Saturday, September 14, 2019

Journal Entry- Pleasure of Pains 3

PLEASURE OF PAINS 3
Journal entry
ArkaShikha seemed to be caught up in a strange land. That is a weirdly mesmerizing place, a place where she was falling in a never—ending Abyss of Cholic pains. The tunnel seemed dark, extremely dark, where she was falling and falling and there was so ground to bang her ass upon. There were no visible twigs to which she could get a hold on and hang for a minute. All that she could perceive were two things. A light – a light at the end of the tunnel which seemed more like an illusion of a distant mirage. Something inside her kept on telling her- “ You’ll never reach that light. You’ll never “. The voice seemed to echo in her Soul, the same Soul which is now broken into a million little twisted pieces. She could just hear her heart-beat in that darkness. After sometime, strange creatures seemed to drag her, snatch her, suck her blood out. She was highly pained. A strange creature dressed in rotty smelthering clothes caught her, tied her hands at the back, gagged her, blindfolded her and tied her legs- this was all done in a matter of seconds, as quickly as she dropped her eyelids. This seemed to be a never-ending set of miserably painful actions while she was falling. Now she started to feel the pains and agony that these Demons were inflicting on her body. Previously she was in such a state where she could not feel anything on her body, neither pains nor pleasures. It was as if death descended into her young , lively body.If a needle pricked her skin, she could see the blood oozing out, but she could not feel anything. This time ,the gag suffocated her to death. However, the blindfold made her frightened . She was unable to see as to what kind of incubuses , succubuses or other demonic creatures were attacking her. However, it did not matter much. For her, breathing were her pains. Her own body became a burden to her. She felt trapped. Her soul was caged in her own body. She wanted to die but could not. It was a strange state for her. She never felt happiness. Happiness seemed like an abstract term which was unattainable to her. She always felt that “Happiness” and “ArkaShikha” are like the two sides of a river who runs parallel throughout their life but never meet, and someday both of them disappear in the vast ocean, the Ocean of Life. For her, she could not understand the place that she was in. Then she told herself – “Of course it’s Hell” . How else will she be tortured like that or where can she be tortured ? That feeling of finally being freed from her body gave her a strange satisfaction. She started smiling while arrows and bows were stuck deep down in her body. She felt better realizing the fact that she was finally free from the Stereotypical Hypocriticial Conventional System & Society, which is based on unsaid and unwritten laws of strange people, who are sadistic enough to just pain others. They have no idea what they are doing but speak shits. They lie and harm everyone. In the process, they end up being toxic to their own Soul.
After some brutal tortures, she was almost half dead, bleeding, the life was draining out of her. She could no longer resist the Demons. She had no energy left to resist such monsters. Suddenly she fell into something. It was water. She was bonded, gagged and blindfolded , bleeding to the point of death. What can get worse ? Or what can be better? What can be a better torture and punishment ? Yes, immersion in water. She felt the water suffocating her. She struggled hard to breathe, yet the ropes prevented her from doing so. A strange voice came to her . It was a female voice – “You want to die ? Is it ? Death is not easy. Well, you’ll die a million times like this. You’ll be close to death and yet could never achieve it. That’s Hell my dear. You don’t get what you want but you survive like a living Corpse . “
On the suffocation, she woke up. She realized it was a Dream. People usually feel good that the nightmare is over. However she exclaimed – “Shit !!! I’m still in my bed. I’m still in this Earth !!! “It almost felt so real. The water, the suffocation, the falls. She even could feel the ropes in her legs and hand. Her eyes were burning as if someone actually did put a tight blindfold on her eyes. Her mouth was dry and jaws paining. It felt so real.
The source of our dreams and indications of evil (so-called, as the system terms it) impulses which pass through our minds during the day as tempting thoughts , and we seem to add these immortal elements to the moral sense of thoughts, which we know , have been devout and Holy men(so-called) of all times lament that they are Evil Sinners. Of course, why do I mention only one gender? It has to be equality between the three of them – Men, WoMen(Woo-Man) & TransGenders alike.
Dreams are the continuation of the waking state. Our dreams always unite themselves with those ideas which have shortly before been in our consciousness. In the great majority of dreams, they lead us directly back to our everday pains, instead of releasing us from it. The content of dreams is more or less determined by the individual personality, by age, sex, station of life, education, habits and by the events and experiences of the whole past life. Last but not the least, dreams are a reflection of the psychosis of the subconscious and unconscious mind. They bring out the deepest pains, fantasies and sufferings engraved deep down in our unconscious mind.
