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Monday 30 March 2009

Who's reading?

Since I first started this blog I have becoming increasingly aware of a startling fact, which is that people have been actually reading it!

This is the post where I ask you, dear intrepid blog reader, to please take just a few moments and oblige me. Copy the text below into a comment box for this post and just leave me a few words about yourself. You can do it anonymously if you wish, but I would love to know more about you, how you found this and what your interests in hypnosis are.

Age:
Sex:
Location:

How did you find BlackMeridian?


What is your interest in hypnosis?

Thursday 26 March 2009

The 5th Meet

Well it seems that the London HypnoMeets are now a well established monthly fixture; the last Thursday of every month.

Once again I took the opportunity to get to London nice and early and engage in a bit of shopping before the meet. I got to the pub quite early and took it upon myself to grab a fairly large table. Fortunately I only had half an hour or so to kill before people were planning to start showing up, and gloating over the things I'd bought on my mini spending spree during the afternoon killed the time nicely. In particular trying to figure out how you're supposed to unlock a new bicycle D-lock if the keys are locked to the shackle. Ergh!

Anyway, there I was sat at this large table in the pub, which started filling up... and getting crowded... and none of the other hypnotists were showing up.

The looks I was getting from the standing crowd near the bar got steadily dirtier.

Ben showed up eventually, and it couldn't have been sooner, although he then went to the bar to get some drinks and I was left holding the table again.

The question is Parkey, I said to myself, if one of the many other groups eyeing up this table, which is protected only by by you at one end and your coat at the other, decide that they want it will you be able to zap them into giving it back?

It was at this point that all of the usual suspects from the last meet started showing up, so my Jedi table retention skills were thankfully never put to the test. Too many people showed up in fact, so tablejedi master Darren managed to arrange a swap with a table of girls across the room so we could all have a seat. Ben then offered to go up to the bar and order some food.

I found myself chatting to Will, who had turned up to the second meet back in December, and his friend Andy who was a newbie. In fact I was very impressed with Andy because although he was completely new to hypnosis once he'd gotten started he seemed completely able to confidently roll out the patter with no difficulty at all! Will was keen to try being hypnotised again, so all I needed to do was show Andy how to do a couple of rapid inductions and they were off. My work here was done.

I settled down to eat my pie.

Well actually my work wasn't quite done. Will commented that he'd like to go deeper than he was going, and of course I cannot resist such a challenge. I sat him down, did a hand-to-eye induction, and proceeded to deepen using a guided imagery technique that a friend taught me recently. 10-15 minutes later and Will had slowly sunk into the sofa to the point where he was practically looking up at his shoes. Having reached this depth I then gave him the sleep suggestion, telling him he would be able to come straight back to the state he was in. I then marveled at the way in which someone in a trance, no matter how deep they've gone, or how far away they are, still comes back out again when they're told to.

Will seemed quite amazed at how deep he'd been able to go, but he wasn't quite so amazed as I was when I told him to sleep and he folded up like a rag doll.

Ahh, that smug type of amazement.

I then spent a little while trying to teach Will, as a subject, how to freeze in place and trance out with his eyes open, so as to not notice any time had passed. I think he was starting to get the hang of it, but at this point Andy came back and took over zapping Will, so I moved on.

I changed tables and joined Chris and Ben. Chris briefly had a go hypnotising me, but having had a bit of a long day he wasn't really able to come up with anything new. Result - I got my fingers glued to my temples... again! Gah!

We were quite amused at this point so see Andy wandering off to the bar, leaving Will in a trance on the sofa.

Having exhausted Chris's obviously depleted imagination I asked Ben if he'd like to try something. Here's the video:


The induction was quite an interesting experience; Ben linked the position of my hand to my level of awareness of what was going on in the room, and this did make it very easy to experience that now familiar slide into trance as I let my hand come down to my lap. I still don't really feel as though I "go anywhere" when I'm in trance, I'm still aware of where I am and what's going on around me, and indeed what the suggestions I'm being given are, I just feel quite willing to stay down and humour whatever is going on.

