Derren Brown paralyzed someone?

[Maaz Hasan]

My google feed just told me that a woman claims to have gotten paralyzed after getting hypnotized at Derren Brown's show.

I find this hard to believe. As far as I understand, that is not how hypnosis works. Furthermore, if she was hypnotized into paralysis, wouldn't the rest of the audience also be paralyzed too right? I feel like she is just trying to give Derren a bad rep.


Also, hope Derren Brown gets better. I also saw that he had to cancel his shows due to injury?

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Hadn't heard he'd been injured. I wonder if it's his voice - I know he's had issues on and off for most of his stage career regarding his voice.

As to the woman: Pure speculation on my part, since I have no way of seeing this show, sadly. That being said, we don't understand how hypnosis works. Not really. We've got several working models that seem to hold up, but if you take into consideration that some of those models contradict each other, and they all still work, it's pretty clear we've barely got any idea of what's actually happening. So it's entirely possible that given Derren's reputation the woman went into the show with certain ideas of what would happen, and her unconscious mind went in a wonky direction with it.

Is that Derren's fault? No, not one bit. Is it hypnosis? Eh, maybe? I don't know if she's just trying to hurt his reputation. I suspect she just over reacted to his reputation/what she knew of him, and it had a strange effect on her.