Night-Night Drawings

“When I was a kid, like four or five, I would do this weird shit where I would pull out all my drawing supplies and hold my breath until I passed out. I’d wake up a few minutes later and there would be a drawing next to me that I had no memory of doing. But I clearly had done it, because my hands would be covered with marker or pencil smudges.

“And I thought it was just a good time, you know? I’d pass out, wake up, and be like ‘Oh, look. A picture of a guy dunking a basketball.’ Or whatever. But when I told my parents about it, they were obviously freaked out. And when I wouldn’t stop doing it, they took me to a psychologist, or some kind of counselor. His explanation was that the part of my brain responsible for artistic expression would somehow wake up before my conscious brain. Or something like that. I don’t really remember. Eventually I grew out of it.

“I went to my parent’s place a couple of weekends ago and my mom brought out a bunch of my old drawings that I used to do in that state. I called them ‘night-night drawings.’”

I show my friend some pictures on my phone of some of the drawings I did at that time.

“There was something strange to me about the drawings. But I wasn’t sure what it was. So I made a list on my phone of all the drawings so I could see if there was a connection in the subject matter. And I showed it to my friend Ben, who is a child psychologist, and asked him his thoughts.

“He said the weird thing about the pictures was that, other than the picture of the tooth fairy, there were no ‘fantasy’ drawings. It was all real life stuff. No crazy monsters, fantasy lands, or made-up creatures.

“And I told him that wasn’t the tooth fairy, I don’t think. It was my sister’s Halloween costume. She went as a fairy. I was pretty sure of it. So I called my mom to ask about that, and she told me that yes, she did go as a fairy, but that wouldn’t have been until years after I made this drawing.

“Then looking back at the list of things I drew, I realized that everything I drew was something I would one day go on to see in real life. I saw an octopus at the Georgia aquarium. That guitar looks like the one my friend Dave owns.

“It’s probably just a coincidence. I told Ben about it, and he agreed that there was likely nothing to it. But he did say that, interestingly, the part of your brain that is responsible for artistic functions is also the intuitive and predictive part of your brain. So it makes some theoretical sense that I might be able to draw something I would go on to see, if that part of my brain was larger or more stimulated in some way. And that might explain why I have such an interest in mindreading and mentalism and that sort of thing.

“That gave me the idea to try something. An experiment, kind of. Something that connects these pictures and breathing and intuition.

“This morning I made myself pass out with a pencil and paper nearby. And I woke up with this next to me.”

I pull out a folded piece of paper and put it on the table.

“I want to try something with you. I want to time how long you can hold your breath. I want you to empty your lungs. Then hold your breath as long as you can. Don’t go until you pass out, of course, but press stop on the stopwatch when you need to inhale.”

My friend breathes out completely and then holds her breath for as long as she can. Eventually stopping the stopwatch at 26 seconds.

“Okay, interesting. Let me check.” I open my list of drawing subjects and ask my friend to tell me what entry is at number 26. It’s monkey.

“Okay, okay. And what was the full time. How many milliseconds was it?” It was 26:98. So I tell her to scroll down to 98 to see what’s at that number. It’s robot.

“I’m telling you…there is something weird going on here.”

I gesture for her to open the drawing on the table that I made this morning.

Method

I originally came up with this trick because I had a method I wanted to try out. I now like the presentation more than the method and will definitely be using a variation on it in the future.

As for the method, it’s…

Chronological Force Bag

This combines two apps, Chronoforce and Digital Force Bag, so you can force two items on a list at one time. Put your second force item at number 98 on your list of 100 items (or at some other high number). The seconds are a true variable, you force your first item there in the standard DFB way. Then Chronoforce forces the 98, so you get your second force item there.

That’s all there is to it.