What went on this time was at least original. Ben told me that I would be drunk, which didn't really work as far as my thought process was concerned, I could still think absolutely fine, but that didn't mean I was able to stop doing quite an (apparently) convincing drunk impression. Likewise when Ben told me that I would would insist that my name was "Rrrrrrichard" (rolling the R), I tried to say it was "Parkey" on several occasions and my response reminded me of the episode of Red Dwarf where Kryten tries to call Rimmer a "smeg head" and it gets stuck on "Smm... Smmmeee...". No amount of hypnosis has yet enabled me to roll my Rs anyway.

Ben's final suggestion, which to his credit he was willing to persist over, was to try to get me to hallucinate a clock somewhere in the room. I never saw the clock, but the crazy thing was that I had a very clear picture in my head of what it would look like, and exactly where it would be on the table in front of me. I was even inclined to mime picking it up at one point! Bizarreness!

Then of course, with work the following day I had to leave. My departure was however delayed by Darren telling me to "freeze!" as I went to shake his hand. For some reason I instinctively became completely immobile from the neck down, and had to ask Darren nicely to let me move again or I'd miss my train home!

I'm not sure where that came from but suffice to say somebody will pay for that one.

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Michael Caine

This is an analogy that has been floating in the back of my mind for quite a while but for some reason it resurfaced in the last couple of days when I tried my hand at writing a trance script.

There is a scene in one of the Austin Powers films (the third one I think) in which Michael Caine, who is playing the role of a sort of "I was thwarting supervillains before James Bond was even born" secret agent, simply talks one of Dr Evil's henchmen into falling over and dying. After all, he's mowed down hundreds of nameless henchmen over the years, what chance would this one guy standing there on his own have? It would be easier all round if he gave in to the inevitable and just lay down straight away, without even a shot being fired.

It strikes me that this "Michael Caine effect", if you'll pardon the expression, is present in many good hypnosis inductions. I believe it is also known by some as "Awe Rapport". Either way it is very, very effective, even if it's only something that the hypnotist says to themself internally.

"From this moment I'm the hypnotist, you're the subject, and you know what happens next. I've hypnotised hundreds, thousands of people before you came along. What chance do you think you have, really? You are going to go under and we both know it. Look at you, you're already half way there! Why not make it easier on yourself and just go into trance now! That's it, just close your eyes and let yourself drift all the way down..."

...and that's the Michael Caine induction!

Tuesday 24 March 2009

More fun with accents

Just some remarks on some more of my recent hypnosis experiences.

I may have mentioned a couple of times that I do love using hypnosis to play with accents, or more specifically adding an accent to people's voices. This works well as a hallucination, and I have had more than a couple of people hear my voice in various accents. I have so far been perfect in my portrayal of, to name but a few, Irish, Scottish, Yorkshire, Geordie, and lovable cockney rascal dialects. That is to say I have in the subject's head; anybody else listening would not have known the difference. The cockney accent was especially amusing for me as it was the result of someones subconscious assigning to me the accent they considered most appropriate. I think I will have to do that one more often, although it is a bit strange talking to someone who is laughing because of the way you're speaking but having no idea where in the world you're supposed to be from. Although if comedic effect is the intention perhaps a Jamaican saying "Ee bah gum lad!" would work.

More recently I have had fun reversing this concept and having subjects "stuck" speaking in an accent, much to their self-conscious amazement. At last month's HypnoMeet I did this to Darren, who has considerable talent in his work as a voice over artist, to extremely good effect. His Irish, and then South African accents were both impeccable and he seemed absolutely astounded bu what was coming out of his mouth.

I will more often than not I will gravitate toward an Irish accent, and this is because it is probably my favourite accent, although having been to Edinburgh a number of times I do also like the Scottish accent. I think the love of the Irish accent comes in part from the associations it conjures up. I do own all of the Corrs' albums for example, and there's just something about the image of a beautiful but pensive dark haired young woman with the long dress and the dreamy eyes...

Sorry, got distracted there, where was I...

Oh yes, I really do like the Irish accent, and I guess that's why. Well, that and I've always enjoyed watching Father Ted. So yes, I have had a lot of fun with accents recently, and Irish has featured centre stage.

Unfortunately all of this backfired at the weekend; someone zapped me under and decided to use one of these suggestions on me.

