Tom Deluca

Did anyone else see the Tom Deluca hypnotist show last night? I did, and I would highly recommend it to everyone in our school, and not just because it was hilarious. As soon as the show started, my disbelief vanished. There were about twenty seniors onstage for whom the hypnosis had worked (it wasn't effective for about five people, who returned to the audience).       The subjects went to sleep and Mr. Deluca told them things to do. He would then say the trigger word to wake them up and they would begin to act however he had instructed. At the conclusion of the show, he woke them up and they remembered nothing of what they had done.
     Weird? Yes.
     When I got home, I did some internet sleuthing to find out more about what hypnosis is exactly and how it works. (To view the site I did, click here. I also corroborated my findings with a few other sites.) The main misconception that I found was that the hypnotist is actually controlling his subjects and could make them do anything that he wanted them to do. This is false. 
      For starters, a hypnotist cannot hypnotize someone who is unwilling. This is not some moral code of conduct. It is just physically not possible to do. This is because the hypnotist is not actually employing any type of mind-control. He is really just serving as a guide to help the subject tap into his or her subconscious mind. What happens during hypnosis is that the left side of the brain slow down while the left side (the imaginative one) begins to take control. It is really a state of "heightened suggestibility" when adults will throw themselves into playing pretend, the same way that children do, without much fear of embarrassment. This said, you still maintain your moral code and some social inhibitions. For example, if the hypnotist said to take your clothes off, almost no one would actually comply. 
    So what I have gathered is that hypnosis is really one way to tap unused imagination. Even the most unimaginative people can come up with the most interesting things while under hypnosis. This has interesting implications for the world. What if hypnosis were more widely used, and not just for stage shows and therapy? With all that untapped human potential could we accomplish much more than we currently do? I think so.