Stage hypnotists.

[Amy90]

A few years ago whilst on holiday in Greece the hotel advertised a show by a hypnotist. Me and my friends went to the show and he asked for volunteers. I was the only one of my friends who was up for it and stepped forwards. I have always been sceptical about these stage hypnotists and thought that it was all an act. With that in mind I decided that I would have he perfect chance to find out for myself. So there I was on the stage with five other people and the hypnotist started to hypnotise us.

I decided that I wasn't going to deliberately resist his efforts and see if he could genuinely hypnotise me. I have to say that he certainly did. When you see these people on TV, you tend to think that they are in some kind of trance and don't remember what's going on. Well, you do remember all of it. He asks you to do things and you seem unable to refuse. I can remember everything I did and whilst I did ridiculous things, they seemed perfectly normal at the time. I would liken it to being drunk in that your inhibitions are diminished. It was great fun. Has anyone else done this.

[MarkRae]

Starbuckone, approximately 10% of people can't be hypnotised...

[fliptheswitch]

...And wow, 15 years! That's pretty impressive.

Fair enough, toff. I probably should have pointed out that my Dad tried it, and it didn't work for him. I wonder though, is that just because the hypnotists are crap?!

[Amy90]

fliptheswitch, were you there because you seem to know exactly what happened that night.

[The-Toff-]

Could be flip, who knows.

[fliptheswitch]

Wind your neck in, love...

It sounds shady and I don't believe it. End of.

[starone]

Thanks again, Mark - very interesting.

[netibiza]

I was hypnotised by a genuine hypnotist because of my great feat of spiders, I was not asleep although when he woke me up I was so tired that he put me under and snapped me out of it and I was fine. But I still have a dread of seeing a spider, but since then I have never seen one although apparently they have been running around, I just wish the fear would go completely.

[netibiza]

My hypotist just sat on a settee opposite me and droned on and on, but I was aware all the time.

One thing that worries me is could he send me off again anytime we meet up, ie in a pub, could be do something and make me do something silly Will he always have control. I've asked him to do it when I am not expecting it and he said he would never ever do anything like that.

[boxtops]

I've had hypnotherapy, which is a completely different matter from stage hypnosis. Some people take to it better than others, IMO.

[icemaiden]

I had hypnotherapy 12 years ago to stop smoking and it worked. Came out of there a non smoker. Didn't even have any cravings either. The same guy tried it on my Dad, but it didn't work. I believe it worked on me because I REALLY REALLY wanted to give up. My Dad didn't really want to.

Derren Brown is truly amazing, have seen him twice now.

[Jonathan-Joe]

Strictly speaking "Me and my friends went to the show ... " should be "I and my friends ... ".

[netibiza]

No jonanthan, it should be "my friends and I"

[Zeuhl]

You will find that Stage hypnotists have a process for identifying and selecting the most susceptible in the audience.

Re the stabbing business - I am a qualified Hypnotherapist and it is impossible to hypnotise someone to do something they wouldn't do when awake.

In therapy, it simply relaxes the Conscious Mind in order to re-programme the Unconscious.

Stage Hypnosis is about relaxing people's inhibitions so they feel empowered to do ridiculous things they really want to do but otherwise might not dare to.