Now, anybody who has ever heard me even attempt any accent will know that this is the time to remember to bring ear plugs. My accents are so bad they are a whole new definition for the word horrendous. Truly they are!

Every so often over the last few months I have an experience that demonstrates just how much hypnosis is starting to work for me, and this suggestion was certainly one of them. Sure enough when I opened my eyes and started talking everything I was saying was coming out in an Irish accent. It was just sort of happening instinctively and no matter what I thought or said I couldn't speak in any other way! Even more strangely the accent was awful, which for me is considerable improvement from my usual depths of über-atrocious!

What occurred to me is that for most people speaking in an accent is something that happens quite naturally, as in it's not a conscious process but rather a subconscious one. This is why, I think, my attempts to put on an accent deliberately are so unquestionably dire. It seems to make sense that letting my subconscious get on with the process of turning Parkeyspeak into an Irish dialect without conscious interference will produce a much more natural result. Knowing this who knows perhaps, over time, I can improve my accents.

This has been another eye-opener regarding the effects hypnosis can have on me and an interesting experience too, although perhaps I might just keep my mouth shut if anyone tries it on me again.

Thursday 19 March 2009

Trance described

Much of this post is ripped off my ramblings on a thread on UncommonForum, but I feel it's something I feel I'd like to write more about here, not least because it's such a difficult thing to do.

When I first started wanting to experience hypnosis for myself I performed all manner of internet searches looking for a good written account of what the experience is like. This turned out to be an incredibly difficult task I was amazed and I take real pride in my webcrawling ablities. I know now that such accounts do exist, but they are few and far between.

The question is, what is it like to experience a hypnotic trance?

Well, I have a personal theory that the people who really ask themselves that question are going to be the ones who find it most difficult to access trance, and certainly on the first attempt. I have so far found that the people I have hypnotised who went deepest first time seem to be those least able to put the experience into words, whilst awkward individuals who want to experience something so that we can describe it at great lengths in a blog, such as myself, find it most difficult. This is an adverse consequence of having an analytical mind I guess.

In any case this is just my theory.

So to describe my experience so far as best I can I would say that I am able to identify three "levels" of trance, although the boundaries between them are indistinct and blurred. All three feel very good, and it gets better the deeper I go, but it's enjoyable in a very intangible psychological sense; it's not like, for example, the physical euphoria one might feel after a massage. It feels good, but I can't put my finger on why, although it is also addictive and I will confess that I am fast becoming a trance junkie.

So the first level, light trance, I would say feels amazingly unremarkable. It feels like I'm sat there with my eyes closed with the hypnotist talking to me. I've had people tell me "Wow! You were completely under then!", to which I've thought "I was, was I? It didn't feel like it". The only thing about this state that confirms to me that I'm in trance is my willingness to stay in an unusual physical pose, and the way in which whenever the thought of something that I think is witty to say crosses my mind I don't do my usual thing of just blurting it out.

The second level of trance feels much like the first, except that it feels like my ability to follow what's going on beyond my own thoughts seems start slipping from my grasp. It's the "hang on, I wasn't fully paying attention to that last bit" thought, where what was just said is fuzzy or sometimes I can't even remember it. Daydreaming in school or university lectures is the closest parallel I can think of. My conscious inner monologue also feels like it's slowing down, or becoming more sparse, which may sound odd, but that's the best way I can describe it. A strange line of thought is whether it's possible to quantify how much one is consciously thinking, and that it's impossible if one has stopped consciously thinking because both require conscious thought surely?

The third and final level is when I feel as though I've stopped thinking entirely. My thoughts seem to wind down to a complete halt, leaving me in a kind of black nothingness. The one time I have thus far been able to achieve it that felt very good, but the very moment I realised I had gone that deep by sheer definition I no longer was. It took about 30 minutes of deepening to get me there, and much to my disappointment I have not been able to get back there since.

Now I am starting to build up this body of experience it seems to me that expectation of something far more profound and Earth shattering seems to be a barrier to a lot of analytical individuals experiencing being hypnotised. Or rather such individuals are actually experiencing trance but simply don't realise they are because it doesn't meet those standing expectations.

The lesson for those people, as it was for me, is that if you have confidence and believe that you're going into trance you will go into trance.

