Hypnosis Skeptic Hypnotized Into Singing Rihanna’s “Umbrella” On Stage

by Bob Walsh

Here’s a really great story by a student who was an absolute non-believer. He thought all that hypnosis-stuff was just quackery… until his turn came…

Recently a hypnotist came to my college. The posters were plastered all over campus. His suave smile looked at me through sunglasses and he wore a fine suit. People were excited to go see a hypnotist and I was not that overly intrigued by it.

I was always a skeptic as most people are of hypnosis, but decided I would go to it anyways as it was a free show. Who passes up something free as a college student? The show started off innocently enough.

The hypnotist brought a few volunteers up on stage early and made them bark like dogs, or stiffen up like a log. It was all good fun, but I was still not a believer.

Next he decided to try and make the volunteers make out with each other. There was nothing too creepy like a male on male event, but it still wasn’t enough to change my mind about hypnosis.

So the finale came up and he brought up a bunch of new volunteers, myself included. I sat down in a chair and before I knew it, he was off hypnotizing the person in the first chair. The first victim found themselves with their eyes closed pretending to walk a tight-rope along the very edge of the stage. The hypnotist gave her an umbrella and she continued pacing the edge of the stage very carefully so as to not fall into the crowd.

He continued down the line creating a cavalcade of crazy hypnotized acts.

One man was a lion being hunted by another man who thought them the hunter. They would chase each other around the stage and one would either shoot or pounce on the other every few minutes.

Another person had become the spitting image of Jimmy Stewart. Babbling on behind the hypnotist’s talking in a perfect impression of the It’s A Wonderful Life star.

Then he came to me. I looked at him as if to say “Bring it on.” I closed my eyes as he asked and gave in to being hypnotized. Surely, I thought, I could just be able to resist such wacky methods of control by my own mental means.

But as soon as my eyes closed, they were open again, almost 10 minutes later.

A video I watched afterwards recorded by my friend showed me what I had done. In a fitting display of irony, the hypnotist thought it best if I act like singing sensation and Hip Hop heart throb, Rihanna. I moved in effeminate motions and grab a microphone off the front of the stage, pushing the tight-rope walker off in the act and taking her umbrella with me.

She screamed and fell three feet to the ground, but didn’t stop screaming. She continued to “fall” for a few more seconds, slapped the ground with a thud, and went “dead”. With umbrella and microphone in hand, the hypnotist began to play the background music to “Umbrella”, the song that Rihanna had made popular.

I danced through the full song, singing and twirling my umbrella as I went. The sight is a fright to behold. But I am now a full believer in hypnosis. A mentally strong person as myself can even be brought to his knees before a trained hypnotist.

The only problem is that now, whenever “Umbrella” by Rihanna comes on, I seem to bob my head and move to it a little more willingly than I want.

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Christian Woods June 16, 2011 at 4:11 am

I don’t believe I can be hypnotized, simply because I’m blind, and I don’t know any Floridans. Besides, how would you hypnotize a blind person? When I hold hands with my girlfriend, I feel sleepy when she sings to me, but that’s not the same. By the way, if that hypnotest finds his way up to The Pas, Manitoba, I dare him to come after me.

Hypnotist June 20, 2011 at 6:28 am

Hi Christian,
aou are right that holding your girlfriends’ hand and feeling sleepy when she things something to you isn’t the same as being hypnotized – it’s something very different.

Yet, being blind won’t make you less hypnotizeable. Visual fixation is just one kind of hypnotic induction technique. Blind people can be hypnotized :-) It’s a different story for deaf people though – I have never tried to hypnotize a deaf person, and I have never heard of or read about a documented case. Most hypnosis happens via spoken language.

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