Believing the unbelievable

Danette Goulet

My limbs were tingling and felt like lead.

I was supposed to be picturing a blue sky with a single, white fluffy

cloud.

I thought of that sky and its little companion, but I didn’t quite

picture it.

It was an effort just to pay attention to what he was saying. I knew

he was directing us, but I was awfully sleepy.

Plus, there was something on my right arm -- I think it was the guy

next to me.

Oddly, it didn’t matter to me that there were about 1,000 people

watching and I was about to nod off.

That was about the extent of my hypnotism.

Except that while I was in my quasi trance-like state, hypnotist Mark

Yusuik had tapped me and given me a number to say onstage and I didn’t

know it.

“Most people don’t,” he said. “Most people don’t think they’re under

because they can hear my voice.”

But when he went down the line and did this evangelist head tap thing

and told people to sleep, it didn’t really work on me.

Oh well.

I thought it might not work on me.

It does, however, work on about 80% of people, Yusuik said.

“It’s not a specific type that goes under,” he said. “Some people

think it’s less intelligent people that go under, but that’s not true. In

fact, some very intelligent people go under because they can focus.”

Children also make good subjects, he said, as it takes a level of

trust.

As someone who does not relinquish control easily, it probably isn’t

surprising that I wasn’t hypnotized, he said.

Yusuik said he doesn’t go under either.

After I saw those who remained on the stage hypnotized jumping around,

leaping up -- because they thought an invisible dog was under their chair

or stuffing shoes in their shirts -- and smacking their butts, I wasn’t

so sad that it didn’t work on me.

Besides, the show was an absolute riot to watch. And the person who

seemed to laugh the hardest was Yusuik.

“When I stop thinking it’s funny, I’ll retire,” he said.

He has fun with it, but Yusuik also has to be careful, he said,

because once he puts the conscious mind to sleep, puts his subjects in a

dreamlike state and makes suggestions to their subconscious, they may

just oblige.

So he and his silent assistant have to be sure they don’t

inadvertently say something that could be taken literally.

As the crowds that pack in around the Meadows Stage at the Orange

County Fair twice a night are a testament to, the ever-changing show is

not to be missed.

If anyone had told four strangers that they would be leaping around

like the Backstreet Boys, they never would have believed it.