Preface

This story details a series of hypnotherapy sessions that took place in 1995 and 1996. The events are described exactly as I perceived them during the sessions.

Chapter 1

Isn’t it funny how one thing leads to another? From food to feet to hypnosis to.... Well, read on and you’ll see how things progressed in a most unexpected way.

All my life I have eaten a very limited range of food. Even the thought of such things as fish and green vegetables makes me feel physically sick. This is obviously frustrating for my wife as she enjoys virtually all types of food, and also embarrassing to me. To say that I don’t enjoy eating out would be an understatement! A while ago, she suggested that it might be worth me seeing a hypnotist in an attempt to increase my range of food. Although it seemed a good idea we didn’t take things any further until a strange chain of events started to occur.

First my wife had to see a chiropodist. I’ve also had problems with my feet, so I decided to see him as well. He sorted out most of my problem, but felt it might be useful for a colleague of his to see me. I agreed, and sure enough his colleague came and saw me the following week. When I looked at his card, I noticed that, not only was he a chiropodist, but also a hypnotherapist. I remembered what my wife had suggested, and asked him if he thought he could do anything to help me with my eating problem. He told me that many things could have caused the phobia, and although it could be overcome by hypnosis, it was not always sensible to do so. There may be non-psychological reasons behind the problem. We would need to investigate the cause first. He seemed honest, and someone that I could relate to, so I fixed up an appointment.

At our first session, he put me into a trance like state that he called a “state of altered awareness”. Hypnosis is nothing like I had imagined it to be. I felt totally relaxed as I drifted into an almost sleep-like condition where I seemed to have no control over the thoughts that were forming in my mind. Apparently I am a good subject, and he found it easy to regress me to earlier times and events that have had a effect and influence on my life. He asked me questions and my answers seemed to come totally automatically. In the first regression my mother was feeding me, or at least she was trying to feed me. I pushed the dish away and refused to eat. He has told me that I described the food as muck. Could this have been the trigger for my problems with food? It may have been the first instance of my food phobia, but later events have led me to believe that there is something far deeper and stranger at it’s source.

On my second visit, he sent me further back in time. Suddenly I was looking out from a pram. In front of me were six yellow ducks strung across the pram. One of them, the second from right incidentally, was upside down but all my efforts to correct it were in vain. I could feel the frustration building up as time went on. Eventually my mother removed the plaything and replaced it with another string of creatures. But not my ducks! She had totally misunderstood what I wanted. What I wanted was to be able to put the original set right. Was this the first instance of my lifetime perfectionism? We were starting to find reasons for elements of my character for which we were not even looking. They were interesting in there own right, but they were only the preamble to the totally unexpected events that came next.
 
He regressed me even further, taking me slowly backwards in time, and suddenly everything changed. No longer was I a baby; in fact I was not even me! I was seeing the world through the eyes of another person, in another time. I can only describe it as though there was an entity in my head, showing me something that had happened a long time ago, which was important to both them and me.

I was seated in the dining room of a large house, which I knew to be my home. Everything was so familiar to me. I could see through the windows into the grounds and a balustraded terrace with stone steps leading down to a large lawn. Looking across the lawn to the right I could see a wood, and I knew that within that wood was a lake. I know that there was a place beside that lake which was the most peaceful and important place in the world, for the person who was allowing me into their life. You might think that this would have been frightening, but in fact I felt totally relaxed and at ease. It was not my body and yet it seemed totally natural and right to me.

I was looking through the eyes of a young woman in her early twenties, and although I knew that it wasn’t me, I was sharing every taste, sound, smell, sight, feeling and emotion that she experienced. I could sense her happiness, and even feel the beautiful texture of her silk dress against my skin. When she looked down I could see her hands, delicate and artistic. I knew her name, Penelope, and I knew that I was seeing something that had happened over seventy years ago. It was 1925!

I looked across the table to the only other person present, and knew it was her fiancé. As I looked at him I had a truly empathic understanding of her emotions. She loved him with all her heart, and I was sharing that love. They/we, were eating a special meal. I still don’t know what was special about it, only that it was special. We had eaten the first two courses and were part way through the main meat course when quite suddenly I started to feel an excruciating pain high in my stomach near my heart. Within seconds I was falling forward, almost in slow motion, and as I looked across the table the last thing I saw before Penelope died was the smiling face of the man sitting opposite. The final thought in her mind was “Why is he smiling”.

