Derren Brown reveals 10 mind games we all play

Since then his telly shows have left audiences stunned, whether it was playing Russian roulette live, convincing ordinary people to stage robberies or getting members of the public to push people off high buildings.

He has lifted the lid on how these shows are done and exposed faith healers and mediums.

London-born Derren, 45, is back where he loves, on stage, with new one-man show Miracle. It comes to the King’s Theatre Glasgow from July 4 to 9.

Derren told us the 10 things he’s learned about human nature from his years of delving into our minds.

The Fact Factor

Bias is definitely one of our most common traits.

When we believe in something we look out for evidence that supports it and dismiss anything that doesn’t.

If you think you have “lucky” socks – maybe you wore them when you passed an exam or got a job – you notice all the positive things that happen when you have them on and ignore the rest.

Or if you think your partner is unfaithful, going through life only seeing the instances where you don’t think you can trust them will simply push them into being unfaithful.

Start paying attention to the other side, the trust and loyalty.

Controlling Ways

I think this is the greatest source of unhappiness in people’s lives.

If you stop trying to control things you can’t you’ll remove a whole load of pointless anxiety.

The only things you can control are your thoughts and actions. We spend our lives trying to somehow fix stuff we can’t, like what other people think and do.

It’s easier said than done, but if you accept you can’t control other people’s behaviour or whether or not they like you, then you’ll get on better.

Just decide you’re fine with it. Nothing bad will happen and there’s nothing you can do anyway.

Aiming For The Future

From the earliest age we’re told to aim for these exams so we can get this job and then forge this career.

In your 50s you look round and think: “Is this what I’ve been aiming at since I was a kid?”

Consistently looking towards some shimmering thing in the future means you forget to appreciate the now.

People end up unhappy and disillusioned because they’re on some goal or climbing some ladder and find they’re suddenly middle-aged.

The “Other” Myth

We have this idea there is the perfect partner for us and that can never be the case.

And we have the same thoughts about the perfect job that will solve all of our problems. It’s this feeling that there is some magical “other thing” that will make everything’s better.

Life really isn’t so black and white but we are always looking for easy answers that don’t exist.

Seeing Yourself As Others See You

We clearly see traits in other people. When we see them as arrogant, or selfish or bad-tempered we think that’s typical of them. But we never do that with ourselves.

When someone tells us we were rude, for example, we tell ourselves there was a perfectly good reason for it. We always exempt ourselves – but just as we judge others, everyone is doing the same thing to us.

Reality Check

Our version of reality and the opinions we have are right, and those who don’t agree are suffering from some sort of delusion. We think the evidence we have will sway others and, of course, it never does.

It’s damaging in relationships as we expect partners to agree. We have trouble accepting we don’t have the fair, true answer.

We’re all a bit scared in life and we tend to go through it enforcing our views to make us feel a bit safer.

Instead of being disappointed with the other person’s mad, weird view we have to try to make both of our mad, weird views work together.

We Do As Others Do

I come across this a lot in my shows. I did one with Stephen Fry where I’d programmed a guy in a full theatre audience. The idea was to see whether I could get him to pull out a gun and think he was assassinating Stephen.

Pandemonium was planned for but when he got up and started shooting, no one batted an eye. When the show went out, people said it was faked as the audience would have panicked.

The last thing I did was to see whether someone could be persuaded to push a person off a building. The point is, people often don’t respond as you think they would. We look around and take our cues from others.

Be Mindful

It really is all about how you deal with things.

If you have a medical condition, you can become consumed by it and stop noticing how other things affect it.

I know two women with the same condition that leaves them pretty much blind and wheelchair-bound. One has a fantastic view and feels she can enjoy so much regardless. Her sister, though, never goes out and only ever talks about how much she suffers. They lead very different lives with the same thing as they identify with it in different ways.

So, be mindful of how you approach things.

We All Have A Story

Everything you’ve done in your life only exists as a story – how you got where you are to be the person you are.

And the future is just a story you tell yourself – you are going to fail that exam or get that job. It hasn’t come to pass so we don’t actually know that yet.

People who come to my shows are naturally sceptical and I play on that. They know when I tell them a story on stage I’m probably bending the truth a bit.

And a magician manipulates the story about what you see. You say you shuffled the cards and he never touched them and he makes that the story you tell yourself even though it’s not true.

So life is full of stories and there are definitely ones we need to control – like when you’re dying and you feel doctors and your family are writing it for you. You need to write that one for yourself.

Coincidence

I’m famously sceptical about psychical ability and people constantly ask me to explain things, like thinking of someone just as they call.

The fact is we think of people all through the day and when they happen to call we convince ourselves it’s because we thought of them. It isn’t.

If you dream of numbers and win the lottery that’s going to seem astonishing to you. We’re not very good at realising that even if the odds are millions to one, someone, somewhere will win and this time it’s you.

We always try to come up with a tale to explain it while it’s just a fact – but I actually love those things more.

Magic girl Jasz Vegas even catches flying bullets in her teeth