PPC hosts hypnotist

Adrienne Sadosky doesn’t even like Britney Spears, but her performance of the pop musician’s… Adrienne Sadosky doesn’t even like Britney Spears, but her performance of the pop musician’s song “Oops! I Did it Again” elicited shrieks, whistles, and fans begging for her to autograph their bodies.

And she doesn’t remember any of it.

Sadosky was one of about two dozen students who underwent hypnosis onstage when professional hypnotist Ken Whitener appeared at the William Pitt Union Tuesday in a performance sponsored by Pitt Program Council.

Hypnosis, Whitener said, is a psychological phenomenon, not magic.

“Everyone in this room’s been hypnotized before,” he said. “We go into trances every day of our lives.”

According to Whitener, reading a book and not remembering the words and losing track of time are common trance states.

“Hypnosis is the power of suggestion, the power of an idea,” Whitener said, adding that one in three people is very easy to hypnotize. Whether or not hypnosis is successful relies not on the hypnotist, but the person being hypnotized, he said.

“You have to concentrate. You have to use your imagination. And you have to relax,” he said.

Whitener selected more than 20 audience members, half male and half female, to undergo hypnosis onstage. He gave each group a simple test, asking female participants to clasp their hands together and then imagine that they couldn’t pull them apart.

“The harder you pull,” he told the group, “the tighter they stick.”

After the selection process was completed, students had the option of leaving the stage. The majority of them remained while Whitener attempted to put them to sleep.

After a few minutes, he came to a stop in front of one student. “When I touch him on the forehead, his legs are just going to collapse,” Whitener said. Seconds later, the student was lowered to the floor by participants on either side.

Whitener emphasized throughout the show that people react to hypnotism differently. Reactions among these students included Elvis impersonations, unsolicited hugs, and lost body parts. Using the “Twilight Zone” theme as a sound effect, he convinced participants that “their butts fell off.” He then told one participant that a student across the stage was wearing her behind. With Whitener’s encouragement, the student grabbed “big handfuls” of the butt in question.

“When they wake up, they’re gonna freak out,” he told the audience.

As promised, participants displayed a range of responses to the experience upon “waking up.”

“I remember [Whitener] just asking for volunteers. I know he asked for volunteers,” said Sadosky when asked about her Britney impersonation.

“Do you remember giving me your autograph?” asked a student, holding up the arm Sadosky had scrawled Spears’ name on a few minutes before.

Sophomore film student and Elvis impersonator Adam Dinney, said he remembered the experience but didn’t know how to describe it.

“It was weird, that’s all I can say,” Dinney said. “It just felt strange.”