I was in a hell of a state, clutching my stomach, with tears pouring down my face. The therapist brought me back to the hear-and-now as quickly as he could. It seems that the session took almost as much out of him as it did me. It had taken us both completely by surprise yet I knew with absolute certainty that the events I had witnessed had actually taken place. But who was the girl, where was the house, and more importantly why was it being shown to me?

As I drove home from the session, everything was fitting into place, it was all beginning to make sense, and the more I thought about it, the more unasked questions were being answered. I was convinced that I had the answer to my eating problems. Is she protecting me from the same fate that took her life? Was she murdered? She certainly thought so. Is she using me to find the answer to why she died? Why did she choose me? Or has my subconscious mind made it all up?

Although she died seventy years ago, she is still with me. It has taken me some time to put this story down on paper in readable form, and I have returned to her life under hypnosis on a number of occasions since.
 

Chapter 2

Once I had discovered Penny, I found it very difficult to wait for the next session. It was like having seen the first part for a mystery drama serial. I had to know what would be revealed next. The month eventually passed and I went back for the next session. As the therapist helped me into a state of total relaxation, the world started to drift away. The sounds of the day began to fade from my consciousness. Cars still passed by, children still talked and giggled on their way home from school and the clock kept ticking; but the sounds no longer meant anything to me. They had no importance or relevance to my mind. He told me to imagine a clock with the hands moving backwards. He suggested that time would start to flow backward with the movement of the hands. Then a calendar, with the pages tearing themselves off and floating away. Days would turn into months, and months into years as normal time ceased to exist. He suggested that I move back to a time before my birth, and to an event that was of significance in Penelope's life.

Slowly I started to see a scene appearing before me. It was spring 1911 and I was in a field with my parents and brother. Laid out before us was a magnificent picnic. Bread, cheese, cold meats, fruit, home made cakes and lemonade. Everything a nine-year-old girl could possibly desire was there. I sat and enjoyed the tastes, smells and textures of the different foods; the slightly bitter taste of the lemonade cleaned my palette. I looked across the field and saw, beyond a five bar gate, our chauffeur leaning against the bonnet of the car; a Panhard I think. He was smoking a cigarette, lifting his head after each intake and blowing the smoke high into the air. He was clearly happy in his work, but then I would think that a chauffeur’s job was fairly sought after in the early days of motoring. The sun was shining and I could feel its warmth upon my arms. I was wearing a long fairly full-skirted blue short sleeved dress with a white cotton top over it. My hair was long, and tied back with blue satin ribbons. I heard my brother calling me, and got up and ran across to join him. I could feel the skirt caressing my legs as I ran. Jonathon (not a misspelling, I believe his name was actually spelled this way), took the ribbons from my hair and I shook it free. There were butterflies dancing on the breeze and we ran and chased them across the field. I ran and ran, for the energy of a child was with me and nothing could slow me down. I tumbled and rolled in the grass, giggling and laughing with Jonathon. The feeling of freedom, safety and pure innocent joy was overwhelming. I believe that it was this empathic emotion that Penny wished me to experience; something that I could never hope to do as a man.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and it was suggested that I come forward in time to another important incident in Penny’s life. Reluctantly, I let the images fade from my mind. The heat and light of the sun started to diminish to be replaced by coolness and dark. I soon began to hear a cacophony of schoolgirl chatter and opened my mind's eye to a scene that any red-blooded male would give his right arm to witness. I was in the dormitory of a girl’s boarding school just before bedtime. It was poorly lit and details were difficult to make out, but I got the impression that the tops of the walls came in at an angle as if we were in an attic area of the building. Some of the girls were already in their nightdresses, whilst others were in the process of changing. Some, including myself were still fully dressed. We sat on the beds laughing and talking, but don’t ask me what we were talking about, that soon became irrelevant as the door opened and our house mistress entered. As always, silence fell on the room. She walked directly over to me.
“Penelope, can you come with me please”.
Her tone of voice was sorrowful, and I knew that something was wrong. I walked with her to the head's room in total silence, absolutely terrified. When we got to her study, she knocked on the door and we went in. My mother was sitting to the left side of the headmistress's desk, with a handkerchief to her face. It was clear that she had been crying. The two teachers left the room and I was alone with my mother. I went over to her and knelt down in front of her. I took her hand.
“What’s wrong?”, I asked.
I could already feel tears welling up in my eyes.
“It’s daddy”, she said, “He’s...” She hesitated. “He won’t be coming home, he’s been killed”.
The world stopped. I stared through the arched window, behind the head’s huge desk, into the darkness beyond. At first my mind refused to believe what she had said, but as I looked back into her face the full horror started to well up within my body. I buried my head in her lap and felt her hands as they closed around my shoulders and gently caressed my back. I could feel the dampness of her tears as they fell upon my head. My tears also started to flow freely.
It was 1917, and Penny’s father, a captain in the British army had been killed in France. The phrase “blown to bits” kept running through my mind.

