Hypnosonics: How to radically manipulate your mind

We are constantly being manipulated. Though many of us believe that we are above being brainwashed, the television we watch, the news we read, and the rhetoric repetitively espoused by politicians all play a role in manipulating us into believing in and upholding social inequalities.

We’ve seen this more and more recently with mainstream media’s reporting on the ongoing situation in Israel and Palestine. Publications like The Guardian have described Israeli hostages as “women and children”, while Palestinian hostages, who are all also children and young adults, are described as being “18 and younger”. The adultification of Palestinian children is used to dehumanise them, legitimise their illegal incarceration, and manipulate the public into believing this, too. This treatment of Palestinian children shares parallels with the adultification of Black children killed by the police in the United States. This is, once again, used to justify their murders and make us sympathise with them less.

Manipulation occurs in the same sinister manner within the films and television we consume. As lighting, make-up and camera calibration pander to white skin, whiteness remains the epitome of beauty, desirability and power. Take Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, for example. Felix (Jacob Elordi) is depicted as a God, with montage upon montage devoted to showing him and his body immersed in light. While this is purposely done to showcase Oliver’s (Barry Keoghan) obsession with Felix, this is also the way whiteness has historically been represented on screen. This repetitive representation is not only harmful to people of colour, impacting our perception of self, but it also impacts how others treat us. While white people – in Western media – are represented as Gods, we are less than, less desirable, less important, less easy to empathise with, and in turn, less human. The repetition of this leads us to believe that this is fact when it is nothing but fiction.

This is what Jessica Boston’s work is all about deconstructing. Boston, a multi-award-winning cognisomatic hypnotherapist and trauma-informed coach, makes hyposonic albums to challenge how our minds have been negatively influenced by society. Hypnosonics are a powerful combination of hypnotherapy, meditation and music designed to tap into typical negative thought patterns that keep us stuck through the subconscious mind. “I’m passionate about utilising what manipulates us to remind us that we can set ourselves up with greater information inside our subconscious that will be helpful to us when we need it most,” Boston told me in one of our many Zoom therapy sessions.

When I first learned about Boston’s work, I was desperate to learn more. This year, I experienced death and loss in a way that I’ve never experienced before. I felt crazy and scared all the time, like this bubble I was once living in had popped. It felt like I had entered the real world for the first time, and I hated it. Death made me distrustful of the world, and it’s been that way since I was a teenager. From the murders of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Elijah McClain at the hands of the police in the US to the COVID-19 pandemic, where Black and Brown people were dying at disproportionate rates, I have always felt like death has permanently been attached to my skin, and to the skin of those who look just like me. When Boston asked me what I wanted to work on, I said I wanted to learn how to trust the world again. I know that pain and suffering will always be a part of my life, but I wanted to learn how to fear it less and not let it control me. I wanted to learn how to regain power in a world that makes me feel powerless.

“So little in this world is trustable,” Boston tells me. “We don’t trust social media because we know people are photoshopping their pictures. We don’t trust our politicians because they’re massive shits. Sometimes, we don’t trust our friends or partners, and because we’ve experienced many adverse things, how we measure trust becomes narrow. We become less open to people, more binary, and this serves a culture that wants to exploit us.”

This is where Boston’s latest hyposonic album, Under A Loving Sun, comes into play. Created over two years, Under A Loving Sun is about learning to trust oneself and others. “I think the sun is an incredibly powerful metaphor,” Boston explains. “It is a symbol of return. We have a powerful entity in the sky that we know at a very subconscious level is light and returns every day. When the sun sets, we know that it will rise again. Even though we get less sunlight this time of year, we know it’s there. It’s not abandoned us. So when everything is so fleeting, and we’ve lost trust in so many things, your ability to know, well, if the sun can return, other things can and will return. This is what Under A Loving Sun is all about.”

I was tasked with listening to Under A Loving Sun twice a day, every day for two weeks. Boston also made me my own personal track that dealt with my trust issues. The album’s first song, “Abundance”, resonated with me best. While violence continues to be waged against colonised people all over the world, “Abundance” reminded me not to lose hope. “I will not be silent, I will not be small, I will not harden my heart when I’ve given my all.” The fruits of our labour can feel pointless when faced with government suppression and mass censorship, but “life will cleanse us like water; it won’t allow us to drown”.

Hypnosonics uses verbal repetition to combat the negative thinking we’ve become accustomed to telling ourselves and believing. At times, while listening to Under A Loving Sun or the personal playlist Boston made for me, I’d find myself drifting off and not paying attention to what was being said. But throughout the day, I could remember little parts of Boston’s affirmations. “I am a walking celebration.” While affirmations can come across as corny or cringe, it was a powerful example of how my subconscious absorbed Boston’s words, even when I wasn’t fully paying attention. This is how hypnosonics work. Through repetition, my subconscious mind was being altered away from negative thinking about myself and the world.

Under A Loving Sun is an album that is committed to life. It is committed to reminding us that no matter what we go through, there is hope and life, even amidst death. The album teaches its listeners to be more open and receptive to the positive aspects of their life. To hold them dearly and recognise them in their entirety. Pain and suffering are everywhere, but so is joy and wonder. It’s there under all of life’s injustices. While manipulation is everywhere, Boston taught me that it can be challenged. This is lifelong work, but it is work that must be done while we live in a world that thrives on our collective oppression.

Under A Loving Sunis out now, and you can find it here