The Rock kept his first girlfriend secret for decades. A mind reader named her in 30 seconds

We've all seen mind readers pull off some extraordinary things on clips or maybe even in person, but guessing the name of someone a person hasn't mentioned in decades is almost unbelievable. Yet, that's exactly what magician Ash Magic (@ashmagic) did with Dwayne Johnson. After effortlessly reading Johnson's mind to reveal coordinates and a Moana character, Ash took the trick a step further by asking him to imagine someone completely random from his past and guessed it correctly. He later posted this interaction on his Instagram account on July 1, 2026, garnering over 130,000 views.

Setting the stage

The encounter began with magician Ash meeting Dwayne Johnson, eagerly setting expectations high by framing the experiment around "wayfinding," a theme central to Johnson's role in the live-action movie Moana. Drawing on the movie's lore about envisioning where you are going inside your mind, Ash asked Johnson to tap a random point in the air and pick random coordinates. After he did that, Ash prompted him to mentally visualize the digits floating at his fingertips. Then, reading the superstar's mind, Ash accurately called out the sequence, "87127."

Conjuring the Moana villain

After Johnson humorously called for tequila following the first guess, Ash then guided Johnson to an imaginary voyage to the Moana universe and asked him to focus on one. Johnson chose to visualize the fiery demon Te Kā, spelling out "T-E-K-A" in his mind. When Ash correctly identified the character, a bewildered Johnson admitted, "Man, I need a drink," as the room reacted in amazement. But this wasn't even the best one yet. 

Reading the forgotten past

For the final act, Ash raised the stakes by asking Johnson to summon a personal figure from his past. He urged him to recall someone completely impossible for anyone else to know. Johnson assured him that there was "100 percent zero way" Ash could ever uncover the secret identity, having never spoken her name publicly or thought about her in years. Ash asked him to repeat the first letter and then the name mentally before astonishingly uttering "Gretchen." A visibly shaken Johnson confirmed that Gretchen was his very first girlfriend from when he was about 13 years old.  

Americans skeptical about mind reading

Although Johnson acknowledged that Ash had a gift and was left amazed by his abilities, only a small fraction of Americans would agree with him. According to a study conducted by Gallup, just 26% of Americans believe that minds have the ability to know the past or predict the future. Meanwhile, 23% are unsure about this phenomenon, with 50% straight up denying that such abilities exist. This sheds light on how people view mind reading and other mental abilities.

'I only noticed while rewatching'

Nonetheless, people in the comments of Ash's videos were more than thrilled. @claysnellgrove wrote, "Let’s go!! So good. This guy is the man ever since Oz’s curtain got thrown back. Keep up the amazing work!" Meanwhile, @tori.jade.178 commented, "His head slightly nodded when u said 8 haha, but how did you pick that up? I only noticed while rewatching."

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