Wednesday 18 March 2009

6 months on

It was 6 months ago last night that I performed my first hypnotic induction; Wednesday, 17th September 2008. Looking back it's hard to believe just how much has happened in such a short period of time, and in fact it feels like far longer. I felt that a quick summary might be in order.

My first induction was 10 days after I first decided to learn hypnosis, and it worked perfectly. I remember the excitement I felt as I talked my friend's hand into the air, and the expression on her face when she opened her eyes in amazement at what was actually happening. That sessions was just baby steps, but it was no less intoxicating for me than anything else that was to follow.

I started off with inductions from Reality is Plastic, but I soon picked up others including my two favourites; the 8-word induction and the Ericksonian handshake. Most recently I have begun to accept the concept that an induction, any induction, is merely window dressing for a far more fundamental principle based upon expectation and taking on the role of being the hypnotist.

It was a whole two months after that first induction that I decided to start this blog, encouraged by other blogs that I'd come across. I can't believe that I've already been writing for over 4 months, and that I seem to be averaging in excess of 10,000 words a month, which based on my university standards is absolutely crazy!

I think the biggest single boost to my development as a hypnotist was meeting other hypnotists at the first London HypnoMeet, arranged through UncommonForum. That meet and several meets that have happened since have been a great incentive to develop my skills and a great way to share experiences and techniques with an wonderful group of like minded people. This all culminated in the opportunity at the last meet, in Oxford, to perform impromptu hypnosis on complete strangers in a pub, which was an enormous buzz.

Then of course most recently there has been the significant development my own ability as a subject in the last couple of months. I went through a real low at one point around about new year when found myself facing the agonising possibility that I could not be hypnotised, that I would never get to experience any of these amazing phenomena for myself. Of course I have since come to learn that it is absolutely possible to learn how to be a better subject through practice, and I have every intention of doing just that.

I think if anything my only regret is that I didn't come across hypnosis earlier in my life. In particular I really wish that I had discovered it in time to take it with my to university and I have real envy for anybody who has that opportunity ahead of them.

Someone said to me recently "once you open the hypno-door, there's no going back". I think that a truer word has not been said, but then who said anything about going back? I still have the hypnosis bug, no less so than when I first started, and it's showing no signs of going away any time soon.

I can only wonder what surprises and experiences the next 6 months will hold.

Friday 13 March 2009

Cycling and trance

Anyone who has chatted to me for long enough will have no doubt heard me mention my enjoyment of cycling, which is another of my obsessions.

Sorry, did I say obsessions? I meant hobbies. I don't have an obsessive personality at all!

Anyway, I have been using a mountain bike to ride to and from work for several years now. I do this because I enjoy it rather than for money or environmental reasons, but also because it helps keep me reasonably fit. Even more fun though was my discovery of the wonderful thing that is the road bike, which I guess some would refer to as a "racing bike" although I doubt I'll ever race mine. My girlfriend and I got into road cycling last summer, clocking up hundreds of miles together in the process, and we've not looked back.


The sad thing though is that when I tell others about it I find it so difficult to communicate to them exactly how much fun it is. I think there are a couple of reasons. Firstly very few people actually know how to ride a bike. By this I don't mean how to stay on it and make it go where you want it to; I mean how to ride on the road safely and competently as a part of the traffic. It's amazing how with just a little knowledge and practice one becomes confident riding on the roads, but so few people actually take the time to learn or try it.

The second thing is that so few people have actually experienced real cycling. The majority of cyclists are to be found on either on cheap full suspension mountain bikes, weighing approximately two metric tonnes, or on some ancient beast from deep dark depths of the garden shed. Yes okay, I admit I'm a bike snob, but to me the experience of riding a decent road bike, which is infinitely lighter, rolls forever on skinny tyres and will easily top 40mph down a good hill is cycling, and there's no substitute to be found in a creaking lump of scrap metal.

So to this end there is little I enjoy more than pulling out my road bike on a Sunday morning when the roads are quiet and going for a ride, usually somewhere between 20 and 50 miles. The countryside in south Oxfordshire is absolutely beautiful, and it gives me time to think.