It was a bad note on which to end the session, but life tends to be a bit like that. It gives you a boost and just when you're at the peak it kicks you in the teeth. However there were far more enjoyable incidents that Penny disclosed at other sessions.

1922, the war was over and the world was entering a new age. The British Broadcasting Company was formed in October, and two weeks later the government introduced radio licenses at 10/- a year. James Joyce’s Ulysses was published and promptly banned, Tutankhamen’s tomb was discovered, Oxford bags were the “in” trousers, Mussolini became Prime Minister of Italy, and 20 year old Penny went to a momentous party in Brighton.

Penny had become involved with a group of friends, most of who were artists, writers or poets, and it was with some of them that she went to the party. These people weren’t the stereotypical struggling artists; most of them were from wealthy families and lived lives in which the prime function was enjoyment. Penny fitted well into the group. A good amateur painter of watercolours, and a fair poet she lived a life of luxury and ease. Even after her father’s death, there was no shortage of money.

George, an artist who was just beginning to make his mark after a successful exhibition in London earlier that year, hosted the party, held in a large Regency house near the seafront. Penny had just arrived at the party when she allowed me to join her.

I was standing with two friends, one male and one female, at one side of the main room, drinking and nibbling at tidbits of food. We were chatting generally when I happened to spot a handsome young man on the other side of the room. Suddenly I noticed that my companions had stopped talking and were looking at me. I had obviously been staring at him for some time and could feel the heat in my cheeks as I blushed when I realised that I had been discovered.
“Nice, isn’t he?”, said my friend.
“Well, yes. He does look rather nice. Who is he”.
“I’m surprised you don’t know him. That’s Peter Carmichael, the man who arranged George’s exhibition”.
I had to meet him. Something was happening to me that I’ve known before. The same feeling was welling up inside me that I had when I first met my wife. An instant recognition that this was the person for me.
“You’ve got to introduce me,” I said.
At that moment I realised that he was walking across the room towards us.
“Hello Lilian, Ted, good to see you, and who's this?”
“This is Penelope, Penelope this is Peter”.
I felt myself blushing again, as Peter started talking to me, I must have answered him, but my mind was somewhere else. All I could hear was the sound of his voice, and all I could see was his lovely smile. People were beginning to dance, and without even asking me, he took my hand and led me onto the floor. When we were there he turned towards me and put his right arm around my waist. We seemed to dance forever that evening. The room was getting warmer and warmer, and I felt that I was drowning in his eyes. He looked down at me.
“You look terribly hot. Let’s take some air”.
I let him lead me from the room, take our coats and go down stairs to the street and out into the night. As soon as we were outside I felt the chill of the winter air against my legs, hands and face. We walked along the promenade hand in hand and then stood looking out at the darkness of the sea. He put one arm around me and laid his other hand gently upon me hair. He began to stroke it, and before I knew it our lips were meeting in a long and luscious kiss. I could feel the warmth of his breath as I held him tight to me. I wanted him so much, and I knew that this was the beginning of the rest of my life.
 

