EMU students were in for a treat when comedic hypnotist Dan Lornitis visited on Wednesday, April 10 to share some knowledge and laughs.
The middle section of the Student Center Auditorium quickly filled with students ready to learn all about hypnosis and who Lornitis is thanks to EMU Campus Life. Before the show began, students talked amongst themselves on what type of things we would be seeing.
When Lornitis was called to stage, he began with calling out for volunteers from the crowd of eager students jumping with excitement for a chance to be hypnotized. Before his performance, he started with some instructions for the audience to make sure they didn’t distract the volunteers on stage.
Even though the goal was to hypnotize the students on stage, a couple people in the audience were hypnotized as well. As Lornitis was instructing students on stage into their sleep like state, a couple audience members were falling asleep in their seats.
Lornitis asked the audience if there was anyone else hypnotized and asked them certain questions to test their state.
“I didn’t remember going on the stage at all, I didn’t expect it to happen.” said student Kayra Gaston. “I feel a little bit weird, but I think it’s funny, apparently I lost my belly button.”
That definitely took Gaston by surprise, to sit down in the audience and then wake up on stage not having a clue as to how that could have happened.
Lornitis gave people a new perspective on the idea of hypnotism and helped ease people’s mind on the skepticism, whether because they experienced it first hand for the night, knew someone who got hypnotized or was a witness.
According to Mayo Clinic, hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy or hypnotic suggestion, is a trance-like state in which you have heightened focus and concentration.
Hypnosis is a very controversial topic and most people assume it’s either fake or someone trying to make another person do whatever they want. According to Lornitis, neither of those thoughts are true.
“Hypnosis I’ve been doing for 19 years,” Lornitis said. “It’s not like the movies, hypnosis is a very natural state of mind. It’s just the fact of you allowing yourself to be hypnotized because you are in control at all times. Hypnosis is truly self-hypnosis, so people are actually hypnotizing themselves and the hypnotist is guiding you there and giving you the direction.”