What has this got to do with hypnosis you may ask?

Well, recently I set out on a bike ride and began to notice certain things about the way in which my mind was working over the course of one of these rides. I have found that whenever I start off I am concentrating consciously on the road ahead, but after too long I realise that my mind has wondered off and is thinking about other things. My eyes are still looking where I'm going, and I'm still watching the road, but that part of things just seems to happen whilst my conscious thoughts are wandering freely elsewhere. The time seems to fly by so quickly. I have also temporarily left any trouble or concerns behind; everything seems so much simpler.

Sound familiar?

Replace the road with the voice of a hypnotist and the parallel becomes obvious; cycling is inducing a state of trance.

Now, I know that driving a car is of course one of the most frequently cited examples of a naturally occurring trance state and I am well aware of this when I'm behind the wheel, but when I'm out on my bike I seem to experience something rather more profound. Partly this might be down to the way I have never particularly enjoyed driving a car anyway, but I think the main reason for this is that cycling is a form of exercise, and physical exercise also induces trance.

Something else that feels very good is when I get back home after a long ride and just collapse into the softest chair I can find. There's something about the way in which all of my muscles feel tired but my mind is still very active that is very conducive to zoning out completely for quarter of an hour or so, and again I recognise this now as a state of trance. Nobody has yet actually tried hypnotising me whilst I've been in that state, but I bet I would go incredibly deep if they did.

So is this why I enjoy cycling, because I enjoy being in trance as much as I do? It's just one of many reasons I'm sure, but it's certainly up there.

Thursday 12 March 2009

But seriously...

A quality that I have always seemed to possess is that people often don't know whether something that I have said is a joke or not. A lot of the ways in which I like to make people laugh stem from "wouldn't it be funny if..." or "imagine this farcical situation...". It's something that I like about myself, but sometimes someone who doesn't know me very well, and even on occasion someone who does, will get the wrong end of the stick and I'll feel like a bit of a lemon as I try to explain what I was thinking when I made that stupid comment.

Now, one of the brilliant things about being a hypnotist is that you can perform hypnosis, words and action that have no mystical significance in themselves, and people will take you seriously, they will go into hypnosis. One of the ways in which this can potentially backfire is when someone, or maybe just part of them, takes you seriously when you think you're only joking.

A while back I hypnotised a friend at a party. He was starting to respond quite well, and I'd already given the suggestion that he'd drop back into hypnosis whenever I said "sleep". At this point some of his relatives, who were leaving, came into the room to say goodbye so he jumped up and went to see them off. Someone else immediately said they wanted to give hypnosis a try, so I moved on and thought no more of my first subject.

Later on however, when it was my turn to leave I made a joke of saying "sleep" to him, and in response he pretended for a moment to drop into trance, before opening his eyes and laughing about it. How much of it was pretending though? Obviously the context for staying in hypnosis wasn't there, but the spontaneous reaction to what I said could easily be down to a lingering post hypnotic suggestion, at least in part.

I experienced this myself at the last London meet when Ben said to me "Parkey, go into trance now". Again it was a joke, but pretending to drop into trance, just for a moment, seemed like exactly the right thing to do at the time. It happened before I'd even thought about it.

That is, of course, the thought process that follows a post hypnotic suggestion, and one which I am becoming more familiar with. The "hang on... why did I just do that?" thought.

This is all very well as long as one doesn't take the joke too far. I was chatting to someone I'd hypnotised before online recently and, just as she was signing off to go to bed, I sent her a text message jokingly trying to trigger a suggestion I'd given her earlier on. I got a reply back in quite a mocking tone telling me something to the effect that I'd have to try harder if something that silly was going to work. So I did; I sent a one word reply that simply said "sleep!".

She doesn't remember getting the text, just waking up several seconds later sprawled on the bed with her boyfriend sat over her reading her phone.

Afterwards I felt a bit embarrassed about the whole thing because it was a bit of a silly thing to do. Online hypnosis by over something like MSN where you at least know where the subject is at the time is one thing, but firing off major post hypnotic suggestions by a text message with no knowledge of where the subject is, what they are doing, and without being on hand to take responsibility for the subject is something else entirely.

