I can remember playing this game at parties when I was a kid in Alabama, but whenever I have mentioned it to anyone here (upper midwest), they act like I’m nuts. It was a popular game, played at every get-together involving 9-16 year old girls
Seance: All the lights would be put out, and radios, TVs, etc. turned off. One person would be the corpse, and lie down on the floor. One person would be the medium, and sit at the corpse’s head. Everyone else would sit around the corpse, and put two fingers of each hand under the corpse. The medium would then describe, in gruesome, excruciating detail, and in the second person, how the corpse died. At the end, the medium would announce, “You are now dead.” In silence, everyone would slowly get to their feet, lifting the corpse until she was held up as high above our heads as we could reach. The corpse was always feather light. From taking my turn as the corpse, I remember it as a weird, floating feeling.
As I said, I’ve never met anyone else who remembers playing this game. So, Coldfire, do they play it in Holland?
I’m also from the south (well, Virginia) and we used to play this game at slumber parties, only it was called “Light as a feather, stiff as a board”
OK, so, since I didn’t dream it, that brings me to the next question: why does it work? I can remember times that, for example, a little brother burst in while the corpse was being lifted, and she became too heavy and we dropped her. Was this some kind of mass hypnosis thing? Or did we just convince ourselves that she was light enough to lift? Or can people always be lifted this way, and the whole “death scene” thing is just there for atmosphere?
(I lived in Virginia for a while, also, I just don’t remember playing it there. I’m pretty sure I remember playing it in Mississippi, but Alabama is the only place I can swear that we did it. Is this only a southern thing? Only a girls-at-slumber-parties thing?)
I’m from AL and I never heard of the game. Does it work when you’re a grownup? It sounds like tremendous fun, and I’m sure my pals from college could be persuaded to play at a get-together sometime.
We always play a game called Consequences, which is kind of lame if you’re outside the clique, but is way fun for the in group. It’s one of those make up a piece of a story, fold and pass the sheet of paper to the left, then make up the next peice… Our stories run along these lines: (female name) met (male name) at (location). He gave her a () and she gave him a (). He said, “"; she said, "”. The consequence was (___), and the world said, “(random witticism).”
Fun Example for Board Purposes: Miss Davis met Coldfire in an alley. He gave her a florin (or a guilder), and she gave him a straw up the ass. He said, “Gee that was fantabulous” and she said “Thanks for the memories”. The consequence was the MB got more information than they wanted, and the world said, "This is why kids shouldn’t be allowed on the internet unsupervised."