I'm very dubious about most of the things that Derren Brown does on his TV shows. I do think he is very good at what he does but all we get to see are the bits that work and not those where he gets it completely wrong. Don't forget, he is an 'entertainer' but he is also very good at reading people and that really is all that it boils down to. People give of very tiny signs and he can identify and pickup on them. It also helps that he's able to find the most susceptible people to use

Do you really think he can send someone to sleep simply by getting them to pickup a ringing phone

and that zombie thing is so fake. If it was real then the guy would have acted alot more violent in my opinion.