I guess there are two points here. The first is that sometimes somebody will take a joke seriously and it could be fun to take advantage of this and it to take the situation further.

The second point is that sometimes somebody will take a joke seriously, so be careful what you say. Being the hypnotist is fun, but it also carries responsibilities.

Sunday 8 March 2009

Oxford

It was on the 7th of September 2008 that I first looked at the subject of hypnosis and thought to myself "You know, I think I could actually learn how to do this!" I plunged head first into the hypnotic world and I've not once looked back since.

Six months later to the day I have just had the most amazing hypnotic day out and I can't believe how far things have come in just half a year!

Now, late last year I remember blogging to the effect that I thought that Oxford would be a brilliant hunting ground for students willing to experience a bit of impromptu hypnosis. Chatting with Ben about a month or so led us to decide that a Saturday would be the best option. This was in early February, and the trouble with fixing the date for a meet a month in advance is that it takes a while for it to come around. Nevertheless, come around it did.

As the organiser (sort of) of this little get together I'd chosen the Head of the River pub as the place to meet up and on the day six of us converged on the place. I've seen Ben and Darren before at every meet that we've organised but of course it's always great to meet up with them. We were joined by Liz, who I have mentioned before, her boyfriend Lex, and Conrad, a newbie on uncommonforum and a fan of Lex and Liz's blog.

We eventually managed to find ourselves a table inside the pub and started talking. The thing that I found most amazing was Lex's story about the first time he hypnotised someone, which he did a whole ten years ago and without any training or reading. He also talked a bit about some of the hypnosis videos he produces. Darren in particular seemed in awe of all this, and hastily started writing down web addresses for later reference. This was especially amusing for me because a couple of nights before when we'd been talking on skype chat he'd sent me the link to Lex's website, saying "Hay mate! Have you seen this?! I'm thinking of branching out!"

Ben then launched into a demonstration of inducing catalepsy in Darren's arm. Applying light touches to Darren's left forearm he managed to make it become completely frozen in space. It's very similar in fact to the Ericksonian handshake, which seems to be my current party piece. This almost non-verbal form of hypnosis is yet another area of hypnosis that is really very interesting and I really need to try to do more of in future.

Chatting to Liz online over skype a couple of nights before the meet had been a double edged sword. Her ability to engage her imagination and see things that aren't there never ceases to amaze me, and especially when it's from waking suggestions. I had taken advantage of this in order to drench her in non-existent water via my webcam using a non-existent water pistol, and had joked about bringing an actual water pistol to the meet just to tease her.

Her reaction in the pub when she saw my copy of Reality is Plastic, which happened to be on the table and has a picture of a water pistol on the back cover, was priceless. Later on I used this as yet another opportunity to prove to her how academic and interlectual my interest in hypnosis actually is. What I did was I reached into the back cover, took hold of the orange water pistol and proceeded to hold her up with it. Luckily for her this time Lex was on hand to allow her to also hallucinate umbrellas in order to defend herself.

I find this an absolutely amazing concept though, that a subject can engage their imagination and be able to see and feel suggestions as though they really exist. It also seems to work along the lines that, once something has been suggested, they just can't not think of or imagine whatever it is that has been put to them.

Just as an idle passing example of this, when Liz reads this sentence she will notice that same water pistol hovering in the air nearby and pointed at her. She's been nagging me to write this blog post, so now she'd better keep reading. If she looks away from the screen for more than a second or two before she's read all of this she is going to get wet. (Edit: Okay now I see she's read it, so if she reads it again it won't appear a second time. Aren't I nice!)

Quite a dull and pointless example for anybody but Liz though I guess, but at least the rest of us get to stay dry.

Unfortunately for me Liz got her revenge by firing off a post hypnotic suggestion that she'd given me the last time we'd spoken that would make me suddenly develop the urge to buy the next round. The scary thing is that nowadays such suggestions seem to be actually working on me. I did insist on buying the next round; it just felt like exactly the thing to do at the time.

Next we went in search of some kind of food and ended up going into ASK for something Italian. Darren took advantage of the wait for our food to arrive to offer to hypnotise Conrad, who was well away as a result of Darren's application of the rehearsal induction when the waitress came over with our meals. I was actually amazed by how unfazed she appeared to be by Conrad's apparent comatose state as she handed out the food. Still, barely anybody recognises hypnosis when they see it anyway. I think most people assume that the subject is drunk, or from Stoke-on-Trent.

