Shibari Subspace

“The subspace is an altered state of consciousness due to the release of adrenaline, enkephalins, and endorphins. Although it varies from person to person, it has three main characteristics: a feeling of floating or flying, euphoria, and incoherence and inability to talk and move.” That’s what I would say to my students if I wanted to explain the Shibari subspace in class. However, that’s not what I experience when I do a scene and my rigger leads me to subspace.

Shibari subspace is like an orgasm with your whole body. You don’t feel pain anymore—even if your top is providing punishment. But don’t think it is like numbness. On the contrary: your senses are heightened to the point where you see, feel, and even hear things you’ve never experienced before. 

Moreover, you feel like flying or, more exactly, like floating in space. You feel that you’re way beyond all of your problems and that nothing and no one can reach you up there. If you go deep into subspace, you’ll even feel invulnerable or as if you were young again. There’s this feeling that you can do anything you want with your body, and you feel whole.

You gotta trust your bottom because, once in subspace, it is impossible to talk or to explain what is happening to you. Even untied, you wouldn’t be able to move. It’s a state of complete vulnerability, but you feel okay with that. A great rigger will help you “land” back from subspace softly and slowly. Moreover, he will caress you endlessly during the aftercare. And this is important because of the exhaustion you feel after such a long trip.

I don’t tell these things to my students. For them, I’m just a boring Chemistry teacher. And that’s fine, I don’t want them to know what I do in my private time with my private friends.

This is my Shibari story.