On the my first day of college I flew to Mars, was zapped with a strange gun, watched as my nose stretched out yards away, and got into some pretty Rated R situations.

Or at least, that's what I thought.

You see, that first day of college was also my first time being hypnotized.

Many colleges have a 'Welcome Week' of sorts for their freshmen and recurring students. At William Paterson University, there was a scheduled event that happens every night for the first week of school, and a hypnotist show was the first one. My newly met floor-mates and I decided to see the show, and they got to watch as I and many others made fools of ourselves on stage. This is what I experienced while I was hypnotized for the first time.

At first I wasn't even on stage. When the hypnotist opened the chairs on stage for people, it was like he opened flood gates. A crowd immediately formed on the stage and fought each other for seats. He told the audience that anyone who also wanted to be hypnotized could do it in their seats among the audience, and that's exactly what I did.

I got nice and comfortable in my seat and followed the hypnotist's instructions as he worked on stage. We were told to keep our eyes closed and to slowly relax each part of the body when he called it, and after a while I slowly collapsed onto one of the newly met girls on my floor! I knew my head was in her lap and I could hear all the people around me giggling and talking. I was aware of all of that, yet I didn't move. I just stayed there, head in her lap. I stayed like that for a while, until a couple people on stage had to leave because it didn't work for them. And that's when the hypnotist saw me, told me to sit up, asked my name, and told me to come up on stage.

I did as he told and took one of the empty seats in the middle of the stage, still aware and conscious of my surroundings but not reacting to them. What the hypnotist did next amazed me. With one hand motion and with one word, everyone on stage fell asleep. Falling into another lap, I could still hear the whole crowd laughing. I knew exactly what was going on, I just didn't argue. When the hypnotist said, "sleep," we slept. It was then I realized what I had gotten myself into: we were putty in the hypnotist's hands.

The hypnotist told us that when we woke up, we should sit up but keep our eyes closed. All of us did as we were told. He then told us that we were all astronauts, and that we were about to fly a rocket ship to Mars. He started counting down from ten, and each number made me more and more nervous and anxious. Once he said one, the hypnotist put his mouth close to his microphone and created this immensely loud noise that sounded like a rocket ship taking off. And I felt it. I suddenly grabbed onto my chair for dear life as I felt the ship taking off into space. It was surreal; part of me still knew that I was just sitting in a chair in front of a laughing crowd, but another part of me felt the ship taking off. I truly was hypnotized, and flying to Mars was just the first of the many adventures I had waiting for me.

After our trip to mars, the hypnotist decided to start pulling at some of our body parts, and to our dismay they stretched as far as he wanted! After he was done tying someone's earlobes together, he came over to me and pulled my nose and starting walking away with it still in hand. I didn't physically see my nose in his hand from across the stage, but I sure felt it. He eventually returned my nose and untied the other kid's ears before turning on the special television set.

As he flipped through the channels of this TV in front of us, we watched a tragic movie that made many start to weep, and then a comedy that made my face hurt from laughing, even though I saw nothing at all. He later turned off the TV and decided that everyone on stage was a superhero, but with a really crappy power. We all quickly got into different poses and one by one told him our superhero names. Mine was "Photosynthesis."

After that bit the hypnotist pulled out a gun from his pants, a special gun, one that could either tickle people or put them to sleep. He played around with the gun, carelessly shooting people on stage until everyone was asleep except for the guy in the middle- me. The hypnotist gave me the gun. I felt it in my hand, and he told me to shoot him. I tried, but every time I pulled the trigger the gun jammed. After a bunch of attempts on my part, he decided to see if it worked for himself as he pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. And down I fell asleep.

Then came the grand finale. This is when he started making us watch and do some pretty Rated R things, which I will not specify. But let's just say I apparently can twerk pretty well for a guy, and can do a decent impression of a girl. At one point I leaned my chair too far back and fell right off the stage! Not only that, but when I fell I also landed on the plug that was hooked up to the music and I managed to accidentally unplug it. Their was an uproar of laughter as everyone on stage, including myself on the floor now, continued to do what the hypnotist said.

At that point the hypnotist started to wrap things up. Everyone on stage got back into their seats as the hypnotist summarized the nights events. He said how that he had humiliated everyone on the stage, which was very true, but everyone had had a lot of fun. And as a thank you for being such good performers, the hypnotist gave us a special gift. He told us that when we wake up from being hypnotized we will remember everything we did, and that we will feel great.We would feel refreshed, confident, and ready to take on the world. He said that whenever we would look into the mirror we would feel proud at what we saw and not ashamed. He then woke us up, and had us walk off stage as everyone in the audience clapped. My new floor-mates swarmed me, laughing and talking all at once. They asked me a whole lot of questions and told me about all the videos they took. I watched the videos, and it was hilarious.

Over the next couple of days of 'Welcome Week,' I had quite a few people recognize me from the show. We would laugh together as we remembered the weird and funny things that happened that night. It really was a great night, and admittedly was not what I had expected when I attended that event that evening.