Messing With Minds On The London Underground - Derren Brown

Derren spends some time on the London Underground confusing innocent strangers.

[thehighscry]

I love how he leaves in the ones that don't work. Even in his later stuff, he admits when he's wrong and then explains why it doesn't work on everyone. I'm a life long fan!

[RodelIturalde]

I loved the guy who remembered. He looked like: "Wtf was this about?"

[DeadlyVRU]

If you watch this video from 0:24 and ignore the intro from Derren you can understand why this works so well. If you watch purely from that moment on, it appears at first that Derren is literally doing a documentary about the London Underground itself. The first thing he says to the guy is "We're doing a documentary on the Underground", and then a moment later says "Yeah the documentary is about how easily trains... of thought can become confused". Up until that point the guy would literally have thought the documentary was literally about the Underground, so for Derren to take a sudden veer into the realm of abstract metaphor like this will be very confusing. Not only is the sudden change confusing in itself, but Derren actually talks about being confused too, so it's like a double hit.

All this makes the guy very suggestible and makes him open to certain commands which Derren drops in right afterwards, "You have a piece of information that you know that you should know and suddenly it's just gone from your mind, like that. Sorry what was the stop you were getting off at?"

Another interesting thing to note is that when Derren says "gone from your mind", he moves his hand in front of the guy's face. This then acts as an anchor, he makes the guy associate the hand movement with the phrase "gone from your mind" and the idea of forgetting things. So when he asks the guy what stop he's getting off at, he immediately makes the hand movement again and of course it's gone from his mind before he can even think of it.

Great excuse for being late. "Derren Brown got me in the underground and styarted mesiing with my head, I didn't know where to get off!"

[geordiefonejerker]

I bet derren browns boyfriend isnt even gay

[linky]

Oh, 'what STOP THINKING ABOUT IT are you getting off at'

[nn]

Man: "I'm going to mug you Derren Brown."
Derren: "No you aren't."
Man: "Oh right. I'll be on my way then."

This could happen ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[soywaz]

When he explained why he was late to his friend I bet he never believed him
"Yeah I was on the train and some hypnotist came and hypnotised me and made me forget which stop to get off at so I missed it"

[jksaksok]

'So tell me, what was the STOP-THINKING-ABOUT-IT'

[brambled]

this man could take over the whole world if he so wanted to

[peterbucek]

That one guy like:
"WTF you doin' in front of my face bro?? This shit ain't workin' on me!"

[Chet]

it was the combination of intimidation which was helped by Derren's confidence and the TV crew as well as being flustered by Derren's hand movements and touching.
He also used the phrase "Stop thinking about it now" a ton as well as talking about. Signs and not remembering and stops and the tip of your tongue which all helped to create a mental block.

[fep_ptcp]

2:35 the force is strong with this one

[mice]

It's really wonderful to see that it doesn't work on everyone.

[mohammadrashid]

I wonder how many times we’ve all been hypnotised by Derren Brown but he made us forget

[thestone]

these are not the droids your looking for

[ironmonkeyswhat]

3:36 kudos to the camera-man who took the opportunity to frame the 'Archway' sign underneath the arch-like window frame, behind the man trying to remember it.

[benDB]

"So what stop, thinking about it were you getting off?"
"Charing Cross".

[shanethrelfall]

0:56 the face you pull when you walk into the kitchen but forget why you went in

[Alberts_Stuff]

Derren, or whoever uploads this stuff, you should upload full episodes of your stuff. I've been watching you for 20 years, and you are BY FAR the best mentalist I've seen! And for those of you that don't know, he ALWAYS explains how he does it to the audience, that's why he's the best. He never tries to permanently fool his audience, he'll always come clean at the end of each show. Go find his full episodes, every single one of you will agree with me.
He's just a really clever dude that's mastered his craft. Oh yeah! And he doest use stooges! Like David Blaine or Dynamo. It's just his mind, doing what it does best. 👍👍👍