Future Pacing (Article)

Future Pacing by sleepingirl

When we start getting into the “bread and butter” of techniques that NLP supports, we arrive at what it calls “future pacing”: When the hypnotist has the subject move forward in time to imagine an outcome. Future pacing is cited as a powerful tool on its own, but it also serves to be a basis for many other techniques in NLP.

What is Future Pacing?

Future pacing is essentially the practice of having someone go through the experience of some future event. This can be done while the person is in hypnosis or outside of it, through short, simple language or with guided imagery or suggestion. In a therapeutic model, this is done with the intention of getting through a scenario that prevents challenges for the client. For example, someone who is nervous about giving a speech is made to imagine the situation hypothetically, in detail; the steps needed to prepare themselves, and where they do a great job and then feel good about themselves afterwards. The idea is that this kind of imaginative experience can better equip someone for the reality of it.

Again, in kink, we’re not really approaching play with this framework, but this opens up a lot of possibilities for us in terms of where future pacing can be fun. It can be remarkably creative and useful for long-term changes like in brainwashing, where you bring your partner to a theoretical future in which they are even more submissive and responsive to you. It also plays well with one-off sessions and short-term play, for example, if you very quickly want to fractionate your partner and bring them through the experience of an hour or more of going in and out of trance, or if you want to add some extra “stick” to a trigger by bringing them into a future where they respond effortlessly to it. If your partner is a masochist or into fear, future pacing can also add a lot of weight to threats that you give.

Basic Outline

In this section, we’ll go through the most common framework of future pacing and discuss the steps involved. Keep in mind that whenever we try to codify hypnotic methods into concrete steps, we lose a bit of the nuance of fluid and opportunistic trancing -- as you grow more comfortable with the muscle memory of creating future pacing, you may find that you skip steps or move them around. This form is only meant to be a guideline of options -- the only truly necessary ingredient for future pacing is someone imagining the future. The essential format that we’ll follow is the idea of establishing someone’s current space in time, bringing them through the future, and then re-anchoring them to the present with those new “experiences.”

• “You Are Here”

The first step can be establishing your partner “where” (or “when”) they currently are. There are two main options or elements here: You can go with their flow and understand how they are processing their current experience, and/or you can emphasize that they are in the present regardless of where they might be. The purpose of doing this is to provide a baseline and a place from which they can “travel” and also return.

It might seem like it’s a given that your partner is in the present if you haven’t future paced them yet, but there is a reason that we make a distinction between these two options. When someone is going through hypnosis, they often are going to process in many different ways because of the nature of trance and the nature of the way that human brains work. For example, if you are doing a scene with your partner where you are making them sexually frustrated, they could potentially be relating the experience to one they’ve had in the past, or relating it to a sexy story they’ve read about someone else in flashes of processing. Or even more explicitly -- if they are in dollspace, for example, that may not be their “present” baseline.

We put a lot of emphasis on striving to understand our partners’ experiences during trance through verbal or nonverbal communication or context clues. This is part of pacing and leading -- telling someone that you know what they are experiencing helps to create the rapport necessary to draw them into more suggestions. Continuing the example of playing with someone’s sexual frustration, you talk about someone’s experience like, “Right now, you’re deep in your own desire, so focused on the feeling of wanting, maybe comparing this to other times you’ve wanted something strongly, maybe wondering if you’re going to get what you need…”

Notice that this statement contains various temporal elements. It begins by anchoring the person to the present (“right now…”), is hedged to include the possibility for them processing the past (“other times”), and finishes with a lead-in that causes them to process the future (“wondering if you’re going to get what you need”). You can think of future pacing as something that changes the timeframe of someone’s processing, and even such a small statement as this is a perfectly good example of complete (simple) future pacing in and of itself. However, this also gives us options to build from.