Chapter 3

Did it snow two days after Christmas in 1908? This may be one pointer to whether my visits to Penny’s life are real or fantasy. Mind you, if it did snow, that’s no proof, and if it didn’t, well, perhaps I’ve got the date wrong. Anyway, six-year-old Penny certainly believed that there was snow, and it felt pretty cold to me!

We always spent Christmas at home, and this year was no exception. Jonathon and I were making a snowman on the lawn at the rear of the house; well to be honest, Jonathon was making him, and I was watching, gathering extra snow and generally being a pest and getting in his way. The snowman was nearing completion and must have stood at least five feet high. All he needed now was a face. Jonathon disappeared towards the kitchen, while I waited for his return. I was wearing a thick new woollen coat that almost reached to the ground, long brown laced up boots, mittens, scarf and a soft bonnet that covered my ears and kept them nice and warm. I think the coat was a dark bottle green, but colours never seem very prominent in these sessions. I could feel my nose getting colder and breathed against my cupped hands to try to warm my face. Suddenly Jonathon returned with his trophies, a bright orange carrot for the snowman’s nose, which cook had given him, and two pieces of coal for his eyes. Soon Mr. Snowman had a face. Jonathon drew a mouth with his finger, and he was complete; well almost.
“He looks cold, I’ll let him borrow my scarf”, said my brother.
Jonathon was about six years older than I was, and yet he never grew impatient, or bored with keeping me amused. I can see, on reflection, that his pleasure must have come from knowing how happy he made me. He had created a magnificent snowman for me, and we stood back to admire it. Then he scooped up a handful of snow, balled it up, and threw it towards me. It was close, but just missed me. I grabbed handfuls and threw them back, my inexpert attempts to create snowballs either missing by miles or collapsing in a cloud of snowdust.

Eventually we were called in, and I ran up the steps to where mummy was waiting to take me in her arms. Jonathon came running behind, and was greeted with a severe telling off from her. Where was his scarf? How stupid he was to have taken it off to put on the snowman in this weather. He was old enough to know better! It somewhat spoiled the afternoon for me, as I hated to see Jonathon in trouble. After all, he was building the snowman for me.
I remember that he was quite ill a few days later. Perhaps mothers really do know best after all.

Forward ten years, and a quiet reflective time from Penelope’s school days. I was walking along a narrow tunnel that turned to the right close to its end. I frequently used the tunnel, normally with a group of other girls, but this time I was alone. I knew that at the far end there was an iron gateway and I hoped that it wouldn’t be locked. I have a feeling that there was a gate at the school end of the tunnel as well, and I always had a fear that I might become trapped between them. This time my fears were unfounded, and as I turned the corner I could see that the gate was open. I left my wooden disc at the gate; a safety measure to make sure that all the girls were in before it was locked at night. Thinking about it, I don’t know why I should have been afraid of being trapped, as the system was pretty infallible. I noticed that there were no other discs there. Today, I would be alone on the beach. It was winter, and although I was well wrapped up, the biting wind from off the sea was finding a route through my hood, scarf and long hair, to send Ice Fairies nibbling at my ears.
It took me back in my thoughts to my childhood days in the snow. That’s where these creatures came into being. Jonathon had created them to make sure that I kept well wrapped up in the cold.
“Put your scarf on, or the Ice Fairies will eat your ears”.

The therapist started to ask me a number of questions. As usual, my replies were totally automatic.
 “Is the beach sandy?”. “There is a bit, but it’s mainly pebbles.”
“Are there any rock pools?”. “Yes, but further up the beach.”
“Can you walk up to the rock pools?”. “No.”
“Why?”.
I couldn’t answer this last question, and I think that it was this incident when I realised that I was being shown actual events from the past. I couldn’t do anything that Penny hadn’t done. It was obvious when I thought about it. Why should I be able to change events that were already set in history? Of course I couldn’t. This had already happened in her life, If she hadn’t gone up to the rock pools 78 years ago, then I wasn’t going either!

Penny’s brother obviously played an extremely important part in her development, as he was either directly or indirectly involved in a large percentage of the incidents recalled from her life. It is clear that there was a great deal of love towards him, and this next occasion shows just how great that love was.

