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So if you’re in the, let’s say, more mature end of our audience, you might remember the
ads in the back of comic books for all of the wondrous gadgets that were “guaranteed
to work!”- except that no, they didn’t work at all.
From truth rings that would let you know when someone is lying to you to the fabled x-ray
specs which would let you see people's underwear, there's probably no device that held more
promise than hypnosis goggles, and there's very few processes more misunderstood than
hypnosis itself.
But does hypnosis really work?
Can you really scramble someone's brains and make them obey your every command?
That's what we're going to find out as we try to manipulate the brain of your favorite,
and our least important, staff writer in this new hypnosis Challenge!
Day 1: Ok, so this time I'm running two challenges simultaneously, though I won't mention the
other one as that's for a different episode and it has no bearing on this challenge.
Bosses over at Infographics decided that twelve wasn't enough months in a year, so they got
the genius idea of cramming two challenges together into the same month as long as the
effects of one wouldn't detract from the experiences of the other.
Morally ambiguous, but definitely ingenious on their behalf.
This time I'm being hypnotized to report on the effects of hypnosis, which means that
four times a week I'll be going to a hypnotherapist who I guess will... manipulate my brain?
I'm not really sure what to expect here, because I have absolutely zero experience with hypnosis,
so as usual I'm doing my research before hand.
Hypnosis apparently started back in the Hindu temples of ancient India, with people taking
sick loved ones to temples where they hoped to be cured by hypnotic suggestion known as
“temple sleep”.
The procedure is exactly what you might guess it was- the individual slept overnight at
the temple while communicating with the gods.
Apparently the gist was that sickness was in the mind and the gods could tap into your
brain and sort things out if only you came to their temple first- they didn't make house
calls and the wi-fi outside the temple grounds must've been too bad to chat remotely.
Then in the 1770s knowledge of hypnosis came to the Western world where it became all the
rage amongst the Europeans.
A guy named Frank Mesmer who believed that all living creatures had what he called “animal
magnetism” started promoting the health benefits of hypnosis, and the French King
was having none of that silly new-agey crap so he put together a medical board of inquiry
which proved that “animal magnetism” had about as much effect as a placebo.
It was all in the mind they decided.
From there we have hypnosis, and sadly magnetism, still prescribed as a cure for literally everything
that ails you.
From weight loss to cancer to quitting smoking, if you need a behavior changed or something
cured, wave a magnet over it or let someone hypnotize it out of you.
Ok so clearly I'm showing my true colors here in that I'm a bit of a skeptic and don't take
this too seriously, well that's what this challenge is all about.
Can hypnosis really change my life?
To find out I'm going to challenge the hypnotherapist to try and rid me of my greatest addiction:
french fries.
I love french fries.
See, you're reading that sentence thinking to yourself, “oh he has a great like for
french fries”, but you're not actually understanding the words I am saying.
I love my girlfriend, she is the rock of my life.
But I really love french fries, I would do anything for them, I'd probably even kill
if they asked me to.
Home cooked french fries, fast food french fries, bad french fries, old french fries-
it doesn't matter to me, I love them.
I love them with ketchup, I love them with mayo.
I would eat them in a box, I would eat them with a fox.
I would eat them here or there, I would eat them anywhere.
(animator note, this is referencing green eggs and ham by dr. seuss)
So tomorrow I start my first hypnosis session and the therapist is challenged with trying
to get me to stop loving french fries.
Good luck- though the girlfriend would love it because she knows how unhealthy they are
for me.
She's got her hopes pinned on this working, and I've bet her an entire week's worth of
her making dinner that it won't, and the catch is that those dinners have to include french
fries.
Day 7: End of the first week and...
I love french fries.
I don't feel any different, if anything I kind of feel like I'm craving them more than
ever because of all the constant reminders that french fries are a thing.
At the therapist's she has me lie down on a couch and slowly relax.
She talks real soothingly to me and the first time this happened I thought to myself that
all the ASMR lovers out there would have a field day with this stuff.
I gotta admit though, the atmosphere is pretty relaxing and the therapist is very soothing.
There's no music and no watch swinging like a pendulum that I have to stare into, nor
any spinning black and white spirals I have to hold my gaze on- it's just a couch, dim
lighting, and her voice.
She tells me to get into a deeply, deeply relaxed state and to clear my mind, and then
she asks me to think about french fries.
This part always makes me hungry.
She asks me to concentrate on french fries, to smell them, to taste them, and to linger
in the feelings that this brings up.
Then, she tells me to imagine that the french fries are rotting away, and that I can taste
the mushy staleness of them.