• “You Are There”

The next step is directing your partner toward the future. “What if” and “How do you think it will feel when…” are potent sets of words for this entire concept. They require a person to seek the answer in the future. You can use them as a set-up for lengthy future pacing, or use a simple statement on its own to create a similar effect. Again we have options/elements: How much are you as the hypnotist trying to describe the future, versus them spontaneously imagining what would happen in a given scenario?

You can consider the natural progression of the person’s current state. In the sexual frustration example, the question of “future” is somewhat predetermined: “When or will I ever be relieved of this?” You can very simply do some guided scenarios to force them to go through different options: “Maybe it will take a very long time before you find release -- can you imagine hours of your body yearning for pleasure?” From here, you can flesh out the scenario further: “Think about the way that time passes so much more slowly when you need to cum, but still waiting each agonizing moment, the way that you’d grow more and more desperate and horny, the way that that would make you so much more malleable to my will. Imagine how you’d feel after thirty minutes, after an hour, after two hours -- how that would almost give you this erotic sense of despair and powerlessness…”

While there is room for some ambiguity here, this is a fairly direct method. You could also be much more ambiguous and make your partner do the processing of the scenario themselves. For example, you could say, “What would it be like to be held in frustration for so long? How would it feel, what would it do to you? How long are you imagining?” These are questions that you can prompt your partner to answer verbally, which can give the effect of them needing to process that future in order to communicate it. Or you can leave them to parse them internally, which can cause them to potentially go through many different options or fixate on one. Both can be powerful, but the key is that they are imagining a scenario or possibilities.

Something else to consider is whether or not your partner is associated with the experience or dissociated from the experience. For example, they could be very literally feeling the thing happening to them, or they could be sort of removed from it where they are watching it happen from a distance. You can encourage either (or both) of these options, or allow for them to happen naturally or spontaneously; everyone has a different experience of imagining through future scenarios.

Future pacing in general is about creating an emotional state or experience that the person can anchor to, and this is where you can do much of that work. Emphasize the clarity and quality of their experience as something that is both changing them as well as easy to hold on to and recall. But this isn’t something that you have to do explicitly -- you can simply flesh out the experience by exploring it with them conversationally. This is especially useful when doing play outside of “trance” (or outside of a space where your partner is nonverbal). By framing your paces as questions, it opens up the opportunity to have a dialogue, and the more that you and your partner engage in talking about a potential scenario, the more concrete it can feel.

• “You Are Back (And It’s Different)”

The final step in future pacing is bringing someone back to the present. We do this with the purpose of having their “now” experience and perspective changed from what they just experienced in the “future.” We can consider that any time someone goes through something imaginative or intense it influences their perspective, and again there is no true need to go through with this step, but we do have an option to very explicitly help that along.

There are all sorts of metaphors and imagery that we can use to codify and integrate memories. You could say, “As you process this feeling and keep it close to you as you wake up / return to the present…” or “Imagining this as a memory that weaves itself into your current experience…” or “Watching this go into a box that puts itself in your mind and shapes the way you behave…” This is an opportunity for amnesia, if that’s something you’d like to play with as well.

Once you’ve transitioned back, it can be good to emphasize the change and anchor the feelings further and to the present. Continuing our example, “Doesn’t that feel so much more vivid now? You can really feel the difference in your body with all of that pent-up desire, you can feel the way that that brings you so much closer to breaking for me.” We also can always add impact to our suggestions by explaining what we’re doing: “I messed with your brain by making it go through something that didn’t even really happen, and you STILL are fucked up by it -- isn’t that just so good?”

Applications

The example we’ve used thus far is a fairly general one -- a fantasy scenario that has the potential for some interesting long-term things but can just as easily be a one-off scene. Despite the fact that (perhaps because) future pacing is such a simple concept, it is incredibly versatile and contains a lot of possibilities for interesting use.

