight. Your body feels like it’s struggling against itself on the verge of…
“I’m ready.”
“Tell me you want to cum.”
“I want to cum.”
“You may.” He says “cum.”
Your body reacts before you do. Your muscles release (and tense again and release and tense and…). You wrap your arms around him and press your face into his chest, to muffle your screams. He grabs a handful of your hair and holds you there until your screams fade to gasps and you relax.
“How do you feel?”
You catch your breath “Good.”
“Good.” His smile changes “Again. Cum.”
You do.
“Drop deeper” he tells you. “The harder you cum, the deeper you go into trance.“
***
Your eyes open. You sit up and you’re staring into his warm, brown eyes again. “What do you want right now?” He asks.
“Kiss you.”
“Think about how badly you want that. Let yourself feel how badly you want to kiss me. You can try to kiss me now and find you can’t. That turns you on, doesn’t it?”
Your eyes shift away from his eyes and focus on his lips.
“That’s it. Wanting to kiss me so badly, but completely unable. You keep trying to kiss me as you get hotter and hotter. More and more aroused as you try to kiss me and my power over you holds you back. You know that when you do get to kiss me, you’re going to orgasm.”
You nod.
“That’s right. Now keep getting hotter and hotter until you’re right on the brink. So aroused you are almost ready to cum. You know that when you are ready, you’ll be able to lean forward and kiss me.”
You nearly lunge at him and, as your lips meet his, the orgasm hits you. It’s more intense – the contractions hit every muscle in your body. He catches you and lets you kiss him. He moves his arms to support you as he takes over the kiss. It is definitely him kissing you, now, as he lowers you back
Down.
Your body goes limp as it hits the mattress. The last aftershocks of your orgasm fade and every muscle in your body relaxes. You cannot move. Your eyes are closed and you are dropping deeper and
“Cum.”
Another orgasm tears into you. Your body won’t respond to you right now, but it responds to him instantly and perfectly. You feel his hands on your arms as your body tenses, almost like it’s straining against invisible bonds, and releases. You feel his hands on your chest and shoulders as you relax and go limp.
“Again.” He says “Cum.”
And you do. “Harder.” He says “Cumming harder and harder as you drop deeper into trance. Unable to stop until you are so deep, deeper than you’ve ever been before.”
You thrash and scream as you drop. You buck your hips. You make noises that are difficult to transliterate. You go deeper. You can hear him and feel him, commanding and encouraging you to keep cumming. To keep going deeper. You can’t stop. You’re falling.
At some point, it – his voice and his touch and the ways your body moves – all gets lost in the pleasure. It swirls together into a vortex that drags you down and down and down into trance. You hit deep and the orgasm starts to subside. You let it go and relax and drop.
Ladyandthetrance 