Saturday in Bristol

I seem to have had quite a busy week hypnosis wise, but then I can never get enough of it anyway.

Yesterday my mighty folding bike and I paid another visit to Bristol, which is a nice place and definitely worth a visit just to see the sights. I was, of course, there for another HypnoMeet that Rich had organised. Also attending were Javier, Lex & Liz, and Keiron, a magician and hypnotist Rich knows.

I had deliberately planned to arrive there early so I could have a bit of an explore on my bike and I passed a productive couple of hours on my own before the others arrived. I looked around the shops, had lunch, found an overdue Birthday present for someone, and miraculously managed to go into a bike shop without buying anything. Having learned my lesson from last time I wheeled my bike up Park Street this time, then I parked up and made myself comfortable in a bar to wait for the others.

Lex and Liz arrived soon afterward and after a quick drink we decided to make use of the two hours before anyone else was to show up to have a bit of a wander around the shops. Apparently there was some imperative for Liz to find an outfit for the following day. Having some vague idea of the kind of outfits that appeal to them I couldn't help but feel some apprehension, but as it turned out I needn't have worried.

Something that I should have known of course, and even my girlfriend would probably second this, is that with any outfit it's best to start with the hat and work downward. Of course I should have known that, how could I not have?!

Well anyway this became quite apparent to me that afternoon. As we passed one of those shops that will sell you plastic spiders, plastic swords, inflatable badgers, etc and of course a multitude of hats. Lex pointed this out, but Liz wasn't keen; she said she'd feel a bit self-conscious trying them on. This is where Lex demonstrated the fun that can be had with a girlfriend who can't get enough of being hypnotised. One moment we were walking up the road and the next, a few choice words later, we were making a quick u-turn and heading back to the shop.

The next 10 minutes or so were occupied by a rigorous process of hat selection. I personally was quite fond of the huge stovepipe hat for the Isembard Kingdom Brunel look, complete with LED-lit plastic cigar. It would have fit my character quite well, the crazed mechanical engineer that I am, but I didn't fancy riding home on my bike wearing it. After much deliberation Liz, admittedly in a rather more enthusiastic guise, selected a Tricorn hat. This was after going through a dozen or so other options and I'd been told off by a shop employee whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to stand in the corner and tell customers not to take pictures. I wasn't about to explain to him that the subject of the photographs was hypnotised, wouldn't remember this incident, and that was why photographic evidence was important. I put my phone away.

We were then just leaving the shop when Liz spotted a red hat in the window, one that it has to be said reminded me too much of Virgin Atlantic stewardesses, and so in we went again to buy one of those.

Then during our second attempt at leaving I found a metal enamel plate with a retro picture on it that I thought would be a great gift for my girlfriend, so we paused again whilst I bought it.

Walking away from the shop, and after a few more words from Lex, Liz was ever so slightly disoriented.

"Deja vu?" he asked her.

"Yeah..." she said "Hang on! Where did those bags come from?!"

"We've been shopping" Lex said.

What followed, as we walked further into the shopping district, was a spirited attempt by Liz to find out what was in the bags. We weren't telling of course, and a hypnotic forcefield kept her prying hands away. Lex must have decided that this was cruel, so after a while he let her carry the bags, but she was completely unable to open them.

The final revelation for Liz came when she was marching along through a clothes shop like a woman on a mission, trailing her male companions in what is the standard form for women in clothes shops, and spotted the Tricorn on her head as she passed a mirror. She had no idea how long it had been there, and of course she still doesn't.

We eventually found our way back to the Berkeley, the Wetherspoons pub that the last Bristol Meet had been in, to meet up with Rich and Javier. Rich met us at the bar, and after I'd bought a round without the aid of post hypnotic compulsion we found ourselves a quiet table in a corner. Rich, who had been learning magic, pulled out a deck of cards at this point and demonstrated a couple of near cards tricks. I was able to show off the Key trick I learned in Covent Garden on Wednesday. Lex took the opportunity to demonstrate the "strings cut" trigger he'd given Liz which turned her into a kind of human marrionette although sadly this wasn't accompanied by anybody's seat retracting into the floor or the table moving aside to allow a rocket to launch.

Javier produced a set of "salad" playing cards with NLP phrases on them, determined to get £30 worth of use out of them having spent that much buying them. Unfortunately these phrases proved completely ineffectual in helping him is his attempts to sell his jacket to Rich, presumably to try to make back the £30 deficit.

We elected to a Chinese restaurant up the road for dinner, and I enjoyed getting myself wrapped up in the world of discussing hypnosis in the way that one can around other people who share the same enthusiasm for it. The food at the restaurant was first rate, and the all the better for being an all you can eat buffet.

Over dinner I heard Rich asking Liz on the topic of who she would be happy going into trance for. As her answer made it clear that this would probably extend to him I could hear cogs turning in his head as he filed this information under "iiiiinteresting".

I contented myself with making Liz's spoon vanish from her hand just as she was diving into her ice cream desert and watching Lex get the blame for it.

Returning to the Berkeley we met up with Keiron, who is apparently new to the world of hypnosis but has a long history of practicing impromptu magic.

