The Lincoln County chip ‘n dale dancers had their debut Friday.
It came as a surprise to everyone - including the dancers. They appeared to be hypnotized. And they may be too embarrassed to talk about it today - if they remember exactly what happened.
But there was a lot more than dancing going on at the LCHS auditorium Friday. There was horse racing, and roller coasters, and an awful lot of... sleeping.
Under the soothing words of hypnotist Don Spencer, around 12 volunteers slumped over in their chairs under the stage lights in the auditorium packed with people.
“Breathe in, and breathe out,” he said to them as he positioned the volunteers, propping them up against one another.
“Hypnotism is no more than me giving you a suggestion, and you responding to it,” he told the audience. “We do it every single day. How many times have you been reading a book, and you got so engaged in it that time just passed on?” Or watched a movie. Or been driving a car and daydreaming. “That’s a hypnotic state of mind,” said Spencer.
Eventually, Spencer told his row of slumped-over volunteers that they were driving a car. A row of arms flew in unison to each imagined steering wheel, eyes still gently shut, bodies relaxed. The cars picked up speed. The volunteers became animated as Spencer described what was happening to them. They raced, they braked... and they morphed into cowpokes swaying to the motion of their horses.
As the night went on, Spencer weeded out those that were less receptive to the hypnotism, sending them back to the audience.
For those that remained, waves of audience laughter followed each series of antics. Spencer gave his hypnotic volunteers directions, and they followed without question.
A few chosen young men - simply following Spencer’s directions - put on a spontaneous chip ‘n dale dancing show, ripping off their shirts and gyrating to the music, eyes still closed.
And in a blast to the past, the volunteers all became 6 years old again. Eureka elementary teacher Shelly Moen was an especially persnickety 6-year-old, making faces at Spencer when his back was turned.
Moen also - upon instruction - became convinced that her name was a random man’s name, and curiously forgot the number five. She had trouble counting her fingers and toes.
All of this, said Moen, she didn’t remember clearly after the show - until Spencer, sending her to “sleep” again, instructed her subconscious to remember after the show.
“After he woke me back up, I did remember,” said Moen. “It was really interesting.”
Moen said that when she first volunteered to be hypnotized, she didn’t think it would work on her.
“The next thing I was totally conscious of was standing up and bowing,” she said.
The time between - nearly two hours - was fuzzy in remembrance, dream-like. “I remembered, but I didn’t remember specifics,” she said.
She remembers pretending to ride a horse, she said - but she was surprised to find that she’d taken off her sweater when she woke up at the end of the show. Come to find out - she had been instructed that she had insects in her clothes, and had to throw off her sweater and shake them out.
And for everything Spencer told her to do, she said - she did it unquestioningly, without thinking. Subconsciously. “There was no desire to not do it,” she said. “I didn’t even think about it.”
Needless to say, she’s had a few students - and teachers - trying to help her with her counting skills this week. “I can count again,” she said with a chuckle. “I know my numbers now.” And her name isn’t Bill, or Bob.
Sarah Mossing, another volunteer and a student at LCHS, enjoyed her hypnotic experience. “It was fun,” she said.
For the first half, she didn’t think she was hypnotized, she said. She was just going along with everything, pretending. But then she began listening more carefully and focusing upon what Spencer was saying.
“It was kind of a dreamlike thing,” she said.
And in the end, she said, she felt refreshed - as if she’d slept. “I think it’s pretty cool,” she said.
“Hypnosis is a natural state of mind,” explained Spencer in an interview Monday. “Something that people experience every single day.”
Entertainers and writers are both hypnotists, he said - activating the imaginations of watchers and readers.
And parents, he noted, are the world’s greatest - and most important - hypnotists, at a stage of life when a child’s subconscious mind is still forming. “A child is raised and will become what they are taught,” he said. Whether raised in a wholesome environment, or in an abusive family - “You attract that which you believe to be true about you,” he said.
And what he does with hypnosis, he said, is teach the conscious mind to relax, putting aside preconceived notions and allowing the subconscious to shine through. “In a clinical sense, we us hypnosis to access memories that no longer serve a purpose,” he said, to root out subconscious blocks that effect unwanted behaviors.
And as far as the shows go - the purpose is twofold.
“I want them to have a good time,” said Spencer - just to come out and laugh.
And he also hopes that the audience and participants realize, through the show, “That they have a potential that’s really unlimited in nature,” said Spencer. “To give them the opportunity, no matter who they are or where they are at - ” to realize that they are free to be whomever they decide to be.
“People always think - ‘I’m stuck where I’m at,’” said Spencer. But in reality, that’s just a perception.
Friday’s show was a successful fund-raiser for the LCHS Technology Club as well, according to teacher Wade VanNess. The club finished the night with a profit that raised about 30 percent of the funds needed for the club’s trip to Seattle in April. The club boasts twenty one LCHS students this year.
“I think it was a tremendous success, and we had a good time,” added VanNess.