The WoMan was troubled too. She wanted to end her life. She had enough of it. She was tired. Just as a computer system needs to be formatted after sometime as the systems and softwares gets outdated, she wanted a new body for her Soul. She wanted to start afresh, a new body, a new life, a new family, a new ecosystem. Old things, memories and people did sting her like an a million of arrows, as if she was a dartboard and anonymous , strange arrows were aimed at her. People with unrecognizable faces are striking her with millions of arrows. Some are getting in her body, making her suffer and bleed. She is yet walking in her Hell , walking wounded, walking to reach the Doors of Death.
Dreams allows us to glance into the deep and innermost recesses of our being, which are generally closed to us in our waking state. Dreams exist in order to lay bare for us our hidden dispositions and to reveal to us not what we are but what we might have been if we had a different EcoSystem to unleash the Pandora’s Box containing all of our hidden dreams. It is interesting to note that people initially term their Goals & Ambitions as Dreams. For ambitions are visualized in an astract mode, then the steps are taken to climb up the ladder to achieve it.
Such an achievement occurred when there was a sudden Whatsapp message - “I want to buy you WoMan. Can you shift to Mumbai ? I’ll ensure that you’ll be kept safe till you die. I’ll isolate you from the stereotypical hypocritical conventional system and society . I’ll make your dream come true . I know what all has happened to you. You deserve something better. All of your siblings will be taken care of . “ It astonished her. She replied “How do you know what has happened ? “ A reply came “I’m a diamond merchant, from the same glamour industry that you belong to. You have got pretty interesting stories. “ ArkaShikha- “Is it ? Now people are digging my life up. Its good. I take that as a compliment. So, tell me, when do i get to be in your dungeon ? “ He said – “You can be in my dungeon after a month. Everyday you’ll have to chat with me. You’ll have to answer all the things honestly. If you do so, I’ll take you in “. For a month, the chat continued. It was intriguing for her to note that the Man was interested in her psychosis and thought processes, about how she is feeling everyday or every moment she breathes. He is not at all interested in interrogating her and keeping records of each and every moments of her life. After two weeks of discussion, something seemed to heal her. By that time, she found many acquaintances who became her well wishers. Her mad insane creativity did fetch her far more and better fans, followers and well-wishers. And these well-wishers were something different. She felt not being used for the first time with such people. She had good friends even in her quitting attempt.
People approached her. Her media friends told her “Why are you hurting yourself in this way ? The pictures which you are exhibiting are really painful. We all know what all you faced. Deceive, treachery, back-stabs. But its ok. We can help you in getting revenge from those people. “ She used to laugh and say “It’s not only my condition. I’m not the only person who is Caged in this stereotypical hypocritical system . There are people suffering from worst stuffs than me. I represent all of those people, men,women, transgenders alike. I represent their pains and struggles. Its my quitting attempt. After infinite numbers of insane suicide attempts going in vain, I’m trying to sell myself. At the end of the day, modern day wars are fought inside a WoMan’s vagina. Get anything and everything on air. I don’t mind. If such perverse exhibition of mine ends me up in prison, i’ll acknowledge the people who handcuffed me. Atleast i’ll be in a real prison “. She used to say these to any media friends, journalists and reporters. Afterall she was a well-known viral fashion designer and a creative artist. She achieved some fame overnight. To her astonishment, no news got viral. Nothing came out. Infact Angels came. Angels came to rescue her. They dragged her out of her sufferings, pains and dark phases. Some supported her in her insanity, to do it in her creative ways, while others did the reverse, made her feel special in all ways possible. She was provided with all the resources. Infact the Demons of her pasts also provided her resources to carry on with her creative insanities.
After a few months, she got healed. Now she resumed all of her works, that too in a better way. The Angels supported her in all ways possible. The Angels & Demons equipped her with anything and everything that she needed. People witnessed vast changes. People told her – “You did go out of your mind. You went insane. Yet you did it creatively. You pulled out such marvellous shoots, wrote such chilling adventurous stories . Hats off . :” Now people started admiring her for her insane creativity. People are adoring her for the fact that no Dream can be imagined whose first motive has not already moved through the mind while awake as some wish, desire or impulse. Wishes and desires are totally celebral impulses which are the driving force for artists.
