Seawolves fall under the spell of Brian Inbus

STAR // Zachary Gonzales

Audrey King was convinced her shoe was a cellphone during a hypnotist show.

“I’m not a Psychic, I’m not a Medium, I don’t talk to dead people.” Hypnotist Brian Inbus fascinated Sonoma State’s families this past Saturday. People gathered to watch in amazement at how hypnosis works. Guest Entertainer Inbus put on a show involving many different tricks and skills he learned over the past 20 years. 

Inbus started off his show introducing familiar tricks with the whole audience such as dice and card tricks. He invited audience members to come up so that he could attempt to read their body language and their minds. The first trick involved a dice and him having to guess the number that was picked randomly by one of the volunteers. 

Inbus figured out if the person was lying by asking many questions and was able to correctly guess the dice number twice in a row. The crowd applauded and cheered on his ability to easily identify if someone was being untruthful. Another member from the audience was invited onto the stage as Inbus introduced his card trick. The person was trying his best to not give anything away, but as Inbus turned his back, and closed his eyes, he was still able to guess the volunteer’s whole hand. 

During the show, Inbus had many volunteers who were willing to be hypnotized. He mentioned some people are more susceptible to becoming hypnotized than others. He gathered information by introducing a mind trick to the audience. It included the crowd's eyes being closed with their arms stretched out. Audience members had to imagine that one arm was holding a weight of about 60 lbs and the other was holding a string with a balloon attached. As people opened their eyes and looked around them, there were some whose hands were further apart. Those were the people who were more likely to be hypnotized.

Inbus continued to amaze the audience throughout his show as he had many people hypnotized and following the instructions he’d given. The crowd was very impressed as there was lots of clapping and laughter. 

In an interview with the STAR, an audience member shared their thoughts on the show, “It’s like lucid dreaming, but in lucid dreams you may feel like you have control. This was more of I knew these things were happening but I couldn’t control the reactions. He told me how to react. It also felt completely safe. I didn’t feel scared at any point, but when he said I had to be irritated that he’d taken my nose each time I was even more angry at him. The whole performance was just amazing.” 

Being a Hypnomentalist was not originally a dream of Inbus’. He was in fact also a skeptic at a young age until he witnessed what incredible things hypnotists did.

Inbus described to the STAR what first inspired his interest in hypnotism,“I was a skeptic before I saw a hypnotist perform. My friend got hypnotized in the audience and that is when it made me believe there was something there. So I went to the library the next day and I checked out every book on hypnosis and taught myself how to use hypnosis, not only for myself but for others as well. It was more of a hobby in high school, but about 23 years ago I made it my career.”