Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Hypnosis, Suggestion, etc.

This is topic Hypnosis, Suggestion, etc. in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Siena (Member # 2146) on :

Hi,
I'm working on a story, and I need one of the characters to successfully drive another character (her husband) crazy. I'm considering several options for this... hypnosis, post-hypnotic suggestions, subliminal messages (I hear those are not very believable, though), etc.

Currently, she works in a doctor's office, where she is exposed to a lot of hypnosis talk. I was thinking of having her use one of the techniques on her husband.

Is there any fairly believable way to do this? I've been doing some online research on the topic, and there seems to be a great divide over the effectiveness of hypnosis. I was thinking of either creating a false memory for him and/or using a post-hypnotic suggestion to get him to do something bad.

My goal is to get him locked up in a mental institution without anyone suspecting the wife's involvement.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Siena (I have visited this side of Hatrack before, but it has been a while.)

Posted by Lord Darkstorm (Member # 1610) on :

Have you concidered mental manipulation? Why would you need hypnosis to drive someone mad? Of course you have to have an understanding of how mental games are played. But they can be very effective at driving one nuts. I can vouch for the concept having been on the recieving end of such abuse. Not sure the desired result was my insanity...but it does have some very good results. Why do you think some people need years to recover from a divorce sometimes?

Also depending upon the character, you could have the woman moving small things regularly. I know that I would question my own memory if things were not always where I left them. Say he goes off on a trip..and come home and the walls are a different color...or different furniture...or maybe his wife has a slightly different hair color. Stuble changes that are just noticable would lay some good groundwork for driving someone nuts.

Posted by goatboy (Member # 2062) on :

You slowing begin mixing decaf into the morning coffee until it is all decaf. Then suddendly switch back to the high test stuff.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I've been hypnotized, and I could probably hypnotize someone now. Thing is, I can always remember what happened (can't imagine this NOT being the case). Once the (stage) hypnotist gave a post-hypnotic suggestion that I was humiliated and wouldn't talk to anyone about the night's events, but even then, I was only PRETENDING to be embarrassed (although somehow I never got around to stopping this pretense...). So someone who had a post-hypnotic suggestion to "forget" would only be pretending to forget.

Not to say it couldn't still work.

[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited February 20, 2005).]

Posted by HSO (Member # 2056) on :

Hmm. Curiously, what is the husband's job/career? Because, if you want to drive a man insane, then you mess with his career. If he's a high-profile something or another, then even better.

Still, this is fiction, so depending on how far out there you want to go, you could simply create an insanity device that this woman buys on the black market from some shady folk.

My point is that unless you need to tie it into something that already exists, it may be more fun just to make something wacky up. I could already envision a hundred possibilities. And if it's a SF story, a few thousand more.

Back to the (sort of) real world, voodoo dolls are great story props... or some kind of black magic.

And really back to the real world... just try to think of things that really do drive men insane.

We could probably make a nice list here in this topic of things that drive men nuts... and that might actually be fun for all of us involved.

EDIT: About hypnosis and subliminal messages -- personally, I can't put too much stock into something that is highly controversial as to its effectiveness. But, in your story, you could easily make it work -- just like anything, really. Just show that it does work. That's all that matters, I guess. Done properly, we'll suspend disbelief and go along for the ride.

[This message has been edited by HSO (edited February 20, 2005).]

Posted by goatboy (Member # 2062) on :

The things that drive men nuts:

"Honey, does this make me look fat?"
"Honey, have we got time to make one more stop today?"
"Decaffinated? No, I'm sure its not decaffinated."

Posted by Jeraliey (Member # 2147) on :

I think your character would have to know her husband very well, and use that knowledge to subtly push his buttons in exactly the right order to achieve the desired effect.

Posted by ChrisOwens (Member # 1955) on :

<The things that drive men nuts:>

Here's a minefield: your watching TV, and your wife ask, 'Do you think that woman's beutifial?'

Posted by ChrisOwens (Member # 1955) on :

As to the main question, have you considered a combination of drugs and hypnosis? She'd probablly be more in a position to slip him something that put's him in a more suseptable state.

Posted by Isaiah13 (Member # 2283) on :

I like the false memory angle. If it was powerful enough, she could probably use it to manipulate him without the need for post-hypnotic suggestion. Perhaps it's just a matter of tricking him into believing that he would be in the right when commiting whatever atrocity it is that you have planned.

Posted by Phanto (Member # 1619) on :

Hypnosis is extraordinarily powerful and can be amazingly damaging. Once you are in a deep trance, you can be led to do pretty much anything. Yes, you have to not have strong mental objections to it. Yet once in such a deep state the scenario can be arranged so that you have no mental objections to it, such as the following:

"Have you ever noticed things going wrong...blah,blah,blah...person X is trying to kill you (as shown by above)...if you do not stop him he will get you."

Or something in that vein. Regardless, hypnosis is no major threat because to be put into a deep state you have to trust the hypnotizer greatly.

Kind of like a husband would trust a wife.

