Participants shrieked after realizing they were exotic dancers, covered from head to toe with insects, pregnant with 45-pound babies or selling hot dogs to audience members while speaking Chinese Wednesday night.

Hypnotist Anthony Potmesil began his show in the Durham Great Hall of the Memorial Union with just 17 participants on stage as he placed a glowing blue ball in the center. As he talked to the group, his deep, raspy voice turned smooth, was accompanied by calm background music. Soon, those participants were in a deep sleep, slouched over the shoulders of the strangers sitting beside them. Some audience members further back had also become entranced and were brought to the front of the room, nearly doubling the number of participants.

“Whenever I say the word ‘Pepsi,’ you will smell the worst, most foul odor you have ever smelt,” Potmesil said. He paced across the stage and told them to open their eyes.

“I am so thirsty, I want a big, cold glass of Pepsi,” he said.

Immediately, the group started fanning their noses and coughing. A few girls in the back row started gagging.

The scenario soon ended, as Potmesil then told the group they were covered with insects.

“Not just any insects,” Potmesil said. “There are cockroaches, tarantulas and centipedes are crawling all over your body.”

The hypnotized volunteers shrieked and yelped while audience members laughed and applauded, craning their necks for better views.

The crowd he drew to the Great Hall of the Memorial Union started arriving more than an hour before the show.

Audience members in the first few rows were approached from all directions during the skits. Potmesil told the participants in one skit that not only had they swapped sexes – they had become exotic dancers. Male volunteers started dancing for men in the audience and vice versa.

“They will be judging you, so do your best,” Potmesil said. Looks of fear covered the faces of all in the front row.

Another scenario involved all volunteers, even the males, thinking they were nine months pregnant with a 45-pound baby and going into labor.

The screams from the insect skit were nothing compared to the shrieks of these imaginary labor pains.

The final scenario once again involved audience members in the first few rows.

“You are a hot dog vendor and you are in a really, really bad mood,” Potmesil said setting up the situation. “You will harass people until they buy a hot dog from you. Oh, and you speak Chinese.”

Volunteers scrambled off the stage to sell the imaginary hot dogs they were holding, yelling angrily in gibberish. Audience members bent over in laughter. Some even stood with their cameras, capturing the scene these “hot dog vendors” were making.

“This was the best hypnotist show I have ever seen,” said Nathan Curtis, sophomore in liberal arts and sciences-open option. “The best part was when the kid sitting next to me got hypnotized and ran around the back of the room with his belt around his neck.”

Tramell Lackland, freshman in pre-business and a volunteer in the show, had been hypnotized before.

“Whenever I get hypnotized, I can remember everything,” Lackland said. “I would be able to stop if I wanted to, but it is such a relaxing feeling.”

Potmesil ended by telling the participants they would have extreme amounts of energy and that one hour under hypnosis is equivalent to eight hours of very deep, comfortable sleep.

“You all could go back to your dorm rooms and stay up all night, sleep for seven or eight minutes in the morning, and you would be good to go,” Potmesil said.