In one of his tricks, called a person swap, Brown will present a map to a pedestrian and ask for directions. While the pedestrian is trying to help him, someone will walk between them carrying a large picture. Brown will switch places with the person carrying the picture and the pedestrian will continue giving the new person directions, even though it is no longer Derren Brown that they are talking to. Brown even went so far as to switch places with someone that looked completely different from him and the pedestrian never blinked an eye. Because the majority of the pieces that the pedestrian had been exposed to, the conversation and the physical map, never changed their mind interpreted it as they had always been talking to that person.
When Derren Brown performs a trick using Neuro-Linguistic Programming, suggestive words used throughout a conversation can eventually lead the person to come to a certain conclusion. Derren Brown invited Simon Pegg to test out this form of mind control by asking him to write on a piece of paper something that he really wanted. The paper was then sealed in an envelope and placed in Pegg's wallet. Brown and Pegg then began a conversation throughout which Brown very indiscreetly used a number of phrases that all related to a BMX bicycle in one form or another. Things like pumped up, and too tired were said in regular sentences but all clearly related to a bicycle. The room that the trick was performed in was also highly suggestive itself. There were abstractive figures of bicycles everywhere you looked but none actually resembled an exact bike.
At the end of the conversation Brown asked Pegg what the one thing in the world was that he wanted. Without hesitation Pegg said he wanted a BMX bike. Behind them in the room was a box, which they opened to reveal a BMX bicycle. Pegg was astounded. The best part about the trick is that a BMX bicycle was not what Pegg wrote down on the card when first entering the room. Brown asked Pegg to really think about what it was that he initially wrote down. Pegg responds several times that it was a BMX bicycle. Finally Pegg removes the paper from his wallet and much to his surprise it said leather jacket. Pegg was completely confused at how it could say leather jacket when he kept insisting that it was indeed the BMX bicycle that he wanted. He went so far as to say he had no use for a leather jacket and it did not make any sense that he would have written that on the paper to begin with.
In the end the trick is a great example of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Simple suggestion can be so powerful the person has a hard time comprehending what happened and how. |
