As a newly trained hypnotist (my stage name is Louis Beauvois). I once accidentally put myself into a trance for five days while practising in front of a mirror.
Found by my late wife, Janet, staring into thin air at our Lytton Strachey home. I was learning to put myself into a trance to help to swallow worms on stage.
I had been taught the skill by hypnotherapist Professor Darby Munson to assist in a new act for the Lytton Strachey Easter Fair show.
But as I practiced the skill in front of the mirror I sent myself into a deep sleep until the Monday evening, when I was found by my late wife who had been away visiting Bristol Zoo.
It was only after she phoned Professor Munson and put the receiver to my head that I could be talked out of the trance.
Mrs. Bawler said I had looked just like a shop dummy when she came into the room to find me.
She said: “I tried to ask him what was wrong but he didn’t answer and it was then I looked at the chair behind him and saw a book named Hypnos
