Four

Fancy a trip down memory lane? Let's go!

When I was in high school I had the best psychology teacher EVER.

Every Christmas break, the seniors from the previous year would return to Mr. Foutz's class to be 'hypnotized'.  After I had begrudgingly left high school (am I the only one who like it there?) to go to college for a year, I journeyed back to Mr. Foutz's class for my chance at being hypnotized.

Because I was pretty sure it was all fake, I was more nervous about seeing my ex-boyfriend and his friends than I was about actually being hypnotized.

Foutz was unfortunately able to hypnotize me.  He was telling other people who were hypnotized that he was Brad Pitt, or that water filling the room. I was given a MUCH tamer scenario.  Shame huh?  I'm pretty good at making a public spectacle of myself.

I was told that there was no such thing as the number four.  No matter if I was adding 2 and 2, counting, or trying to read the number four, it would not work.  At one point I started getting angry.  Surprise.

After Foutz brought me back out of the hypnosis (for fear of getting a fist to the groin), I had to run out of the class room to get to my job at the mall.  Thaaat's right. I had a sweet mall gig at a kiosk that no one frequented.  I read books and people watched. Heaven.

That night I was counting the cash register and I could not figure out why it continued to come up wrong!  Could it be because I kept skipping the number 4?  Yeah... I was annoyed.  Once I realized what I was doing, I could consciously count the 4th dollar, but without prompting, my brain would just skip it.

I was hypnotized over 6 years ago and until a few weeks ago I had forgotten all about that little incident.

Until I was teaching Pilates.  "Inhale, one, two, three, five"...

Not a believer in hypnosis?  Me neither.