Derren Brown – The Events

Derrens Done it again…

Well I’ve been watching the TV again,  and have been totally captured by Derren Brown’s New Series “The Events” Currently running on Channel 4 Friday nights at 9pm here in the UK.

Who is He?

Derren is a self confessed Psychological Illusionist, who uses the power of the persons mind to amaze and stun his audiences both live and on his television shows.  In my opinion he is a master showman who unlike other so called “magicians” reveals the techniques he used to achieve the “Trick”. Also has a great way of keeping people guessing as to how he achieved the feat.  Which is for the most entertaining bit of his shows.

The Events

Is a series of 4 shows covering the subjects of;

Episode 1, Live National Lottery Prediction

Episode 2, Control the Nation “Could he Stick both Live Audience members and viewers at home to their Seats? More about this later…

Episode 3, Become a Psychic Spy

Episode 4, Casino

Full details of the series can be found here

So in episode 1, could he correctly predict 5 of the 6 numbers that would make the winning combination on the Lotto draw? Video below

and another video showing a video of both the BBC Stream of Live lottery show and the Channel 4 show above, there are legal reasons for why the draw can’t go live on Channel 4 and contract reasons.

(Video contents are Copyright Channel 4)

Yes as you can see he did correctly predict it!  Still now people are trying to find explanations which is highly amusing to me, however he did it you can be sure it was a trick, either that or he is a mathematical genius!

Episode 2 How to Control the Nation here’s the one I want to talk about in detail

In this show the concept of Subliminal messages and mind control was examined.

The Idea

There would be a point in the show when a video would be played, after it had finished we wouldn’t be able to get out of our chairs “Stuck to the Chair”)

The Actual “Experiment”

This involved sitting in a Chair and watching a 1 minute video of a white background with lines (Much like an “A4″ feint lined refill pad) swirling around Clockwise and anticlockwise at different speeds and intervals accompanied by some frequency music or (funnel Focus) as I call it was playing the lines and music had the effect of making you feel like you were being drawn down into the centre of the lines if that makes sense? At the end of the minute video we were “told” (this is important) that we would be stuck to our chairs.

My View

Now I know the Human mind pretty well studying Psychology and Music, we spent a lot of time looking at Subliminal Messages/advertising ”The power of Music within them and deeper effects on the subconscious” Today this is referred to as PWA or Perception Without Awareness. Again I have no need to explain this as Derren has given a full description of what PWA is and how it is used here

The whole idea of Sublimation is that an idea is given to you without realizing it you may feel need to buy something after you watched an advert containing a “hidden message” here is a very simple explanation of how it may be delivered:

Your out at the Cinema and on comes on an Advert for a Well known fast food chain, after viewing the promo you are feeling hungry.. This is NOT Sublimation, it is down to clever advertising psychology, the way the food is photographed, the lighting, the surroundings all play a part in stimulating your senses and therefore you feel hungry.

But why after watching 2 minutes of film containing nothing but that Burger or whatever do you suddenly feel thirsty and crave that brand of drink? Remember there has been no mention of it anywhere in the advert right?

N0. there has been, it was somewhere in the film you didn’t notice it could have flashed for a millisecond or it could be that someone in the film wore something with a drink on it. Either way you may just need to pop out and get a large drink before the Film starts.. Or next time your in that Food chain and order that Burger I bet you order that drink brand with it.

They are actually promoting the drink and not the Burger. Clever isn’t it.

OK So in my opinion How did Derren Stick us to our Chairs?

Simple he used Suggestion to make us “Think we were stuck” don’t get me wrong the experiment worked and people were stuck to their chairs including me! Which was er excellent. 

Explanation;

All the way through the show which ran for an hour Derren kept referring back to the video that was going to played at the end of the programme, that caused us to look forward to it and anticipate what was going to happen so expectations play a massive part in the result. There were also pre-recorded sections where a similar “Trick” was used with a lady in a Toy Shop, Derren guided her to select a particular Stuffed toy a Giraffe and also name it a certain name, he left messages throughout like UV ink on books spelling out the name of type of toy she was to choose left pictures of Giraffes in odd places and even mimicked a Giraffe while he talked to her, oh and most importantly he “told” her Giraffe while chatting said like this “Giraffe a favourite type of toy” G’ Have (PWA there). For the “Experiment” he tells you to sit a certain way and then oh an advert break, great timing “anticipation” comes back and says focus on a circle about a foot around your head “Don’t move out of the Circle” see you actually stuck then without realizing it! Video finishes says remain where you sit for a minute or two while he speaks to the live audience, see your in the same postition and waiting anticipating your stuck.  Then he says to us TV viewers now focus on the parts of you that are stuck and try to stand up!! While your think your stuck you cant move because your willing yourself to think of being stuck.

See it is all about suggestion you “stick” yourself to the chair as I did, he confirms to you that your stuck tells you don’t fight it and there you have it can’t move. What worries me is with my grasp of PWA how did I get stuck, I am not sure I think I wanted to be stuck and therefore I was.

Here’s a final Video of a viewer who was Stuck to her Chair during the “experiment”.

And we really were stuck to, it is a “Trick of the mind”.

Until Next time… What do you think?

 

Thanks to MissGandMissS for posting this video!