ighteen months of intensive psychotherapy passed, with Catherine coming to see me once or twice a week. She was a good patient, verbal, capable of insights, and extremely eager to get well.

During that time, we explored her feelings, thoughts, and dreams. Her recognition of recurrent behavior patterns provided her with insight and understanding. She remembered many more significant details from her past, such as her merchant seaman father's absences from the home and his occasional violent outbursts after drinking too much. She understood much more about her turbulent relationship with Stuart, and she expressed anger more appropriately. I felt that she should have been much improved by now. Patients almost always improve when they remember unpleasant influences from their past, when they learn to recognize and correct maladaptive behavior patterns, and when they develop insight and view their problems from a larger, more detached perspective. But Catherine had not improved.

Anxiety and panic attacks still tortured her. The vivid recurrent nightmares continued, and she was still terrified of the dark, of water, and of being closed in. Her sleep was still fragmented and unrefreshing. She was experiencing heart palpitations. She continued to refuse any medicines, afraid of choking on the pills. I felt as if I had reached a wall, and that no matter what I did, that wall would remain so high that neither of us would be able to climb over it. But, with my sense of frustration came an added sense of determination. Somehow, I was going to help Catherine.

And then a strange thing happened. Although she was intensely afraid of flying and had to fortify herself with several drinks while she was on the plane, Catherine accompanied Stuart to a medical conference in Chicago in the spring of 1982. While there, she pressured him into visiting the Egyptian exhibit at the art museum, where they joined a guided tour.

Catherine had always had an interest in ancient Egyptian artifacts and reproductions of relics from that period. She was hardly a scholar and had never studied that time in history, but somehow the pieces seemed familiar to her.

When the guide began to describe some of the artifacts in the exhibit, she found herself correcting him... and she was right! The guide was surprised; Catherine was stunned. How did she know these things? Why did she feel so strongly that she was right, so sure of herself that she corrected the guide in public? Perhaps the memories were forgotten from her childhood.

At her next appointment, she told me what had happened. Months earlier I had suggested hypnosis to Catherine, but she was afraid and she resisted. Because of her experience at the Egyptian exhibit, she now reluctantly agreed.

Hypnosis is an excellent tool to help a patient remember long-forgotten incidents. There is nothing mysterious about it. It is just a state of focused concentration. Under the instruction of a trained hypnotist, the patient's body relaxes, causing the memory to sharpen. I had hypnotized hundreds of patients and had found it helpful in reducing anxiety, eliminating phobias, changing bad habits, and aiding in the recall of repressed material. On occasion, I had been successful in regressing patients back to their early childhoods, even to when they were two or three years old, thus eliciting the memories of long-forgotten traumas that were disrupting their lives. I felt confident that hypnosis would help Catherine.

I instructed Catherine to lie on the couch with her eyes slightly closed and her head resting on a small pillow. At first we focused on her breathing. With each exhalation she released stored-up tension and anxiety; with each inhalation she relaxed even more. After several minutes of this, I told her to visualize her muscles progressively relaxing, beginning with her facial muscles and jaw, then her neck and shoulders, her arms, back and stomach muscles, and finally her legs. She felt her entire body sinking deeper and deeper into the couch.

Then I instructed her to visualize a bright white light at the top of her head, inside her body. Later on, as I had the light spread slowly down her body, it completely relaxed every muscle, every nerve, every organ-all of her body-bringing her into a deeper and deeper state of relaxation and peace. She felt sleepier and sleepier, more and more peaceful and calm. Eventually, at my instruction, the light filled her body and surrounded her as well.

I counted backward slowly from ten to one. With each number, she entered a deeper level of relaxation. Her trance state deepened. She was able to concentrate on my voice and exclude all background noises. By the count of one, she was already in a moderately deep state of hypnosis. The entire process had taken about twenty minutes.

