Close your eyes. You are getting tired. Your eyes are getting heavier. You are falling deeper and deeper asleep.

This rush of fatigue is not from the end of the semester’s vigorous workload, but from the hypnosis of SAILESH, an award-winning comedic hypnotist, who performed at Shippensburg University on April 14 in the multipurpose room of the Ceddia Union Building.

SAILESH’s devious half-smile said it all from the beginning of the show. He knew what was in store for the audience, but they, on the other hand, were about to get their minds blown.

Eighteen chairs sat vacant on the stage behind SAILESH. Upon welcoming those from the audience to join him, both eager and hesitant students filed their way up onto the stage to occupy them.

With relaxation, prompts from SAILESH and the sheer power of their own minds, half of those students drifted into a deep, hypnotic state.

After complete and utter relaxation was reached by the participants, the combination of SAILESH’s touch and the command “sleep” left their bodies limp and their heads dangling.

From that moment on, the brave nine were no longer in control of their own bodies and were left susceptible to all the embarrassing things that they were about to do on stage.

The first hypnotic skit of the night began with SAILESH prompting the participants to visualize the temperature dropping down to 30 degrees and snow falling and laying on the ground around them.

Those up on stage started to rub their hands together, shiver and nuzzle up to whoever was sitting next to them, despite the reality that they were in a room that was nowhere near freezing.

The rest of the night grew far more hilarious and, as some may say, disturbing, as SAILESH made a belt “turn into a snake,” and the hypnotized individuals twerked, slow danced, jammed out with invisible instruments or even became their opposite sex alter ego.

The audience was booming with laughter the entire show as they watched their fellow students involuntarily embarrass themselves on stage.

Shippensburg University senior Crystal Hartman, who was hypnotized by SAILESH during the show, said that while she was on stage she had no control over what she was doing.

“I’ve been hypnotized before, so since I experienced the process before, I didn’t think I would actually let myself fall under hypnosis again,” Hartman said, “but once I closed my eyes and followed what I was told to do, I was out.”

“Even though I had no control over what I was doing at the time, it was still a lot of fun,” Hartman said.

With the count of three and a snap of SAILESH’s fingers, the nine who were willing and brave enough to give their minds over to SAILESH for the evening were awakened from their hypnotic state.

In return for 90 minutes of fun with their minds, they were gifted with applause and, of course, their own laughter as they suddenly remembered every last embarrassing thing that they did during the course of the show.

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