After dinner we headed onward to a pub. Ben and Lex had conspired to have a bit of fun with Liz, telling her that every time she lost sight of me she'd forget who I was, and this was a fun diversion although I was almost hurt that I was so easy to forget. In any case, this was also a great opportunity to practice some handshake inductions, aided by the fact that before the meet Lex had also given her a compulsion to shake any hand offered to her without suspicion.

Zapped by the Bandler handshake induction in the middle of Broad street. She loved it really I'm sure!

Anyway, something that I absolutely love about Oxford is the way in which it is quite magical. By magical I don't mean actual magic as such, but simply that it has a lot of the real life phenomena upon which fictional magic is based. There is no better example of this than the way in which there are so many things about Oxford that the un-knowing eye simply doesn't notice until they are pointed out. There are, in fact, whole streets that I have somehow managed to walk past for years without noticing until someone told me they were there, and I'm sure there are more. That's a concept that I absolutely love; the idea of a place that cannot be found or reached except by those who already know about it.

The Turf Tavern, our final destination for the evening, is a great example of one of these hidden gems. It's a beautiful small pub with two huge beer gardens right in the centre of city amongst all of the colleges. Nobody stumbles across the Turf by accident though, because there is sign no out on the street to advertise it. Rather it is tucked away down an alleyway and you need to know where to look if you are to stand any chance of finding it. Every time I've been there in the past though I have thought to myself that it is the perfect impromptu hypnosis pub as it's such a friendly atmosphere and full of Oxford university students. I've been dying to bring some other hypnotists along and in doing so to pluck up the courage to do some approaching myself.

As we walked I found it surprisingly easy to slip on my metaphorical tour guide's hat and launch into a spiel about how I think the city really is magical, referring to the fact that a lot of the scenes from Harry Potter, including the great hall at Hogwarts, were filmed in Oxford. I then started pushing the bounds of fantasy by saying that the inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter was drawn from real secret places in Oxford. I amazed myself with my timing because I got to exactly the right bit of my narrative just as our group was about to walk past the alleyway that leads to the Turf and I told everybody to stop for a moment.

At this point I will admit that I had cheated a little bit. Nobody had paid the alleyway any attention of course, but that hadn't stopped me having the temptation to take it one stage further with one member of our party. Back in the restaurant I had tranced Liz and given her the suggestion that she wouldn't be able to see the entrance to the alley; there would be no gap there at all in fact, just a continuation of the walls on either side.

"See this brick wall here?" I said "If you just..."

I then strode quickly and calmly into the entrance to the alleyway, knowing of course that for Liz this would produce the effect of my having vanished through the wall.

I looked behind me and the expression on her face was priceless!

"Come on through guys!" I called after me.

The others followed my lead, leaving poor Liz on her own with her hands out in front of her on the invisible wall we'd just passed through. Lex went back for her, as I'd also told her that she would be able to pass through if he took her by the hand.

Once we'd found ourselves a table in one of the Turf's beer gardens we settled down into conversation for a bit. We were joined at this point by another hypnotist by the name of Rich. Liz got her revenge for the alleyway and her repeated loss of memory of who I was by putting me into trance and giving me a suggestion that I would give up my seat to Ben. Seconds later and I was quite happy standing up whilst the rest of the group sat, thankyou.

Despite having gotten a free takeover of my chair, Ben was the first to step up, take the initiative and get into a bit of pub hypnosis; he went over to a couple of girls nearby. Not wanting to crowd around and cramp his style, I stayed at the table and watched Darren showing Lex some rapid inductions.

It wasn't until slightly later in the evening that things really started to happen on the impromptu hypnosis front though. What happened was that we saw a group of students playing a drinking game at the next table who looked so obviously perfect. I remarked on this to Darren and Liz, who I was sat next to at the time. Liz had just been trying to show me how to do a kinaesthetic hallucination, so the next thing I knew I was being zapped back into trance and being told in no uncertain terms that I would, upon waking, approach that group.

