Conversations about DB

So I was explaining to someone I know about Derren Brown and why he's so very fascinating to me. I was going into some detail about the ventriloquist act - how Derren, over the course of a few days, gradually pushes the idea that his subject is a ventriloquists' dummy, culminating in a ventriloquist show where he started being the dummy, in a very strange sort of way. It was truely bizarre, a little bit freaky and all in all, dead fun.

She said to me that she wouldn't ever let anyone have that sort of control over her.

Which struck me as a very strange thing to say. All day, every day, we let people have control over us, our thoughts, and our actions. What we choose to listen to on the radio, figures of authority in our lives, but most of all our friends and family. For most of us, and she's no exception, our own well being, internal thought lives, our behaviours depend massively on those around us. While it's not control, mostly, in the sense of the other party making deliberate choices, and mostly it's a reciprocal arrangements, there is a huge level of influence and I'm not certain people are willing to choose to ignore it many cases, and mostly, it probably wouldn't be sensible to move away from influence.

But regardless of all of that, her behaviours and internal life is massively influenced by the people around her. It's not quite the same as deliberate hypnosis, but this idea that she's in control is quite probably an illusion.