"Yessss, man-cub. Please go to sleep. Please go to sleep. Ssssleep, little man-cub. Rest in peaccce. Sleep. Ssssleep."
—Kaa (to Mowgli as he hypnotizes him), The Jungle Book (1967)
Hypnosis is a handy technique to use, but it requires a peaceful mind to do so. As such, one of two things might happen when you are being hypnotized. You can either enter into a catatonic yet submissive state or...
You start blissfully snoring away in a hypnosis-induced nap.
In most fiction, hypnosis makes you fall fast asleep. You look at a Hypno Pendulum or into someone's Hypnotic Eyes. After a bit, your eyes begin to close as you try to stay awake. A moment of sleepy concentration and...
SNAP!
You're in Dreamland. Phrases like "You are getting very sleepy" or "Your eyelids are getting heavy" will usually be used during the process to make the thought of sleep more enticing.
In a hypnotic trance, both the body and the mind are at their most vulnerable, as it leaves you open for kidnapping or taking any suggestions the hypnotist might have for you while you are sleeping.
This trope can be compared to, or confused with, Forced Sleep. This is a slumber that is induced by non-hypnotic means such as magical enchantments. Can overlap with Bedtime Brainwashing if the victim is already asleep when being hypnotized. Can lead to Lulled Themselves to Sleep by way of Bungled Hypnotism and/or Hypnotism Reversal if the hypnotist is not careful.
In Real Life however, you are not really sleeping. It's a very common misconception that hypnosis causes sleepiness. You are actually in a state of intense focus that makes you feel like you're sleeping. So, instead of having you fall asleep, your hypnotist may ask you to focus on something like the aforementioned swinging pendulum, a flashing light, or even a pleasant image in your head to help relax your mind as part of the hypnotic process.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Dragon Ball:
- In the Tournament Arc, Master Roshi, in disguise as Jackie Chun, uses a hypnosis technique called the "Sleepy Boy Technique" to make Goku fall asleep during the match and thus get an easy victory. Despite the announcer's objections to it, Roshi doesn't care and threatens to use the technique on him if he doesn't count to ten. Fortunately for Goku, Bulma is able to wake him up by telling him dinner is ready.
- Dragon Ball Super: Master Roshi would once again use the Sleepy Boy Technique during the Tournament of Power in an attempt to put the transformed Ganos to sleep, though the latter is able to prevent it by shocking
- One Piece: Jango the Hypnotist is able to put his targets to sleep by swinging a Hypno Pendulum in front of them and counting "One, Two, Jango!" Early on, he also has a habit of putting himself to sleep by watching his ring; he eventually learns to block it by covering his eyes with his hat at the last second.
- Pokémon the Series:
- In "Hypno's Naptime", a group of people called the Pokémon Lovers Club, who suffer insomnia, use a Hypno's hypnotic abilities to help them sleep. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to them, the hypnosis reaches beyond the building the club is in and causes all Pokémon in a nearby Pokémon Center to fall asleep too. Another unexpected side effect is that it causes children to start thinking they are Pokémon.
- In "Snack Attack", James tries to hypnotize a troubling Snorlax into falling asleep. He ends up putting himself to sleep.
- Transformers: Robots in Disguise: Slapper attempts to brainwash Tow-Line using a dangling pendant… only to make himself fall asleep in the process. Gas Skunk then suggests using a metronome… and the same thing nearly happens to poor Slapper again.
- Wedding Peach: In the anime, the demon Pajama hypnotized Momoko into a deep sleep, which can be broken by True Love's Kiss.
Asian Animation
- Vary Peri: Episode 35 sees Orange Tia learn how to put people to sleep using hypnosis.
Comic Books
- Spider-Man and the X-Men: In the first issue, the supervillain, Sauron, uses his Hypnotic Eyes on Spider-Man and forces him to sleep.
Fan Works
- "Triggering Her Memories
" features OC Heather having been captured and hypnotised by Kaa (The Jungle Book (1967)). She reflects while temporarily out of Kaa's control that she has enjoyed using self-hypnosis videos to put herself to sleep, and Kaa is revealed to have planted a Trigger Phrase in Heather's mind so that she hypnotises herself using a version of Kaa's song.
Films — Animation
- The Jungle Book (1967): Kaa used his Hypnotic Eyes to make Mowgli fall asleep twice.
- Quest for Camelot: Kayley puts a giant to sleep by using herself as a pendulum. She nearly falls asleep herself.
Films — Live-Action
- Dracula: Dead and Loving It: Parodied for laughs early on, when Dracula visits Renfield late in the night to hypnotize him into his new servant, but the hypnotic lull keeps causing Renfield to doze off faster than Dracula can input his set of instructions until Dracula loses his patience.
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: In an early scene, E.T. lulls Elliott to sleep by swaying his own body back and forth, causing Elliott to sway with him and fall into a trance.
