Ideomotor movement
One of the most fascinating hypnotic phenomena is, to me, is ideomotor movement, or the ideomotor response. ‘ideo’ meaning idea, ‘motor’ relating to muscular action. The detailed wikipedia explanation can be found here, but effectively it’s about a thought or mental process triggering an involuntary muscular reaction. When you experience it, even if you know exactly what’s happening, it can feel like telekinesis.
One of the most famous examples of this is to do with pendulums – and you can try it at home. Take a length of thread and attach a small weight to the end. This can be as simple as a fishing weight or a wedding ring at the end of a piece of twine. Hold it up in front of you between finger and thumb, and will the pendulum to start swinging left to right. It will begin to do just that. Then start willing it to instead go back and forth, or perhaps in a circle. The pendulum will stop swinging left to right and begin to move in the desired direction.
And this is all due to ideomotor movement. When you focus on ‘left to right’ or ‘back and forth’ you actually begin to make tiny movements in your fingers to make the pendulum move in the desired way. Because of the weighted length of string, these tiny movements become amplified so they can be seen. But the effect feels quite magical.
Demonstration
Another example is that of the haunted key. If you’ve made your way to this page via my insta or facebook then you will have seen the video already, but I’ve embedded it below just in case.
The key is just a key, albeit one that takes very little effort to roll. When you will the key to turn over, you begin making tiny movements that facilitate exactly that. They’re practically invisible, and you can’t feel yourself making them, but the results are pretty spooky.
Adding to the craziness of this effect is that I have given this to people to try and they’ve had no success until I’ve first demonstrated it myself. Once they see that it works – even without my explaining how it works – they are often able to do it for themselves.
It really goes to show that your brain and the power of your imagination are incredible things. If you’d like to learn more, get in touch here.
