281 Hypnotic Writing

I want you to read this very carefully. But as you see the words, mentally address each syllable and phoneme; run a Braille finger along them for your, otherwise blind, mind's eye.

My intention here is to write something that will not put you to sleep unintentionally, which is what much of my writing does, and not by my design, but to hypnotize you purposely and purposefully. That is, alternatively, my very design here:

Is it possible to hypnotize someone just via the diction chosen? How the words are arranged, the syllables, the alliteration, the assonance, the explosives and frickatives?

Read with me, then...Here and now...Take a deep breath...

You're relaxed. I now have your attention. All other words, sentences, and paragraphs recede away into the obsolete history of novels forgotten, stories forever unfinished, and poems' poetic licenses summarily revoked.

Words are important.

To use them as weapons, to formulate an elixir of them, they must be chosen carefully. In Jonestownian sarcasm, you can drink such an elixir. For their truly hypnotic affect, their morphenes have been cherrypicked for sonorous rhythm that will align with your own biorhythms; partner with them; and abduct them.

Now your eyes are closed, but you hear the voice of the cadence, ebbing and flowing within your consciousness; your reticulata activates, with or without you.

May these words be magic, a spell, a hypnotic induction of an author's suggestion. You obey. You follow. You are listening beyond tympany and bone conduction. You are imbued.

Those words, these words...

Hypnotic Induction:

Syncopating somnolence, seductive syncope

Ambient aesthete arises, as aurora;

Surrender's susurrus seesaws, swoons suggestively,

Limpid, lulling labyrinths, lending luscious lassitude;

Pervasive petrichor purloins pristine proclivities

Entr'actes ebullient euphonia

Asthenia accrues, as anomalous anonymity

Hypnotic Suggestion:

Cyclopic kaleidoscope: mind's eye cyclonic, Charybdis,

Sees shadowy silhouettes survive, sidestepping psyche;

Perspective's pomegranate promises Persephone's place

In tandem, yearning, Yin—yet Yang,

Scintilla o'soul scintillates self, suggesting

Sensuous senses, swept-away, so senselessly sensible;

Awaken, reckless doppelgänger, actualize!

You awaken refreshed, en garde, as no one's fool. The words have led you astray but back again, and you exhume your dead dreams. You exult.

The necromancy is complete and something, long dead in you, lives yet again.

_________

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Monday, October 7, Day 281 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge

366 WORDS (without A/N)

ABOUT THE STORY

OK, admittedly, this is by far the WEIRDEST stuff I've ever written. I don't even know if it makes sense. (Maybe my COVID brain fog hasn't really lifted.)

Starting out as a joke, it ended with me wanting to accomplish three things here:

1. I started this tongue-in-cheek, like someone hypnotizing you. Poetry, of course! Had to be, with its cadence and rhythm—the keystone of the piece.

2. Also I wanted to make a statement on the importance of writing and, with it, the importance of the words we as writers labor to select and apply to our craft. Why, when choosing among words that mean the exact same things, some words just won't do? And some nail it? Music is unquely human, even God-like; but our diction is, as well. It's what gives writers the true joy of writing. Knowing "that came from me!" and "that came out of me!" What we write one day is the DNA of our mindset at that exact moment. An exact genome of thinking.

3. I also wanted to make a statement about how in the rote of things we get through our days on muscle memory, our true selves distanced in the shadows, mere silhouettes going through the motions. I wanted to say, "Wake up! It's life, stupid! Pay attention!" What better day to do this than on a Monday, as we lumber awake and commute to our quotidian drudgeries. How many days till Friday. And who's making coffee?

____________

85 DAYS TO GO! THIS CHALLENGE LULLS US ON, 366 Z's A DAY AT A TIME.

There are currently three Vocal writers in this hypnogogic, hypnolytic, somnambulating 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. Schäfer (Hypnotizing)

• Rachel Deeming (Mesmerizing)

• Gerard DiLeo (Homogenizing, organic, and with no GMOs)