Look deep into my wrists

by Eva Dameron

Daily Lobo

Rusty Z said some hypnotists use the long induction process to hypnotize people.

Comedian and certified hypnotherapist James Zingelman, whose stage name is Rusty Z, grabs people's wrists.

"If we hypnotized with a watch it would take forever," he said.

Zingelman invented the wrist-grabbing technique, he said.

"As strange as it sounds, it startles them into hypnosis," he said. "I'm probably the only hypnotist doing it."

He described it as a combination of two techniques. For the prehypnotic concentration test, his subjects rotate their arms around in front of them as if they're pulling taffy, he said.

"You do that until I grab your wrist," Zingelman said. "I decided to put my own spin, no pun intended."

He uses this process 80 percent of the time, he said. He also uses mental confusion induction.

"It's like sitting through a philosophy class," he said. "Most philosophy classes I've been in are pretty confusing. It confuses your brain so much all you want to do is shut it off."

Some people are afraid or nervous about going into hypnosis, he said.

"These inductions take the nervous energy away from them," he said.

Zingelman got interested in hypnotism when he was a child, when he read ads on the backs of comic books on how to hypnotize people. He started doing it professionally eight years ago, after doing stand-up comedy. He said he used to perform stand-up on Comedy Central and A&E.

"I've been a comedian for 20 years and wanted to add another dimension to my show," he said.

People who have good concentration are the easiest to hypnotize.

"I have ADD, so I was a little harder to hypnotize than other people," he said.

He remembers everything that happened while being hypnotized.

"The first time I was hypnotized was to find out why I didn't finish projects I started," he said. "The hypnotherapist took me back to when I was 5 years old."

Zingelman said he was at the babysitter's coloring in a coloring book.

"My mother drove up and told me to come home," he said. "I said, 'I want to stay here and color my picture,' and she said, 'If you finish that, you'll be in big trouble.'" I probably do finish more things - I think it helped me."

He said pressure from voices of authority stay with people from early on.

"Hypnosis can help people tap into their hidden potential - unused potential," Zingelman said. "Things they don't even know about."

Many people, he said, have noted that after experiencing back pain or a headache all day they feel no pain after a hypnosis session.

"I don't do any sort of pain management without a doctor's prescription," he said. "They're so relaxed while they're hypnotized that their muscles destress. I tell them they're going to be feeling better than they've felt all day, physically and mentally."

He said people being hypnotized - an all-volunteer group - go through a hypnotic induction lasting from two to seven minutes.

"They will have more fun than the people who don't volunteer," Zingelman said. "As far as the skits, they change almost every show."

He isn't sure if there's a spiritual element to hypnotizing people, he said.

"Maybe a better word would be the 'transforming' side of it," he said. But for the night of the show, "it's all fun and games."