Recently I went to my university's Dance Marathon and had a blast. My school normally brings in different forms of entertainment for the night. This year they had a hypnotist come in. I’ve gone to a few hypnotist shows in my past, so I knew right away what I would be watching, little did I know I would be one of the people that got put under hypnosis. In the past I mentally told myself to not let it work on me, but at the start of the show, I let myself fully relax and to be open to whatever would or could happen.

The Merriam- Webster dictionary defines hypnosis as “a trancelike state that resembles sleep but is induced by a person whose suggestions are readily accepted by the subject”. That is exactly what happened to me. The hypnotist started out the show by having everyone in the audience relax and to close our eyes. Once he explained what hypnosis was and a little bit of what would be happening, he started the show. When I started to “fall asleep” as the hypnotist explains it, I had no idea that it was working on me, and I just thought I was relaxing. Once I started to fall into a deeper “sleep” everything around me started to fade away. Everything from after that moment is a blur to me. I remember bits and pieces of the show, thanks to videos, but during that first fifteen minutes of the show, I thought I was in the audience watching other people.

About fifteen minutes into the show the hypnotist “woke us up” and told us what was going on. I was shocked, confused, and baffled. Hypnotism finally worked on me. But he only kept us awake for a little while. Everything after this moment is clearer than the first fifteen minutes. In the back of my mind, I knew I was under hypnosis, and I understood that people in the audience were watching me. But I couldn’t quite grasp that idea. From that point on I knew that people were watching me, but I didn’t care. I had this boost of confidence that I have never had before. This is something that is really interesting for me. If you’d ask me to come on stage and dance for 500+ people, I would have given you a big hell no. But that’s exactly what I was doing. I danced in front of 500+ people and I didn’t have a care in the world to what those people were thinking or even saying about me.

When the hypnotist ended the show and fully “woke us up” I honestly thought I had just spent the past 30 minutes watching the show. My friends came up to me to check on me and asked if I was okay, which really confused me. I mean why wouldn’t I be? I just watched a really cool hypnotist show. They explained why they were asking, but I thought they were all just joking with me. I mean, hypnotism has never worked on me before, so why wouldn’t it now. But once they showed me the videos, everything slowly started to come back to me. But the memories I have of the show are faded memories, much like trying to remember a memory from your elementary school days.

For those of you asking, yes hypnotism is very real. No I did not volunteer, I just had an open mind set and it just happened. Being under hypnosis isn’t scary, it’s very relaxing, and very calming. Yes you might be missing pits and pieces of thirty minutes of your life, but if you get the chance, go to a hypnotist show and bring your opened mind set. If your one of the lucky ones to get hypnotized you wake up feeling refreshed, with a new look on life, and the best a new found confidence that was deep down in you.

Disclaimer: This is just MY experience with hypnotism, and everyone experiences it differently. Hypnotism is very real and you should not play around with it unless you are with a professional who knows what they are doing.