After a while I began to regress her, asking her to recall memories of progressively earlier ages. She was able to talk and to answer my questions while maintaining a deep level of hypnosis. She remembered a traumatic experience at the dentist that occurred when she was six years old. She vividly remembered the terrifying experience at age five when she was pushed from a diving board into a pool. She had gagged and choked then, swallowing some water, and while talking about it she began to gag in my office. I suggested to her that the experience was over, that she was out of the water. The gagging stopped, and she resumed her normal breathing. She was still in a deep trance.

At age three, the worst event of all had occurred. She remembered awakening in her dark bedroom and being aware that her father was in her room. He reeked of alcohol then, and she could smell it now. He touched her and rubbed her, even "down there." She was terrified and began to cry, so he covered her mouth with his rough hand. She could not breathe. In my office, on my couch, twenty-five years later, Catherine began to sob. I felt that we had the information now, the key to the lock. I was sure that her symptoms would improve quickly and dramatically. I softly suggested to her that the experience was over, that she was no longer in her bedroom but was resting quietly, still in a trance. The sobbing ended. I took her forward in time to her current age. I awakened her after I had instructed her, by posthypnotic suggestion, to remember all that she had told me. We spent the remainder of the session discussing her suddenly vivid memory of the trauma with her father. I tried to help her accept and integrate her "new" knowledge. She now understood her relationship with her father, his reactions to her, his aloofness, and her fear of him. She was still shaking when she left the office, but I knew the understanding she had gained was worth the momentary discomfort.

In the drama of uncovering her painful and deeply repressed memories, I had entirely forgotten to look for the possible childhood connection to her knowledge of the Egyptian artifacts. But at least she understood more about her past. She had remembered several terrifying events, and I expected a significant improvement in her symptoms.

Despite this new understanding, the next week she reported that her symptoms remained intact, as severe as ever. I was surprised. I could not understand what was wrong. Could something have happened earlier than age three? We had uncovered more than sufficient reasons for her fear of choking, of the water, of the dark, and of being trapped, and yet the piercing fears and symptoms, the uncontrolled anxiety, were all still devastating her waking moments. Her nightmares were as terrifying as before. I decided to regress her further.

While hypnotized, Catherine spoke in a slow and deliberate whisper. Because of this, I was able to write down her words verbatim and have quoted Catherine directly. (The ellipses represent pauses in her speech, not deletions of words nor editing on my part. However, some of the material that is repetitious is not included here.)

Slowly, I took Catherine back to the age of two, but she recalled no significant memories. I instructed her "firmly and clearly: "Go back to the time from which your symptoms arise." I was totally unprepared for what came next.

"I see white steps leading up to a building, a big white building with pillars, open in front. There are no doorways. I'm wearing a long dress... a sack made of rough material. My hair is braided, long blond hair."

I was confused. I wasn't sure what was happening. I asked her what the year was, what her name was. "Aronda... I am eighteen. I see a marketplace in front of the building. There are baskets.... You carry the baskets on your shoulders. We live in a valley.... There is no water. The year is 1863 b.c. The area is barren, hot, and sandy. There is a well,no rivers. Water comes into the valley from the mountains."

After she related more topographical details, I told her to go several years ahead in time and to tell me what she saw.

"There are trees and a stone road. I see a fire with cooking. My hair is blond. I'm wearing a long, coarse brown dress and sandals. I am twenty- five. I have a girl child whose name is Cleastra.... She's Rachel. [Rachel is presently her niece; they have always had an extremely close relationship.] It's very hot."

I was startled. My stomach knotted, and the room felt cold. Her visualizations and recall seemed so definite. She was not at all tentative. Names, dates, clothes, trees-all seen vividly! What was going on here? How could the child she had then be her niece now? I was even more confused. I had examined thousands of psychiatric patients, many under hypnosis, and I had never come across fantasies like this before-not even in dreams. I instructed her to go forward to the time of her death. I wasn't sure how to interview someone in the middle of such an explicit fantasy (or memory?), but I was on the lookout for traumatic events that might underlie current fears or symptoms. The events around the time of death could be particularly traumatic. Apparently a flood or tidal wave was devastating the village.