Her dreams came true after she did all of these. It often happens that matters appear in the dream content which one cannot recognise later in the waking state as belonging to ones knowledge, experiences and experiments. She experimented her life and BDSM became her fame, a source of recognition for all. People mostly praised her for the courage that she has got. Afterall exhibition of BDSM on a public social media is a matter of guts. She was fearless. She was broken into a million little twisted pieces. There is a huge advantage of being a broken Soul. Such tortured souls are not afraid of being broken further. How much can anyone break a broken person ? They are already broken. Some nice artpieces can be sculpted with such broken fragments , or these fragments will turn to dust, a gush of wind will come and blow it away. The name will be dissolved in thin air. No one will remember her. Thats all that she wanted. She wanted to get her name removed from everyone’s memory. To her, her existence was only a mistake. She was mistakenly born. The only way to fix that mistake was death. Focus on the word “WAS____Past Tense “. Her thought process worked that way. After a few month, She was cured. The Angels were both old and new associates, friends and colleagues. She got out of her depressed zone.
She relocated to Mumbai, the creative capital of India and the City Of Dreams. For her, all of her dreams got fulfilled. Jo khwaab dekhein the vo poore huyein, jo khwaab nehi dekhein, vo bhi poore huyein. Dreams are something which keeps the ray of hope. It can even make a dead a dead person rise from the dead.With this WoMan, something similar happened. She wanted to quit . In her journey of quitting, she found innumerable friends and angels who gave her a life which was much more than what she expected.
She was treated as a shitpiece, for kindness is often taken for granted. People take helpful and kind person for granted. But. But. But. There’s a magic involved in it. Theres some Magic in being “KIND & COURAGEOUS “. When a kind and a helpful person disappears from the lives of the people whom she helped, they realize their value. For example, the great grand ex-fiancee , responsible for such destructions stalked her to talk to her once. He did anything and everything to get her back. Till date he does that. Some stuffs are best valued when they are absent. Such a strange philosophy and psychology of the human mind. She had a Guruji too who was once a psychiatrist to her. He healed her up with his words. She was dependent on him with her life. But this time, something unusual happened. That’s Situation—Ship. In case of Situation-ship, people doesn’t know what to do, for they are stuck in their respective spider-webs of lives, the spiders being their own family. They can get out of it but they don’t want to. They grow way too comfortable on their private Hell and like to be tangled up in their own EcoSystem which gets reduced to an extinct niche. She left . She walked away from that niche. She liked the feet of her sound when she was walking away from such Cages. She was kind and courageous, but in all Evilish ways. There are equal amounts of good and bad permuted and combined in typical probabilities. It’s interesting to note that people still stay stuck. Destruction & Toxicity is something which she deletes in thin air. There is no space for toxic and destructive relationships in life. She explains the situation and communicates frankly – “Dude, this is not happening. Continuation of this is not suitable for me. I’ll walk out “ Its good to observe that people often have a pre-perception that this WoMan(Woo-Man) is helping such people because she has got weakness for them. They don’t realize that a broken can never have a weakness . She can be emotionally attached to people. She is no longer afraid to love people, for she knows that love will result in her heart-break, but her heart and soul was akready broken. So what can be broken more ? It was rather weird on getting a reply. She explained her situation and said that she’s leaving. She wont be able to visit her Guruji anymore. There were many menots, Guruji’s , teachers in her life, who cured her psychologically. But sadly, they fell for the traps of the EcoSystems. Let’s just sum them to industrial rivalries. My GuruMa of fashion once told me – “If people are pulling you down, that means you are climbing the right ladders. And enemies- they are compliments “ He replied something like--- “Wherever you go, you’ll find the same kind of stuffs . You’ll be betrayed and thrashed. There will be no differences“. It was rather a huge message but the summary meant this. He was and still is my Guruji. I still see his activities in the social medias and admire his Art. BUT> But. But. His reply broke something that day. I’m going to find the same things everywhere. The same kind of betrayals, back stabs and pains. Well does it matter ? It doesn’t . In my mind i thought that, if i find these destructions again, then it’ll be like addition of a few more drops of water to the vast ocean. I thought, atleast it’ll give me redemption. Such repeated sins will cleanse my Soul and Spirit from within. I can no longer visit him. Yes, the psychosis worked. “Some stuffs are best valued in their absence.” In my absence he valued me. Their associates valued me. I often get messages as to how i am, when to meet, how to meet, etc etc.
Its weird for me. Its very weird to find out that i no longer have a tendency to go back. I don’t feel like going back. All my Ex-boyfriends are stalking me. To get me, talk and visit me once. I take that as a compliment as I’m valued only in my absence. But the strings attached with these people from the Past are broken. They were wonderful people. I have such nice experiences to share, so many stories to write, so much of contents to create. But ignorance is also a reply indicating that I walked away and moved on. However, I feel sad that they still cling to their Past. I feel sad.
