Students at SUNY Rockland Community College relaxed on the beach just in time for spring break. Or at least in their minds they did. Hypnotist Michael C. Anthony made students believe they were sunbathing on a perfect day, only to be disrupted when he suggested a wave of unbearable heat. "I was so hot I wanted to take my shirt off, but he said that we couldn't," said Morgan Strand, a 21-year-old occupational therapist major, and participant in the hypnosis. Anthony said he forbids participants to remove clothes during this exercise because he has seen it happened before. The hypnotist of 11 years said he could tell Strand was, "going to be a good one" because she focused from the very beginning, and that makes people really experience the trance. "The people who come on stage know that something crazy is going to happen," Anthony said. "They're willing." He said you can only be hypnotized if you want to be. To ensure an authentic display of hypnotism, he performed initial tests on the volunteers. "Some people fake it," Anthony said, "I do my best to remove those people in the beginning." Derrick Rydlewski, a 23-year-old, media arts major, said he did not feel hypnotized, but still took part in all of Anthony's suggestions even though he is, "pretty bashful." "You just sort of do what he says and you don't know why," Rydlewski said. He remembered his actions, particularly when he embraced the guy next to him when Anthony told the group the weather had dropped below freezing. Everybody on stage held each other for what they believed to be survival. Anthony said he enables people to relax and forget their inhibitions. "It's not that I make them do things, they just don't object to anything because they're so relaxed," he said. Adam Seebach, 18, said he believed he had been hypnotized. The performing arts major said he felt very, "out of it" after the show, and did not remember many of the things he did. "I remember waking up with a broom in my hand but I don't know why," Seebach said. Anthony convinced him that it was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen and if he didn't dance with her, he would regret it for the rest of his life. Seebach said he does remember feeling some of the physical sensations Anthony suggested. "I really felt like someone did a little pinch on my ass," Seebach said. "I was like, dude, why did you just pinch my ass?" Anthony asked many of the other entranced students the same question of each other, across the room from the person they accused. At one point Anthony had the students holding their shoes over their noses and mouths. He told them they couldn't breathe and that their shoes were oxygen masks. "I knew it was my shoe, but I also thought it was an air-mask," Rydlewski said, "I saw the object as a little of both." Most of the participants mentioned recall seeing and hearing the audience at one point or another. "You can hear everybody laughing," Rydlewski said. "And you're worried about embarrassing yourself." "I was getting really mad that everybody was making fun of me," Strand said. Anthony said that people misunderstand hypnotism. He claimed that the participants are surprised by how much of reality they can still decipher. "People hypnotize themselves to believe things unconsciously everyday," Anthony said. He said people make themselves believe things are true. "I just do that in a more obvious way."
Hypnotized students sunbathe in student union
Act a hit for returning performer
Published: Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Updated: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 02:08
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