Just to add to Malky's post (I didn't know you were trained Malc, but I d know how it works).
Joey said:
I dunno, I think me wanting to get stuck could potentially get in the way of it. Though I suspect my skeptical personality probably doesn't help. I'm gunna try again.
It works if you want it to work. That's it basically. If you sit there saying to yourself "there's no way this will stick me", then it wont. The technique (and hypnotism) works on people who want to experience it.
The film had
nothing to do with the making you stick. The film was just to put you into a relaxed frame, in a certain position which makes you feel like you are stuck.
What Brown does is prior to that, make you think that the show and the film will stick you. The flashing images are deliberate to make you think he has been sending a subliminal effect through the show. It's misdirection. You see the images, so you think he's messing with your mind. He is, but only by making you aware that he is making you think he's doing something.
Which he is. All through the show he's giving positive enforcement to the audience that if they get stuck, they're the best people.
This is how stage hypnotism works. The people who get on stage are those who are most likely to want to "show off". They may not be natural show offs, but they have a deep desire to do it. They know what to expect from a hypnotist, so they quickly fall under their "spell". In reality, it's just a relaxation technique that plays towards people's desires and needs to "do what is expected of them". They want to be hypnotised and they want to do what the hypnotist says. They can fool themselves into believing it's all the hypnotist though, so they are not showing off, they are "under hypnosis" so fault free.
It's obviously not that easy. A hypnotist needs to know techniques for suggesting to people, and techniques for getting them into a relaxed enough state to do it.
Like the "ghost" thing, this does not make people liars, and they are not deliberately doing things - it's just very easy for the human brain to fool itself and not be aware of it.
The crux of it is - if you did not really want it to work, then it wouldn't. There would be a point when you watched the "film" where you decided it hadn't work and wouldn't work. I certainly did.
Jools said:
The audience are actors and the people phoning in are backstage :lol:
Nah, I'm sure one of them was AeRo! :lol:
Ollie said:
How long was the video. And what crap did he fill the rest of the show with?
I wish Derren would go back to doing good stuff. He's a very clever man and he's wasting it on things that don't work and simple camera tricks.
Thing is, I'm bored of Derren Brown doing the same things over and over again. We know he's clever and can guess things and do the suggestions. I've seen lots of live shows of him doing it and I'm frankly bored of it. Any entertainer has to look at changing their routine and try different avenues otherwise they become staid and dull. Look at Little Britain etc. Same jokes, week in, week out. Bland, dull, tedious.
So he's trying something a bit different, it may not be successful, but at least he's not just sitting back and doing the same old (well he is actually, he's just dressing it up in a different way).