One fine evening, I decided to meet the diamond merchant who wanted to buy me. We have been in constant communication and now he feels like a friend. We have been friends. He said that i changed overnight. I sound so positive all the time. How is that possible ? I told him that my Angels got me back. I deleted toxicity and destructions in thin air. Now i’m focussed on just leading a life dedicated to Art. Thats it. I’m concentrated only on doing my Karma and leave Earth, die a natural death. I don’t want a death driven by such insane wishes. He smiled. We were sitting in a nice restauraunt and i did narratte some of my stories to him. He told me the same thimg- “I went creatively insane. Its good to see you back to senses. Sometimes insanities needs to be supported so that people face them and come out of it . “ I said- “So , you supported me for this reason ? “ He said – “Of course. You are talented, kind and courageous. Who’s courageous enough to give a damn about the people, society and everything to exhibit their creative aspects and accept their inner self to the World ? I never saw a WoMan like you . “
Later that evening, something troubled the man, the diamond merchant. This time, She rescued him from his mental agonies. As I write, I’m still smiling over the fact that Life is so unpredictable. Even if we are in Hell, we just need to walk. We never know when we’ll cross our Hell and enter our Heaven, our World Of Dreams. In my case, I excavated Hell like Heaven and took leap of faiths in my Heavens like HELL !!!

Journal entry-Pleasure Of Pains 2

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Journal Entry - Pleasure Of Pains 1

The Pleasure of Pains Journal Entry 1
A jolly girl gets raped at the age of 12. The rape seemed more of shadowed rituals and tortures. She doesn’t remember it much. She’s just left with few glimpses. All that she remembers vividly was that she was left bleeding amidst a vast riverside where she was hypnotised by evil and was taken. When she regained her senses she was at her home. Her parents convinced her that it was a dream. She just fell in the bushes near the riverside and got hurt. The family tried to cover the whole story up, the obvious reasons being the social issues. After that she built a wall around herself and didn’t have any friends. She never wanted an intruder to hurt her again. She wanted to be strong enough to fight all the evils. A guy saw the pain in her eyes and wanted to ease it
.So he offered a hand of friendship to her . She was too weak too, but was totally concentrating on Her Gurukul studies . She ignored or rather never observed the hands of friendship that the guy always offered her. The guy did the same for seven more years in the same Gurukul that both of them studied. He wanted to wipe her tears which she never shared with anyone. Gurukul was over. Everyone went home. At the age of 21, the girl meets the guy again and fell in love. All that she remembered about him was that they studied in Gurukul together. She thought she could trust this man for she saw him since childhood. The girl had an early breakup. She was used for “con- consentual” sex and her ex treated her like a sex toy. The final words of her ex were- "Anything can be done with a girlfriend”. And that was their last moment. She thought this man wouldn't do the same to her . She remembered some moments when the guy used to stare at her during the whole day in Gurukul. They spends some time together and the girl proposes him. The guy accepts and their relationship starts. They weds according to Gandharva Dharma and starts living together. Both of them loved each other. For the girl it was beautiful but it soon turns out to be something else for the guy. The guy waited for such a long time just to wipe her tears but when he gets her he can’t forget those sleepless nights of pains which he spent thinking of the ways to reduce her pain. Long waits did take no time to convert itself in a “ never-ending abyss of cholic pains”. The guy's heart broke when all the students left Gurukul and she did not even say a goodbye to him. He was pained with his failure of gaining her mere friendship. But an unfulfilled moment is a word for the future heavenly moment. The guy did move on. Got involved with many girls but no one could quench his desire, the desire of love which he wanted from his dream girl. Everytime he made love to her he remembered his pains of the past. Everytime she did something good he abused and insulted her. Soon it turned out to be painful for her as well. She finds out that he enjoys the pains that he inflicts on her. A part of his mind wanted a revenge from her, to make her go through the same pains that he went through, another part also protected and loved her dearly. One day she proposes him to do BDSM on her. She submits herself to the bondage of his love and requests to shed off his pains and frustrations by hurting and torturing her physically. He rejects but she makes him understand that physical pains are much better than mental ones. Physical injuries can get healed within days, months or years but mental pains remains forever, as long as we live. He agrees and starts torturing her by binding her up and injuring her physically to such an extent that it doesn’t cause a lifetime damage. He beats her then carresses her wounds with love making. He feels better by the fulfillment of both parts of his desire at the same time. In the beginning she tries to be happy with his happiness but a question strikes her as to what she had done that he's so furious at her? She was the reason for his heartbreak and she was ready to pay the price for it. She went on enduring the BDSM kind of sadistic obssessed love that they made