fithelere (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fithelere) wrote,@ 2009-06-25 10:10:00 |
|
Second Hand Hypnosis and Collateral Catalepsy
So last Sunday, a couple of musicians I know--Mark and April, a recently-formed musical act called the Tulstin Troubadours--asked if I would film them playing for a digital audition, and I proposed that my office would be a good location. I also asked if they would reciprocate by helping me create the hypnosis clip that is posted here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGMYXyR0
The only problem with recording at my office is that the window unit air conditioner is pretty loud, and we are in Texas in June after all. So after we were done filming and had moved to making audio recordings, April took off her top. No big deal--her bra covered more than most bikini tops, and we're all theater people anyway. But this detail will be important as the story unfolds . . .
As we were sitting around talking afterwards, and I'd already packed up the tripod and camcorder, Mark mentioned that he was still kind of skeptical about hypnosis, despite April's assurances that it's real. He had the usual objections, especially the claim that he couldn't be hypnotized because he wasn't willing to give up self-control.
So I offered to teach him how to hypnotize himself, and before long we had eye catalepsy. I then suggested he had helium balloons tied to his wrist in increasing numbers. While I was keeping that going, I started wondering why the AC unit wasn't cooling us down as well I'd like, so I went to investigate while keeping the patter going. After determining that the AC really was on, I started to head back over to Mark, when some stray threads from my cut-off shorts caught in the tuning pegs of his harp, nearly knocking it to the ground. I managed to disentangle myself while keeping up the patter.
When I looked back at Mark, his right arm was about a foot above his lap. :-) I wanted to be sure that April was witnessing this, but I noticed that she was sitting very still in her chair, with her eyes closed . . . Fine, I thought, I need to wake her up so she can tell him this really happened. So I tapped her wrist to quietly rouse her, and her wrist floated up into the air, propelled by imaginary balloons.
So then I realized that if Mark had any amnesia, I was going to have no way to prove what happened. Keeping up my patter, I dug the camcorder out of my pack and started filming with one hand while taking both him and April through a bunch of different phenomena--heavy pen, cold pen, hot pen, sticky pen. I was moving the camera back and forth between the two and thinking that I might have something YouTube worthy, when I realized that April not only had her skirt hiked up for the heat, but also was not wearing a top. While she's not body shy around close friends, I knew that footage wasn't going on YouTube . . .
I realized then that I was going to have to keep the camera on Mark, so I thought it would be good to dehypnotize April. Dang it, I wanted her to see me at work! Remembering the stage shows I'd watched, I touched her hand and said, "The person I am touching will come out of trance feeling great on the count of three. One, two, three!" She opened her eyes and looked around, so I moved back over to Mark.
Well, he still had a pen stuck in his hand, so I took him through the routine I shamelessly ripped off from Sean Michael Andrews, unsticking the pen when his hand stuck to his head, then unsticking that hand when the other was stuck to his nose, and so on. Then I unstuck all his limbs but made his arm stiff and straight in front of him. And here's my favorite move: I brought the rest of him out of trance while leaving his arm rigid. After giving him long enough to realize that he was conscious and yet his arm was paralyzed, I released it and reinduced trance, wrapping up with some feel good suggestions before bringing him out.
So I quit filming and handed him the camera to watch the evidence before I turned to April to see her reaction. She said, "Yeah, that was neat. Um, could you release this pen from my hand now?" I'd forgotten she had the pen in her hand when I brought her out.
In the end, Mark agreed that he was no longer skeptical. Unfortunately, on the parts that came after I quit filming topless April, my handheld camera work was so bouncy as to induce nausea, and I realized that posting it anywhere would constitute public humiliation--for me.
So last Sunday, a couple of musicians I know--Mark and April, a recently-formed musical act called the Tulstin Troubadours--asked if I would film them playing for a digital audition, and I proposed that my office would be a good location. I also asked if they would reciprocate by helping me create the hypnosis clip that is posted here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGMYXyR0
The only problem with recording at my office is that the window unit air conditioner is pretty loud, and we are in Texas in June after all. So after we were done filming and had moved to making audio recordings, April took off her top. No big deal--her bra covered more than most bikini tops, and we're all theater people anyway. But this detail will be important as the story unfolds . . .
As we were sitting around talking afterwards, and I'd already packed up the tripod and camcorder, Mark mentioned that he was still kind of skeptical about hypnosis, despite April's assurances that it's real. He had the usual objections, especially the claim that he couldn't be hypnotized because he wasn't willing to give up self-control.
So I offered to teach him how to hypnotize himself, and before long we had eye catalepsy. I then suggested he had helium balloons tied to his wrist in increasing numbers. While I was keeping that going, I started wondering why the AC unit wasn't cooling us down as well I'd like, so I went to investigate while keeping the patter going. After determining that the AC really was on, I started to head back over to Mark, when some stray threads from my cut-off shorts caught in the tuning pegs of his harp, nearly knocking it to the ground. I managed to disentangle myself while keeping up the patter.
When I looked back at Mark, his right arm was about a foot above his lap. :-) I wanted to be sure that April was witnessing this, but I noticed that she was sitting very still in her chair, with her eyes closed . . . Fine, I thought, I need to wake her up so she can tell him this really happened. So I tapped her wrist to quietly rouse her, and her wrist floated up into the air, propelled by imaginary balloons.
So then I realized that if Mark had any amnesia, I was going to have no way to prove what happened. Keeping up my patter, I dug the camcorder out of my pack and started filming with one hand while taking both him and April through a bunch of different phenomena--heavy pen, cold pen, hot pen, sticky pen. I was moving the camera back and forth between the two and thinking that I might have something YouTube worthy, when I realized that April not only had her skirt hiked up for the heat, but also was not wearing a top. While she's not body shy around close friends, I knew that footage wasn't going on YouTube . . .
I realized then that I was going to have to keep the camera on Mark, so I thought it would be good to dehypnotize April. Dang it, I wanted her to see me at work! Remembering the stage shows I'd watched, I touched her hand and said, "The person I am touching will come out of trance feeling great on the count of three. One, two, three!" She opened her eyes and looked around, so I moved back over to Mark.
Well, he still had a pen stuck in his hand, so I took him through the routine I shamelessly ripped off from Sean Michael Andrews, unsticking the pen when his hand stuck to his head, then unsticking that hand when the other was stuck to his nose, and so on. Then I unstuck all his limbs but made his arm stiff and straight in front of him. And here's my favorite move: I brought the rest of him out of trance while leaving his arm rigid. After giving him long enough to realize that he was conscious and yet his arm was paralyzed, I released it and reinduced trance, wrapping up with some feel good suggestions before bringing him out.
So I quit filming and handed him the camera to watch the evidence before I turned to April to see her reaction. She said, "Yeah, that was neat. Um, could you release this pen from my hand now?" I'd forgotten she had the pen in her hand when I brought her out.
In the end, Mark agreed that he was no longer skeptical. Unfortunately, on the parts that came after I quit filming topless April, my handheld camera work was so bouncy as to induce nausea, and I realized that posting it anywhere would constitute public humiliation--for me.
