Before everyone leaves at the end of the working day, Mary (45) gathers the team around in a circle. She seems to have a strange smile on her face.
"I want to thank you all for working really hard this week," she says, looking round at everyone. "I just wanted to let you all know how much I appreciate your efforts."
"I particularly want to thank Dan for taking part in a little experiment today," she says. Dan looks up, wondering what on earth she's on about.
"Thank you for all your hard work, Dan," she says, looking right at him. "You really deserve to go home and have a good *sleep!*" And she snaps her fingers.
Instantly Dan completely relaxes. His mind goes blank, his eyes close and his face goes slack as he suddenly spirals deep into a hypnotic trance, even more completely under than eariler. He slumps limply, mindlessly, in his seat as Mary explains to his colleagues.
"Dan was put under by a trained hypnotist earlier today and given the suggestion that he'd go back into trance whenever I snap my fingers and tell him to sleep."
Your collagues are amazed, amused, intrigued. Dan is oblivious to all of them, focusing only on Mary Brown's voice.
"He's in an extremely suggestible state, totally hypnotized," she continues. "Now, Dan. On the count of three, you'll wake up and realize that you've been hypnotized in front of your colleagues, and you'll feel very embarrassed. One, two... three. Wakey wakey!"