Protect your camera man
Another safety issue to consider is protecting your camera man. We usually have a camera man present during street hypnosis outings for safety and also to catch document the fun! Watch your cameraman. You're cameraman is intent on filming you and may not be aware of EVERYTHING going on in the vicinity. It is a very good idea to get one of those orange safety vests for your cameraman. For extra credit, have a patch on the back that says “Camera 2” or something like that. This will add to the legitimacy of your operation and keep your camera man safe. After all, if there's a camera “two”, you must be doing something important, right? The orange vest draws more attention to you and what you're doing exactly, so there are lots of good reasons to use the orange vest.
The hypnotic hangover
A hypnotic hangover can sometimes happen when a subject is emerged from hypnosis too quickly. How quick is too quickly? It depends. If you have never had a subject or client experience a hypnotic hangover, you will. So what does a hypnotic hangover look like? A person with a hypnotic hangover will complain of a headache or nausea, will complain about feeling “still hypnotized”. The good news is that removing a hypnotic hangover is really easy. The hypnotist to look like a hero in this situation. Simply hypnotize the person again, and emerge the person slowly this time. If the last time you brought the subject up on a count from 1-3, do a 1-5 count, or do a 1-10 count with lots of suggestions of good health and well-being and clear headedness and your subject will come up feeling much better. And when the subject opens his/her eyes, say, “And see how good you feel,” Don't say, how do you feel?” Tell the person that he or she feels wonderful and the person will! Your subject will answer, “Yeah! I feel good!” This will make the hypnotist look like a miracle worker. He has just removed a headache instantly. Of course, he is the one who caused it, but this part will be forgotten!
Frail Subjects
During street hypnosis, be careful about working with anyone who has any condition that might cause an injury. A shock induction should never be done on a pregnant woman or anyone who is physically frail. A gentle Elman induction might be appropriate, but in general, it is best to work only with healthy, strong subjects who will not be harmed by the induction or the subsequent skits.
The spontaneous coma
In all the instant inductions that I've done, all the street inductions that I've done and I've done a lot, I've never had this happen. I've never had a hypnotic coma unless I intended to do the hypnotic coma. But, it is theoretically possible. There is a 1 in 10,000 chance that this will happen to you, that someone will spontaneously go to the Esdaile state to the hypnotic coma, but I want you to know what to do.
A hypnotic coma or Esdaile state is a very, very deep state of hypnosis. A subject in the Esdaile state will not follow your instructions. When you try to emerge them they will not emerge. The reason? The Esdaile state feels so good that the subject wants to stay there. It is a state of absolute euphoria! So what can you do? You've got this woman standing next to you and her friends are around, and she is not saying anything, not doing anything, just there like a lump. Well, the first thing that'll happen is her friends will start talking about calling the ambulance to rush her to the Emergency Room, which is absolutely not necessary.
How do you get her out? The first thing to do is make sure it's a hypnotic coma, so ask her. Say, “I just counted up from 1 to 5 and I noticed you didn't open your eyes like I told you to, why didn't you do that?” If she says, “Oh, I just didn't want to,” or “I just felt really good.”, you do not have a hypnotic coma. A subject in coma state will not talk to you. So if she talks, you have a choice. You can say, “Well, I can stand you over here and you can continue to enjoy that while I work with other people,” or “I'm going to have you emerge from hypnosis.” Be firm and she will emerge. If she doesn't talk to you, check to make sure she didn't fall asleep.
It happens, especially late in the evening. Give her a little nudge and tell her to wake up, and if she wakes up, she wasn't in a coma state. If she still stays there and doesn't say anything and doesn't do anything, it could be the coma. Dave Elman back in the 1920s used this method. It is called the coma threat. Say, “I know you feel good but you need to come out right now. And if you don't come out right now when I count to 5, I'm going to fix this so you can never be hypnotized again. I'm going to put a hypnotic seal on you.” Be very congruent. “I will do that and you'll never be able to be hypnotized again.” And then count up and the person will emerge from coma. Your subject will absolutely emerge because the risk of never being able to be in that wonderful state again is a risk too big to take! Those of us who have been in a coma state understand!