every night. The guilt that was on her shoulders and she was the reason for her husband's mental breakdown . That was killing her and eating her up from inside. With every strikes of his wrath on her body she questioned herself as to what she had done to deserve this. The worst part was that she found no answers. She wanted to pay the price for her husband's heartbreak so she went on enduring whatever he did to her . She could not accept his combination of rage and love. So she made it her addiction. Without the pains and wounds on her body she could not breathe. She wants to find out the reason for this kind of strange love. So she joins the Kamasutra classes of Lord Vatsayana. It is a myth that Lord Shiva discovered the ways of loving his soulmate when he was left alone after Sati's death. Shiva used to spend every moment of his life thinking about how to show his love to his soulmate when she is reincarnated . The ways were propagated by his followers and Vatsayana gathered the ultimate wisdom of love making and union of souls through physical expressions. He studied couples making love , their responses , their relationships , their effects of love making in relationship. He also acted as a relationship counsellor not only to know about their ways of love expressions , their effects , problems caused and the relationship of love-making of souls to complete the cycle of births and attain moksha but he also acted to solve their problems. She hears of this man and goes to him for help. She wanted to have her void fulfilled, the void created by her desire of love. Her husband's wrath made her share her body with him but not her mind and soul. She was fulfilling him up but there was no one to fulfill her. She was so empty , broken and lonely from the inside. Vatsayana had an assistant who was a she-male. A she-male has the “Sadashiva” or “Ardhanarishvara” in him/her- the combination of Shiva and Shakti in its body. When she went to Vatsayana and narrated her life the assistant listened intently . Vatsayana could not give any solutions at that moment. So he prescribed her to join the classes that he gave everyday and spend some time in his ashram. She agreed and went on in the classes. She felt a lot better in there. She made friends whom she could laugh with. She attained the wisdom of love. She spoke about her feelings and life to Vatsayana and the transgender assistant . The “Great Lord of Love” told her to make friends in the Gurukul whom she can trust and share her feelings. He suggested to increase the number of friends whom she can open up to. She had been an introvert always and her life revolved around only her husband and the ambition to pay the price for her unintentional mistake made in the past. She considered it to be a sin infact. Breaking some one's heart who loves her so much is more than a sin. She wanted to dedicate her life to do a “prashrataap” for the “paap” she had done. The first
person she could trust was the assistant. She shared her feelings with that person. She seemed to narrate stories where women had to sacrifice for her man. She explained that women chose to give birth to a child. She chose the labour pain , the pain of creating a life in her body , the pain of menstrual cycles every month for keeping her man out of the pain. It has become the dharma of a woman to do this but the desire remains. The desire to be loved , the desire to be caressed , the desire to share herself with someone both mentally and physically and attain the heavenly feeling of meeting someone whom you can bare your soul to , with whom “forever” is just a beginning. She learns about the art and philosophy of making love to many people at the same time (called group sex or orgies), lesbianism( the form of love between two women), and gay-ism which is the vice-versa of lesbianism without hurting anyone's emotions. Vatsayana propagated the concept of “gender-fluidity” . She was discussing lesbianism with her newly made friend . She went so deep into the topic and was so insanely charmed by the beauty of such a form of “Ardhanariswara” that they got intimate. On the intimacy and physical love she gains huge happiness and pleasure. A person who has got both the female and the male part in his/her body can understand the relation of sex and soul-mating, for the two halves of that person is always in constant copulation with each other. Due to this their Kundalini is awakened which gives them the natural wisdom of love-making and souls. The dont need to find their soulmates and make love to attain moksha and be in heaven. They are God's own messengers to cleanse the society of the evil by providing humankind the knowledge that they need. They started making love and sharing their bodies. When she gains a person with whom she can share her everything and is loved back, she gains a strange confidence and develops a hope to live her own private life. She discusses it with Vatsayana and he says her that she needed this kind of a person to be for her. That was the only solution to her life. She starts enjoying the pains even given by her husband every night. Her soul was cleansed and her desires fulfilled with her new mate. Her husband starts noticing that she remained mentally calm n serene and seemed to be less affected by his pains. He gets agitated and starts her torturing mentally again along with the physical tortures. She withstands that too. She overcomes that and happily accepts all that is done to her. Her husband tells her that he'll have to travel for some reason . He goes out but follows his wife to Vatsayana's ashram. He sees her happily mingling with people and later make love to her mate. This site shatters him. He thinks that if she can do this he