Magician, Mentalist, Hypnotist entertainer and the man who has just opened his own theme park ride Derren Brown is just about to finish his latest tour.

So What is Next for Derren?

His show Miracle has toured the UK for many months and finishes in Blackpool at the Blackpool Opera House. His Theme Park Ride "Ghost Train" has now opened at the Merlin Entertainments Theme Park Thorpe Park so you may think that perhaps he is due a little bit of a break. But, taking to Twitter Derren is in fact on the prowl for people for another new Television Special.

He Tweeted "Right. New TV thing. Fancy setting someone up? Email [email protected]"

This is quite interesting in itself. Normally his shows take people who have applied themselves. This means that often they go through a round of auditions and then generally they are not told what will happen next. At some point they are drawn into whatever the theme of the show is, without knowing they are part of it. Of course, they may have the idea at the back of their mind that anything strange could be to do with Mr Brown and his tricks.

This time though, it could be someone who is not aware they are up for taking part in a new show. It seems to be a new dimension and one that could well be very interesting and even more controversial that normal.

Fancy Giving Someone An Unforgettable Surprise This Summer?

Vaudeville Productions and Crook Productions are looking for people.

Derren Brown's latest Channel 4 Project is underway and he needs your help.

If you are TRUSTWORTHY, have a MISCHIEVOUS streak and want to give someone close to you a memorable experience, please get in touch.

Derren's mind-inbox has limited capacity, so best to email us at: [email protected]

It's always very hard to guess what he will get up to next, but I would say that the signs may well point to someone having a rather more relaxing and positive experience than during his last show "Pushed to the Edge" where he persuaded people to throw other people from the top of tall buildings.

Brand new trick to get to sleep easily

I spend a great deal of time helping people to learn to let go of insomnia and sleep better at night. In fact it is how I first came to hypnosis and hypnotherapy nearly 30 years ago, I like to think I look younger than I am !

I often hear about new tricks and tips and so a chance to share them means that you can have a go yourself if you are struggling to get to sleep at night.

So much goes on in our lives and so much in the world that switching off at bedtime can be tough.

Cognitive Shuffle

 Canadian cognitive scientist Luc Beaudoin has invented what he calls a new cure for insomnia, He describes it as the “cognitive shuffle”.

What do you do to get to sleep?

It's a method for deliberately scrambling your thoughts, so they make no sense.

The cognitive shuffle involves mentally picturing a random sequence of objects for a few seconds each: a chicken; a chair; a lettuce leaf, a radio and so on.

The Trick to Meaningless thoughts

It’s important to ensure the sequence is truly meaningless, otherwise you’ll drift back into thinking about the things that were already rattling around in your mind

Unsurprisingly Beaudoin has his own app, hence his press releases about this new idea!

It's called MySleepButton, and it speaks the names of items in your ear.

Get to sleep without an App and for FREE!

A cheaper and easier way is simply to pick a word, such as “SLEEPY”, then picture as many items beginning with “S” as you can, then “L”, then “E”, then… continue until you get bored and drift off into a refreshing sleep.

How does the Cognitive Shuffle Work?

Beaudoin explains that this works because our brains have evolved to determine whether it’s safe to fall asleep by checking what one specific part of the brain, the cortex, is doing. If it’s engaged in “sense-making” activity, that’s a sign it may be weighing up dangers. But if thoughts have degenerated into rambling nonsense, the coast is probably clear. So what we do is therefore fill the mind with things that simply make no real sense to us. In turn you trigger your own way of setting the sleep switch to on.

If you think about it you will know that it’s hard to focus on multiple things at once. When you find a parking space and want to reverse you may find that you turn down the radio in your car. Sound familiar? I know I do that.

More examples of how this works.

 The “cognitive shuffle” has other implications as well as helping you to sleep and let go of pesky insomnia.

 Perhaps you could think about the fact that it also suggests a clever way you can silence your own negative thoughts.

When a child falls over they don't always cry, if you laugh at them and smile they laugh and feel ok, if you scream and express horror they start crying. They can't deal with that overload of thinking about things and that doesn't really change much as we get older.

If you try the cognitive shuffle do comment and let me know how you get on!