Mind Unmapping

Last month I posted an idea from Colin Robinson in regards to a way to justify the placement of a word for the Acidus Novus peek.

In the same email he gave me an idea for a justification for the placement of a word in a center tear. Now, this placement doesn’t really need much justification. In a center tear, the word is, after all, in the center of the paper. You can just put a line on the paper and that’s usually more than enough of a cue for the spectator in regards to where to write and how big to write. What I appreciated about Colin’s idea was not so much how it justified the placement, but how it justified the tearing for a center tear.

First I’ll give you his basic idea and the modifications I’ve used when I perform it.

Colin’s email:

Mind Mapping

I talk to the spectator about the weird places conversations can go and the moments when you think "How did we get here?" and try to trace your thought process back to the origin point. On the back of a business card, I create a web diagram, and then have the spectator think of a word in the center and then let their mind wander to fill in all the attached bubbles in relation to that word. They fold up the card, and then I rip it up into pieces and put it in their hand. They pick out a piece and see a word from one of the outer bubbles on it, trace the thought back in their mind, then I reveal the word that was at the center of their mind map. 

Okay, so first, I don’t use business cards. I just use a piece of paper. Who am I, Magnús Ver Magnússon? I’m not full of steroids. I can’t be ripping through multiple layers of business card like it’s nothing. I’m only half kidding here. While it doesn’t take great strength to rip through a business card that’s folded in quarters and then doubled over on itself, it does take a bit more concentrated energy than I want to exhibit at that point in the trick.

I use a standard center tear. I don’t use one of those center tears where you get the peek as you rip up the paper. That’s precisely the wrong moment to get the peek (when you clearly have the word in your hand). I’ve written about this before. I won’t relitigate that here.

So I give the person a piece of paper with something like this drawn on it.

It doesn’t have to be that exact layout, that’s just what I use.

Then I ask them to think of anything at all. It works best if they think of a noun.

While I’m turned away completely I ask them to write that word in the center circle.

I then have them fill in the other bubbles with the most unrelated words they can think of.

The first couple of times I had them do it with related words, as in a traditional mind-map. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, this was a bit too believable. If you’re given a related word, then it’s perfectly conceivable you might be able to make the jump from one word to the other. Instead of mind mapping, this is mind unmapping. And I ask them to put down six random words that are as unrelated as possible to the target word.

When they’re done I ask them to fold the paper in quarters, set it on the table, and cup their hands.

I briefly turn back, just long enough to pick up the piece of paper, then turn my head away again and tear it up over their hands, stealing away the center piece in the process.

“I want you to shake up the pieces and remove just one piece at random. The piece should have some writing on it, but it shouldn’t have any of the original word you were thinking of on it. If you pick one of those pieces, put it back and choose another one. When you’ve got a piece that works, set it on the table and put the other pieces out of sight. If the piece you choose has more than one word on it, just tear it some more so only part of one word is showing.”

During this process I am turned around and opening the stolen piece to see what their word is.

By telling them what they should do if they pull out a piece of their original word, I’m reinforcing the idea that those pieces are still in their hands.

The piece of paper they give me may only have a portion of a word on it. If I can’t make out what the full word was, then I just ask them. Then it’s just a matter of working backwards from that word (apparently) to find out their original word. This is the fun part. It’s actually pretty easy. Just look for differences between the two objects and then suggest that those are the differences you would expect to find.

It will be clearer with an example.

The last time I did this, their original word was “mouse.” And the word they pulled from their hand was “bathtub.”

So I just did some improv based on the differences between those things. Differences they don’t know I know at this point.

It sounded something like this…

“Okay… bathtub. Well, a bathtub is big and heavy so the thing you’re thinking of is probably light. A bathtub is also an inorganic object, so you’re probably thinking of something alive. Maybe… a small houseplant or something? Hmmm… what else. Well, you associate a bathtub with a bath. Which is something many people find enjoyable and relaxing. So you must be thinking of something that isn’t calming. Something maybe anxiety inducing. So something small, alive, and anxiety inducing. Maybe… like… a rat or a mouse?”

In actuality, it wasn’t that straightforward, but that’s the general gist of how it went.

It doesn’t really matter if you stumble at this point in the presentation. Ultimately you’ll be able to name the word they were thinking of, so you have a way to end it even if you sounded like a babbling idiot leading up to that point.

The purpose I give for this exercise is that often people try and prevent mind reading (or psychological thought discernment—if that’s your style) by intentionally focusing on unrelated information. So, instead of fighting that, this is an exercise to practice working backwards from the unrelated information to the original thought.

Thanks again to Colin Robinson for sharing his ideas and allowing me to pass them along.