Although this trick is quite difficult to execute, I will explain it in great detail so that anyone can do it. It is best suited for a one-on-one scenario where you want to demonstrate hypnosis to someone, or you can perform it on an individual person in front of a group. If you’re having trouble with this trick, I recommend looking up some easier tricks to practice first.
This trick uses awake hypnosis. You will not put anyone into a trance and the person you are performing it on will be fully conscious at all times. In fact, that’s one of the things that makes this hack so great.
It works on this principle. Have you ever had a really bad headache that wouldn’t go away? You would have noticed that the pain would often come and go. If you were paying attention to something else, you might even forget about the pain momentarily before it hit you again. It is a signal from the body to the brain that something is wrong and you consciously experience it as pain. Because we are able to intermittently perceive pain while focusing on other things, we can actually distract ourselves from the pain sensation entirely and make it go away. This trick makes the pain go away so completely that the person is left feeling numb. In the end you use it to numb people’s faces so they even have trouble speaking.
To start this trick, have the participant place their hand flat on a table. Make sure you sit next to them instead of facing them. Sitting facing each other puts you in an adversarial position and may cause the person to resist. Tell them to take a deep breath and then relax. Say something like “The trick I’m about to show you is really cool, but in order for us to pull it off, I need you to listen carefully to what I’m saying. Can you do that for me?”
This does several things. First you frame the trick as “we” instead of you being the hypnotist and them being the subject. They are doing it together. Second, you establish that the trick is fun and cool. Third, you establish that it needs their participation to function properly. You’ve already got them to obey you by putting your hand on the table. You get them to comply with the request to take a deep breath. Now get them to acknowledge that they are going to comply by asking your question “can you do that for me?”
Now is the time to tell them a story, rich in metaphors, that subtly establishes the nature of the trick. Start talking about bread. Tell a story about a time she got hurt and how much it really hurt and how it relates to pain that is only in the mind. This is a story I use from my childhood: “When I was a kid, I used to treat everything like an adventure. I was always running, climbing, jumping, and rolling. One day I was with a friend exploring some rocks on the beach. My friend pointed to my hand and said ‘you’re bleeding’. I looked down and saw that my hand was covered in blood and had been bleeding for some time. Then the pain hit me. Just a cut, but I felt the pain go all the way to the bone. From Suddenly, it was so unbelievably painful that I started screaming and ran to find my mother. Isn’t it funny that I didn’t start to feel any pain until I saw that I was hurt?”
Now to the next step. There is a pressure point between the thumb bone and the rest of the palm. To find it, place your finger on the piece of skin between your thumb and forefinger and move your finger toward the wrist until you feel the bone. If you press on it, it will hurt more than if you press on it anywhere else. What you want to do is apply gentle pressure to that pressure point on the participant’s hand. He then asks, “can you feel that?” Wait for them to acknowledge it and say “isn’t it interesting the way we feel pain? At first there’s nothing there, then it’s like a sharp stab” – at this point press your finger into your hand a little harder – “and it’s like though the pain shoots through your whole body.” Then press even harder on their hand and ask “how does it feel?” they should reply that it hurts.Push down even harder one last time and then quickly remove your finger.
Now say, “Isn’t it interesting that even though my finger is gone, it still hurts? How, even though the pressure is gone, can you still feel the pain?” I dragged out the word pain as if it literally hurt to say it. Now place your hand on top of theirs and push down as if you were pushing air right where you were pressing your finger. Now say: “Notice that the memory of the pain is so strong that even though my hand is not touching you, you can still feel it. It feels like I am pressing on it again. Can you feel it?” Ask them the question and wait for them to answer yes.
Now say “if pain were a color, I would think it would be black. I want you to imagine the pain as a black decay that gets stronger as my hand presses down.” Then slowly press your hand down into that spot once more, still hovering over it so it doesn’t touch it. Now say “and it’s interesting the way bread can be spread. How it starts in one place and just spreads out.” When you say “spreads,” raise your hand and quickly spread your fingers, suggesting that the pain is spreading. Say “You can imagine the black decay spreading out, as if radiating from that point.” Then start to move your hand toward your wrist and say “you can feel it stretching toward your wrist,” then move it toward your fingers and say “you can feel it stretch toward your fingers.”
At this point, your participant should feel quite uncomfortable. We want to push this a bit further before offering any relief. He says, “And as it spreads, you can feel it getting blacker and blacker. You can feel the pain getting more and more intense.” Raise your hand a little bit and start to push down like you’re pushing a heavy weight on them, “and as my hand pushes down harder and harder, you can feel the pain getting stronger and stronger.”
