IT'S late afternoon here and early morning in San Diego. In the background you can hear a police siren wail past as Barry Jones chats from his apartment.
Down the phone comes a gentle transatlantic accent — the result of living Stateside and making frequent excursions back 'home'.
His parents Frank and Lucy Jones live on the outskirts of Tavistock, moving there when his father retired from the RAF in the 70s.
Barry visits Tavistock several times a year — and on Friday, March 3 he will be presenting a night of hypnosis at the Wharf arts centre. It is, he says 'guaranteed to astonish and entertain you.'
If the show is a reflection of the man then that sound bite is no idle boast.
Leaving Newcastle University with a teaching degree in physical education he worked in a summer camp on an American exchange visit returning a year later as aquatic director.
'One day I was hitching and got dumped off by one of the Californian universities so I went in and they offered me a job,' said 46-year-old Barry who has been working in the States ever since.
The interest in sport and physical education led to a growing fascination with hypnosis and its benefits.
In 1982 he entered the 'ultra-endurance' Iron Man World Championships in Hawaii.
This involved a 2.4 mile ocean swim, followed by a 112 mile cycle race and culminated in running a marathon — all completed in 13 hours.
'I became aware of altered mind states when I was training for that,' he says.
A glutton for punishment Barry then put his name down for the Death Valley Race where you cycle from 258ft below sea level to the base of Mt Whitney and then have to run to the top — 14,000ft above sea level — and back down again.
From a blistering 120 degrees in the desert temperatures plumeted sufficiently to freeze his moustache.
Seventy people started and Barry came second out of three that finished — all the rest dropped out.
'During that run I lost four hours and my mind separated from my body. I was fascinated with this whole thing so I went to medical school in San Diego and took a course in clinical hypnosis that was offered to health professionals.'
Barry says he started using hypnosis more and more and one day his students asked him to do a show in the dorm. One thing led to another and he now does some 150 shows a year.
He also holds courses on clinical hypnosis and teaches health professionals who use hypnosis in their field.
'A brainwave analysis of a trance state would be the same as a dream state. The creative part of the sleeping pattern is where you problem solve,' said Barry.
'You may not remember your dreams but the process you go through is vital to your well-being.'
He says his show takes something serious and allows people to laugh at it.
'Laughter is an opiate. As long as you don't do anything that people don't want to do that's OK. It looks like the hypnotist has total control but they don't. All you do is be a facilitator to create the state that will allow them to go into. If people don't want to do that they won't.'
Barry says he shows how hypnosis is a route to self-development.
'Being an educationalist I talk about the serious side of it and explain that and then demonstrate it by using light humour.'
In October Barry will take part in an 87-mile roller blade race in Alabama.
'It is just a new challenge. I enjoy the mental training I have to put in.
' I feel good and it allows me to do so much more than I would otherwisew be able to do. It keeps you sharp.'