Overview
Hypno is one of the easiest psychic-types to care for in Alola. They are intelligent and social, and each has a distinct personality. They don't require the same level of enrichment as slowking and oranguru. They do not need to sleep, drink or eat physical food. Their diet is provided routinely and automatically by their trainer and teammates. They are protective of humans, especially children. Contrary to their reputation, hypno are an entirely safe family pokémon.
Perhaps most importantly, they can respect and communicate with humans with even below-average PSY scores.
Physiology
Hypno and drowzee are both classified as pure-psychic types. Neither typing is disputed.
Hypno are true psychics. Like most true psychics, their organ structure is usually similar to humans but contains many irregularities distinct to each individual. See the mime sr. entry for more details. They disappear upon death. Hypno and musharna make up a branch of the true psychics referred to as the dream psychics. They do not warp the fabric of reality to the same degree as mime sr., but they have extraordinarily powerful telepathy related to sleep and dreams. Their telepathy works on anything with a sleep or resting stage, even if the species is ordinarily very resistant to mental attacks.
Drowzee are born with dark brown fur. As they grow older, golden spots and stripes begin to appear. Eventually, the colors settle into dark brown fur on their bottom half and golden fur on the upper half. The pattern at the border of the two areas is unique to the individual. Drowzee are primarily quadrupedal, although they can stand on two legs when necessary. Drowzee's most notable feature is their proboscis. They have large mouths and often produce vocalizations that sound like whines or yawns.
Hypno have golden fur across almost their entire body. The exception is a ring of thick, fluffy white fur around their neck. Hypno lose their proboscis' mobility as it shortens and hardens into a hooked nose. Hypno also lose their mouths, although they often retain stomachs and lungs with no connection to the outside of the body. Hypno's ears grow continuously until they die, growing more powerful with age. Both drowzee and hypno have functional eyes, but their light-based vision is very limited (see Behavior). They are almost entirely bipedal.
Hypno typically grow to a height of 1.5 meters and a mass of 75 kilograms. Their lifespan closely tracks the average human lifespan in their habitat.
Behavior
Both drowzee and hypno feed upon dreams. They strongly prefer human dreams, or at least those of highly intelligent pokémon, but they will settle for any species' dreams. They also prefer younger prey as they have more REM sleep than older members of their species.
Drowzee do not yet have powerful hypnotic abilities. Their means of putting something to sleep are limited to yawns that carry a telepathic signal, relaxing everything that hears them. Two to five of these yawns (depending upon the age of the drowzee and the exhaustion of the human) can put a human to sleep. Once their prey is asleep, drowzee put their proboscis over the nostrils of their prey. Their breath keeps their prey knocked out for the duration of the feeding, and also stimulates dreaming. Drowzee are satiated after two to three hours of consuming human dreams.
Hypno have more effective ways of knocking out prey. They can initiate a telepathic link by eye contact. This link can be manipulated by means of a pendulum whose pattern is slightly altered by telekinetic pushes. After establishing eye contact for roughly half of a second, hypno can convince a target to follow rudimentary orders or to enter into a dormant stage. This dormancy is similar to sleep, but differs in two key ways. The first is that the target's eyes are open, aside from blinking. The second is that the sleep has proportionally more REM sleep than the prey would otherwise have. Hypno lose control of their target after three full seconds of broken eye contact. They typically order their target to sleep and forget when feeding ends, resulting in their prey waking up refreshed and confused after a few more hours of sleep.
Both drowzee and hypno have a strong preference for happy individuals, especially happy children. This is because they often have happier dreams, which are more satiating and better tasting. To conserve their favored prey, hypno are very defensive of children of all species in their territory. When they believe that a parent or other adult is making a child miserable, they will knock out the adult and whisk the child away. Contrary to popular belief, hypno do not keep the child. They simply move the child away and leave them with a new adult. So-called "hypno orphans" usually wake up with all traumatic and otherwise unpleasant memories erased, along with all memories that could be used to identify their old parent. This process can make hypno sick for up to two months but the same hypno have been documented doing it multiple times, fully aware of the cost to themselves.
