Hypnotism is a big load of shit.

At least that’s what I thought, as my roommates and I sat in our seats Friday night in Goldstein Auditorium waiting for hypnotist Doug McGraw to begin his show. Little did I know that an hour later I would be prancing around the auditorium like a Supermodel and doing ‘the Robot’ in front of hundreds of people I didn’t know.

I don’t consider myself to be a person who demands attention from others, especially people I don’t know. I also don’t think I am a person who would go out of my way to make myself look like an asshole. However, it felt so natural to rub the elbows of a strange girl, just because McGraw told us it would be a good idea. Nor did I feel like a jackass; it felt great!

After the show, many of my friends came up to me and asked me how it felt to be hypnotized. So, here is my first-person testimonial of what it’s like to be hypnotized:

Imagine the most relaxing bubble bath in the whole world. Now multiply that about 200 times, and put a little bit of a ‘drunk spin’ into it. That was how relaxed I felt sitting on stage while my knees argued with each other.

Trippy as it sounds, it felt entirely normal to hear the soothing sound of McGraw’s voice telling me that I should keep my knees from fighting, or that my chair was biting me in the ass – I claim furniture malfunction, but whatever.

You see, McGraw made us feel completely comfortable on stage. Every bit of laughter, every round of applause, was like falling deeper and deeper into a soothing sleep.

McGraw ended the show by telling us that we didn’t believe in hypnotism, and that we should vocalize our frustration to the whole audience every time he said the word hypnotism.

When I yelled out, I couldn’t swear. Instead, I clucked like a chicken. So I guess now I’d have to say that hypnotism isn’t a load of shit, but more like a load of ‘cluck, cluck, cluck.’

Published on September 10, 2005 at 12:00 pm