Glasgow Daily Times, Glasgow, KY

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November 13, 2009

Hypnosis leads to very relaxing snack

By CAROL PERKINS

GLASGOW — I have been hypnotized. The last to believe I could ever go under a spell and lose control of myself, I gamely participated. Needing the comfort of another in case I made a fool of myself, I talked my friend Judy into joining me. I knew some of the others in the room, but none well enough to shake me out of my trance if I started taking off my clothes or barking like a dog. She vowed she would never be able to be hypnotized, so she agreed to supervise.

The location of this experiment was in the basement of a church in Glasgow. The cost: $25 per person (It would be $100 today). This was to be a group hypnosis session, so I doubted its effectiveness, but was hyped up about the possibilities.

When we entered the basement door, a thin little lady registered us and took our money. Hesitantly, we wandered into the large all-purpose room where several dozen metal circles formed a circle around the wall. Most of them were filled with women and a few men, like ourselves, looking for a miracle.

Judy and I found two seats together. We politely nodded to those on either side. When she looked at me and I looked at her at the absurdity of the situation, we were close to the giggles, but straightened up when the instructor took his place somewhere around the perimeter.

He talked with an accent of authority and an accent of not being from “these parts.” After providing a background of what he planned to do to help us help ourselves, he instructed us to close our eyes and relax. “Feel your arms. Feel your legs,” he ordered in a very soothing voice. He didn’t mean for us to touch them literally, but to feel them from within. I tried. Judy was watching me to see what I was feeling.

“Breath deeply,” he continued. “In/Out. In/Out.” I was breathing from the depths of my lungs and feeling my inner self. I paid to do this.

“Move your neck. Rotate it from left to right; right to left. Let your arms relax and dangle by your side. Feel your arms. Now rotate your feet, left to right and then right to left.” That’s a Youtube moment! Dozens of adult men and women, sitting in a circle, dangling their arms and rotating their heads and feet … we paid to do this.

By then, I had lost contact with Judy, even though she was squirming next to me. I was wiggling and rotating in and out of consciousness. The last thing I remember was when the instructor told us to pretend our right arm was on a string, and when he told us he was pulling it up, it would rise. I heard him, but I had lost control. When it came my turn, like a puppet’s arm, mine rose gracefully and then fell into my lap. I was in a semi-hypnotic state.

I have no memory of what happened next. He clapped his hands, I guess, and we all left that state and returned to ourselves.

On our way home, I asked Judy if she went under. “Are you kidding? While you all were doing all that stuff, I was just watching. Didn’t you hear the fellow snoring?” One of the guys went so far under, he snored.

I have tried many so-called miracle fixes for this problem, but I will confess that this was probably the funniest. Maybe for some people in a private setting without other people watching, hypnosis might work, but this group session did nothing to curb my appetite or help me lose weight.

Yes, this was yet another weight loss solution that didn’t work for me. It might have worked for others, but I was pulling into the Tastee Freeze within five minutes of leaving the church basement. However, I was very relaxed as I ate a hot fudge sundae.

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