can do the same. He wanted to let her go through this pain as well. He tries to have sex with two girls but fails. Whenever he made a move, he got reminded of the moments that they spent. She spent her life accepting his rage and anger. He comes home and tells his wife about the physical intimacies he did perform. He had a wish to pain her and also prayed to God that the pain must not shatter her. She smiled and said- "If you are happy being with other women you can". This continued. He tried to be with other women but he failed each time. He saw his wife perfectly happy. One day he abused her and did beat her so much that she was reminded of her childhood rape. He tortured her vagina, cut her clitoris, damaged her uterus and was left bleeding. He left her like that. The next day when the assistant noticed her absence he/she ran to her home and found her totally in a miserable condition. She/he finds a letter in which the husband wrote that he’s leaving his wife and before doing so he punished her for her sins. He damaged her uterus and cut her clitoris so that she cant bear a baby and attain the blessing of being a complete woman. She/he takes her to the ashram and is kept is strict medication . She regains her senses after days and cries and breaks down completely after his husband's leaving and the thought of not being able to be a mother broke her into a million little twisted pieces. Since she was addicted to the pains, she cried and requested every night to be beaten up. Vatsayana himself could not see her pain neither could anyone in the ashram. Vatsayana made love to her sometimes. And her mate was always with her, to hear her scream, to hug her when she wanted pain, to wipe her tears when she cried. But she couldn't cure her up all by herself. Vatsayana made love to her in the way she wanted. He made light BDSm with her so as not to hurt her. Slowly the addiction faded.. Now she is normal , healthier but her heart is broken. Her husband was an integral part of her life and after her neverending attempt to give him happiness, he left her. She started talking now to some people. She becomes more interested in women now for she feels she'll have to go through it again if she shares herself with a man. She made love to her mate and two ther women in the ashram. When her pains exceeded she went to Vatsayana for making her remember her husband. Only Vatsayana knew the way to make her go through pains without causing any damage. No one had the wisdom to ease her pain. After 5 years of this, the husband returns to Vatsayana's ashram. Seeing him coming she embraces him n cries and says that she missed him. Seeing this gesture of her he understands that he was selfish enough to take revenges on her though she had no mistake in it. Anyone undergoing such a disastrous rape will suffer from such a breakdown. He apologised and accepts all parts of her. They live together sometimes inflicting pains, sometimes making love, sometimes sharing themselves and sometimes crying , crying for the distance and the never-recoverable damage he had done to her. Their ansh(sex cells) cant unite to create another beautiful being. Now she goes to the ashram , makes love with her mate, her two women friends and even some males. She comes back and can share them to her husband. He doesnt have a wrath any more. He accepts her with all her soulmates and realises that shes his only soulmate.

Can Bondage reduce anxiety ?

he B in BDSM is having a moment. Fifty Shades of Grey, the film version of which is opening on Valentine’s Day, has sparked a loud cultural discussion about kinky sex. FKA Twigs is into bondage, too, and HBO’s new show Togetherness has also dabbled. Given that more than half of all men and women admit to having some sort of domination-and-submission-related fantasy, it’s unsurprising that pop culture is starting to reflect — and spark increased interest in — what was once a rather taboo subject.
The transformative effects of bondage are well known within the BDSM community. “We call it ‘rope space,’” says Roxie, who leads the New York chapter of Hitchin Bitches, a rope bondage group for women. Also called “subspace” or being “rope drunk,” submissives describe entering an altered state of consciousness in which one feels totally released from stress and present in the moment.There’s this ripple through your body. It’s like a drug,” said Christy, 23, who was tied up at a recent fetish party at a bar near the base of the Williamsburg Bridge in Manhattan. A Lynchian red light bathed the scene as a tall person with a husky voice in a white gimp mask and full body latex French maid outfit stood watching a few feet away. Christy looked dazed and dreamy as her partner, Dan, a banker, wound rope first around her waist and then in a tight criss-cross pattern down her leg. They were practicing Kinbaku, or Shibari, a form of Japanese rope bondage popular in some BDSM circles in which subjects are intricately bound and manipulated into strenuous positions, sometimes while suspended in midair.
Once the rope was unwound, the spell seemed to lift quickly. There were indentations on Christy’s thigh, and while bound her skin had bulged around the rope’s edges — yet despite the physical stress involved, Christy’s bliss is a common experience during this type of activity. While subspace can supposedly occur during any type of bondage or submissive activity, practitioners say it’s most easily achieved through rope. “It’s very tactile, very sensual, more so than say handcuffs or other forms of bondage,” said “Ratie,” an international-relations expert at a large NGO and longtime BDSM practitioner, at another bondage event on a recent Friday evening (she didn’t want her real name used).