In June 1919 Jonathon Sawyer was married. The marriage took place at the church in the local village and Penny was the chief bridesmaid of seven. The weather was superb and the reception was to be held in the grounds of their house, where a large marquee had been erected. The stage was set for the event of the year. It would be a day of great joy for the hundreds of guests and, of course, the principals, but Penny’s feelings at her brother’s marriage were somewhat different.

When I started to view the events of that day the ceremony had already taken place and I was standing on the same stone steps at the rear of the house where I had stood on that snowy winter’s afternoon in 1908. I was wearing a beautiful ankle length cream dress; topped with a chiffon overdress; that was covered with magnificent hand painted pastel coloured flowers. The painted flowers on my dress matched the real ones that had been entwined in my hair. I looked down on the scene before me. The guests were filling the air with the sound of their laughter and chatter, and almost blotting out the sound of music that emanated from the marquee. But my feelings were not like anyone else present. Yes, I was happy for my brother. He now had a beautiful wife and, I was convinced, would be happy for the rest of his life. But what about me? I knew it was selfish but even on his special day, I couldn’t help but think of the effect that his marriage would have on me. It was only two years since my father had died, and now my brother was leaving me. I needed to be alone and there was only one place for me to be at a time like this.
I had to pass the marquee to reach my destination, and as I approached it, I started to become unwillingly involved in various conversations. None of them were of the slightest interest to me, and all I could do was smile sweetly and respond with the occasional ‘Yes’. Eventually I found myself in the marquee, close to the bar.
“What can I get you, Miss Sawyer”, said the barman.
Immediately an idea formed in my mind.
“I’ve come for a bottle of champagne”.
No sooner the word, than the deed.
“Oh, and we need another glass”.
A glass was duly passed to me.

I took my leave and headed off towards the wood. Nobody questioned that a seventeen year old girl should be wandering off with a glass, and a bottle of champagne in her hands, but then I was the bridegroom’s sister, and this was our house, so I suppose nobody was really likely to. It was only a short walk through the wood along a well-used pathway before the lake came into view. Just a little detour now and I was at my ‘special place’. I sat down and allowed myself to enjoy the effects of the sun as its light filtered through the branches, moving in the warm breeze, and played across my dress. I struggled with the bottle for some time before I finally dislodged the cork with a huge bang. It flew across the water and dropped just short of the opposite bank, frightening a pair of mallards and making them take to the air. The champagne tried to follow the cork in its path as it burst from the bottle, but I managed to trap most of the overflow within the confines of my glass. I leant back against a tree and started on the first glass. As I gazed across the lake, my mind filled with the happy times that Jonathon and I had spent together, a second glass of champagne followed the first on its path to my brain, and then a third, fourth and fifth. My eyes began filling with tears and as they started to glaze over, I let myself slide slowly down towards the soft grass. The distant sounds of the reception were fading from my ears and as I closed my eyes the world ceased to be.

I don’t know for how long I slept, but eventually my presence must have been missed from the party. A group of friends thought they knew where to find me, and of course they were correct. As they gently woke me, the spell was broken and gradually the sights and sounds of the therapists consulting room brought me back to 1996.
 

Chapter 4

You will remember that my very first visit to Penny’s life had showed me that she died whilst dining with her fiancé, and that all the indications; particularly the smile on his face as she died; pointed to the fact that he had murdered her. But why? Nothing else had ever shown up to provide any reason why he should do so. As far as I was aware they were a very happy loving couple. And how? I don’t know of any poisons that would kill a person that quickly. It was quite by chance that the truth finally came out.

As an experiment, my therapist, having regressed me back to Penny’s life, then took me forward to a point in time after her death, but before I was born. I don’t know what he was expecting from this, but what I saw truly astounded me. I, or rather Penny, was standing in a huge tunnel of light. Through her eyes, I could see a figure in the distance, close to the side of the tunnel, but I couldn’t make out who it was. Also, I could see two or three other figures, but they seemed somehow ephemeral, almost as if they were floating. I moved towards the one clearly human figure, and it soon became clear who it was. Peter. We communicated without words, and his thoughts were filtering directly into my brain. Penny’s questions were being answered at last.
No, of course, he didn’t kill her. He would never have harmed her. When he saw her collapse, his first thought was that she was playing games. That’s why he smiled. He had proved his love to her in a way that is as old as love itself. He had no life without her, and there was no purpose in him continuing.

