Light as a feather, stiff as a board, sometimes known as
party levitation, is a game played by children at
slumber partiesSlumber Party is an indie rock band from Detroit, Michigan. In 2000, 2 years after the band's formation, they signed to Kill Rock Stars.-Albums:*Slumber Party - Kill Rock Stars *Psychedelicate -Kill Rock Stars...
. The phrase has also become established in popular culture as a reference to a
levitationLevitation is the process by which an object is suspended against gravity, in a stable position, without physical contact....
trick, and has been referred to in various media accounts.
One participant lies flat on the floor, and then the others space themselves around him or her, each placing their fingers underneath his or her body.
Light as a feather, stiff as a board, sometimes known as
party levitation, is a game played by children at
slumber partiesSlumber Party is an indie rock band from Detroit, Michigan. In 2000, 2 years after the band's formation, they signed to Kill Rock Stars.-Albums:*Slumber Party - Kill Rock Stars *Psychedelicate -Kill Rock Stars...
. The phrase has also become established in popular culture as a reference to a
levitationLevitation is the process by which an object is suspended against gravity, in a stable position, without physical contact....
trick, and has been referred to in various media accounts.
Description of game
One participant lies flat on the floor, and then the others space themselves around him or her, each placing their fingers underneath his or her body. The person closest to the head commonly begins by saying "Once the roads were icy and cold", which the others repeat; then "A woman lost control of her steering wheel" is spoken and repeated back. Finally the last sentence "When they found her she was light as a feather, stiff as a board" is said and the phrase is chanted by the others repeat. Some people report that the apparent weight of the person lifted seems lower than expected or that the person becomes completely weightless.
One of the best rational explanations for such reports is that the participants are tricking their minds, by way of the chanting, into believing that the person being lifted is "light as a feather". The body still reacts to the command from the brain, but the mind perceives it differently. Simply put, five (example) people can easily lift one person, especially when those five people are tricking their minds into thinking that the person is light-weight.
In one variation the person being lifted is told a story about their death and asked to imagine it happening to him or her. It serves the dual purpose of "freaking out" the participants and convinces the participants that it will be easier to lift this person.
In many versions, each of the (in the example) five people lifting the other person uses only one or two of his or her fingers on each hand to do the lifting. It is particularly easy to lift a heavy weight when it is evenly distributed amongst a group of four people. The phenomena of the weight seeming less on the second try around or after some sort of ritual is due to increased focus and the "lifters" being more in sync with one another.
Another reason for the apparent success of the levitation is the "self fulfilling prophecy" concept. The lifters know it's supposed to be heavy and not work the first time so subconsciously they don't put in the effort required to do the lift the first time around. The second time around they are focused and putting in the effort in order to prove to others (and even moreso themselves) that it actually works.
The game or party trick has been covered in mainstream media.
This game can be seen played in 17th century London during the plague outbreak.
Samuel PepysSamuel Pepys, FRS was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament, who is now most famous for his diary. Although Pepys had no maritime experience, he rose by patronage, hard work and his talent for administration, to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II...
, a naval administrator noted this being performed as a sort of ward against the disease. In his conversation with his friend Mr. Brisband on July 31, 1665, he talked of the chant that accompanied the performance:
Voici un corps mort
Royde comme un Baston,
Froid comme Marbre
Leger comme un esprit,
Levons te au nom de Jesus Christ
"He saw four little girles, very young ones, all kneeling, each of them, upon one knee; and one begun the first line, whispering in the eare of the next, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and she to the first. Then the first begun the second line, and so round quite through, and putting each one finger only to a boy that lay flat upon his back on the ground, as if he was dead; at the end of the words, they did with their four fingers raise this boy high as they could reach, and he [ Mr. Brisband] being there, and wondering at it, as also being afeared to see it, for they would have had him to have bore a part in saying the words, in the roome of one of the little girles that was so young that they could hardly make her learn to repeat the words, did, for feare there might be some sleight used in it by the boy, or that the boy might be light, call the cook of the house, a very lusty fellow, as Sir G. Carteret's cook, who is very big, and they did raise him in just the same manner."
Sources