I do a lot of yoga and meditation,” she said. “I think rope can have the same effect. When you’re tied up it’s like you’re not responsible for anything else that happens and there’s a sense of freedom in that. It’s one of the few moments where I don’t have to worry about all of my responsibilities.”
It’s presence. It feels like an opportunity to completely let go and to be completely present at the same time,” said Gorgone, a 22-year-old Shibari model who was tied up that night. “There’s a certain release from anxiety you get from it. Some people do it by drinking. They are looking for something that is going to take them away from themselves,” she said. With bondage, though, she said the high is also clearer and perceptions can become sharper — closer to a state of mindfulness than inebriation.
Doms are supposed to experience a corresponding mental state called “topspace,” described as feelings of deep focus and concentration. Both doms and subs say that they feel closer and more emotionally attached to their partners after engaging in BDSM.
Although preliminary, there is growing scientific support for some of the BDSM community’s observations. In a study from 2013, researchers surveyed 902 BDSM practitioners and 434 “vanilla” people, asking them questions about their personality, relationships, attachment styles, and general well-being. Practitioners of bondage reported less neuroticism, a trait similar to anxiety, and more security in their relationships than people strictly into vanilla sex. Since this was a survey, it doesn’t show that BDSM activities caused these effects, but it does indicate that people who practice BDSM seem to be calmer and more comfortable in their relationship than people who don’t, lending some weight to the idea of a link.
There may also be something to the notion that BDSM can induce altered states of consciousness. In a study published last year, researchers at Northern Illinois University recruited 14 switches — people who enjoy playing the roles of both dom and sub — and randomly assigned each to one of the two roles. Then, after the participants participated in their preferred BDSM activity, they took the Stroop Task, a common test of mental acuity, and answered questions about their mental state before and after the event. The Stroop Task involves identifying color words presented in colors other than those words (e.g., red written in blue ink), and is supposed to measure executive function skills like memory, attention, and self-control. Subs experienced a significant reduction in their scores on the Stroop task after engaging in their BDSM act compared to before — something that was not seen in doms.
This temporary mental dimming may be evidence of submissive BDSM activity leading to an altered state, said Brad Sagarin, a professor of social and evolutionary psychology at Northern Illinois and leader of the main research group studying BDSM there. Pain or restriction from BDSM activities could cause blood to rush away from certain areas of the brain, including the part of the frontal lobe where the executive function skills tested in the Stroop Task are housed, he explained. “This may also help to explain some similar states of altered consciousness: things like runner’s high, some kinds of drug effects, meditation,” he said. 
We think that may be one of the things that functionally bottoming does for people,” Sagarin said. “It lets people let go for a while. You’re put in a position where you don’t have control and that is actually pretty freeing. You can just relax and go with it.” In other words, like meditation and certain forms of exercise (under the right conditions), subbing could induce states in which the part of your brain responsible for, say, writing intelligible work emails shuts down a bit, and as a result, other, more spiritual feelings of flow and connectedness take hold instead.
Other physical and hormonal changes may also contribute to the sensation of subspace. In both the 2014 experiment and another pair from 2009, Sagarin and his team took saliva samples from participants at various points as they engaged in BDSM activities. Both bottoms and tops consistently had lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, after engaging in their BDSM act than before. During the act, however, bottoms’ cortisol levels increased before coming down considerably at the end. But even when their physical stress was high, subs reported low psychological stress. The disconnect between mental and physical stress may explain some of the out-of-body experiences and sensations of floating and time distortion that people report during subspace, Sagarin hypothesizes. (In a follow-up email, he said he would not expect to see the same changes in cortisol levels during vanilla sex, since rises in cortisol are primarily seen in situations with high novelty, low predictability and low control).
Doms may also benefit from BDSM, albeit less intensely. In the 2014 Stroop task experiment and more recent studies by Sagarin’s team, they report a heightened sense of control and accomplishment, or “flow,” during their fetish activity, similar to the description of “topspace” in the BDSM community. The studies also corroborated the feelings of enhanced relationship closeness frequently cited by both doms and subs.
Sagarin’s team hasn’t linked the apparent mental-health benefits of BDSM to any specific fetish activity, but various factors — including the length of the activity and the level of experience and trust between partners — may make them easier to achieve, he said. They are currently undertaking a larger study in which they hope to tease out more of the specifics.
