Mentalism, mind reading and the art of getting inside your head | Derren Brown | TED

Derren Brown is the greatest mind reader of our time.

Derren is amazing, he’s a national treasure here in the UK. Great to see him on TED finally.

I ended up on stage with him. He asked me to ring my dad on my mobile, a Mike was attached to my phone so the audience could hear the conversation, Darren had a white board and wrote down a series of numbers and asked me to tell my father I was on stage and I was instructed to ask my dad a series of questions written on cards, and if the numerical answers from my dad matched the numbers Darren had previously written on the whiteboard, Darren had pulled it off. Before he started he gave me a folded ten pound note and told me that if the answers he’d written down didn’t correspond to my dads answers I could keep the money. As my dad answered the questions, one of which was his old army number, Darren wrote the answers down alongside the answers he’d already written down. At the end, none of the answers my father gave to the questions corresponded with what Darren had originally written down on the white board. He told me that he’d failed and I could keep the ten pounds and asked the audience to applaud me but just as I was walking off stage he asked me back and asked me to open the ten pound note. When I did he’d written, “I’ll get him to say these numbers” and an arrow pointed to the notes serial number, the numerical answers my father gave in order, including his old army number, where the notes serial number…

While this is a fantastic magic trick he deserves this place on ted talks because of his brilliant point that all we do is continually make patterns and stories for things to make sense. Being less defensive with people by reminding ourselves we are all scared or dealing with stories we've grown up with. He talks about kindness being so important to everything we do. He's a brilliant beautiful soul tbh

Saw this guy's show in Nottingham a few years back, absolutely incredible. He performed one stunt where he walked through different sections of the crowd, he then performed this stunt with the envelopes about 30 minutes later and when he got to one he basically said it was too easy and proceeded to point to the person whose envelope it was, he read the initials and the guy said it was him, noticing all of our impressed / confused faces and murmurings, he proceeded to tell us that he could smell the same cologne on the envelope that the man was wearing and remembered the smell from when he walked through the crowd 30 minutes ago!! If you ever get the chance, go to one of his shows!

So, when exactly is Ted gonna show up, haven't seen him in a single video yet.

'A.H. Is there an A.H?' The fuhrer has entered the chat

He’s really good at what he does. And I love the fact he debunks the “psychic” BS before he starts (& other shows).

While I found this very entertaining, I was hoping for some explanation on how he does it.

I've seen Derren live about 4 times in my tiny town theatre. He's such a legend, love how clever he is.

Derren’s work is gold and second to none.He has revealed so much in how we misperceive and how some of us mislead others. I wish he would come to Melbourne

We saw Mr. Brown live and I was part of the last act, brought up on stage and it was truly amazing and definitely an unforgettable moment in my life. People kept approaching me after the show to ask if i was part of the act. Truly a wonder evening ,Thank you sir!

Derren Brown is scary good at combining techniques. I love the stories he tells in his work and the empowerment he offers people through that work. NLP done well.

This people had no idea what was about to hit them. Derren Brown is simply unbelievable. The best of the best of the best in what he does

"IT'S NOT THEIR PAIN YOU FEAR.. IT'S YOUR OWN"... That was a GOOD One!

This is incredible. He has the members of the audience giving him the answers to his questions and noone can see it. The level of understanding human behaviour and what makes us tick is incredible.

For everyone saying he didn't explain his techniques, actually he did, but you have to read between the lines. He wasn't guessing what people wrote at all as that would be impossible. Instead he was gauging by hand writing which people are open to (hypnotic) suggestion, and on the stage right there and then, he was using using conversational hypnosis to make them give the answers that he planted in their mind. In the stories he tells people on stage (which are by design long-winded) there is another story that the conscious mind doesn't detect but the unconscious one does (a story within the story), this then primes the mind to give particular response. Very impressive.

Even still, bet he couldn't figure out what my girlfriend wants to eat.

Derren is and allways will be the best.. Love him entertain. 10 years of watching him, still fastinates me

Truly magnificent. Have followed Derren's work since 2009 (13 years) and it was marvelous that he did imho one of his most stunning and electrifying mindreading displays at Ted! He truly is a British national treasure and indubitably one of the (if not The) greatest mentalists of all time.