Sam Matteson

“This young woman is in urgent need of the assistance of Franz Anton Mesmer!”
–Franz Anton Mesmer

“I doubt that this will end well,” Sammy thought but did not say. Silently the high school mesmerist instructed himself: “It is essential that you project a confident demeanor to your subject,” reciting the admonition he had read in the paperback book where he had learned the essentials of hypnotism. The members of his high school choir crowded the hotel room near the All-State festival site and now leaned in, curious, to see Sammy put their classmate “under.”

In his hotel session, Sam began by following faithfully the patter he had learned off by heart. He had already used it successfully several times before with various subjects, to his surprise and delight. How amazing it was he concluded—to think that he, a naïve teen, could exert such control over another’s mind! But more than power drew him to this art; what a novel exploit into a dark world it presented! Sam felt the utter joy he imagined he shared with the first man to receive fire from the hand of Prometheus.

“Linda, fix your vision on this charm,” he had suggested as he held up the glinting bangle in a darkened room. And just as he had done before with other subjects, he continued in a practiced calm and confident voice, “You are getting sleepy. Your eye lids are growing heavy. Sooooo, heavy. You can hardly keep them open. It’s okay to let them close.” Linda had complied. “Relax. Just relax. Now imagine you see the charm. Do you see it, Linda?”

“Yes,” the slight brunette replied.

“Good. Imagine that it is moving away from you. Concentrate on the charm as it moves slowly away. See the charm and listen only to the sound of my voice, only to the sound of my voice, as it moves away into the darkness. You can see it shining and you can hear my voice. That is all you can see and hear,” Sam recited in his most reassuring intonation.

Aunt Mary Benefited

Sammy remembered even now, how—at his mother’s insistence—he had “put Aunt Mary under.” The strange request came because of Mary’s terrible headache pain, and because of his mother’s desperation and kindness. She was aware, as well, of her son’s psychological adventures and, although wary and cautionary, she exhibited an indulgent tolerance of his latest exploration. The ritual proceeded flawlessly with his aunt. She progressed rapidly through the several stages of hypnosis. At last, the young hypnotist suggested that she relax, beginning with her toes then progressing upward. When he commanded her scalp to relax, his eyes widened in astonishment. He looked at his mother’s face. She saw it too. Her mouth was open in amazement. The hair on Mary’s head seemed to become a thing alive, crawling backward as the muscles in her scalp did indeed unclench, relieving the immediate cause of her tension headache.

After a minute of relaxation and post hypnotic suggestion that she would awaken refreshed as from a good nap, feeling no pain, her headache gone, Sam began the count down. “I will count backward. As I do, you will begin to wake up and you will awaken refreshed and alert. Three, you are beginning to awaken. Two, you are becoming aware of the world around you. One, you are waking up.” He snapped his fingers. “You are fully awake. . . . Aunt Mary, How do you feel?” he inquired.

“I feel fine. My headache’s gone! A good nap always makes you feel better,” she replied with a smile.

“That went well,” Sam thought to himself.

“Thank you, Sammy, dear,” his grateful aunt continued.

“You’re very welcome. Glad I could help,” the proud teenager pronounced. Inwardly, however, he shuddered with the excitement of a power to help another, a power that he had never known before, that also mingled with a concealed trepidation of what evil that power was capable of wreaking.

Back in the hotel room, Linda had passed the usual tests of the stages of suggestion: relaxation, obedience to simple suggestions, flinch suppression when pricked with a sharp pin. But she had not done well in the enhanced memory test that was the object of Sam’s experiment. Ever the would-be scientist, he concluded that at least in some people hypnotic suggestion does not enhance memory skills.

Post Hypnotic Suggestions?

Sam momentarily considered giving a post-hypnotic suggestion to Linda, has he had done several times before. Once to amuse her friends he had suggested to Jan, a subject with a distinctive and infectious laugh, that when someone used the word “peanuts” in conversation she would find it the most hilarious thing she had ever heard and she would laugh until she cried. But when she heard the word “popcorn,” she would feel such sadness that it would also make her cry. Sam decided that he must have an escape word, lest the emotional yo-yo go on forever. “When you hear the word ‘crackerjacks’ the post hypnotic suggestion will terminate, and you will return to normal. These words will be just words. Do you understand? If you understand, nod your head.” Jan obeyed.

When Sam had counted down. “Three, two, one. You’re awake!” Jan had complied. The small group of observers quizzed her about her experience. She had no awareness that she had been hypnotized. When someone mentioned the word “peanuts” she became “tickled” as she called it. Laughing uproariously, even to the point of embarrassment. She could not restrain her mirth, until another person pronounced the word “popcorn,” at which Jan’s demeanor instantly transformed to the mask of tragedy and she began to weep. The group of friends played with her emotions, jerking her back and forth from joy to sadness and back again, a few more times before Sam took pity on an exhausted Jan and used the terminal safe word. Sam began to doubt inwardly that it was a good thing to have such power in his inexpert hands, although it was a heady emotion to experience. Perhaps he was uneasy partly because of a lingering feeling of guilt for the abuse to which he had subjected Jan.

But Linda presented a very different scenario. She had not responded to his call to wake up after his count down. She had remained still, her eyes closed.

“What do I do, now?” Sam asked himself. “Don’t panic,” he counseled himself. He resolved to try again.

“Linda! I am going to count backward from ten this time. At each stage you will become more and more awake.” Then he began the count down. The room was hot with the breath of twenty teenagers. Their faces formed a horizon that made Sammy feel trapped. Many looked on concerned. Some wore curious looks. A few smiled broadly. Sam could feel each second ticking by as he labored to bring this catatonic mind back to reality.

When he reached zero this second time and snapped his fingers, Linda remained unmoved, her eyes closed. She did not wake up! Sam’s heart pounded in his chest. “What if she never awakens?” he thought. Instead, he improvised, “Take her back to her room and put her on her bed. She will awake in a few hours naturally.”

At this, Linda opened her eyes wide and looked into Sammy’s stunned face. She winked and laughed out loud. Her grinning confederates among the onlookers immediately bent double in glee. Everyone in the room finally realized that the sometime mesmerist had been pranked. Everybody laughed in relief, including Sammy, the mark.

A Narrow Escape?

Despite his embarrassment, Sammy did not feel humiliated. He laughed along with everyone else at his pretension and he forgave his clever classmates’ good natured con of a fake somnambulist. Instead, his anxiety was lifted and replaced with a vague but definite sense of relief. He had secretly feared his infatuation with his newly acquired hypnotic skills. Sammy imagined himself like a child playing with a box of matches who inadvertently sets fire to his neighbor’s house. The hoax only heightened this terror that Sammy had hidden beneath a mask of bravado and faked sophistication. Ultimately, he decided to suspend his experiments in the wilderness of the mind, since he felt that he had escaped a disaster, but might not be so fortunate next time. He resolved never to forget what happened, however, even if he would puzzle—forever—over all that it meant and what calamities he might have been spared.

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