Since witnessing my first hypnotism show 13 years ago at the San Benito County Fair, I’ve wondered the same question many others have pondered: Is it possibly real, or do the participants merely go along with a staged act?
Solving this mystery was up there on my journalistic bucket list with a goal of breaking the exclusive alien-attack story and confirming that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s actual height is closer to 5-foot-9 than his proclaimed 6-foot-2.
The only way to definitively answer the hypnosis question was to face the purportedly altered state myself. I had the chance last Friday night by taking part in one of two daily performances by hypnotist Michael Mezmer at the Bolado Park fairgrounds.
Before his 7 p.m. slot, I approached the Holaday Seed Co. main stage where Mezmer had been standing after announcing his next show would start in a few minutes, and he agreed to let me participate as one of 12 volunteers seated in folding chairs lined across the front of the stage.
A self-proclaimed phenomenist as a dual hypnotist and magician who travels the U.S. and Asia performing at fairs and festivals, Mezmer made sure audience members and participants were aware of some things before trying to put us into hypnosis.
He said it was a choice and participants had to commit and listen to his instructions—focusing only on him—or it wouldn’t work.
“I like to call it controlled daydreaming,” he said, “because you’re fully aware. You’re just into what we’re doing.”
To do it right, he said, participants had to “let go and just relax.” He warned of distractions and stressed the importance of fighting off those disruptions.
Going in, I had fears about it like anybody.
Would I embarrass myself in some unpredictable way? Would this hypnotist guy mess with my head? Would I end up needing therapy for the rest of my life while insisting I’m the reincarnation of Judge Wapner, who’s still alive, or an inanimate object like a footstool?
Those were minor anxieties, though. After all, county fairs across America had allowed hypnotists to control innocent patrons’ minds for decades, maybe centuries, and I’d never heard of anyone getting permanently stuck in a hypnotic state as a roaring lion or barbershop quartet singer.
On the stage, Mezmer seated me at stage left, or the audience’s far right. He explained how at certain points when instructed, the 12 volunteers would place their heads on the shoulders to their left. In the last chair, I would lower my chin to my chest, he instructed. Mezmer told us this “safe spot” would take us “10 times deeper and relax you 10 times further.”
Guiding the mostly teenage audience through a headset, the hypnotist with rounded black hair, sideburns and a long-sleeve graphic T-shirt tucked into jeans, paced confidently across the stage accompanied by an arrangement of mystical sound effects.
When he was about to put us into a state of hypnosis—after a brief mind experiment where he had us latch our fingers like tightly wound, “incredibly strong, solid bars of steel”—he warned audience members to turn off their cameras. He mentioned that posting videos of that portion to YouTube could result in people getting hypnotized and suing him.
Mezmer assured volunteers at the outset we would remember the hypnosis, but my recollection of actually going under is relatively fuzzy. The video I do have, admittedly, was particularly helpful in jogging specific memories about other parts of the show.
“Your eyes will always remain closed down,” he told us right before, “because it all takes place in the theater of the mind’s eye.”
During the somewhat blurry period at the start, I do recall he had us envision a body of water, a wall of fire and rolling in sand on a beach. He repeatedly urged us to fall deeper into relaxation. At some point I turned, and stage lights distorted the carnival background so all I basically saw was Mezmer’s floating head as he progressed through the dialogue.
In the first minutes of the hypnosis experience, Mezmer had each of us picture ourselves at one of the nation’s top universities on the No. 1 drum line in the U.S. We were supposedly on full scholarships and were “incredible” musicians who had won many awards.
He told us to choose an instrument to imagine and prepare to perform in an important rehearsal. With no drum experience—and I have no idea why—I selected the bongos.
When an up-beat marching band song began playing, something clicked. Without inhibition, I jumped right into a fast-paced performance banging away at a set of five or six primary drums with my head subtly bobbing and an overbite that solidified an undeniable devotion to the craft.
During a brief break in the music, Mezmer encouraged us to take it up a notch by bringing more “showmanship” to the song. For me, this resulted in an even faster pace, standing and bending and reaching for drums in every direction, and eventually flailing both of my exhausted arms down with vigor on a single bongo right in front of me.
At some point in there, Mezmer had excused the girl next to me because she wasn’t playing an imaginary instrument while others performed the likes of varying drums, symbols and what seemed like some type of horn.
Following the big musical opening, Mezmer’s hour-long show regressed into a measured pace while he engineered participants’ turbulent emotions before the finale portion.
When he told us we each hit a flat note, I showed frustration. I’m not sure how upset I got, but felt the need to show it with a disgruntled face.
When Mezmer made us think the people next to us smelled awful from sweaty socks, I turned to escape the nonexistent scent and muttered gibberish in angst toward my neighbor.
Much of his shtick, of course, involved a good helping of toilet humor appropriately aimed at a younger audience. He had us unsuccessfully hold off a burrito-induced gas attack and made us drink from an imaginary bottle he later disclosed was filled with “giggle water”—leading to irresistible bouts of laughter.
Crouched over trying to contain myself, he would have us guzzle drink after drink of the fake water telling us with subsequent swigs it would make the situation “40 times funnier” and then “50 times funnier” yet. He laughed, clown like, to prod us on.
“Oh, no,” I said into the microphone he held to my face to get a reaction for the amused audience. “It’s too much.”
An experienced showman himself, Mezmer’s pacing of the hypnotism led to a grand, flamboyant ending—a performance from the participants as background belly dancers for singer Shakira.
It was about the last thing I’d do under non-hypnosis circumstances—dancing a belly dance before a crowd of strangers—but there I was: Hands in the air, moving gracelessly to club music, hips swiveling forcefully with whatever rhythm I could muster, not embarrassed one bit.
After initially shooting for some kind of salsa interpretation, I moved on to an unsettling series of dance moves resembling something between those from Ben Stiller’s character in Along Came Polly and Ed O’Neill as Al Bundy on Married with Children.
As Mezmer excused us, electricity in the night’s air gradually subsided as I attempted to process what had occurred.
Standing in the carnival area, a couple recognized me from the hypnotism show and approached. The man, smiling, asked me whether I actually played the drums. Still numb over the experience, I told him I’d never played the instrument in my life.
He said he was convinced I could’ve been a drummer. I knew then—as I knew minutes into the hypnotism show—that I was convinced, too.
