Imagine becoming convinced that you’re a member of the cast of “High School Musical” or a drill sergeant in the Army. Perhaps you might even be persuaded into thinking that your hand is a talking person. This is exactly what happened to some UMPI students on Tuesday, Jan. 24, inside the Wieden auditorium. That’s when hypnotist Paul Ramsey took the stage with his one-of-a-kind show, Mind Games.
Ramsey persuaded Christian Mumley, a freshman at UMPI, that he was having a baby. Ramsey persuaded other volunteers into helping deliver the miracle child. “I was just waiting for the word ‘delivery’ and then I was just having a kid,” Mumley said.
Ramsey began the show by involving the entire crowd in meditation-like practices. Not all minds can easily fall under the spell of hypnosis. “You have to have a genuine openness to it,” Ramsey said.
Shortly into the show, he invited some members of the crowd on stage. Nine brave students climbed the stairs to the stage to await their fate.
The volunteers took seats on stage and Ramsey persuaded them into a state of relaxation. With the volunteers slumped forward in their seats in a deeply relaxed state, he gave them specific instructions on what they were to do. This came from responses he received from the audience using remote controls and polling software. He uses well-known pop culture and other popular themes in his show. “I’ve tailored it for what you’ve grown up with,” Ramsey said.
At one point, Ramsey gave Ben White, freshman, instruction to believe that he was a drill sergeant. As Ramsey awakened the volunteers from their relaxed state and began to speak, White jumped from his seat and demanded that Ramsey drop and give him 20 push-ups. The crowd roared with laughter.
“I remember yelling at him,” White said, chuckling.
For an hour and a half, Ramsey entertained the crowd. He often caused unstoppable laughter among audience members as he persuaded the volunteers to do things such as play air guitar with their tongues or to think they were attending a Lady Gaga performance.
According to Mumley and White, being under hypnosis was very relaxing but also very confusing. “You’re conscious and you know you have to do stuff. It makes it sound fake, but when you’re there, you know you have to do this now but you don’t really know why,” Mumley said.
Ramsey’s show Mind Games debuted back in 2011, but he has been a board-certified hypnotist since 2004. He is also a certified instructor with the National Guild of Hypnotists. He has a Master of Education degree and is a past teacher.
Mind Games is the first interactive hypnotism show ever developed. It’s promoted as interactive because the audience gets to decide the direction of the show by remote controls and polling software. It allows those who don’t want to go on stage to still experience the hypnosis experience.