I watched, as if seeing a play, as he walked down to the lake ... her lake ... and then, when he reached the edge, just carried on walking. He slowed as the water impeded his progress, but his resolve carried him deeper and deeper into the darkness below the waters. He had nothing left in this world, and had determined to join her in the next, only to find that when he arrived, she wasn’t there! Penny had other plans, and death wasn’t about to spoil them.

As I slipped back into this world, I was confused, elated, and yet terribly sad. Elated, because Penny knew in her heart that Peter loved her, yet until now had no proof that she had not been murdered. Sad, because she had wasted so much time through not knowing the truth. The initial confusion started to ebb away, to be replaced by an overwhelming feeling of peace and serenity. So why did she die? I honestly don’t know, I can only guess that it may have been a massive heart attack.

Ever since the start, I have had a feeling that this wasn’t a true case of reincarnation. Although I had seen what Penny saw, heard, smelt and touched, everything that she had, felt the fear, depression, joy and love that she had felt, it was always as if I was being shown things, never as if these things had actually happened to me. It felt as though there was an entity within my head. I could even pinpoint the position, on the left side, just above and in front of my ear, and about one inch into my brain. It was like a sphere. At a distance you would think it smooth, yet if you were able to study it, you would find that the surface was incredibly complex, grooved and pitted. Only an exact match would fit.

One day, the therapist asked whether I thought it would be a good idea if we asked, or allowed, Penny to leave. Surely she would be better off in her own realm, back with Peter. Wasn’t she affecting my life? She must allow me to live my life myself. I didn’t want her to leave, and yet I saw the logic of the suggestion. I have to admit that I was scared as to how I would feel if she did go, and yet I also felt that it would be better for her. Strangely, she seemed reluctant to leave; I found out why later; but she was eventually persuaded on the condition that she could return if it was agreeable to both her and I.

Over a period of weeks after she had gone I became very depressed. I could feel where she had been, but now there was nothing, just an empty space. Then I started to get angry with her for messing up my life. Yet I still needed her. I tried to will her back to me, but to no avail. I was just getting worse and worse. After explaining the effect that her departure had had on me, I was told that I was displaying the classic symptoms of bereavement, and that it would eventually fade. This was not what I wanted. I needed the missing part of my jigsaw puzzle brain returned. Eventually I arranged another session and we attempted to make contact. He told me to search the places she might have gone. Immediately, I thought of her ‘special place’ by the lake. It was deserted and so I took my thoughts back towards the house. There she was, sitting on the stone steps that led down to the lawns. But something was very wrong. No matter how I tried I couldn’t get close to her. She was so still, so silent, so sad. It was as if she wasn’t really there. I looked from her to the house, and that was when I had my next shock. Behind her, the house showed all its old splendour yet, like her, it seemed to be unreal. Superimposed on the image was another one, a ruined building, collapsing and overgrown for many years, and this one seemed more solid. It was as though we were out of sync in time. She had returned to a time between the wars, and I was trapped in the present.

The therapist suggested that I should write to her, perhaps actually write the letter, then imagine leaving it in a place where she would be sure to find it, and come back to see him the following week. It seemed a crazy notion to me, but what was there to lose? I duly composed a note, and in my mind took it down to the lake. I pinned it to a tree, left and waited.

I returned the following week and we began the session. He took me to the lake and the letter was gone. Then without warning, she was back. I was whole again.

There has only been one further session, and that almost blew my mind. It was like nothing I had experienced before. He asked me if he could talk directly to Penny. I said “Yes”, although I didn’t expect any success. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
He asked her why she had chosen me, and she laughed. “He still doesn’t know”. I couldn’t believe it, she was talking about me, but using me to communicate to him. I had no control over the conversation. I could only listen and learn. From her words, it was clear that she didn’t want to tell him, saying that I should know, that I couldn’t be so stupid as to not realise why she was there. She was crying and her tears were running down my cheeks. It seemed so important to her that I discovered the truth for myself, yet I still had no idea. Then she finally broke, and told us.
“You were so close to the truth without ever realising. Martin was right in suspecting that I had to find a place which was the right ‘shape’, but he never realised why he was that person. He is not me reborn... He is Peter... That’s why I’m here.”

