"Mind reading" - how is this done?

CWG

5 "Mind reading" - how is this done?

15th Aug 2013

3 min read

5

I just want to burn him at a stake and watch his witch's heart bubble. It’s extraordinary. Great trick. - Stephen Fry

Derren Brown does many amazing tricks - I want to focus here on his "mind reading". This is way beyond any cold reading I've seen, but he insists that he uses no actors or stooges. He's also a skeptic, very clear about not being psychic. He does reveal some of his tricks, but maintains a lot of mystery.

Reading David Frost's mind - unusually, he struggles and gets the first one wrong, and seems to reveal tiny glimpses of his technique. Then at the end he gives more hints about his technique than usual.

Pet name - getting someone on the street to read another person's mind. In the full version (from the DVD of Trick of the Mind, series one) the segment starts with Derren telling the guy (the pet owner) that sorry, it won't work on you, then later changing his mind and bringing him in.

Creepy clown - the detail here is extraordinary.

Watch the videos then scroll down, if you want to watch it without being influenced by me... I have a few thoughts, but they don't go very far in explaining it...

- - - - - -

Whatever he's doing, he's extraordinarily good at it. Some speculations:

Derren Brown uses suggestion and "subliminal" messages very heavily in his tricks. Often he will have written down the person's choice long before they've chosen, and subtly gets them thinking about what he wants. In the examples above he doesn't have much opportunity to direct the thought, I think... except that in the case of David Frost choosing a place, Frost is looking in the direction of the city scape behind Derren, which presumably influences his choice.
Micromuscle reading: When he or a participant tries to read a thought, there's often something about picking up the sound of a letter. Perhaps he reads involuntary micromuscle movements related to the mouth and throat that happen while saying something loudly in one's head, but suppressing it. (I would have guessed that was impossible... it still seems unlikely, but much more likely than "he's psychic".)
He narrows down the field of possibilities, often through suggestion, or sometimes (as with David Frost) asking them for something more specific.
He usually selects the participant, making sure he's got someone suitable. Perhaps all TV show hosts are suitable. (Except in his stage shows, where he throws a teddy bear into the audience, and asks the audience to throw it again. Perhaps if you've bought an expensive ticket to his show, you're invested in it and ready to go along with him, and that's enough for those particular tricks.) He says that a few things increase suggestibility, including the presence of a camera.
He's extremely observant and good at making connections - in one trick, he tells a man a lot about himself, by holding his hands through holes in a panel, but not able to see the man. E.g. by the roughness of the man's hands, he guesses what sport he's interested in. He pulls his hands back, smells them deeply, then declares that he has terriers (correct - he attributes that to having learnt to tell the difference between breeds of dogs by their smell), probably 3 of them (correct - no idea how).
Any of these things might be misdirection.
He may be lying, and actually using actors & stooges in some of his tricks. But that doesn't explain everything very well (e.g. I doubt that David Frost, Jamie Oliver or other celebs were paid to go along with him, but again, it's more believable that they're all lying than that he's psychic.)

I think he's using a lot of different methods at once, with great skill... but I'm sure my speculations are a long way short of explaining what he does. I'd love to hear any further insights on his mind-reading.

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5 "Mind reading" - how is this done?

by CWG

15th Aug 2013

3 min read

5

I just want to burn him at a stake and watch his witch's heart bubble. It’s extraordinary. Great trick. - Stephen Fry

Creepy clown - the detail here is extraordinary.

Watch the videos then scroll down, if you want to watch it without being influenced by me... I have a few thoughts, but they don't go very far in explaining it...

- - - - - -

Whatever he's doing, he's extraordinarily good at it. Some speculations:

Derren Brown uses suggestion and "subliminal" messages very heavily in his tricks. Often he will have written down the person's choice long before they've chosen, and subtly gets them thinking about what he wants. In the examples above he doesn't have much opportunity to direct the thought, I think... except that in the case of David Frost choosing a place, Frost is looking in the direction of the city scape behind Derren, which presumably influences his choice.
Micromuscle reading: When he or a participant tries to read a thought, there's often something about picking up the sound of a letter. Perhaps he reads involuntary micromuscle movements related to the mouth and throat that happen while saying something loudly in one's head, but suppressing it. (I would have guessed that was impossible... it still seems unlikely, but much more likely than "he's psychic".)
He narrows down the field of possibilities, often through suggestion, or sometimes (as with David Frost) asking them for something more specific.
He usually selects the participant, making sure he's got someone suitable. Perhaps all TV show hosts are suitable. (Except in his stage shows, where he throws a teddy bear into the audience, and asks the audience to throw it again. Perhaps if you've bought an expensive ticket to his show, you're invested in it and ready to go along with him, and that's enough for those particular tricks.) He says that a few things increase suggestibility, including the presence of a camera.
He's extremely observant and good at making connections - in one trick, he tells a man a lot about himself, by holding his hands through holes in a panel, but not able to see the man. E.g. by the roughness of the man's hands, he guesses what sport he's interested in. He pulls his hands back, smells them deeply, then declares that he has terriers (correct - he attributes that to having learnt to tell the difference between breeds of dogs by their smell), probably 3 of them (correct - no idea how).
Any of these things might be misdirection.
He may be lying, and actually using actors & stooges in some of his tricks. But that doesn't explain everything very well (e.g. I doubt that David Frost, Jamie Oliver or other celebs were paid to go along with him, but again, it's more believable that they're all lying than that he's psychic.)

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garethrees13y200

I think it's worth taking a step back from the details of any one of Derren Brown's effects, and looking at the nature of stage magic. A stage magician employs a set of techniques called misdirection to mislead the audience as to how a trick is performed, to direct their attention to irrelevant aspects of the performance, or to encourage them to misinterpret relevant aspects.

An important technique in misdirection is to provide the audience with a false explanation for how the trick is done. A magician who says that a trick is done by magic encourages you watch carefully at the point where he waves his magic wand (knowing that this does the audience no good, because the rabbit was already loaded into the hat). A magician who says that a trick is done by science encourages you to look at the fancy gears of his machine (when actually there's an assistant hidden inside). A magician who says that a trick is done by psychic powers encourages you to watch carefully at the point where he concentrates on reading the subject's mind (when actually the card was marked or forced).

Knowing all this, as I imagine you do, what are we to make of a magician who explains that a trick is done by psychology? I guess this time he might be telling the truth, right?

Now, let's look at your examples with the above in mind, and ask some questions.

In the first example, why does David Frost later agree that he was thinking of a place, after first denying it?

In the second example (guessing the pet name),

Is Derren taller or shorter than the woman?
Did Derren pick the other volunteer (the man with the shoulder bag) before or after explaining how to read minds?
Where was Derren standing while he explained to the woman how to read minds?
What was the man with the shoulder bag doing while this was going on?
Who exactly was tricked here?

In the third example (the creepy clown),

Why is he dressed as a clown?
Why a creepy clown in particular?
Why does he wave his arms about?
What does it look like if you watch it without the sound?

garethrees13y90

I'll ROT-13 my own answers to the questions, but I strongly recommend that you do your best to figure out your own answers to them before decrypting mine. Trying to figure out plausible mechanisms for magic tricks is a way of calibrating your rational thinking skills, in the presence of an adversary (the magician) who is trying to use all your perceptual biases and cognitive shortcuts against you. If you find yourself seriously considering hypotheses like micromuscle reading or subliminal suggestion, then that's probably because the magician has managed to... (read more)

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