Hypnotist has a few suggestions for students

Image%3A+Hypnotist+has+a+few+suggestions+for+students%3ATom+Deluca+uses+his+suggestive+powers+of+hypnosis+on+a+group+of+students+on+April+13+at+the+University+Union+Ballroom.+%3A

Image: Hypnotist has a few suggestions for students:Tom Deluca uses his suggestive powers of hypnosis on a group of students on April 13 at the University Union Ballroom. :

Aubrey Henry

Tom Deluca’s exhibition of the suggestive powers of hypnosis had a student running for the Union Ballroom exit on April 13. His screaming insistence that the audience “get out of the building” might have been spurred by the “earthquake” he apparently was convinced taken place. Deluca’s two-hour show was a spectacle of similarly spontaneous and entertaining behavior.

Vocal skeptics within the legion of students packed into the Union Ballroom to witness Deluca’s techniques. Heads continued to shake in disbelief with each increasingly outrageous act. However, after the conclusion of the presentation, the abundance of smiles, laughter and students hanging around made one thing clear: Deluca’s show of skill was entertaining.

After introducing himself to the capacity crowd seemingly numbering in the hundreds, Deluca proceeded to pick around 20 volunteers for his show from the audience. Students jumped on chairs, waved their arms and generally did whatever possible to get Deluca’s attention. Deluca told the audience about another interesting benefit of the show.

“You’ll feel like you slept for seven or eight hours,” Deluca said to the screaming audience.

Upon hearing Deluca’s claim, dozens more jumped up.

After a few minutes of picking a diverse group of volunteers were seated on-stage.

For several minutes the audience chatted in hushed voices and fanned itself to cope with the stuffiness of the sweltering room while Deluca repeated a strange series of instructions to his volunteers. Soft music played over the speaker system as Deluca delivered relaxation instructions to the volunteers in a firm yet calming voice.

After several minutes of repetition, the majority of the volunteers looked as if they’d been heavily sedated. Many appeared to be passed out with their heads in their laps. Several of the students’ arms dangled so lifelessly at their sides that they looked deceased. The few remaining less-responsive volunteers where led off-stage by Deluca’s student assistants.

Deluca then “woke” his volunteers up, talking to them in the same firm, yet calming voice he used earlier. He repeatedly took the microphone away from his mouth, creating the effect of sound (and perhaps his volunteer’s perceptual consciousness) going in and out. He issued “trigger” commands, such as “When I snap my fingers twice,” or “When I say the word ‘California'” and for the most part, his volunteers responded-sometimes in bizarre fashion.

Under Deluca’s instruction the zombie-like volunteers got things moving by test-driving brand new Ferrari sports cars. They smashed on their brakes to avoid accidents, checked their mirrors and quenched their thirst with imaginary beverages to the uproarious laughter of the audience. After the subjects crashed their Ferraris into a barn, Deluca suggested that his subjects milk the barn’s resident cow. The milking techniques varied, but sure enough, the subjects yanked on unseen teats-some with a level of determination that would likely kill any real cow.

After suggesting that his subjects were starving, Deluca gave them a trigger to start eating “the most delicious ice cream” they’d ever had.

“The only thing is that you’ve only got 30 seconds,” Deluca said.

Upon the trigger, the volunteers, as expected, gorged themselves on invisible ice cream of all flavors. A few of the more enthusiastic participants appeared as if they were trying to unhinge their jaws while eating. Deluca returned the volunteers to their initial sleep-like state, and gave them a trigger for smell.

“At the count of five, you will smell the most incredible smell,” Deluca said to his subjects. “This incredible smell is coming from your neighbor’s shoulder.”

Upon hearing “five,” the students sniffed each other, snuggling and grinding their noses into each other’s shoulders like a pack of puppies. The audience roared with delight and spectators could be seen crying in mid-laughter.

After convincing the volunteers they were in a bodybuilding contest Deluca asked a few of the subjects “why they thought they should win.” The responses were varied, but universally entertaining. One of the male volunteers quipped “Because I’m Ahh-nuhld,” giving his best impersonation of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. A female volunteer yanked her shirt halfway up declaring “You can’t deny the stomach.” Another volunteer replied in Spanish, shaking his head and simply mumbling “no mas.”

A female student was convinced she was tongue tied for the duration of the show and could only mumble indecipherable sounds when asked her name. A male volunteer was told “fruit have feelings” and then tricked into eating an apple. Upon realizing what he’d done, he promptly performed CPR on the “injured” fruit. At one point in the two-hour program, several participants fell backwards and off of the stage trying to flee from a stuffed rabbit that Deluca had suggested was a “horrifying beast.”

The entire event wrapped up with an impromptu dance party, in which the volunteers bounced, shook and strut their respective stuff with varying degrees of expertise. The last student to be seated nearly made the term “break dancing” a literal one.

After the students were returned to a normal state of consciousness, several seemed to not believe what happened. Others could barely remember what they did at all. One female volunteer told her laughing friends “I just feel so hot,” while fanning herself.

Deluca, who earned a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Illinois, said he initially started performing hypnosis for “therapeutic reasons.”

“I got into doing this show off of that,” Deluca said. “I started doing clubs first and then colleges. I thought it was such an amazing thing. It’s so quick you know you’re talking to their (volunteer’s) subconscious.”

Deluca admitted the techniques he applies don’t work to their full effect in every case, but stresses that when it does work the spontaneity and creativity in subjects’ responses keep him doing what he does.

“They just do it without thinking about it. It’s fascinating to me.”

Aubrey Henry can be reached at [email protected]