Rich was keen to try out a new magic trick on Liz, or at least it seemed so at first. He had her pick out a card from the deck, note to herself which one it was, then put the card back and shuffle the deck thoroughly. What he did next was a bit sneaky; he slammed his hand down flat on the table with a bang and said "sleep!". It was a shock induction of course; it certainly shocked me! Liz, however, is the kind of subject that people she trusts as hypnotists can't say certain words around in normal conversation, for example "blank", "freeze" or "sleep". When playing scrabble one must take care to speak of the "blank... unblank" tiles or "tiles with no letters on" lest the game grind to a halt as a result of her mind switching itself off, and it seems Lex has only been able to say the word "sleep" out of the corner of his mouth for the last two years. Suffice to say that her response to Rich's command was predictable and immediate.

Rich had her tell him what her card was, and then come back to the room not noticing anything had happened. Then, the mighty magician that he was, he amazed her by pulling it out of the deck.

I shall have to try that shock induction sometime, although like a lot of instant inductions it's one that the hypnotist has to be prepared for it not to work a lot of the time. Indeed, Rich told me that it works about 30% of the time.

I got in on the card action by also pointing out that her card was also on the top of the freshly shuffled deck, which it was after I'd frozen her and done a bit of re-arranging. She was also amazed when *all* of the cards were her card thanks to a few suggestions. Suffice to say that I felt like a bit of a dirty cheat for doing this and owned up straight away.

As with his earlier actual card tricks Liz demanded to know how he'd done it. Rich wasn't going to say and pushed straight on for the holy grail of hypnosis, the invisible hypnotist routine. He put her back into trance and told her that she wouldn't be able to see him, but she would be able to hear him and see anything he moved.

Imagine her confusion when, no sooner had we explained that Rich had gone looking for potential subjects, one of the pint glasses on the table started moving around on its own. In fact I don't think I've ever seen her quite so taken aback before, not even by the Harry Potter wall in Oxford. This was especially so when the levitating glass, toted by a very smug Rich, moved toward her. This time, as Lex wasn't around, I took the full blame for the levitating pint glass Liz was sure she was hallucinating.

Rich having "returned" decided it was time to get to work, and he Javier, and Keiron who had been looking on in a kind of stunned silence, started looking for tables to approach. They approached two or three, but nobody seemed particularly interested in hypnosis, not even the table of about 20 women all dressed in red skirts and white shirts, presumably on a social night out with a society of some kind. Keiron's magic went down a bit better, but the three of them still ended up returning to our table soon after they'd left.

I wasn't in the mood for approaching tables. I had taken a moment to demonstrate magnetic hands on Lex, who in spite of his insistence that he has a poor response to hypnosis responded very well to the suggestions. Had I thought at the time I might have tried to demonstrate a few more exercises on him, but is request rather caught me by surprise. I do wonder if he suffers frustration at being amongst the number of hypnotists who don't have any deep experience of hypnosis as the subject, not being able to achieve most of the effects he routinely engenders in others. It's a frustration I know well myself.

Indeed, I became aware that of the six of use around the table there were only two of use who could be considered tranceable, and this in mind I was happy when Keiron changed the subject and went into demonstrating some of his magic routines.

"Wow!" I said, impressed "That's much better than when when Rich cheated earlier."

I should have kept quiet, because this re-ignited Liz's attempts to find out just how Rich had managed to find her card earlier, and needless to say Rich wasn't giving anything away.

It was at this point I heard a quiet voice beside my right ear. "Veritas. Parkey, how did Rich do that magic trick?"

Now, earlier in the day the conversation had touched on the subject of truth triggers, and indeed Liz had given me one of these during a skype conversation about four months earlier. I find that post hypnotic suggestions are always strongest when they catch you by surprise, and I was completely astonished to hear myself saying "Rich tranced you and then..." ...and then I realised what I was saying and could only exclaim "NOOOO!!!"

"I can't believe I said that!" I gasped, feeling myself going red. "Why did I just say that?!"

Liz patted me on the shoulder, "it's called hypnosis dear."

Being a somnambulist and experiencing the full force profound hypnotic phenomena straight away must be quite an amazing experience, but for the likes of me the slow road to improvement as a subject is lined with tiny but significant milestones. I find that moments like this one, where something hypnotic almost unquestionably occurred, are exciting and very special.

What followed was an attempt by Javier to see if other people could use that trigger.

"Veritas. Parkey, is it 'Veritas' that makes you tell the truth?"

"NO!" I lied, and then having realised I'd gotten away with being able to lie, punched the air, "Yessss!".

Thus defying the whole purpose of lying I reminded myself.

Anyway the evening only went on a short while longer for me after that because I had a train to catch. Liz, fresh from her success triggering a confession for Rich out of me, proceeded to stick my hands to my drink, drink to the table, etc, although this "brattishness", as she would call it, was a little bit encouraged by a few choice words. The suggestions holding my hand to the table held for a long time before breaking, even when my ribs were under bombardment from various peoples' prodding fingers. The things I'm willing to endure for the sake of affirmation!

Around about 10pm we left the pub and I said my goodbyes, leaving the others as they headed off down the street in search of better hunting grounds, riding my bike back to the station to catch the last train home and ending another awesome evening out!

Oh, if anybody's interested in Richard Skeates' hypnosis course in Bristol on 26th October the details can be found here.