“Don’t sleepwalk through life.”
If you saw Derren Brown’s recent stage show, Showman, this quote will resonate with you. He delivers the line a few times throughout the show to address the importance of being present in life.
Derren's phrase came back to me last weekend after I totally sleepwalked my way through my magic show. Long story short: I was performing, and at one point, my muscle memory jammed, and my hands didn't know what to do.
It was my fault; I wasn’t present.
I was performing a trick I had been doing for years. I knew every detail of it, and that was the issue. I was performing to on auto-pilot, not paying attention to my words and actions.
"Don’t sleepwalk through life.” Think about it. Do you want to exist or live? Do you want to perform your magic or be on autopilot, executing a series of actions?
The Psychology Behind It
My two greatest passions in life are magic and psychology. I perform magic on stages all over the world, and I am studying for a master’s degree in clinical psychology. I aim to bond these two worlds. They have so much in common.
But let's go back to that moment of brain fog. Mid-performance, I suddenly had no idea where I was in the routine. Let’s be honest. Has it ever happened to you too?
I’m talking about not feeling present during a performance. To execute a trick and at some point be like, “Where was I?” From a psychological point of view, this happens because you've entered autopilot mode.
