First, I invite you to watch this video as famed British showman and hypnotist Derren Brown remotely hypnotizes a volunteer subject, then literally transports him from one continent to another without the subject’s knowledge or later remembering. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7r4Ey4WBpY&NR=1
The subject, Richard, was entirely unaware of what occurred during 13 hours of his life, a time during which he was physically transported from London to Morocco. Richard was not only unaware of what was happening to him while it occurred, when he came out of trance, he remembered none of it! However bizarre as that may seem, consider that those completely forgotten 13 hours are very much like the 24 hours in a day, the 168 hours in a week and the 8,736 hours in a year that pass unremembered in countless people’s lives. Sleepwalking day after day, year after year, they remember little or nothing of where they’ve been or what they have done and said.
Some people do wake up before the very end. In many cases, a tragedy, illness or other life shock snaps them awake. Involuntarily, they wake up from decades in a profession or a marriage or a long, unconscious span of time, finding themselves in a completely alien place, or body, or state of mind. They are as disoriented and confused as Richard, wondering how in heaven’s name they wound up where they are. Yet, they are the fortunate ones. They have woken up. They still have time to actually live whatever moments, hours or days they have left. Time to be alive before they die.
Are you one of these fortunate ones? Just how deeply asleep have you been and are you now? To test this, try to recall, right now, how many of the events in the past 10 years of your own life you remember vividly. Alternatively, make it easier; start with this year. Close your eyes, and try to quickly and vividly remember one event from each week of this last calendar year. Less than 52 events in 2009. Just one event a week. Richard didn’t remember anything from a 13-hour period, but, surely, you can remember something from a 168-hour week, can’t you? Quickly now, can you remember one event from the first week of January, 2009? How about from the second week? the third week? an event from the third week of February 2009? or the third week of March?
Think about it. How conscious – or catatonic – are you? Are you being carried and pushed and transported through the hours and days, months and years of your life just as Richard is in this video? Hours, days and years you barely remember, if you remember them at all. And, if you don’t remember where you’ve been and what you were doing, who remembers? How can you hope that your life will matter to others when it matters this little to you?
Ask yourself, “Who has been in control of my life while I’ve been sleepwalking through it?” Give serious consideration to who or what has been carrying you along: Your boss, directing your mind’s output? Your spouse, directing your social life? The news, directing your emotional state? An infinitude of advertisers, directing you how and on what to spend your money?
Now, consider, if you are still breathing, if your heart is still beating, if the sun has risen one more time, you still have the chance to WAKE UP NOW!
Finally, watch this next Derren Brown video and consider who will be in control when your own sun disappears. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvyHH3C3Gds&feature=fvw