"I will take you through a series of relaxation exercises, and we will begin with your head," she continued. "Feel it relax and sink into the couch."

And so she guided me through the relaxation process, and her soothing voice forced the tension from my body, from my forehead, my shoulders, my fingertips, my knees.

I journeyed into that semi-awake, semi-asleep state and her voice dropped into a half-audible blur of indiscriminate sounds.

I remember gaining a sense of timelessness and trying to block out flashes of the hovering 12-page psychology paper I hadn't started yet. And it worked.

Seventeen minutes later, I "awoke" from my somewhat somnolent stage to her steady counting, "You will awake when I count to three, relaxed and more refreshed than before."

Then I began to understand what she had been talking about before. In that state of half-awakeness, I could see how someone could be given positive instructions and actually adhere to them.

Skeptical about the whole thing? I was, also, at first. Hey, I wanted to see the swinging pendulum and the crystal ball, too.

But I tried it, and it's really not so bad. In fact it's very soothing, very relaxing--just like Shirley promised.

Okay, so Aleo's hypnotism may not make you reveal your innermost truths or compel you to "cluck like a chicken." It may not match the excitement of a Scooby-trance.

But if it de-stresses you or makes you better able to sleep, where's the harm? And remember this--Scooby and Shaggy's hypnotism didn't offer to help raise your scores on the LSAT ,did it?