• Realistic Future Pacing

Traditionally, future pacing describes a technique for situations that can or will probably happen to a person. It can be seen as a way to “rehearse for” an upcoming event, and it can reveal things that the subject feels about the event as well as how they think they need to “prepare” for it. For example, you could have your partner imagine themselves in the future as being even more obedient towards you, and explore together what they feel are the steps leading up to that future. Perhaps they have a general sense of how that excites them, or perhaps they are able to more clearly understand how that is achievable and real.

One of the qualities of this kind of future pacing that relies more on reality is the idea that eventually, the person will go through that scenario in their life with the memory of the future pacing experience. This is of course remarkably great for anything involving brainwashing or long-term play, as it is concrete proof of your influence over their experience. For example, even a very simple future pace of, “Are you thinking about what it will be like when you find yourself automatically responding to a trigger for the first time?” can add an intense layer to that response when it happens.

• Making Triggers Stick

This is also a great way to make triggers/anchors that have good sticking power. Triggers and anchors are essentially associated responses, and they can be made stronger by creating stronger associations. When you are creating a trigger, having your partner go through the feeling of what it will be like to respond to it (perhaps in different ways or situations) broadens the association and makes a rich sense memory. For example, if you were making an anchor for someone to feel pleasure from hearing your voice: “My voice fits so well in your head and it just feels impossibly good as it vibrates there, and you can feel how good that is right now, and you can also imagine hearing my voice later, tomorrow, far off in the future and how strongly that will hit you -- think about that really strongly right now, really focus on it -- even as the response changes over time it still is deep inside of you…” Notice that we make allowances for the anchor to shift in how it feels, as that naturally happens and is still a part of a good response. We can also think about this technique for more complex anchors like persona play of different kinds, like dollification, robot play, bimbofication, pet play and the like.

• Sadistic Pacing

Something else you can consider is in what direction you’d like to take someone. Usually we discuss future pacing in the context of creating strong, enjoyable experiences, but we can always be more sadistic than this if we would like. “What if” is a great set-up for a (playful) threat: “What if I made you babble like a dummy in public? Can you imagine the humiliation?” Doing this for the purpose of fear or discomfort highlights an interesting aspect of future pacing: How reasonable or realistic the scenario is can affect the kind of experience that your partner has from it. If you are future pacing something that is unlikely to happen, or something purely within the realm of fantasy, it can help for your partner to be in a headspace where their sense of disbelief is suspended, like in certain spaces of trance or dissociation.

• Presuppositions

Presuppositions could be thought of as an integral part of future pacing -- to engage with a consideration of the future, various things about that future must be presumed. We might also say that the opposite is true: Time-based presuppositions generally contain some element of future pacing. For example, you might say something like, “Isn’t it such a hot idea that when we go out to dinner, you’ll still be helpless to me when I trigger you?” That helplessness, as well as public play, is presupposed, and additionally your partner has to go through the process of imagining this happening.

Notice that there’s a bit of verbiage which helps here -- the use of the word “when” instead of “if.” “When” carries an implication that something is definitely going to happen, but as always, it’s more important how you say and frame a statement like this rather than specific words. An “if” statement can also be very easily taken to be a given fact, if presented within a convincing context and tone.

Remember that on some level, presuppositions are a sort of Trojan horse. They direct the listener’s attention in a certain way while somewhat obscuring information contained therein. The above presupposition/future pace also implies that your partner is currently helplessly responsive to your triggers, and the nature of future pacing serves to reinforce that feeling. Your partner imagines the future in which this is true, then maps that onto their current experience.

The presupposed information can be “proved” or made more concrete by exploring or engaging with the scenario, much in the same way that we aim to anchor the feelings made by future pacing. It is the same concept -- if you continue the conversation about how they will respond to you while out on a date, the entire discussion is predicated on the idea that this is going to happen, and thus serves to be something that they can believe in.

“Past Pacing”

A concept that we can extrapolate from NLP’s future pacing is the idea of doing the same thing in a different direction. Instead of having someone imagine forward in time, we can pace them backwards. This offers a lot of interesting opportunities to us.

