Once Doctor Ishani Gupta put the headset onto Doctor Misra's head and turned it on, she told her colleague everything.
"I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you, Priyanka. This experiment isn't about machine learning--oh, perhaps in the broadest sense of the term, but definitely not in the way I implied when I persuaded you to put on the full-spectrum sensory immerser. As you're probably discovering right now, it's really more of an experiment in hypnosis through virtual reality. I know, you scoffed at hypnosis as a learning tool, but that's really one of the reasons I'm doing this. My work is taking on a different direction, and I don't feel like I need a colleague anymore. Just a slave.
"A mindless, obedient sex slave, just to make that perfectly clear. Not that you'll remember any of this.
"I suppose that probably shocks you just a bit... but fortunately, not enough to break into the state of fascination that the machine is already beginning to induce. I tested it on quite a few people... none of them remember, of course, but I found that with the full field of vision occupied by the hypnotic focus, it only took a very few seconds before attaining at least a light trance. And none of them were able to snap out of it on their own. I suppose I could have just kept one of them, but... well, to be honest, I've always wanted you, Priyanka. I've wanted to own you, mind and body, for so long... and I must admit, it's everything I wished for, seeing you like this. I hope you don't mind me going on a bit--I've just wanted to tell you for ages about what I was working on, and now I finally have the chance.
"By now, I suspect, you're experiencing a phenomenon known as hypnotic paralysis--you can hear my words, and even make sense of them, but reaching up and pulling the headset off probably seems too much like work when the spiral that you see wherever you look is so compelling. That's normal, Priyanka. In a few minutes, you're probably going to reach a depth of trance where remembering anything beyond your immediate experience is simply too difficult, which is the approximate baseline state that I'll need you to be in for the rest of the experiment. It's why I feel so comfortable talking to you about what's to come--your brain simply isn't up for retaining that knowledge right now. It won't help you. Nothing will.
"Since I'm telling you all this, I may as well let you in on everything you're going to experience. Once you've reached a deep hypnotic state--the device is tracking your eye movements, heart rate, breathing rate, a few other simple variables, it'll know when you're deep enough--you'll begin to hear a voice through the headphones. You won't recognize that anything's changed, because it will still be my voice--I'd program you personally, but I'm afraid I simply don't have the energy to keep talking to you through the entirety of the process. I'll need to sleep at some point... well, so will you, but the machine won't let you reach REM state. A certain amount of sleep deprivation is essential to the plan. Keeps your brain's critical thinking faculties suppressed.
"In any event, once you're sufficiently suggestible, the audio files will begin to unpick the elements of your memory and personality. You won't notice anything at first; you're going to be in a very deep agentic state by then, accepting my instructions without evaluating them in the slightest, and it's going to begin with things that you've been socially programmed to accept rather than integral parts of your identity. Just as you never bothered thinking about why you needed to wear clothes in a climate-controlled environment, it's seem perfectly natural to find yourself forgetting about societal norms like sexual inhibitions. I'm glad you wore loose clothing today, by the way. It's going to make it much easier to strip naked when the machine tells you to.
"I didn't choose to do that simply for prurient reasons... although I'm definitely looking forward to finally getting a good look at those tits of yours. I haven't wanted to say anything, but... *damn*, you know? Um. Anyway. Yes, a lot of the conditioning you'll be experiencing is through sexual pleasure--the machine will instruct you to masturbate through most of your brainwashing sessions, both to bring up the levels of oxytocin and dopamine in your system to therapeutic levels and as a simple operant conditioner to associate following instructions with arousal and euphoria. In short, it's much easier to brainwash you if you're constantly horny and happy, and that's easier if you forget about things like modesty.
"Once the machine has you masturbating regularly, the depersonalization process will begin. You'll be conditioned through deep hypnosis and constant pleasure to disassociate from your identity as a human being, and encouraged to see yourself as a passenger in your own body. The sense of self is more fragile than we think anyway; you might think of yourself as having an intrinsic 'you', a Priyanka that constantly thinks and narrates events from the perspective of your personality, but in some ways that makes all of this easier. If 'Priyanka' is simply watching your body follow my instructions, then it only follows that you're not really there, right? Just an outsider, an observer of my passive and obedient slave.