In NLP this is called creating a “loop”. We started talking about the pain, which created the loop. Then when you press your finger into your hand, you open the noose and expose them to pain. You keep the cycle going by implanting the suggestion that they can still feel the pain even though your finger is gone. You then anchor the pain to your hand by pressing down on the place that hurts. Then you anchor the pain to the color black and make them imagine it’s there. As you move your hand around theirs, that anchor still exists, so it makes them feel pain wherever your hand is. This makes them imagine that the blackness is spreading, reinforcing the pain. Make sure as you say the part “as my hand pushes down harder and harder, I can feel the pain getting stronger” and really emphasize harder and harder plus stronger and STRONGER.
Your participant can at any time break the sensation of pain by breaking the loop. They just have to wave their hand, stand up, or even say “I don’t want to do this anymore.” That’s why it’s important to make sure you have a good relationship with the participant. Make sure they think this is “cool.” And make sure they feel safe.
At this point it is time to close the loop. Immediately after saying the words “louder and louder,” quickly raise your hand, snap your fingers, and tap them in the center of the forehead. This uses what is called a “pattern interrupt”. You interrupt the thought pattern the person is going through by doing something completely unexpected. You also make a loud clicking noise that wakes them up from the pain. Then you provide them with the first real physical sensory input they’ve gotten since you were pressing their pressure point. This shocks your system. It reminds them of what real pain feels like and completely distracts them from the artificial pain you were making them feel.
Use the moment when they are shocked and stunned by the interruption to implant a suggestion. Immediately after clicking and tapping them on the head, you say “And just like that the pain is gone. It’s completely gone and there’s nothing left and you can’t feel the pain anymore…” then pause briefly and almost like a afterthought you say “…in fact, you can’t feel anything anymore.” You let this thought sit for a moment and before they have time to process it properly you start talking again “it’s like all feeling has left your hand. It’s like your whole hand has gone numb.”
Important: Every time you say numb during the rest of this trick, always extend the last syllable. It’s like your mouth goes numb every time you say the word.
Now say “your hand is so numb you couldn’t lift it even if you tried.” This subtly tells them not to try to raise their hand. But because they want to, they want to test if they really can, but you just told them not to, it reinforces the idea that their hand is numb. Pause for a moment and let the idea stay in your mind.
Now say “as you sit there, listening to the sound of my voice, your hand glued to the table, completely numb and feelingless, can you imagine yourself trying to raise your hand. And the more and more you try to raise your hand the more and more numb it gets.” returns… until… it is completely devoid of feeling and has become completely numb. The first part of this statement contextualizes the last part. In fact, they are sitting there listening to you. Then you reinforce the suggestion you have been working on saying “your hand stuck to the table” as if it were a fact, you could have just as easily said “the sky is blue” and your tone of voice would have been the same. When you ask them how they feel, they really slur the word “feel”.
They should say that their hand feels completely numb. Use two fingers to lift your hand up at the wrist and lift it up. She should fall completely limp on the table as if she doesn’t feel anything. Ask “can you feel that?” and they should say no. Press on the top of her palm (one of the less sensational areas in her hand) and ask her if she feels that and she should say no.
Now say “I want you to imagine the numbness leaving your hand” -at this point put your hand over theirs- “and imagine that it is escaping into my hand. The numbness leaving your hand and going into mine” – now lift your hand out of theirs – “and it’s completely gone and you can move your hand.” They should be relieved when they raise their hand in the air and get all the feeling back.
Now look them straight in the eye and don’t look away. They must be so impressed with what you’ve done that it’s hard for them to look away and look you straight in the eye. Now say “That feeling of numbness exists in my hand. Wherever it touches it will be like a brush, painting numbness on your body. Wherever it touches it will become numb.” This time he really dragged the word out numb as if her whole face went numb when he said it. Then take your hand and put it on his face. He touches his face as if you are lightly grasping his jaw. Your thumb on one end of his jaw aligns your fingers on the other.
Now step back and snap your fingers and say “and suddenly all feeling is gone from your face, from your mouth and from your jaw. Everything my hand touched went numb. And that feeling spreads rapidly across your face until you can’t feel nothing at all and You’re completely numb. How do you feel? At this point, they should say numb as if they really are numb. It should sound like their entire faces are numb. It’s usually accompanied by a look of surprise.
Now click your fingers and touch them once more to the forehead and say “and so the numbness is gone and all feeling is back in your face. You feel calm and refreshed and relieved. And you have come out of this knowing that pain is alone.” in the mind”.
As a conclusion I would like to point out that this trick is difficult. It may be a good idea to do this after you have already demonstrated the hypnotic ability on the participant or someone else before them. And remember, practice makes perfect.