Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2002-07-22 05:49 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2002-07-22 05:49 pm
Guess what I ate for breakfast this morning?
I ate fire this morning!
No, seriously, get your mind out of the gutter. Darkside's elemental nature is Fire, yes. We knew this already. But no, he was not the one eaten.
Professor Bird is a hypnotist, in addition to teaching science. This morning, he hypnotized the entire class (the standard "Your hands are welded together" and "There are balloons attached to your wrist" as screening) and then picked out the three most susceptable/cooperative subjects: this one guy (I think his name is Max?), the redheaded girl who I shall call Bambi, and *drumroll please* ...none other than the Lunatic.
So the Lunatic goes up to the front of the room and is hypnotized some more, doing my best to cooperate, feeling that this is a very familiar state from my sessions of self-hypnosis over the years (thank you, RAH and Joan Eunice), and knowing that if I Willed it to be so, I could step out right then and there. (I tested, with the welded hands, and noted that a minor act of will did indeed pry a finger loose, but I didn't want to disrupt my own hypnotic state more than that, because I was curious.)
Instead of opting out now that I was this far in, I stood there in front of the class, feeling only vaguely silly, holding a metal rod with cotton wrapped around an end in one hand, and going through the three steps: visualizing the flame as it was held out in front of me, sticking the rod in my mouth and completely sealing my mouth, then withdrawing it and holding it in front of me, declaring in a loud clear voice, "Power!" Bird commented to the class that the proper saying of the word "Power!" was the most difficult part.
After perhaps three dry runs of this, he judged me ready, and took the rod from me, and did something out of my view. I hadn't known what was going to be happening until that point.
He returned with the cotton wet, and a lighter in one hand. He lit the cotton instead of tapping it as he had before, and swiftly guided my (trembling) arm towards my mouth. Fire went in, closed and sealed mouth.
The fire consumed the small amount of air inside my mouth and then went out, creating a partial vacuum. "Power!" I declared, removing rod from my mouth and holding it out triumphantly in front of me.
Bird then announced that yes, indeed, I was a very powerful person, and that this was a very powerful demonstration of the strength of my mind and focus, and elaborated that pretty much anyone in the room could have done the same thing. He brought me out of my hypnosis with the instruction that I would remember everything that had transpired and that I would realize the full implications of what I had done.
I realized that the stuff he'd used to make the flame tasted damn nasty.
After that, we filled out a worksheet as a brief let-down exercise before he released us to the world. I finished swiftly, as I'd worked with semi-log graphing before. On my way out, Bird shook my hand again and congratulated me.
When I'm not under hypnosis, I'm going to see how he does compare against me for size, because he reassured me that he was a big and powerful man when I was under, so that I wouldn't worry about leaning against him when he was hypnotizing me.
The rest of the class was somewhat impressed with the demonstration of fire-eating. Some of them wanted to know how it had felt from my side. Some of the class hadn't been quite as hypnotizable; I heard one guy saying that he couldn't get his wrist up in the air when there had supposedly been balloons on it.
Bird had us taking deep breaths in and out, or what he thought to be deep breaths. I remember that I thought that for me to be relaxing, he wasn't giving me enough time to be breathing; what did he think I was, an amateur?
All in all, an interesting experience.
No, seriously, get your mind out of the gutter. Darkside's elemental nature is Fire, yes. We knew this already. But no, he was not the one eaten.
Professor Bird is a hypnotist, in addition to teaching science. This morning, he hypnotized the entire class (the standard "Your hands are welded together" and "There are balloons attached to your wrist" as screening) and then picked out the three most susceptable/cooperative subjects: this one guy (I think his name is Max?), the redheaded girl who I shall call Bambi, and *drumroll please* ...none other than the Lunatic.
So the Lunatic goes up to the front of the room and is hypnotized some more, doing my best to cooperate, feeling that this is a very familiar state from my sessions of self-hypnosis over the years (thank you, RAH and Joan Eunice), and knowing that if I Willed it to be so, I could step out right then and there. (I tested, with the welded hands, and noted that a minor act of will did indeed pry a finger loose, but I didn't want to disrupt my own hypnotic state more than that, because I was curious.)
Instead of opting out now that I was this far in, I stood there in front of the class, feeling only vaguely silly, holding a metal rod with cotton wrapped around an end in one hand, and going through the three steps: visualizing the flame as it was held out in front of me, sticking the rod in my mouth and completely sealing my mouth, then withdrawing it and holding it in front of me, declaring in a loud clear voice, "Power!" Bird commented to the class that the proper saying of the word "Power!" was the most difficult part.
After perhaps three dry runs of this, he judged me ready, and took the rod from me, and did something out of my view. I hadn't known what was going to be happening until that point.
He returned with the cotton wet, and a lighter in one hand. He lit the cotton instead of tapping it as he had before, and swiftly guided my (trembling) arm towards my mouth. Fire went in, closed and sealed mouth.
The fire consumed the small amount of air inside my mouth and then went out, creating a partial vacuum. "Power!" I declared, removing rod from my mouth and holding it out triumphantly in front of me.
Bird then announced that yes, indeed, I was a very powerful person, and that this was a very powerful demonstration of the strength of my mind and focus, and elaborated that pretty much anyone in the room could have done the same thing. He brought me out of my hypnosis with the instruction that I would remember everything that had transpired and that I would realize the full implications of what I had done.
I realized that the stuff he'd used to make the flame tasted damn nasty.
After that, we filled out a worksheet as a brief let-down exercise before he released us to the world. I finished swiftly, as I'd worked with semi-log graphing before. On my way out, Bird shook my hand again and congratulated me.
When I'm not under hypnosis, I'm going to see how he does compare against me for size, because he reassured me that he was a big and powerful man when I was under, so that I wouldn't worry about leaning against him when he was hypnotizing me.
The rest of the class was somewhat impressed with the demonstration of fire-eating. Some of them wanted to know how it had felt from my side. Some of the class hadn't been quite as hypnotizable; I heard one guy saying that he couldn't get his wrist up in the air when there had supposedly been balloons on it.
Bird had us taking deep breaths in and out, or what he thought to be deep breaths. I remember that I thought that for me to be relaxing, he wasn't giving me enough time to be breathing; what did he think I was, an amateur?
All in all, an interesting experience.
no subject
I personally believe that teachers need to attribute to a relatively safe environment in the classroom. This particualr teacher seems a bit off to risk the injury of students, and YES the risk is high! I've read about and talked to preofessional fire-eaters, and it was strongly expressed that ametures should NOT do this without a pro there to help, and under NO circumstances should it be done indoors! It doesn't matter how "safe" that particualar fire-eating session was.
I just find it very irressponsible of ANY teacher. Particualerly when he didn't even give a clue to what was going to happen, implying that those under hypnosis would be less likely to object, having been induced in a light trance so as not to fear anything. The risk involed should have been warning enough. But aparently that was not a consideration. HAd something gone wrong, HE would be responsible for any harm. Did he make you sign waivers? I didn't think so. That would have spoiled the surprise. If he enjoys doing this so much, maybe he should go into show-bussiness. Otherwise it's absurd.
Okay, done ranting. Whew!