Doesn't work for everyone
I guess this is mostly a vent, but also because Ive seen a lot of posts where others have struggled to get trance to work for them. The overthinkers, those who just can't let go completely. Maybe I'll help someone accept their own limits, maybe someone with the same experience as me will have some sage advice, maybe nobody cares and this is just moaning into the void.
I've listened to Shibby and a few others on and off for years. I keep getting drawn in, trying everything, getting frustrated, and stopping again. The usual complaint in people like me is "can't hfo", but I think it's more fundamentally about letting go, releasing the tension that never seems to go away, the thoughts that seems to churn perpetually. I think the thing that draws me in is exactly what stops me from experiencing it fully. I can never truly relax, let go completely, be suggestible, get fully immersed in an experience.
Even in non sexual meditation I feel it, this frustrating restlessness that never goes away. I'm not saying these files do nothing. They've had effects which seemed to come over me rather than be effortful, but those always trigger heightened awareness, take me out of relaxation the second I notice them. I want so so badly to be fully immersed, and I've come to accept that I never will be. I can go into some kind of altered state, but a part of me is always vigilant. I've never needed an awakener/countup out of trance. Sometimes I feel myself starting to slip into a non vigilant, suggestible state but it's like feeling myself tip back in a chair. It always triggers alarm and I jolt back to awareness. It all eventually becomes too frustrating, me obsessively and determinedly trying to reach for something that always stays just out of reach.
I don't know, rant over I guess. One thing I'll say is that in my many attempts to reach this state I've listened to a lot of hypnotists, and Shibby is a true artist. Those who have been around for a while will probably remember ye olde Jackpot file by Isabella Valentine. I've encountered many since her, and Shibby is by far the best of them (or at least incredibly good and most suited to what I like). I truly envy those of you who can appreciate her work fully.