- Ådalen 31 has a subplot in which the protagonist's friend Nisse keeps trying to hypnotize his girlfriend to sleep so he can strip her naked. He does manage to make her sleep twice, and the second time even successfully gets her naked without her waking up... though it's a little ambiguous whether she's actually asleep or if she's just playing along as a fantasy fulfillment.
Literature
- Captain Underpants: In the first book, George and Harold hypnotize Mr. Krupp to sleep via 3D Hypno Ring before turning him into the titular character.
- In Double Star, Lorenzo Smythe falls asleep when Dr. Capek hypnotizes him — under the guise of just helping him relax, as Lorenzo didn't think hypnosis would work on him (since it never had before).
- In Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger, this is subverted with the description of Paul being hypnotized; the narrator explicitly says that he wasn't asleep, but rather felt as if he were "living in a dream".
Live-Action TV
- Austin & Ally: In one episode, Dez tries to use hypnotism to cure Ally of her stage fright. He proceeded to hypnotize himself to sleep.
- The Big Comfy Couch: In "Forty Winks", Loonette's final attempt to get Molly to take her nap is to hypnotize her. She puts herself to sleep instead.
- The Greatest American Hero: In one episode, Bill gets accidentally hypnotized watching a hypnotist show (without even getting on stage or the hypnotist focusing on him) and for the rest of the episode, would instantly fall asleep or wake up when hearing a Trigger Phrase.
- In the B-Plot of "The Suite Life on Deck" episode "Shipnotized" a hypnotist performing on the ship put his volunteers and unknowingly London Tipton to sleep before having them switch personalities of the person sitting next to them. In London's case, it was her farm girl roommate, Bailey. This happens again so he can fix the problem at the end of the episode.
- Thumb Wrestling Federation: Part of Evil Ira's signature move, The Evil Eye. He makes his opponents drowsy before he drops something heavy on them. He makes Danny Caboom completely fall asleep by getting him to nap on his own explosives which almost succeeded if it weren't for Pinky.
Puppet Shows
- The Muppet Show: While Wally Boag was guest starring, Dr. Salamander puts Pops, who just happened to be napping in the audience, to sleep before he makes him levitate
Video Games
- Dislyte: Stewart (the esper for the Greek god of wine, Dionysius) carries a humongous Hypno Pendulum into battle, which he uses to put his enemies to sleep.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap: In the "Simon's Simulations" game, Link is hypnotized into falling asleep and battling monsters in his dreams.
- Mum Hid My Game: One of the puzzles requires the player to swing a pocket watch in front of their grandpa's face to put him to sleep.
- Pokémon:
- The Psychic-type move named Hypnosis puts your opponents' Pokémon to sleep for a couple of turns.
- Drowzee and its evolved form Hypno put its victims to sleep with hypnosis, using the above-mentioned Hypnosis move (which they naturally learn while leveling up), so they can eat their dreams.
- Tomodachi Life: The Hypnotizer item lets you hypnotize a Mii to sleep in order to view a certain type of dream. You either have to sway it in front of them until they get drowsy and fall asleep, or swing it madly until they get knocked out by the dizziness.
- WarioWare: Get It Together!: The goal of the "Sleep Clinic" microgame is to hypnotize Wario into falling asleep.
Western Animation
- The Amazing World of Gumball:
- In "The Treasure", Darwin put Gumball to sleep through hypnosis before he asked him to search his memory to the last time he saw a key they found in the attic while searching for the titular treasure.
- In "The Potato" Gumball gives Darwin a hypnotism audio tape to help him curb his potato cravings. Darwin was just about to fall asleep until the hypnotist put himself to sleep
- Arthur:
- In "Arthur's New Year's Eve", D.W. attempts to invert this by hypnotizing herself into not falling asleep. Naturally, she falls asleep anyway.
- In "Arthur's Underwear", Buster hypnotizes Arthur into not being afraid of losing his pants. Arthur falls asleep and dreams that his pants are trying to eat him.
- In "Buenas Noches, Vicita", Buster tries to hypnotize Vicita to get her to fall asleep; when she says she's not feeling sleepy, Buster says that now he is, and asks to lie down; he is seen snoring only seconds later.
- Back at the Barnyard: In "Hypno-a-Go-Go," one of the things Otis does while on a hypnosis spree is to put Pip to sleep after the mouse believed he was safe from Otis.
- Ben 10: In "Midnight Madness," the supervillain Sublimino would put his victims to sleep with his souped-up watch and have them do his dirty work for him.
- Captain Flamingo: In order to cure Max of his fear of the tooth fairy in "Nothing But the Tooth", Milo creates a security system for him. Using a Frankenstein's eye jawbreaker, Milo puts Max to sleep through hypnosis when he becomes too jittery to sleep.
