Invisibility

[Kaz with a K]

First off, I'm not sure if this belongs here, or in off-topic. If it doesn't belong here, pardon, and I'll be on my way.

Second, this does not directly involve Tulpas, but it does follow the same mindset.

EDIT: This "Invisibility" described couldn't possibly be "real", but an effect used on suggestable people. I know you can't fly, but you can make people believe you can.

After venturing upon a "suggested" video on youtube, I watched a short interview. The man was first asking if anyone thought it was possible to be invisible. He then moved to the interview stating he needed a very suggestable person, in his case, a film student. He talked to the student about suggested invisibility, telling him in the ruse of a movie, and how you could "trick" people's minds into believing them invisible. He went in depth, much of which I cannot remember, but he then left the room. He made the man wait a few minutes, then came back in, except this time, he had on a trenchocoat, a bowler hat, and his entire face was bandaged. He looked very much like "The Invisible Man". He sat down in his chair again, saying nothing. He then took off his hat, and his gloves. The student looked confused, and then he began to unwrap his face. From my point of view, the man was just unwrapping his face, and I didn't understand. I though the man had changed or something, but the student sorta shook his head, looked a different way, and knit his eyebrows. I realized that the man had become invisible to the student, but not to me. This is of course, because I'm viewing it through a camera, and it would be impossible to work like that, but the student was genuinely surprised, and the man still said nothing. He moved around the room, but the student's eye's didn't follow him. The man opened a door, and the student immediately swivled his head to try and spot the man. The man then went on to do other things, like moving objects and things, so I became interested. I googled the phenomenon, and was taken to a website where a man depicted the steps of becoming invisible. This man however, didn't say

it would only work on the person you chose, but that he could make

himself visible for (his own record) 80 minutes. I didn't get a chance to read in too deeply, but from what he described, you

had to meditate, much like tulpaforcing, and believe it was going to

work. You had to first visualize a small part of your body, in your

mind's eye, turning invisible. He said you needed to concentrate on

this until you could do it for a full five minutes, without breaking

concentration, kinda like possession or imposition. After, you then

had to imagine yourself going invisible from the bottom up, for

another five minutes, repeating an internal mantra of "invisible". The

"Stage Three", as he put it, was "highly dangerous" and "should not be

attempted" unless completely ready. In summary, you needed to pretty

much do the same thing as Stage Two, but bring in a trustworthy

friend, who would be a positive belief, and get them to be quiet, and

note when you became more invisible, or, subsequently, less invisible.

The range he used was 1 to 100%. I put this here because, to me, it

sounds a lot like the practice's we use to make and train our Tulpas with. I think it might actually come easier to some of use

here, because we've done the concentration and meditation exercises

needed. I was wondering if anyone had experienced this, or had any

knowledge that they'd like to share on this subject? I'm very curious

and I want to see what it would be like. Here's the link to the

information I found: http://invisibility100.tripod.com/

 

Thoughts? Comments?

 

(Sorry about the awkward spacing, I had to put this through several different mediums to get it here)

[CreativeMind]

I think the only way that it would be possible at all, is if you were to alter the mindset of the person who would be seeing you as invisible. I don't think you could turn 'yourself' invisible, but I do believe it might be possible to 'hypnotize' another person to not be able to see you for a short period of time.

 

You might be able to manipulate someone's mind to not see you.

 

So I'm voting 'possibly' just because.

[Kaz with a K]

Right, that's what threw me off. The first guy sounded true, as he worked on suggestibility, but the other guy I didn't get much time to check out.

[Guest Anonymous]

Same as the others, if you are to manipulate the other person then it seems pretty possible, but when I read the part with the stupid spacing it started to sound very unrealistic.

[Shui]

The video you're talking about is Derren Brown, well known stage hypnotist and magician (in the UK -- virtually unknown in the states). He does some awesome stuff with hypnosis -- look through his other videos on YouTube. Some of what he does is stage magic, and some is hypnosis, and it cash be very hard to trip the difference. The shadow tap trick, for example, looks like hypnosis, but is actually stage magic.

 

His invisibility trick is real hypnosis, but it's only possible with very suggestible subjects who ideally want to experience it. He also might be doing some suggestion off-screen, his reputation probably helps a lot, and of course it's backed up by years of experience.

 

So yes, it's real, but you probably won't be able to do it without a lot of training and practice. And you won't be able to use it when you really need it.

 

A few more notes on hypnosis: hypnotists will tell you that they can't make you do something against your will -- this is true to an extent. They can't hand you a loaded gun and say "Kill your mother." What they can do is say "That woman is disguised as your mother, but she's really a notorious seriel killer. Here's a tranquilizer gun -- knock her out." And then you'll kill your mother, while believing you're only sedating a criminal.

 

This has been used criminally before. I think there were actually a few incidents where banks were robbed by hypnosis. The hypnotist probably suggested to the teller that there was some rubbish in the safe, and that he'd dispose of it for them.

 

You can actually see Derren Brown doing this in some of his videos. There's one where he talks a guy into giving him his wallet multiple times. In another one, he pays for a several thousand dollar ring in a jewelry store with blank pieces of paper that the jeweler accepts as money.

 

The creators of Ripped Apart: The Automatic Imagination Model suggest this as the ultimate test of a hypnotist's ability: go a month in a strange city without spending money, using hypnosis to get food, lodging, clothing, and whatever else you need during that month.

 

Derren Brown could probably give you a fully imposed tulpa in a matter of hours. He might be able to walk naked through a shopping mall without being seen -- but he'd need access to the mall's speaker system to lay the suggestion for shoppers, and it wouldn't work on people who didn't speak English. He could not spontaneously turn invisible to people he hasn't prepared in advance -- I don't think anyone can.

 

But I could be wrong.

[CreativeMind]

The video you're talking about is Derren Brown, well known stage hypnotist and magician (in the UK -- virtually unknown in the states). He does some awesome stuff with hypnosis -- look through his other videos on YouTube. Some of what he does is stage magic, and some is hypnosis, and it cash be very hard to trip the difference. The shadow tap trick, for example, looks like hypnosis, but is actually stage magic.

 

Thanks so much for sharing, Shui, that's all pretty intense stuff. I knew hypnotism could be powerful, but I guess I never really thought about how much 'power' you could get from having such a skill.

[Kaz with a K]

what he said

 

Well then...Now everything's making more sense :P I mean, I didn't really believe you could just "become invisible" by sheer will, but the medititation method the other guy (let's call him "Not Derren"), Not Derren, used seemed like sort of a training technique. You probably could hypnotize yourself to see yourself as invisible (but that would be the most useless thing in the world?), but I think it was more of a state of mind thing. Maybe the both have different ways of going about it? Kinda like Tulpamancers. If I had known more about Derren Brown, I'd guess it would be an easy answer of "yes, but no."

Thank you for your help, Shui!

[Spartanelete]

To physically become invisible? No.

 

Through hypnosis, possibly. A person may be skilled at it, but that doesn't mean it will work on everyone.

[QB2]

The man in the OP seems like he was just doing performance magic with an audience plant. Very blatantly.

[Shui]

It has been suggested before that Derren Brown uses stooges. He talks about it himself here. Personally, I believe him. He does carefully screen applicants to appear on his show, sometimes even going so far as to have them followed (you're giving him permission to do this when you sign up). So he usually knows exactly how someone is going to behave because he's studied them extensively, and because he's layed subtle hypnotic suggestions for them to behave in a certain way.

 

Criss Angel, on the other hand...