This isn’t news to anyone in the BDSM community,” Sagarin said. “This is a group of people that has thought deeply about what it is they do. I think there are a lot of really good ideas and theories that merit scientific testing.” 

Consensual Sadomasochism May Actually Lead To Altered States Of Consciousness

Sadomasochism, or sexual enjoyment from giving or receiving pain, may be a meditative experience and in some cases may lead to an altered state of consciousness, new research suggests.
Consensual sadomasochism was long considered pathological, but psychologists studying people interested in BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism) have failed to find evidence that these sexual practices are harmful. One study, published in May 2013, actually found that practitioners of BDSM were better off than the general population in some ways, including having secure relationships and lower anxiety. Currently, the psychiatrists’ definitive handbook, the DSM-5, lists BDSM as a paraphilia, or unusual sexual fixation, but only classifies it as a disorder if it causes harm.
If sadomasochism is not a pathology as once believed, the question is why some people engage in these painful sexual behaviors, said James Ambler, a graduate student in psychology at Northern Illinois University.
“It seems, on the surface, very paradoxical,” Ambler told Live Science. [Hot Stuff? 10 Unusual Sexual Fixations]
The gain from pain
To find out, Ambler recruited “switches,” or people in the SM community who like both receiving pain and giving pain. Fourteen switches, 10 of whom were women, agreed to be assigned one of those two roles for the night by roll of the die.
Before and after their sexual experience, the volunteers completed a cognitive test called the Stroop task, in which they saw a word for a color written in a color other than what the word said (“blue” written in red, for example). It’s hard for the brain to read the word correctly when the color of the letters clashes with the meaning, making this a widely used test of cognitive abilities. The volunteers also filled out questionnaires about their feelings of “flow” during the sadomasochistic experience. Flow is a state of focus and enjoyment that people feel when fully immersed in a task.
The results showed that people playing the pain-receiving role showed poorer Stroop task scores, which are seen with short-term reductions of functions in a part of the brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortexAmbler said. This region is linked to executive control, working memory and other higher-level functions.
The pain that comes with sadomasochistic sex may cause the brain to shunt blood flow away from this region, causing a subjectively altered state of consciousness — and the appeal of SM, Ambler said.
“Part of the reason these SM activities may be so extreme, at some level, is that they’re particularly effective at causing the brain to change its distribution of blood flow,” he said. [51 Sultry Facts About Sex]
People on the giving end of the pain got benefits, too. Both sides of the equation reported similar levels of flow during their sexual “scene.”
Spiritual, not sexual
The findings hint that sadomasochism isn’t entirely about sex. A second study, conducted by Ellen Lee, a graduate student in psychology at Northern Illinois University, with her advisor, Brad Sagarin, and their BDSM Research Team, focused on a nonsexual — but very painful — ritual performed by some in the community.
Called the “Dance of Souls,” this ritual involves people getting temporary skin piercings, through which hooks attached to ropes are placed. The ropes of one person are connected to those on others in the group or to a fixed object and are pulled taut as music or drums are played. These events are also known as “energy pulls” and are seen as primarily spiritual, not sexual, Sagarin told Live Science.
The researchers surveyed 22 participants in one of these rituals at a kink community conference in California. Five participants who were hooked agreed to participate, as well as nine supporters (who make sure group members are OK during the ritual) and eight observers. The participants filled out surveys about their stress, emotions, flow and the extent to which they felt their own selves overlapped with others at the event. They also gave saliva samples to test their cortisol, a hormone that spikes during stress.
Unsurprisingly, given the pain, cortisol levels went up during the ritual. But something odd happened: Participants reported feeling less stressed.
“We see this interesting disconnect,” Sagarin said. “We think this may be indicative of the types of altered states of consciousness people might be seeking.”
The effect might not be so different from what people experience when they push their bodies during yoga, or even during meditation, he said. People who complete the energy pull ritual also report feeling more connected to others, he added.
The brain effects Ambler found might provide an explanation. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is responsible, in part, for distinguishing self from other, he said. If less blood flows to the brain during these intensely painful experiences, the result may be a feeling of oneness.
The researchers hope that future research will involve closer, minute-by-minute monitoring of participants to delve into how the physiological and the psychological are linked. The findings are interesting both because they illuminate that link and because sadomasochism may not be quite as fringe as psychologists once thought, the researchers said.
“Research would suggest that a substantial minority of people do either fantasize or participate in these activities,” Sagarin said. “There is relevance to it in terms of the number of people either directly or indirectly involved.”
The researchers presented their findings last week at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Austin, Texas.