Husbandry
Hypno and drowzee are rather easy to feed. They should simply be let out of their pokéball while their trainer sleeps. Drowzee feedings will lead to less rejuvenation per hour slept, but they do not have to feed for very long so the total effect is the equivalent of a lost hour a night. Hypno trances are more rejuvenating in total, but then hypno takes some of the rest away as they feed. The trances are still more rejuvenating per hour than actual sleep, though, and they allow trainers to perfectly set their own sleep schedule.
Hypno and drowzee will sometimes show their trainers very good dreams they have fed upon in the past. They can also prevent trainers from remembering nightmares, although this can make them sick for the next day or two (see Illness).
This feeding is physically addictive. However, the only symptoms are felt upon withdrawal. Because hypno have a human-equivalent lifespan, a hypno trainer can freely feed their pokémon with very minimal risk of withdrawal. Hypno have been phased out of regular hospital use because getting someone addicted to the trances and then taking them away can lead to headaches, insomnia, nausea, dizziness, and forgetfulness for up to twenty days.
Hypno will grow frustrated with depressed trainers. This does mean that they will do everything in their power to keep their trainer happy. However, chronic depression will limit the ability of a trainer to feed their pokémon. As such, depressed trainers should not capture drowzee or hypno. If a trainer becomes depressed after obtaining the pokémon, it is best to acquire other teammates that can feed the hypno.
The best partner for hypno is komala (see Acquisition). Other good partners are intelligent pokémon that are not psychic- or dark-types. Pokémon of those types can make it more difficult for hypno to absorb dreams from them. Good dream providers include ninetales, sylveon, lapras, primarina, passimian, blissey, lucario, and dragonite. Other nocturnal pokémon and psychic-types can keep a hypno entertained while they are not feeding.
Hypno prefer to hide and relax during the day, even if they do not properly sleep. They are fine being in pokéballs from dawn until dusk. They do not need much social interaction with their trainer while awake because of the form their telepathy takes. Trainers without a high PSY score will not be able to have a standard telepathic conversation with their hypno. All but the most powerful of telepaths will not be able to talk to their hypno without making eye contact.
Hypno can talk to almost all humans in dreams. Shortly before or after feeding, hypno can create an artificial dreamscape and talk to their trainer. Hypno may retain their form, take a human form, or go with something else entirely. The majority of hypno use either a distinctly male or distinctly female telepathic voice and seem to identify with that gender. Hypno do not have an anatomical sex (see Breeding). Hypno do not have full control over the dreamscape and must integrate elements from dreams they have fed upon to create it. Older hypno have more options and more dreams in reserve and can create more elaborate dreamscapes. Most hypno are very pleasant to everyone, especially the person that feeds them, and will create pleasant experiences. Angry hypno can be terrifying in the dreamscape, as they control reality itself and there is nothing the victim can do to break free. Thankfully outside of child abuse or abusing the hypno itself, it is difficult to provoke this wrath.
Hypno do not produce waste. They do not need to drink or breathe. Because their socialization needs are met while their trainer is asleep, they are a very easy pokémon to care for. Their intelligence and dreamscape control also make them a good and loyal friend. They can also be trusted to carefully protect children and other family members.
Illness
Hypno illnesses are temporary and untreatable. They can be brought on by injury in battle, consuming too many unpleasant dreams, or not consuming enough dreams. The solution to all injuries is rest, food, and a break from battles. Hypno's more physical injuries can also be cured by some herbal medicines, pokémon moves, and artificial medicines.
The usual symptoms of more mental hypno illnesses include grumpiness, antisocial behavior, a lack of energy, pained expressions with no apparent cause, and an aversion to light.
Evolution
Drowzee gradually evolve into hypno between five and eight years of age. The formal demarcation point is when the pokémon begins to play with pendulums. Hypno do not reach sexual maturity until they are roughly sixteen years old, although they otherwise reach their final size and appearance around twelve years of age.
Their evolution can be accelerated a little by frequent battling, but not to nearly the same extent as most other species.
Battle
Hypno's effectiveness in a metagame depends on what the relevant sleep clause is. The United States Competitive Pokémon Association holds that if a pokémon on the opposing team is already asleep, then no sleep-inducing moves may be used. However, a pokémon being asleep does not cause the switch timer to expire or move at a faster rate.
This means that hypno is best used as the only sleep-inducer on a team. When they enter the field, they should immediately set about trying to hypnotize the opponent. Unfortunately, this is easily countered by the simple command, "Close your eyes!" Fortunately, this means that the opposing pokémon will be blind against hypno.
