6 Amazing Mind Tricks to Play on Your Friends

The ways that human psychology, physiology and subjective behavior works is fascinating and offers some intriguing principles which can be a lot of fun to play with.
If you don't believe me, consider how magicians and illusionists entertain their audience by fooling their audience's perception thereby making it seem like the impossible is happening. We know we've been fooled but rather than think critically about it and try to work out the logic behind how it was achieved, we are entertained and amused by it and we allow ourselves to be fooled by it for the sake of entertainment.
Mentalists, hypnotists and psychological illusionists take things a step further and trick the mind by using a combination of psychology, physiology, suggestion and logic. By utilizing these principles, there are a small variety of "mind tricks" which can be carried out very easily on your family and friends which can be a lot of fun to play with for all those involved.
Here are some of the easier mind tricks to carry out. Some you can carry out alone, others require at least one other person. These tricks can be good fun to test with your family and friends.
1. Sticky Fingers
This one can be done alone, or with another person. First, you need to clasp your hands together. Not together as though you are praying but interlock your fingers and bend them, as though you would if you were holding someone's hand. You then put your two index fingers (forefingers) out straight, leaving a small gap between them (so they are not touching) whilst keeping your hands clasped together and the rest of your fingers interlocked.
Usually, what you'll find after just a few seconds is that your index fingers will slowly start closing in on each other until eventually they touch. This is an automatic response and can only be avoided by purposely making the effort which is actually more difficult than you would expect. When asking another person to do this , you can pretend to tie an invisible piece of string around their index fingers thereby giving them the illusion that you are doing it. The principle behind how this trick works is ideomotor movement (or ideomotion).
2. The Pendulum
Another simple mind trick based on ideomotion is the pendulum. You can make a pendulum by tying a coin or a key to a piece of string. One common myth is that the gender of an unborn child can be predicted by swinging a pendulum above a pregnant mother's womb. Obviously, such a technique would be useless in recent times (even if it did work) due to the fact that we can now do this with ultrasound anyway.
Another popular trick with the pendulum is to assign "yes" to clockwise and "no" to anti-clockwise and then ask the pendulum questions. Of course, all the movements are a result of ideomotion and are carried out subconsciously but this very same principle could in fact be used to turn the pendulum into a lie detector!
Simply ask your friend or family member to hold the pendulum and ask them a question but to only answer in their mind. If they hold that answer in their mind, the pendulum will usually begin to rotate either clockwise or anti-clockwise based on their answer. They are actually moving the pendulum themselves, they just don't consciously realize it. Real lie detectors (polygraph machines) work in a similar way.

3. Visions Of Jesus
This one's a pretty cool optical illusion that you can try alone and then try with all your friends. It's also one well worth experiencing.
To see this optical illusion, you need the image to the right. Notice that there is a line of dots near the middle of the image. What you need to do is focus on and stare at those three dots for between thirty to sixty seconds non-stop.
Once you're done staring at the dots, close your eyes and put your head back making sure to keep your eyes firmly shut (but don't strain them tight).
Within a few seconds, Jesus will miraculously appear right in front of you! The longer you keep your eyes shut, the more pronounced and detailed the image should become until it eventually begins to fade away.
4. Sinking Into The Floor
Get your friend to lie face down on the floor with their arms stretched out in front of them. They should remain completely relaxed. You then lift their forearms up to about your waist level and hold them there for between thirty to sixty seconds.
After that, you slowly begin to lower their arms towards the floor which then makes them feel like they are literally free-falling straight through the floor. The other person will usually call out just before they think they're going to hit the floor!
5. Mind-Reading (1)
The "carrot" trick is quite a popular and effective one but don't question why or how it works. It just does! Write down the word "carrot" on a piece of paper. Give it to your friend but tell them not to look at it... yet. Let them hold on to it so they know there's no cheating going on.
Next, ask them "what's 1+1?" and wait for them to answer. Ask "what's 2+2?" and wait for them to answer. Keep going until you get to 8+8? After they answer, ask them to name a vegetable. 90% of the time they will think of a carrot and voila, your answer is already there on the piece of paper you gave them!
6. Mind-Reading (2)
This is quite a popular one. Get someone to think of a number between one and ten. Once they've selected, tell them to multiply that number by nine. If they are then thinking of a number with two digits, tell them to add those two digits together. Then tell them to subtract five.
Next, tell them to assign a letter of the alphabet to that number where A=1, B=2, C=3, etc. Tell them to think of a country beginning with that letter, then to think of an animal using the second letter of the country they are thinking of. Then tell them to think of the color of that animal.
You then tell them that they're thinking of a grey elephant from Denmark (which is usually the case, although smarter people can come up with answers which are a little more imaginative on the rare occasion).
Questions & Answers
© 2016 Sparkster Publishing
Comments
cool
So cool
Jesus trick was ok but the carrot one was the best
This is a great little article, Sparkster; the Jesus image is excellent, and I was amazed by N0 6 Mind Reading. I did this one on my own, first writing down number 7. I did the calculations exactly as described, writing everything down first. I got number 63, then 9, then 4 following your directions. I then wrote down the letter D. Then Elephant. then Grey. I had exactly what you predicted, a Grey Elephant from Denmark! I must try this out on someone!
cabbage what did you do to me?
the jesus trick was cool and before i read this my friend showed me the falling one at school
the Jesus trick is awesome
This is so cool my friend was clueless
Jesus trick is cool
As stated above
I loved the Jesus trick
this was amazing
Amazing
Ausome tricks
I'm gonna try the carrot one
good
.......
the carrot one did not work for me. Cabbage was the vegetable. My friends are smart.
Nice trick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Great post!
Sparkster,
You mean, where am I? Or, were you asking someone else? Sorry I am late answering this. My email for this account was down, so I didn't know.
Tamara
that was amasing
nice tricks
The last one has never worked on me because in school they made us memorize all the countries of Africa and I have Dijibouti permanently stuck in my mind. Green iguanas are not the same as grey elephants!
The elephant one didn't work for me
These are cool! I wish I was better at playing tricks, but it's just one reason why I cannot play Poker...
carrot trick is not working ..
Sparkster.....Clever tricks that sound like fun! I'm looking forward to trying them out with some friends! Always a good idea to bring along some entertainment!
BRAVO to you for deleting a nasty comment and informing the person what a jerk they are! I will not tolerate that nonsense on my site either! TROLLS need to know they are not wanted on HP!!!
Thank you, Sparkster, for helping to defend us against these abusers; I became very much fed-up with the one who kept showing up on my HubPages commenting about how "it is the victim's faults for making such bad choices". I tried to explain to him, over and over, that with Covert Abuse, we cannot see who they really are until it is too late. But, the abusive commenter merely side-stepped my explanations, and continued on with his relentless comments.
I finally told him that no more of his comments would be approved until he got more educated on Covert Narcissists and Sociopaths. He believed he was quite "dashing".
Tamara
Wow! Ha Ha...
Very nice mind tricks and it is so thoughtful of you to write a hub about it. We do play some of them with friends and family but it would be easier to remember them if written like this.
Enjoyed going through your hub. Thank you for sharing!
Nice tricks. I've had someone do the grey elephant one to me before... now it's time for me to have a go!
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