The crowd chants “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry” as a group of male students sits on the Student Center Ballroom D stage, moaning and clutching at their stomachs.

Award-winning comedy hypnotist Joshua Seth then asks Adam McCallister, a junior from Buffalo Grove studying secondary education and automotive technology, how he feels about being pregnant. McCallister starts to wail and proclaims being pregnant sucks because he is sweaty and hormonal.

Seth returned to the university for the second time Saturday with his intriguing and entertaining take on hypnotism. He takes a comedic approach to capturing his audience’s attention as he makes students rap in Japanese and speak like space aliens while under a hypnotic trance.

“(Hypnotism is) a heightened degree of susceptibility to suggestion,” Seth said. “It’s what occurs when you’re having a lucid dream. In hypnosis, such as in my show, I’m putting you in that state. I’m holding you there and I’m giving you suggestions that elicit comedic effect.”

McCallister, who responded to all of Seth’s on-stage prompts, said all he could remember was walking up to the stage and standing up after he was pulled out of his hypnotic state. McCallister said he felt energized after the experience.

Xzavia Gasque, a senior from Augusta, Ga., studying fashion design merchandising, also entered the hypnotic state and danced along to Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” as she appeared to be driving down a highway.

Gasque said she couldn’t remember much from her trance. She said although she felt a mixture of weird, awkward and embarrassed, she felt like she had fun.

Seth said he thinks everyone is interested in being able to control one another’s minds and behaviors. “I think that when you get right down to it, that’s what fascinates in a show setting,” he said.

Jenna Wicks, Student Programing Council graduate assistant, said Seth is a popular campus act because he provides engaging entertainment every student can enjoy.

“Joshua put on a great show that really entertained our students,” said Wicks, a graduate student from Ancona studying higher education.

Tyler Hutchison, a junior from Morton studying advertising, said he couldn’t remember anything from his hypnosis. Hutchison, who viewed a video of himself after the show, said it all felt like a dream.

Noah Leverett, a freshman from Carbondale studying plant biology, said he believed in hypnotism and hoped he got chosen for the stage because he heard participants feel energized afterward.

“I want to be amazed,” Leverett said before the show.

And amazed is precisely how Seth said he wanted students to feel after his show.

“I want them to have their minds blown, laugh and, you know, if it peaks their interest to start to study psychology or hypnosis or cognitive science, so much the better,” he said.