She asks me to think about finding a month-old, stepped on french fry on the floor of the
car and to feel it in my hands, to taste what it would taste like to eat it.
Then she lifts me out of that and brings me back to the fresh, hot, delicious french fries,
and then back to the stale, dirty, gross french fries.
She'll do this two or three times, and then she tells me how from now on when I think
about french fries I'll think about the stale, gross taste of them and not the delicious,
warm, crispiness.
Then she has me come 'out' of hypnosis by having me feel my limbs come back to life
one by one, and at last she tells me to just open my eyes.
That's it, no snap of the fingers, no magic word, no nothing.
I just fantasize about french fries, then gross myself out over them, over and over
again, and I leave her office.
Two out of the four times I went to the hypnotherapist this week I went straight to a fast food place
and got an order of french fries.
Still delicious.
Looks like I'm winning this bet.
Day 14: I guess you could consider my version of hypnotherapy pretty aggressive, given the
fact that it has to fit within a 30 day challenge.
Typically these are supposed to drag out over two or three months, sometimes even as long
as a year, and the therapist tells me that that's the best way to ease someone out of
a deep addiction.
With me though I'm getting emergency hypnosurgery.
I have to admit, I can't not think about the things the therapist makes me visualize when
I think about french fries now.
I still love them, I'm still eating them, and I'm still sure I'm going to win this bet,
but images of gross, stepped-on french fries pop into my mind and I kind of have to take
a second.
I told the girlfriend about this and she just got this little smirk on her face and said,
“It's working”.
Yeah right, nobody is going to mess with my mind that easily.
I'm winning this and I'll celebrate victory with fistfuls of french fries salted by my
girlfriend's crocodile tears.
Day 21: I've realized that on average I eat french fries about three times a week, either
making my own or just ordering some while driving to random places.
I don't like much fast food, but fries... well they're fries.
This week though I didn't even realize I hadn't eaten any until the girlfriend brought me
home a fresh large serving of fries from the place right across the street.
She told me that she had asked for them to be fresh and waited an extra five minutes
for a new batch to be made, then she looked at me with that same little smirk she gets
when she's doing something devious and said, “I just wanted a little reminder that I
love you.”
At this point all kinds of alarm bells and klaxons started going off in my head.
I don't doubt she loves me, in fact she's always on my case about food exactly because
she loves me and wants me healthy, but this french fry offering... something wasn't right
here.
I took it, smelled it suspiciously.
I half suspected that she had seasoned it with some weird powder that would make me
hate french fries or...
I don't know.
I just knew that something was wrong here.
I ate about half, no big deal same old french fries.
No weird tastes, no weird smells, just same old delicious fries I always get.
Then once I hit that halfway mark I just....
I didn't want to finish them.
I felt full even though I hadn't eaten anything, but more than that, I just felt bad.
These last two weeks the hypnotherapist has been asking me to imagine eating french fries
and then imagine all the grease and oil inside them spreading throughout my body and slowing
it down.
Now halfway through this serving of fries I felt full and... sluggish.
Also they didn't taste as good anymore, I knew I liked the way they tasted, but it just
wasn't as good as it's always been.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I had to stop.
I didn't want them anymore.
What in the world is going on with my brain?
Day 30: I concede defeat.
Sort of.
A full month of intensive hypnotherapy and I honestly just don't' find myself craving
or loving french fries as much as I used to.
Now when I drive by a fast food place and smell them in the air I get a little bit,
not queasy but... uncomfortable.
I can't stop thinking about the way the hypnotherapist asked me constantly to imagine what it would
feel like for the fat and oil inside them to spread across my body and saturate me completely.
I have to admit, I was skeptical, suspicious, and more than a little flippant about this
challenge, but I think it got me.
I mean, I can rationally explain away the effects as nothing more than just having gross
imagery and feelings reinforced on me over a thirty day period, and that my brain isn't
actually 'hacked'- but then again, isn't that exactly what hypnosis is meant to do?
Modify your behavior?
And how can my behavior not be modified when everytime I think about french fries I picture
gross fat in my body or imagine the taste of eating a month old fry from the floor of
my car?
I'm confident this will fade now that I'm no longer being hypnotized four times a day,
but I guess I see now why hypnotherapy programs are meant to last for months or even a year
or more and are far more gradual- that kind of constant reinforcement really paves the
way for some big changes.
So, I have to admit: hypnosis may work.
And I definitely lost the bet between me and the girlfriend, so instead of her making me
french fries for dinner every day for a week, now I have to make her dinner every day for
a week.
Which is convenient because unless its raw fruits and vegetables she can't cook worth
a damn.
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