"Okayyy... don't I get a say in this?" I thought.

Apparently not. I came back up and announced we should approach them, completely in keeping with the completely intangible feeling that one gets when under the influence of a post hypnotic suggestion. Darren said "wait until they've finished the round" but I wasn't going to wait. I don't know why; it was insane, but it just sort of happened! Before I even realised what I was doing I was up there in front of them and opening with "Hi guys, sorry to interrupt, but you look like a fun group of people..."

Darren was right behind me and jumped in with his own opening line "Hi guys, what's this, a bleedin' Cider appreciation society?". He told them all that we were hypnotists and asked if they wanted to give it a try. The looks of awe and wonderment that came across their faces were abslutely astounding and the response was a unanimous chorus of yes interspersed with cries of "ooh! me! me!" They were all up for it! I was amazed!

"What do you reckon?" I said to Darren. "Magnetic fingers?"

With a whole table of willing volunteers there was nothing for it but to go into a group selection routine. We had them all do magnetic fingers together first, and then followed with magnetic hands, all of which allowed us to clock who the most promising candidates were.



Darren chose a guy to our left who was clearly getting well into magnetic hands and proceeded to perform an absolutely amazing one-on-one hypnosis routine with him.

I would describe it all, but I don't think I could do it justice. Fortunately the group were happy to let Ben film us and a video says a million words. Enjoy!



What the video doesn't show is the incredible reaction Darren's performance got from the group. He certainly had them all completely speechless and seeing the looks of amazement on their faces as they saw their friend drop completely limp in his chair alone made the evening worthwhile!

It got better though. Rich jumped in and grabbed the girl I was stood next to, so I decided I should probably grab myself a subject too. One of the girls at the far end of the table in particular had been giving me and Darren what hypnotists call "the look", that expression of fascination that often implies they're going to be a good subject. I strolled around the table and asked her if she'd like to give it a go.

She was a little shy at first, but I said "Yes, but the thing is there's a part of you that really wants to know what it's like, isn't there!"

That was all the convincing I needed to do.

So, my first time hypnotising a complete stranger. I did a hand drop induction, got my subject nice and relaxed, floated her arm up, put her arms in her lap and made them too heavy to lift, and then stuck her hand to the table. It went quite well, although I did feel completely blown out of the water by Darren's earlier performance.

Ben caught some of it on film, and it's here in this short montage of clips from that evening.


Something that always amazes me when I see myself on film is the reactions of the audience, which sometimes I don't even realise that I have. When I'm being the hypnotist I never pay much attention to anything beyond my subject.

As soon as I'd finished with this girl, one of the guys from the group came up and asked if he could have a go.

"Sorry, bet this has spoiled your evening" he said, which surprised me.

I was quite happy to reassure him that I was quite happy sharing hypnosis with anybody who wanted to experience it. I put him under with magnetic hands and did much the same routine I had done with the girl before him.

Having finished with the guy, I then got brought over to have a go with a third subject, a nice girl by the name of Jo who wasn't from the same group but had been watching us and was absolutely fascinated by it all. She was a good example of a subject who had certain preconceptions about hypnosis and thus was disappointed about her apparent lack of response. Having now overcome similar misconceptions of my own I was able to address them and stick her hands together, which felt to me like a real achievement.

It seemed that everybody in the pub was wanting to be hypnotised and we were all in demand. Ben captured this sort of HypnoMania effect on video.


The time that Ben and I had to leave in order to catch the last train crept up on us very quickly, so we said our hasty goodbyes and dashed off on our way back to the station. I couldn't believe 8 hours or so went by so quickly and I could easily have gone on for much longer. It was such a buzz to finally get some impromptu subjects.

The last couple of hours in the Turf had been such a blur that I missed a heck of a lot of what everybody else had been up to. It wasn't until we'd boarded the train that Ben told me that Rich had given three girls hypnotically induced orgasms right there in their chairs that evening! I can't decide whether to feel sorry that I gave the girls I'd hypnotised a bit of a sub-standard performance. On the plus side, not having done so will probably mean my girlfriend will allow me to remain in the gene pool.

What a day! What a night! What an incredible end to my first 6 months as a hypnotist!