hypnosis metaphor //
You know how people will lean their bodies when they turn in racing/driving video game?
Doing hypnosis is like being the GM laying down that virtual "track" in front of someone, inducing them to lean in the directions you set up.
re: hypnosis metaphor //
(there's a bunch of senses hooked up to the bodymind's posture control loop, and in laboratory settings you can reliability get people leaning in weird directions by playing moving patterns on the walls to mess with their visual cues — the cognitive psych models I've seen mostly locate hypnosis as having effect in control/feedback loops, so it's plausible that this is more literal than metaphorical)
re: hypnosis //
one of my models for hypnosis goes like this:
The set of things your brain can do is *much* larger than the set of things you can do on purpose
you can fall asleep, right? your brain knows how to fall asleep, that's a thing it can do. but you probably can't just fall asleep on purpose, immediately, in the same way that you can close your eyes whenever you want.
hypnosis gets brains to cooperate with the hypnotist, and do tricks the subject is capable of but not in control of.
re: hypnosis //
@lioness This led to thinking for a long time that we were "bad at being hypnotized" or "not a good subject" or at least missing something important that would've made it more effective. Because there's still stuff that our brain is clearly capable of, but that we can't seem to do intentionally or via hypnosis.