Posted by Jeraliey (Member # 2147) on :

The addition of drugs would probably make it easier/faster, but it would also leave evidence which points to the wife. She'd have to be really careful about which ones she used and how she went about obtaining them.

Posted by plmorgan (Member # 2341) on :

Ketamine might do the trick. It's a short acting anesthetic (injectable) that doesn't totaly put the person to sleep but can cause some pretty bizare hallucinations and to add to the fun you can make suggestions to the person as they go to sleep to help their imagination.
To get somone commited you pretty much have to show that they pose an immenent threat to themselves or others or they have to commit themselves. That's why our cities are filled with homeless people that talk to themselves and their demons.

Posted by MichelleAnn (Member # 2375) on :

Never mind ... realized I may be overstepping.

Speaking of Ketamine: one of my dogs cannot have it. It's on his vet records because he had a really bad trip. It's funny because I have had him since puppyhoood, he has been spiled since day one, and yet you give him the wrong drugs and he freaks.
Michelle

[This message has been edited by MichelleAnn (edited February 20, 2005).]

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

You don't need a particularly detectable quantity of drugs to drive someone crazy if you use the right compounds. You also don't have to restrict yourself to compounds that would be obviously artificial.

One of the best compounds for driving people nutty is LSD, and it works in very small quantities. In fact, a very low dosage is much better if you want to make someone fear insanity. A sudden psychotic episode for no apparent reason will send people to the doctor, but a steady slide into insanity would be likely to have the opposite effect.

Without drugs, you're going to be hard pressed to make someone crazy without going to extraordinary lengths. Hypnosis isn't a good tool, it's simply too flashy in every possible sense. Trying to drive someone crazy by moving things around...the first thing that's going to happen, if it really bugs that person, is that you'll become the prime suspect. And since you are the one doing it, you'll be very hard pressed to prove yourself innocent.

One basic problem with any method by which a wife might drive her current husband genuinely bonkers is that living with a person who's going bonkers isn't very safe, particularly if you happen to the be reason that person is going bonkers. This is one very good reason that this kind of treatment is usually reserved for an ex. Consider, kids are naturally extremely talented at driving moms crazy, but when they succeed, it is rarely a happy day for those kids. It would take more than ordinary recklessness and stupidity for most women to even contemplate driving their husbands into a genuine psychotic state on purpose.

Posted by Nick Vend (Member # 1816) on :

People are particularly susceptible to manipulation if they are vulnerable.

This may be suggesting too much in the way of plot, but what if something happened to the man to make him feel emotional/vulnerable (losing a loved one etc), and the woman stepped in to take advantage of that? She seems to be giving him emotional support but is really chipping away at him. Something like that?

Posted by HSO (Member # 2056) on :

quote:
People are particularly susceptible to manipulation if they are vulnerable.

I agree with the above quoted statement. In fact, I would like to add to it, if I may:

Most people are generally vulnerable in some way, therefore most people are particularly susceptible (to something). The key, of course, is finding their vulnerabilities and exploiting them. I do not speak from experience, however.

Posted by Nick Vend (Member # 1816) on :

Okay, yeah, point taken. The first sentence of my post was entirely vague. I meant that if the guy has something emotionally devestating happen to him, he would be much easier to manipulate/drive insane.

Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :

FYI, there is a book by Dean Koontz called False Memory in which a guy hypnotises someone into going insane. You may want to read it for a couple reasons:
a) to make sure your plot is different
b) to see if you think what he did was plausible and possibly give yourself food for thought.

Posted by Siena (Member # 2146) on :

Wow, thanks for all of the ideas.

I can't reply much right now--I'm at work.

The husband has spent the last few years tearing this woman down from a strong, independent woman into a passive dependent woman.

Anyway, after all that, she's very broken down, hardly recognizes herself--and finds out her husband is having an affair. This serves as an awakening for her, and instead of divorcing him, she decides to drive him mad for revenge. In the end, she has control over his money and her life.

I was thinking last night that I could have her use hypnotic suggestions (or go the even more dubious route of subliminal messages) to simply enhance his OWN feelings of guilt and jealousy, which, with a few well-timed suggestions, would lead him to attack his lover. Not killing her, but destroying her beauty. Come to think of it, he doesn't really need to be in an institution--a jail cell would work fine.

-Siena

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Setting him up to assault/kill his lover might actually work, particularly if this guy believes that his wife doesn't know about his mistress. All she needs to do is start insinuating weird things into the communications between them without letting on that she knows there are such communications. Which weird things depends on the guy and the mistress, a good opening ploy would be for her to create faked messages asking the husband to drop off gifts in such a way that the wife would be able to intercept it without the husband knowing. The mistress, of course, wouldn't know about the gifts at all.

Or it could be little "jobs" for the mistress. She could diddle the communications both ways, if she were clever about it. She wouldn't even have to make the guy particularly crazy, just persuade him to do something over the line "for" his lover. Perhaps talk him into a "can't lose" financial scheme that ends with him thinking that the other woman has conned him out of a huge amount of money. Something like that would be a lot more fun to write and a good deal more plausible.

[This message has been edited by Survivor (edited February 22, 2005).]