Could this be true? Was that why she was so reluctant to leave? Am I really carrying the lives of two people? Was her love so deep that she wouldn’t even let death separate her from Peter? And yet, this doesn’t allow all the pieces to fit into place. There are still great holes in my jigsaw. Why have I never regressed to Peter’s life? Or is the whole story a load of rubbish?

I have gained a great deal of knowledge about Penny over these sessions. I’m sure I know where she lived and where she went to school, yet I am frightened to follow up these clues. What if they don’t check out? I would be devastated if I discovered that I had made it all up. My life has changed so much since these sessions, and all those changes have been for the better. The whole story has so intrigued me that I took a course to learn Hypnotherapy techniques and am now a practising therapist myself. My wife, especially, has noticed improvements in me, and I have been told so often, how well I look or how much better I look, that I am starting to believe it. Would all this be destroyed if I couldn’t confirm my story? Would I be back to square one?

For now I must be content to feel and enjoy Penny’s presence, to allow my feminine side (or is it hers?) to show itself whenever I can.

Who knows, one day I might pluck up the courage to check out the facts of the story. There may yet be another chapter.

As a footnote I feel I should add the following comments:

1. Before these events, I did not believe in reincarnation. I’m still not convinced, but I do believe that when a life is ended violently or traumatically there must be a high energy level within that person which can’t just disappear.
2. As the memories of a session start to fade, I begin to wonder if what I have witnessed was actually created in my own mind. However, while experiencing them, I know that they are real.
3. I have established a number of names, places and dates from these sessions, which have not yet been either proved or disproved.
4. We have repeated the experiment in front of a number of other observers, and I have been regressed by another hypnotherapist who has a strong interest in this field. When taken back before my birth I always go back to Penny’s life. An attempt to go back prior to Penny birth in 1902, has found nothing.
5. These sessions took place over 2 years ago, and my belief in the importance of whether they were real or imagined has now altered, but at the time I should stress that this was very important to me.
6. After a few sessions my therapist suggested that my food problem may not be psychological, and that it might be a good idea for me to see a kinesiologist. It has since been discovered that I have very low tolerances or allergies to virtually all foods on my ‘no go’ list. Raising tolerances and the temporary removal of wheat from my diet ‘cured’ my arthritis in a matter of weeks. Something that many months of specialist treatment and various drugs had failed miserably to do. After three years it has not reappeared.
7. Maybe the real reason why I went to see the therapist was actually unconnected with food? All I know is that these sessions have altered the way I see myself and changed forever my world-view.
 
 

Postscript (added November 1999)

There is, of course, another possible explanation for these 'visits', and it is one which begins to make more and more sense to me, but before I explain that to you, I need to give a brief explanation of 'who' I am. When I was four years old, I realised that I was 'different' to other boys. As time progressed I continued to fight the feelings that were welling up inside of me. In my late 20's I asked for help from my GP, and the help that was given was to try to cure me of the transgendered needs that filled my mind. Of course they failed, there is no cure for Gender Dysphoria. Not long after this I met my second wife, my first marriage had been a disaster, and she gave me the strength to continue the fight for another 20 years, but in 1998 I finally admitted to myself that I was transsexual. Linda had known that I was transgendered from the start of our relationship but neither of us realised the full severity of the condition from which I suffered. One year on I am well on my way to becoming the person I should always have been. Linda and I are still together and have become even closer as we have struggled through the most difficult 12 months of our lives.

So what's this other possible explanation? Were these sessions merely an attempt by my unconscious mind to help me accept the truth?
 

© Emma Michelle Martin and Elevated Therapy 1997/1999 (All Rights Reserved)
emma@cwcom.net

I would personally like to thank Emma and indeed Linda for sharing this at Elevated Therapy.
Blessings to you both.
Michael