A DIFFERENT TYPE OF ENCOUNTER.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

TAMPA - If Kerry Collins or Trent Dilfer plays as if in a trance Sunday, it could be because he is.

``You are getting very sleepy'' isn't just the running joke of Super Bowl XXXV, the punchline of cranky reporters who can't see deliverance in a matchup of defensive-minded teams. It's the working approach of a man who is serious about bending athletes' minds the way Uri Geller did spoons.

Dr. Wes Patterson is a Miami-based psychologist who puts people in a trance in order to enhance their job performance. Speaking by telephone the other day, Patterson, a highbrow hypnotist, explained his methods and then, speaking in a manner so circumspect it nearly sent us into a stupor, divulged his clientele includes at least one of the gladiators who will grace Raymond James Stadium on Sunday.

``I'll say yes and leave it at that,'' Patterson said, citing doctor-patient confidentiality as the reason for his vagueness.

Hey, in a day and age when professional athletes' entourages include AA counselors and probation officers, acupuncturists and holistic practitioners, what's so weird about having a hypnotherapist on call?

Besides, it wouldn't be a Super Bowl circus without the kooky sideshows. The last time teams from New York and Baltimore met in the Super Bowl - that would be the Jets and Colts in 1969 - an astrologer named Jonathan Booth made news by boldly picking the 18-point underdog Jets after compiling the celestial charts of both teams.

Booth's reasoning? ``The transiting Jupiter is sextile the natal Mars and Pluto is trine the midheaven.''

Obviously New York quarterback Joe Namath believed a Jets victory was in the stars, too, or he wouldn't have brashly predicted one (and then delivered it, 16-7).

They sent in the clown Monday and say this for Baltimore coach Brian Billick, he didn't disappoint the media circus. For 20 minutes Billick subjected reporters to a soliloquy that was supposed to put us under his spell, the better to enhance our performance.

We were instructed, in so, so, many words, to close our eyes and quit picturing the Ravens' star middle linebacker Ray Lewis as a suspect in a double murder, lest we ``detract from what should be a special time.''

For Lewis and the rest of the Ravens, we presume Billick meant, and not the families of the two men who were stabbed to death last year outside an Atlanta nightclub after an altercation that involved Lewis.

When it comes to entrancing people, we have to be honest here: Billick is no Wes Patterson.

We can't imagine Billick's words having the desired effect of modifying how the media portrays Lewis, a fantastic football player with a fierce burden - the knowledge of what really transpired that night outside the Cobalt Lounge - that he'll carry around with him for the rest of his life.

Billick ought to leave the hypnosis to the experts. Never mind Miami is a four-hour drive from Tampa, Dr. Patterson is as close as the telephone for any Super Bowl participants in need of a quick mental cleansing. He prefers to conduct his sessions with his clients by telephone, figuring they will be more open to a mind-expanding experience if the scenery surrounding them is familiar.

Dr. Patterson has been a proponent of hypnosis for 25 years, since his undergraduate days at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University. His telephone practice has taken off in the past six years, as well-known figures in the sports and entertainment fields have sought him out for help in ridding themselves of stress and nervousness and other such performance blockers.

Hypnosis helps, Dr. Patterson said, ``because the mind is so powerful.''

He humbly submits most athletes at the pro level have comparable physical skills. What separates the Peyton Mannings from the Ryan Leafs is the ability to block out the myriad distractions that diffuse one's focus.

The great athletes have the ability, Dr. Patterson said, to bend time, so that it ``passes very slowly for them. At the level we're talking about, the difference between athletes is mental.''

``The problem,'' Dr. Patterson said, ``is athletes don't know how to unlock their subconscious mind so it can work for them.''

Come to think of it, Dilfer, the Ravens' quarterback, certainly seems to have jimmied whatever it was holding him back during his years in Tampa. During the 2000 regular season, he completed 59.3 percent of his passes, a considerable improvement over his career completion percentage prior to this year (54.8). His passer rating on third down also improved by leaps and bounds, from the low 70s to the high 80s.

Is Dilfer getting good phone hex, the kind that makes inner demons disappear?

How about Collins, the Giants' quarterback, who kicked a drinking problem to become the life of New York's offense? Hypnosis, after all, can be an effective tool in confronting one's deepest, darkest issues.

We'll likely never know who it is Dr. Patterson has helped.

``Generally, they want to keep this a private matter,'' he said of the famous figures with whom he has worked. ``I don't know why. I guess they don't want people to think their success is due to some magical thing.''

That's fine by Dr. Patterson, who gets plenty of pub in his other projects. When he's not putting clients in a trance-like state, you see, he's exploring the afterlife.

Dr. Patterson has given a group of terminally ill patients a secret code word, with instructions that after they die they are to relay the secret word to him from beyond the grave, thereby validating their continued existence.

Hmmm. And he wonders why the word on his work with NFL players is mum?