Offensively, hypno has more physical strength than the average true psychic but not much more than the average pokémon. Their telekinesis is also somewhat limited. They can be absolutely devastating to the psyche of a sleeping opponent, warping the dreamscape to break the opponent's will to fight. But outside of the dreamscape, hypno have to boost for a few minutes with nasty plot or calm mind to be a serious offensive threat.
In practice, hypno are best played by trying to control the field and disrupt the opposing pokémon until they make the mistake of opening their eyes to navigate. Hypno can do this with barrier, light screen and reflect, poison gas, thunder wave, disable, and psychic terrain.
Unfortunately, this dependence on many utility moves makes hypno rather hard to train for the island challenge. Part of this is that gaining proficiency in many moves is harder and more time consuming than gaining mastery over one. Part of the difficulty is just learning the basics of the moves themselves. Several of these moves are TMs or require specialist tutoring, which can be time-consuming or expensive. Hypno can bridge the gap a little by eating the dreams and combing the memories of pokémon that can use these attacks. However, this requires having teammates who already know these attacks. Sometimes memory eating destroys the memory itself, requiring a retraining of the pokémon the move was learned from.
Drowzee are less able to inflict ranged sleep. As such, they are best used as somewhat bulky physical attackers who can hit up close with their fists or relatively weak elemental attacks. Both drowzee and hypno can take a few hits before falling, especially if those hits are weakened by a utility move. Drowzee can compliment their weak offensive abilities and decent bulk through poison gas or toxic, making them fit on more stall-oriented teams.
Acquisition
Drowzee and hypno can be purchased, adopted, or captured with a Class II license.
The species has been introduced to all four major islands to help protect the local komala population. Because komala are always asleep and apparently always happy, hypno adore them. Hypno are incredibly protective of their preferred food source, and will fight any would-be predators of the endangered komala.
Hypno were later removed from Ula'Ula when the komala population had recovered enough to allow for capture, as the threat hypno posed to trainers became greater than the boost to komala numbers was worth. Hypno and drowzee capture is allowed on Melemele and Poni, but not on Akala. They are most often found at the edge of forests along the coast. The species takes shelter in forests during the day, and dreams near the ocean are apparently more pleasant. Drowzee and hypno are best captured by waiting for them to come to you. Stay awake at night in prime hypno territory with only one pokémon out. If a drowzee approaches, try to capture it. If a hypno does, it is best to tell your pokémon to back down and try to reason with the hypno in the dreamscape. If the trainer's dreams are good enough, the hypno will usually join the team willingly.
Breeding
Hypno often have identified genders. Roughly 40% identify as male, 40% as female, and 20% identify as both or neither. Hypno have no genitalia and no physical differences based on gender. Hypno can reproduce with any other hypno, regardless of the gender of the two parents.
When a hypno finds someone with very good dreams, they implant part of their psyche into the prey. This is not noticeable outside of direct psychic attacks or scans. It does make the prey more resistant to telepathy and may provide a slight boost to intelligence, but has no other effects.
If another hypno feeds from the same prey, and agrees that the dreams are very good, they will remove the embedded psyche, merge it with a fragment of their own, and give it physical form. The resulting drowzee will have an appearance and genome equivalent to a child made through sexual reproduction between the parents. The personality and instincts will be a mix of the two hypno parents and the host used to create the child.
This may sound like a strange way to reproduce, but hypno are equally baffled by human reproduction.
Hypno do not like sharing the same trainer in captivity. In effect, hypno breeding requires having two hypno and only using one at a time. Because they are social and intelligent pokémon that trainers can converse with, most are unwilling to do this. Hypno are generally fine with not reproducing if doing so would require leaving their trainer.
After birth, drowzee is cared for by the second parent for the first eight to ten years of their life. Hypno can reproduce multiple times over the course of their life and are willing to raise multiple children at once. Newborn drowzee are only about ten centimeters long and spend most of their time in their parent's soft neck fur. As they grow older, hypno allow their offspring to rest their head against the fur while being carried. When transporting "rescued" children between parents, hypno also comfort the child by letting them rest against their fur. It is believed that this fur induces calmness and drowsiness, but the effect is lost when the fur is removed from the hypno.
Subspecies
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