'Magic' hypnosis sends schoolboy to hospital

An Emirati boy was admitted to hospital with fatigue and momentarily memory loss after his friend tried to hypnotize him by using what he dubbed as “magic hand” involving stopping the boy’s breath.

When his mother rushed into hospital and saw her son lying on the bed, he first could not recognize her and kept looking around as if to search for something. The boy himself said he only remembers his friend telling him to hold his breath before waking up in hospital.

Ahmed Abdul Rahman Al Sabbagh, in the eight class level at a private school, said he and his friend were at the school mosque when he told him that he had hypnotized his relative at home and filmed it by his mobile phone. He said he had learned “the magic hand” from a video game.

When Ahmed did not believe him, his friend offered to hypnotize Ahmed, who agreed. He then asked Ahmed to take deep breaths 10 times.

“When I took the 10th breath, he asked me to hold my breath….he then pressed my neck and moved backwards,” Ahmed said.

“I then did not feel anything…I later woke up at hospital and my friends and some school staff members were around me…I first had not remembered anything but I remember that my friend was filming the process.”

Ahmed’s mother, Huda, said her son refused to tell her the truth before she promised him not to take any action against his friend.

“He told me that he would tell me what happened provided I will not prosecute his friend…he said it was a game and that his friend did not mean to hurt him,” she said, quoted by Emarat Alyoum newspaper.

She said Aljazeera Hospital had already called Abu Dhabi Community Police but that no legal action would be taken against Ahmed’s friend.

“His father will be summoned by the Community Police to ensure such an incident will not be repeated since it is a sort of crime…,” she said.

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