• “What If”

One way that we could use this is by treating it similarly to future pacing, where we provide a scenario for our partner to imagine. For example, we could say something like, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if you already had been deeply hypnotized for the last hour?” A statement like this causes the subject to parse and process that scenario and think about how that would feel. They essentially “travel” back to the past to do the imagining and then arrive at the current moment having adjusted their experience.

This kind of pace can go in a number of different directions. It can have the effect of leaving the person with the feeling or echoes of the feeling of if the scenario had happened, and/or it can create motivation or desire for what they imagined. (If it was a sadistic scenario, it may create aversion or fear, as well.) Perhaps some of us remember this sort of thing being said by our parents to try to get us to do our chores: “You’d have so much time to relax if you’d already done the dishes!”

Essentially, this can sometimes be seen as a sort of sneaky way to future pace. By imagining a hypothetical past scenario, the subject often follows that train of thought forward. “Imagine if I’d brainwashed you years ago” naturally leads a person into wondering what they would be like in the future after years of brainwashing. You can easily combine past and future pacing together to get some interesting responses: “What if you had spent the last year only masturbating about my power over you? Can you imagine how eager you’d be to think about that the next time you got off?”

• Contrasting/Memory Play

Another option we have is directing someone towards the past in order to create some sense of juxtaposition. Naturally, people change over time, and pointing out that change while essentially making them relive it can be very powerful. For example, you could say to your partner, “Do you remember when you weren’t feeling so sure about whether you’d like hypnosis? Look at you now -- so needy for it, right?” They have to make a quick comparison by attempting to recall how they felt before -- putting them in the past and essentially dissociating them from the present for a brief moment. This is of course fabulous for any long-term brainwashing or conditioning in your relationship.

You can spend some time emphasizing those past feelings, as your partner will naturally be going back and forth from past to present. Taking them through a specific memory can serve to make them feel either more connected to their “past self” or more alienated from it, depending on how you frame the process and how they are currently feeling. For example, you could add bits into your patter like, “Doesn’t that feel so far away?” Or you could use a more ambiguous, open question: “How far away does that feel to you, now?” The qualifier that you use (such as “far away” or “close”) can have an impact on leading them in one direction or another.

It’s worth understanding that human memory is quite unreliable, and this means that playing with someone’s memories is very easy, especially in a situation where the person is in some sort of trance space. When you ask someone to remember back to how they felt a year ago, those feelings will necessarily have been influenced by their current and past experiences. In many cases, it’s difficult to fully recall, or recall accurately (part of why “resetting” someone to clear triggers/influence etc is not helpful). You can certainly help this along by pointing out that there are details that are fuzzy to them -- this is somewhat of a given.

Obscuring a singular memory can have the effect of getting a person used to the feeling of “not remembering” well, so this is an opportunity to introduce more amnesia or confusion into the situation. You can very directly anchor that sensation of trying to recall something but not being able to into other parts of suggestions that you are making. You can also consider that this allows you to change their memory of the past, whether parts or the whole (and as with any memory play of this type, carries certain risk and need for delicacy and safety awareness). Changing the way that someone views their past self or memories can have a big impact on their experience of the present.

Article Summary:

• Future pacing is essentially anything that causes the listener to “move forward” and imagine some hypothetical future
• This can serve to be “rehearsal” for a future event or otherwise make strong anchored feelings about something that might happen, thus changing the way that someone feels in the current moment
• Directing someone to imagine the future is the only necessary ingredient in this kind of pacing, but you can also make the whole process more concrete by emphasizing the “here and now” before and after
• It can be very useful to use in order to “take credit” for real changes, make triggers stick more effectively, cause and play with fear, and emphasize presuppositions in your trances
• If “future pacing” exists, then we can also think about “past pacing”, where we direct someone towards their memories
• Past pacing is basically sneaky future pacing, as it often creates implications for how the future will go
• It can also be very good for types of memory-based play