KALICO: 1 Hypnotized, Naked in Hope Springs, Texas

Kalico: I think I'm outside my clothes!

Kalico: late Tuesday morning, boys' restroom on third floor

For the third time in a little less than 26 hours, I had run headlong to the boys' restroom across from Mr. Coltwright's psychology classroom with the most urgent need to pee that I can remember.

Each time I seemed to run faster, if that were possible. Each time the urge to pee was stronger, more urgent. I hadn't measured the distance, but each time I seemed to have begun running from farther away. Moreover, I noticed, each time the excitement of it, the fun of it, had grown stronger.

Well, not actually fun during the run; that was almost quite miserable. All I could think about then was to hurry and do this because I'm going to pee right in the hallway if I try to stop. During those moments, I didn't have the mental energy to consider the fact that Professor Coltwright insists that I'm responding to his posthypnotic suggestion from yesterday morning.

Afterward, as I paused in the restroom, I attempted to summarize the previous few minutes. This cannot possibly be a posthypnotic suggestion, one part of me kept saying. It didn't feel like hypnosis. Hypnosis was the farthest thing from my mind.

Yes, and just exactly how does hypnosis feel? Another part of me asked. I recognized that inner voice as the inner-dialogue part of me that had turned up during my walk to look at the girls' restroom door.

It was the voice that nagged me when I tried to stop in the hallway.

It was the voice that giggled inside my head over my predicament.

It was the voice that kept telling me I am naked, even though I don't believe it.

I also considered that my self-administered posthypnotic command didn't feel like hypnosis, either.

In the previous few minutes, I had been attempting to walk slowly through my own posthypnotic suggestion to see if I could find anything about it to identify truly as hypnosis. So far, I could not. My posthypnotic trick – I had verbalized it to myself with the help of Mr. Coltwright – certainly did not feel anything remotely like hypnosis.

Well, hmm, except for some side effects, which I'm trying to explain, my trick didn't feel like hypnosis. My particular assignment was simple: walk around to the hallway at the other end of the third floor, take a drink from the water fountain, look at the girls' restroom door and compare it, mentally with its counterpart, the boys' restroom door across from Mr. Coltwright's Room 303.

When I finished my very urgent and very satisfying pee, I started to charge across the hallway for a confrontation with Mr. Coltwright, and accuse him of cheating, or tricking me, or whatever. I'm sure he did something, because as far as I could tell, I was standing there in the boys' restroom without a stitch of clothing in sight.

The Professor had been playing those games to make me think I was naked; my inner-dialogue voice reminded me. You actually thought you were naked, the voice giggled as it switched to second person pronoun and was almost lecturing me. Am I lecturing myself? I thought to myself.

Am I naked or not? I demanded of my inner voice. Have I just ruined everything with my new English teacher? What will she think of me?

The Professor said for you to experience being very totally naked. Experience this as far as possible, yet retain one thin doubt about it and remember the previous times when you were wrong and you only imagined you were naked, my inner me continued. This voice, this inner me, actually giggled. I'm laughing at myself, I thought, as I tried to stifle my own external giggle, too.