Across the stage your campus friends sit limp, in what appears to be a deep sleep. The man standing in front calls out a series of commands and with a snap of his fingers, your friends are now sitting upright and awake. What just happened?

On Thursday, HCC had the privilege of seeing David Hall perform his Cards Against Hypnosis show, starring many students. Volunteers made their way to the front to be hypnotized! Hall explained how hypnosis works, and had every intention of proving that it’s real; first by putting every single volunteer to sleep.

The fun begins here. If you are a fan of the game Cards Against Humanity, then you’ll immediately recognize the similarity between Hall’s hypnosis game and Cards Against Humanity. You have a set of black cards, and a set of white cards; fill in the blank questions and suggestions. The biggest difference between Cards Against Hypnosis and Cards Against Humanity is–You guessed it! The game is played with hypnotized players.

As a warm up, the hypnotized students were told they were on a warm beach in the Bahamas. Hall suggested it was getting hotter, and many of the hypnotized students starting fanning themselves. One girl even took off her jacket. Then, Hall switched it up and said it was below freezing, making the students cling to each other for warmth.

To start the game, Hall pulled out a black card suggesting that the students will believe they are watching the funniest movie ever, and upon hearing the word “popcorn” the students will do one of the options from the white card. An audience member chose an option off of the white card, suggesting that the students hear their cell phone ring, and answer their shoe like a phone. Sounds ridiculous, right? When the students awoke from their hypnotic sleep, they erupted into hysterics, laughing harder and harder as the seconds ticked. Everyone, including the audience was laughing really hard. Just when you thought it couldn’t get funnier, Hall told the students they should get popcorn, and every single one of them stopped laughing, removed their shoe, and held it up to their ear anticipating a response.

After the laughter died down, Hall told the students to go back to sleep, and another set of cards was drawn. This time the hypnotized students would believe they were on a game show and were on the verge of winning 7 million dollars. When they were awake, you could see the worried look and excitement drawn across their faces. Hall asked one student if she was nervous, and she said yes. Another student announced that if he won, he was going to buy himself a Jeep. After letting them sit in anticipation, Hall announced that they each had won the game show and that their check awaited underneath their chair! Every single one of them jumped up in excitement, hugging the people around them ecstatically. Then, in a turn of events, hall told them all that a pickpocketer was in the room who liked stealing million dollar checks. In disgust and worry, the students started looking around to find the potential pickpocketer. One girl jumped up yelling, “who?” while another started pointing fingers at the audience. The best part of this particular act was when Hall told the students to hide their checks. One young lady, bent over in her seat, holding the “check” to her stomach. Hall asked her what she was doing and she responded with, “I’m hiding my check!” as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

The next event, included a magic trick that would be performed by one of the students. Hall chose a student to be the magician. Connor Martin stepped up claiming immediately, “I’m a magician.” During the actual trick, Hall chose an audience member to be the volunteer in the trick. He prompted him to put his finger on a page in the notepad and memorize the place that was written across the page. Hypnotized Connor was then prompted to write a place on the chalkboard. When the audience member announced that the place on the page was Hawaii, Connor flipped over the board and sure enough, Hawaii was written clear as day! Everyone erupted into shock and disbelief as Connor danced around the stage. Hall told everyone to refer to him as “Magic Connor” from now on. When asked about his trip into hypnosis, Connor Martin said “It was a fun and memorable experience.”

The last thing he did was tell the students that when they opened their eyes, their favorite celebrity would be in the room. When awoken, the students looked around, finding their favorite celebrities. One student jumped up, yelling, “Danny DeVito!” Another student claimed to see Will Smith, although he was just talking to a chair.

As the fun died down, Hall awoke the students and wished them well in their classes. The students awoke unaware of the events that had just occurred, but according to Hall, they would remember the events that took place gradually. It was a fun experience as an audience member, and I highly recommend attending a hypnosis show. Even if you don’t believe in it, Cards Against Hypnosis was some quality entertainment.