By: Kamil Wojciak, Staff Writer
“I felt so relaxed . . . I felt excitement when I won one million dollars” John Butler said, one of the performers on Cards Against Hypnosis. On February 8th, for Thursday Thrills, David Hall performed his comedy hypnosis show Cards Against Hypnosis. This performance took place at the Main Cafe in the Student Center at 8:00 PM, open to all individuals looking to have a great laugh.
To start off, Hall demonstrated the power of hypnosis through the “Magnetic Fingers” trick to the audience, showing the audience how hypnosis really works. Hypnosis, even though it may seem like magic, utilizes the power of one’s consciousness to heighten one’s ability for suggestion. By Hall’s skill of persuasion and the audience members focusing on the objective of holding their fingers in place, it really seemed that their fingers were magnetic and pulling each other closer.
After showing the power of hypnosis to the audience, he asked for volunteers to become “the stars of the show”. With the volunteers, David Hall put them in a dream-like state ready for the acts to come; these acts are the fundamental core of Cards Against Hypnosis.
The special mechanic of Cards Against Hypnosis is that the audience decides the outcome of the scenario that is going to take place. On a black card, a scenario is written on what the hypnotized participants will perform. After being shown the black card, Hall will show a white card that has possible outcomes of the scenario to the audience. An audience member (or sometimes just the audience in general) will decide on one of the possible outcomes.
With this unique and inclusive mechanic, the audience members made the participants carry out all sorts of acts, ranging from having a pen that can shoot out an invisible sleeping dart, having the participants hate dancing until they hear the words “Do the Nae Nae”, winning one million dollars from a slot machine, to even singing the ABC’s in heavy metal.
Even with all the silly and crazy acts, many of the performers have little recollection on the acts they participated in. “I remember some things, like the Bahamas, some dancing” G’avonti Patton stated, a performer on the show.
Although the performers themselves may not have a clear memory of the event they partaken in, the audience will for sure remember the highly comedic and amusing show, Cards Against Hypnosis.