- Elena of Avalor: As one of his attempts to get Elena to fall asleep in "Dreamcatcher", Zuzo swings a watch in an attempt to hypnotize her. It didn't work, but Zuzo did manage to put himself to sleep.
- The Fairly OddParents!: In "Crocker Shocker", Dr. Fancyfree hypnotizes Mr. Crocker with a pocket watch so he doesn't believe in fairies. He falls asleep at the start.
- The Flintstones: This is shown three times in "The Hypnotist". The first is when the great Mesmo puts a caveman to sleep before he makes him think he is a bird. The second is downplayed but Fred tries to hypnotize Wilma to sleep before he makes her think she's a dog. In reality, she was pretending as a prank on Fred. The third is when Fred accidentally hypnotized Barney into thinking he's a dog while trying to hypnotize Wilma.
- The Garfield Show:
- This happened a few times, one of them being the episode "Jon's Night Out", where Jon (suffering from major insomnia) visits Dr. Somnambulo to help him. It worked even after Jon convinced himself that he was too intelligent to be hypnotized.
- Another instance is in "Farm Fresh Feline", where Dr. Whipple hypnotizes Garfield into becoming the best farmhand in the world, but not before he put him to sleep as it began.
- Holly Hobbie and Friends: In "Secret Adventures", Holly attempts to hypnotize Carrie into not being afraid of the dark; unfortunately, Amy is watching the Hypno Pendulum along with Carrie, and falls asleep instead, while it has no effect on Carrie.
- Johnny Bravo:
- In the episode "Bearly Enough Time," Johnny tries this to hypnotize a bear into sleeping but ends up following the swinging pendulum with his own eyes and falling asleep himself
- Another example is in "Freudian Dip," where Little Suzy tries to use hypnosis to find the root of Johnny's recurring nightmare. The kicker? Johnny falls into a hypnotic sleep before Suzy can do anything.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: In the short, "Starlight the Hypnotist", Starlight puts Twilight Sparkle to sleep using a star-shaped pendant on a chain while using hypnosis to cure her fear of ladybugs
- Ōban Star-Racers: The racer Ceres use his magical flute to put Eva to sleep and dream of the Mong homeworld. If it weren't for Rick using Eva's CD player to blare rock and roll to wake her up, they would have crashed.
- Rabbids Invasion: In "Rabbid Dreams", a pair of scientist, John and Gina, were studying the dreams of a couple of rabbids. One was dreaming of being a scientist. The scientist rabbid turned the table on the scientists and study their dreams. While John was put to sleep by a borning lecture. The rabbid put Gina to sleep by hypnotizing her with a pinwheel.
- The Rocketeer: In "Hypnotic Hughesville," the magician Orsino used a hypnotic cape to put his victims to sleep before making them think that they are their favorite animal. It has no effect on Kit as the Rocketeer, because while Kit's favorite animal is a dog like Butch, the Rocketeer doesn't have any, allowing her to Pretend to Be Brainwashed and trick Orsino into getting jailed.
- Rolie Polie Olie: In "Hypno-Eyes", Rollie and Billy got Hypno Glasses in the mail and hypnotised Percy and, unknowingly, Spot to sleep.
- In Scary Godmother, the vampire, Count Maxwell, does this to Harry the Werewolf after he begins to get on his nerves.
- Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: In "Nightmare in Red", Horatio Kharon puts the whole gang to sleep through hypnosis to figure out the mystery behind Scooby's reoccurring nightmares.
- SpongeBob SquarePants: Plankton does this in "Fear of a Krabby Patty". Disguised as a therapist, Plankton used hypnotherapy to put Spongebob in a deep sleep in the hopes that he would tell him the Krabby Patty formula when he woke him up. Unfortunately for him, it worked too well as Spongebob was sleep-deprived after making 10,000 Krabby Patties non-stop after Mr. Krabs had opened the Krusty Krab 24 hours a day (all of which was part of Plankton's plan). All it did was cure Spongebob of his Krabby Patty phobia.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
- Enforced in the episode "Deep Dive", when Star has Janna hypnotize her into a deep sleep so she and Marco can find out where her sleep-portaling leads her without waking up.
- Another example is shown in "Total Eclipsa the Moon" when Star's mother, Queen Moon Butterfly, is stuck in a hole and a spider takes the opportunity to use himself as a pendulum to make the Queen drowsy and rob her of her crown.
- W.I.T.C.H. (2004): In "The Key", Taranee hypnotizes a Lurden into falling asleep, by way of moving a fireball in front of its face.
Taranee: You are sleeeeeepy... Not to mention, uuuuuuuuugly...
- X-Men: The Animated Series: In Savage Land, Strange Heart, Part 1, Sauron used his Hypnotic Eyes to put Storm to sleep so he can take her to the Savage Lands without struggle.
