Recently I’ve really been getting into erotic hypnosis. I just did a podcast about it and of course I just started a new series of hypnosis videos, though I’m a little iffy about how effective they’re going to be with just regular audio. (I’m thinking of doing the next one with a regular video intro and then recording an MP3 and putting it over a slideshow of suggestive images, since I can’t post regression or diaper fetish MP3s on NiteFlirt.)
I use hypnosis in my sessions, but I wanted to clarify exactly what happens when you’re “age regressed” via hypnosis. Basically it’s a way of breaking down your barriers and allowing you to revisit your childhood, while part of yourself still remains in control and adult.
I know that this sort of ruins the fantasy for some, but let me explain. There is no way to mentally time travel back to youth, and if there was, it would be irresponsible to do so. If you were mentally a child, you couldn’t really use your safe word and a lot of the things that took place during the session would definitely scar you. ^_^ It would be wrong.
Still, a number of people I’ve played with insist that they were genuinely mentally regressed. It’s great that they feel that way, but it’s just not the case. It’s been pretty well documented that all of the puerile affectations of regressed adults are just a layer of “baby” brushed over their regular adult personas. It’s discussed in this article by Dr. Campbell Perry, posted below. He also talks about the “hidden observer” effect, which describes the part of you that stays objective when you’re hypnotised and adult when you’re regressed. It’s really interesting and explains better than I could.
That’s not to say that the place of hypnosis in the ABDL setting is relegated to an aid in regression, though I really do find it helpful. I also like to use it as a way of enhancing or implanting a diaper fetish, though I really only do this in private sessions, since if anyone is going to see me for a pro session, chances are they already have a pretty serious diaper fetish. But as with any hypnosis, the inductee has to go into the trance wanting to be programmed to love diapers or wetting them or whatever we agree on.
Anyway, here’s that article. I hope you read and enjoy it!
Does hypnotic age regression produce historically accurate memories?
Hypnotic age regression involves the hypnotized person’s ability to “relive” an earlier period of his/her life. It is to be distinguished from thinking about the past, or remembering it; the age regressed person experiences being a younger age in a subjectively vivid and compelling manner, and this is accompanied, quite often, by what appear to be age appropriate changes in voice, mannerisms and handwriting. Although the age regressed person’s behavior can be very convincing subjectively, that is no guarantee of the historical accuracy of anything that a person recalls about his/her past during age regression.
Orne (1951) reports the case of a German-born experimental subject, regressed to age six, when he spoke no English. Drawings that he had made at that age were compared to ones he made when hypnotically regressed to age six, including two drawings he completed while age regressed after he had seen his actual productions of that age. The drawings reported in this study are reproduced in Figure 2. Although the age regressed drawings were certainly child-like, Karen Machover, a clinical psychologist with expertise in children’s drawings described them as “sophisticated oversimplifications;” that is, their child-like quality was appropriate to a chronological age greater than the age to which he had been regressed. There are many other demonstrations of this basic observation that novel information, elicited in hypnotic age regression, cannot be taken at face value; it needs, always to be corroborated by independent means before it can be deemed as factual.
Figure 2. Drawings by an experimental subject at the age of 6 years, age regressed to 6 years, and out of hypnosis while imagining what he might have drawn at age 6 (from Orne, 1951).
A. Original drawings at age 6.
B. Drawings done when age regressed to 6 years.
C. Drawings done 2 weeks later when age regressed to 6 years a second time.
D. Drawings done when age regressed to 6 years after seeing the originals prior to hypnosis.
E. Drawings done while age regressed after awakening and repeated showing of the originals in the awake state.
F. Drawings done while age regressed to age 6 after the originals were shown during hypnosis.
G. Drawing done in a waking imagination condition when asked to imagine how he might have drawn at the age of 6 years.
H. Dictation written while age regressed to 6 years. Note the superficial resemblance to a child’s writing.
It has been found, also, that people respond differentially to hypnotic age regression. Approximately 50% of individuals who are able to experience it report duality. When questioned about their subjective experience, they indicate that they felt both adult and child (either simultaneously, or in alternation). The remaining 50% report a quasi-literal regression; they state that they really felt that they were the suggested age, and had no sense of being an adult (Perry & Walsh, 197
. The only hypnotic item with which this differential response to age regression correlates is the “hidden observer” effect (E. R. Hilgard, 1977), which seeks to index dissociation.
From this, there is a suggestion here that dissociation is, also, a differential phenomenon, at least among those who are able to experience it. Current evidence suggests that it is found, almost exclusively, among high hypnotizables — that is the top 10-15% of the population. It is possible, however, that with the development of dissociation measures that are less difficult psychometrically, more people of moderate hypnotizability will be found to experience milder forms of dissociation.
(For those interested in further reading on the subject of age regression, the following is suggested: Nash, M. (1987) What, if anything, is regressed about hypnotic age regression? Psychological Bulletin, 102, (1) 42-52.)
