Mentalist Bryan Miles has spent 30 years exploring what lies in the shadows of the subconscious mind, and this October he brings his answer to The Drama Factory stage in Strand with Shadows of the Subconscious.
Long before he could explain why, Miles was already taking people’s minds apart, one game at a time. A pile of Lego bricks, deck of UNO cards and a Rubik’s cube; what looked like ordinary childhood play was, in hindsight, an early education in unconscious communication.
Miles pulls the same everyday objects out of memory and onto the stage. Using Lego, UNO cards, a Rubik’s cube and even emojis, he maps the hidden mechanics of human perception in real time: how we read one another, what our bodies say before our mouths do, and just how much of every decision we make happens somewhere we are not aware of.
“As a kid I wasn’t just playing games; I was reading people,” Miles relates. “Every round of UNO taught me how to read a bluff. A Rubik’s cube taught me that even chaos has a hidden order, if you know where to look! Shadows of the Subconscious takes audiences back into that same curiosity, using the games we all grew up with to reveal the patterns running underneath everything we say and everything we don’t.”
The show moves between verbal and non-verbal communication, intuition and suggestion, inviting the audience to do more than watch; they become part of the experiment. It climaxes in an ambitious stunt Miles had never attempted before, built entirely on being in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, with every single person in the room playing a part.
Miles has spent three decades studying the psychology of perception, hosting his own 13-part SABC 3 series, One Day with Bryan Miles, and performing for global organisations and luxury cruise lines worldwide. He is regularly booked to perform at the world-famous Magic Castle in Hollywood. Shadows of the Subconscious is his most personal stage work yet.
Two shows will be on stage at The Drama Factory at 15:00 on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October.
Tickets cost R220 each or R190 per person for groups of three or more. Book at www.bryanmiles.com or wwwthedramafactory.co.za.
