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Is the hypnotist who and what they say they are?
Will they hold to what they say they intend?
Do they have enough experience and skill?

You have to satisfy not just your conscious judgement. Your unconscious thoughts and feelings will also have to be at ease for trance sessions to be successful, so don’t be afraid to ask questions and take your time before committing to trance sessions.

Be sure in your own mind about what you want from being tranced, while during a session conscious ‘critical filtering’ of suggestions is suspended, your unconscious is always aware and protecting you. Being clear in your own thoughts before any session, helps your unconscious to identify and reject any suggestion which is out of line.

You have to take some responsibility as a subject. Don’t ask for or expect therapy for deep seated problems from a recreational hypnotist, especially online or accept claims without evidence in the form of qualifications and reputation. Remember that being a skilled hypnotist does not make someone a qualified therapist.

Many people overstate the dangers of hypnosis and underestimate the resilience we all have so it’s fine to experiment and enjoy the experiences. Remember that the hypnotist is placing trust in you as well. Often they devout a great deal of work and openness themselves in order to make it a great experience for you.

Finally don’t forget if you are online to take the same care that you should in any chat room on any topic. Be very careful about arranging personal meetings and giving out personal information about your self.

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Many like trance to feel and be very different from their normal alert state. Hypnosis can be used to create this impression and very convincing is not being able to recall what happened. Subjects vary in how much they remember of the trance state and while amnesia is often considered a sign of deep trance states, it is one of many and it’s not unusual for subjects who have been in deep under to remember.

Suggestions intended to increase amnesia have to be phrased very carefully or they can have the opposite effect. A direct suggestion like “you will forget every thing that happens until I wake you” is likely to have poor effect with most subjects. It warns the subject in advance that their memory may be impaired so they may take more careful mental notes, its absolute in that if any one thing is remembered then the subject may consider the suggestion to have been ineffective and remember more.

Placing the suggestion after the section of trance to be forgotten and adding a little overload to distract can be more effective; “Your unconscious mind will not forget to remember what is important, while your conscious mind remembers to forget that which is unimportant”. Another technique which is useful is comparison to a situation where forgetting is normal. One I like is “trance can be considered as a dream and as you think of dreams, you may note that you are aware of a dream of a dream and this new vague dream of dreams may itself be the faintest glimmer of the fast fading original dream”.

Other techniques which have been used include sandwiching suggestions to be forgotten between highly memorable ones and returning to the same topic (preferably one highly interesting to the subject) after a trance that was in progress before it, so that their thinking returns to that point and skips the trance. Don’t question a subject about how much they remember during the five minutes after they wake so short term memory is not logged to long term.

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Among the Wiki pages is a very good concise rebuttal of some common misconceptions about hypnosis and I hope you don't mind me adding a few remarks which are just my own thinking:

"People that have an above average intelligence or an active vivid imagination make the best subjects" - Exactly true, I do believe that other very important attributes that should be mentioned are the ability to pay sustained attention and a willingness to trust, which is not to say that lacking any of these a subject can't be hypnotised. It just means adaptations need to be made. Commonly good hypnotists actually make excellent subjects as well, which just shows how silly 'power of the mind' theories about hypnosis are.

"You will NOT reveal any information you don't want to" - Well, lets say no more likely then while awake and being questioned by someone (who may be an expert). From experiments I conducted some time ago it does seem possible to even lie in trance without breaking out of the hypnosis state and with other suggestions intact. The mind is very, very adaptable.

"looking foolish or being made to act foolish" - There is a difference between not wanting to do something and a basic principle. You won't break basic principles, but your unconscious mind may not consider a little embarrassment the same way your concious does, which can be fun.

"A hypnotized subject is always in full control and aware of what is going on around them" - In general true, you may not feel in control and it can feel very difficult to resist and if other subjects find it more difficult then you?! Who can really say where the limit is for everyone. All that can really be said is that there is no known case (to my knowledge) of anyone following a suggestion where the outcome was certain harm.

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