Thursday found me looking out of a train window watching the beautiful Thames valley whizzing past the window at 125mph. I had left my flat in order to make a brisk walk to the railway station to catch my train to London. I had discovered on arriving at the station that my train was running 15 minutes late. The train ahead of it, which would also have gotten me to London, I had just seen pulling out of the station as I arrived, on time to the nearest second.
"Bloody typical" would be the obvious response.
Is it typical though? Had both of the trains been on time, or if the earlier one had been late enough for me to catch and I'd gotten to London earlier than planned I probably wouldn't have batted an eyelid. Over 90% of trains in the UK arrive within 10 minutes of their scheduled time, but of course it's the occasions when they don't that catch our attention. What percentage of car journeys into urban centres can be said to suffer less than a 10 minute delay, especially at busy periods?
Best to appreciate the good things when they are present, as opposed to by their absence. So I thought as I appreciated being able to sit back and watch the mesmerising experience of the countryside rolling past. Train travel trances are much better than car travel trances I thought; you can go much deeper and there's no risk of causing an accident.
We'd agreed on a change of venue for this meet, nearer to Covent Garden, as well as the unusual date so on arriving it took me a while to find Ben, who'd found us a table in a cramped corner of the pub.
We chatted for a bit about magic tricks, and Ben told me how he'd spent time recently watching Peter Crossland and Marcus Lewis, hypnotists we know through the MMH group, working the crowd and he reckons that a couple of magic tricks are easily the best way to break the ice with strangers. Ben then demonstrated a really cool card trick to me, and I felt the need to redouble my attempts to learn a few magic tricks.
As if on cue Marcus joined us at that point, followed by Darren, and then followed by numerous phone calls from others trying to find out where the venue was. It turns out that as I had been the person to alert the Last Thursday Group to the date and venue, and as facebook in their continuing quest to evolve their interface into one that is utterly incomprehensible and impossible to use, it seems that the invites I thought I'd sent out hadn't gone out, and so only a few of us made it, and most of the others had to call us to find out where the heck we were.
After showing us a few impressive magic tricks Marcus asked if he could hypnotise me. I was actually about to ask him the same question, but I didn't especially mind going first. He used an eye fixation induction that had me staring at a playing card held in my hand, which seems to be quite popular at the moment. He then did a number of simple routines with me such as sticking me to my stool (which in this case didn't actually feel like sticking, but rather had me insisting that I was absolutely fine sitting where I was thankyou!) and having me forget my name.
Next I took a turn hypnotising Marcus. I already knew he was a highly responsive subject, so I felt confident using the Erickson handshake on him. What I wasn't prepared for was the way in which, just as I was starting, his head dropped and his legs nearly gave way under him I was already feeling very rusty with my patter, not having zapped anybody in a while, and in the noisy crowded space it seemed that it was all that I could do to keep him upright.
I tried a few suggestions, but when I brought him back from trance it didn't feel as though he was completely back, he was completely dazed and barely responded to anything I or anyone else was saying or doing. I tried patter to the effect that he would feel lucid and wide awake when I woke him up, but it really didn't seem to make much of a difference. Perhaps the situation was getting away from me simply because I was beginning to feel as though I wasn't fully in control. Whatever the reason, I wasn't feeling happy and decided to leave things there. I did a wake up and bought Marcus a drink by way of apology.
Next Darren had a go at hypnotising me with the old classics like sticking my hand to my drink and making me unable to say my name. I got my revenge by hypnotising him afterwards and having him split his sides laughing whenever I showed him a beer mat. After this I took some time out and just watched what everyone else was doing.
Darren came to me again later on and chatted to me saying that the trances I'd done with him were great, but I needed to work on my wakeups because he and Marcus had both been very groggy after I'd brought them back up from trance. I appreciated the advice from Darren and I take such comments completely seriously, they mean a lot to me, but at the same time I felt a little bit amateurish and out of my depth.
He then offered to show me a card trick. I knew he was up to something immediately; Darren doesn't know any magic tricks.
He had me staring at a card in a way that was not at all unfamiliar from the way Marcus had done to me, and I'd done to him earlier, then sure enough I was down and into trance. This time Darren tried a reverse mind reading trick on me, which I believe is taken from Anthony Jacquin's Manchurian Approach DVD. Basically it's a card trick where the subject is simply told which card to choose by the hypnotist, and then given amnesia for the suggestion.
This was the first time someone has given me an explicit instruction to forget that something has happened; Darren is just cheeky and confident enough to give something like that a try even if it probably won't work. My response to this routine made me feel closer to getting full amnesia, but very it's very hard to put the experience into words. I felt an overriding desire to go along with the routine and to lie to Darren that I couldn't remember being told which card to choose. At first that might seem like I was just pretending, and perhaps so, but the crazier thing about it was that whilst I knew very well that I had the memories of being given that suggestion I found actually getting at those memories to be very difficult! It was like trying to reach out and grab a handful of smoke, I could see what I was reaching for but when I tried to grab something for a closer look my hands were coming back empty. This hasn't really happened before.
I am getting better as a subject. Definitely.
Marcus had been chatting to the barmaid, who was interested in hypnosis and wanted to give it a try. Hypnosis wise he didn't seem to be having much success, although she clearly enjoyed having his full attention.
After hypnosis didn't really seem to work for her with Marcus, Darren stepped up and had a go.
This all led up to what I think is probably the best reaction to an induction I have ever seen, although not in hypnotic terms.
Darren had already tried one induction and she'd not "gone under", to her satisfaction, so Darren tried a hand drop induction on her. He had her push down on his hand, take a deep breath... that's right... push harder... take another deep breath... SLEEP!
The girl's eyes popped open wide in an expression of complete shock, showing white all the way around her pupils, and she recoiled as though Darren had suddenly turned into a poisonous snake. It's an image that will stay with me for a long, long time.
She clearly wasn't going to go under but Marcus used his initiative at this point. He offered to hypnotise her later, got her to write down her phone number on one of his cards, and then proceeded to do an awesome card trick routine by stringing effect after effect. It was incredible to watch.
I made it back to Paddington in good time to catch my train home. It was on time too, but then thinking back I can't remember any train back from London after a meet running late.
I'd had a good evening out, but all in all my feelings as I sat staring through the window at the blackness outside were not especially positive. For the first time at one of these meets had I managed to make myself feel like a complete amateur. Everyone else at the meets seems to be making more opportunities for themselves to get out and hypnotise people and they are absolutely awesome to watch, whereas I felt incredibly rusty and no better at this than I was many months ago.
I really need to start finding more opportunities to get out and zap somehow.
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