"There are big waves knocking down trees. There's no place to run.

It's cold; the water is cold. I have to save my baby, but I cannot...

just have to hold her tight. I drown; the water chokes me. I can't breathe, can't swallow... salty water. My baby is torn out of my arms." Catherine was gasping and having difficulty breathing.

Suddenly her body relaxed completely, and her breathing became deep and even.

"I see clouds.... My baby is with me. And others from my village. I see my brother."

She was resting; this lifetime had ended. She was still in a

deep trance. I was stunned! Previous lifetimes? Reincarnation? My clinical mind told me that she was not fantasizing this material, that she was not making this up. Her thoughts, her expressions, the attention to particular details, all were different from her conscious state. The whole gamut of possible psychiatric diagnoses flashed through my mind, but her psychiatric state and her character structure did not explain these revelations. Schizophrenia? No, she had never had any evidence of a cognitive or thinking disorder. She had never experienced any auditory hallucinations of hearing voices, visual hallucinations or visions while awake, or any other type of psychotic episodes. She was not delusional, nor was she out of touch with reality. She did not have multiple or split personalities. There was only one Catherine, and her conscious mind was totally aware of this. She had no sociopathic or antisocial tendencies. She was not an actress. She did not use drugs, nor did she ingest hallucinogenic substances. Her use of alcohol was minimal. She had no neurological or psychological illnesses that could explain this vivid, immediate experience while hypnotized.

These were memories of some sort, but from where? My gut reaction was that I had stumbled upon something I knew very little about-reincarnation and past-life memories. It couldn't be, I told myself; my scientifically trained mind resisted it. Yet here it was, happening right before my eyes. I couldn't explain it, but I couldn't deny the reality of it either.

"Go on," I said, a little unnerved but fascinated by what was happening. "Do you remember anything else?" She remembered fragments of two other lifetimes.

"I have on a dress with black lace, and there is black lace on my head. I have dark hair with gray in it. It's {A.D.] 1756. I am Spanish. My name is Louisa and I'm fifty-six. I'm dancing; others are dancing, too. [Long pause] I'm sick; I have a fever, cold sweats.... Lots of people are sick; people are dying.... The doctors don't know it was from the water." I took her ahead in time. "I recover, but my head still hurts; my eyes and head still hurt from the fever, from the water.... Many die."

Later she told me that she was a prostitute in that lifetime, but she had not relayed that information because she was embarrassed by it. Apparently, while hypnotized, Catherine could censor some of the memories she transmitted back to me.

Since Catherine had recognized her niece in an ancient lifetime, I

impulsively asked her if I was present in any of her lifetimes. I was curious about my role, if any, in her remembrances. She responded quickly, in contrast to the previous very slow and deliberate recall, "You are my teacher, sitting on a ledge. You teach us from books.

You are old with gray hair. You're wearing a white dress [toga} with gold trim.... Your name is Diogenes. You teach us symbols, triangles. You are very wise, but I don't understand. The year is 1568 B.C. (This was approximately twelve-hundred years Before the noted Greek Cynic philosopher Diogenes. The name was not an uncommon one.)

The first session had ended. Even more amazing ones were yet to come.

After Catherine left, and over the next several days, I pondered the details of the hypnotic regression. It was natural for me to ponder.

Very few details emerging from even a "normal" therapy hour escaped my obsessive mental analysis, and this session was hardly "normal." In addition, I was very skeptical about life after death,reincarnation, out-of-body experiences, and related phenomena.

After all, the logical part of me ruminated, this could be her fantasy. I

wouldn't actually be able to prove any of her assertions or visualizations. But I was also aware, although much more dimly, of a further and less emotional thought. Keep an open mind, the thought said; true science begins with observation. Her "memories" might not be fantasy or imagination. There might be something more than meets the eye-or any of the other senses. Keep an open mind. Get more data.

I had another nagging thought. Would Catherine, prone to anxieties and fears to begin with, be too frightened to undergo hypnosis again? I decided not to call her. Let her digest the experience, too. I would wait until next week.