Yet just as I've done several times this summer, on this weekend, I've been doing a lot of hypnotic regression work on location with other state MUFON chapters. Mostly, it's been for MUFON field investigation organizations with on-going close encounter cases and no available hypnotherapist. Now, it's once again time to return home to Explore with Hypnosis, resume building my hypnotherapy practice and begin once again helping people quit smoking, lose weight and build their own confidence.
Yet even among my own efforts at normalcy, it appears that the UFO phenomenon has been pretty busy, and as a result, so am I. But what am I actually finding? What are experiencers telling me? Is there a single coherent message? A single set of events that repeats over and over? Actually, no. Instead, I'm seeing a lot of different types of things happening in the abduction experience - a wide variety of variations on a theme.
At the MUFON conference a few weeks ago, a lecture by one famous abduction researcher (I won't mention his name) talked about how the phenomenon appears to have a very definite agenda, one quite unhealthy for humanity and it's sovereignty over Earth. UFO abduction seems to follow a defined process and gives rise to some well-documented events. According to this hypnotist's findings, everything seems very consistent from one abductee to the next. In subsequent discussions with him I pointed out that in my hypnosis work with experiencers, I don't get the same consistency he does. In response he told me that (roughly paraphrased) I must not be looking hard enough.
Could this be the case? Could there be a consistency that somehow the aliens are concealing? Or is there another explanation? To push much harder, would I be peeling layers off the onion, or adding new layers?
One of the foremost tenets of the hypnotherapy school, through which I trained and certified, has been the absolute necessity of clean, non-leading regression. Especially when trying to understand events as the experiencer lived them, it is vital that we avoid any suggestion that might artificialy influence the clients biographical memory. Thus, when doing hypnotic regression for close encounter work, I try to limit my questions to generic ones such as "please continue", "what's happening?", "what else do you notice?" and similar. Perhaps as a result of accepting whatever arises, I find the client's biographical memory (memory of physical events as the client lived them) tend to be quite varied.
One's memory is a mixture of physical perceptions, conscious interpretations, subconscious metaphors, etc. Each person's story, as told by their subconscious during hypnosis is exactly that - their story. Perceptions are seldom the same. Yet in cases such as multiple participant UFO sightings and close encounters, details and different people's narratives do sometimes corroborate each other. Thus we can surmise that at least some of the time, we are getting objective recall of events as the experiencer lived them.
So, what does it tell me when different experiencers describe very widely varying types of close encounters? Does it mean that the actual encounters themselves are different? Or as the speaker at the MUFON conference stated, does it mean that the experiencers, themselves are changing the narrative?
One way of eliciting detail in hypnotic regression is to have the client repeatedly pass through the event during hypnotic regression. If the narrative is of a biographical memory, the account should be identical from one pass to the next, yet with increasing detail. (as Mark Twain said, 'Tell the truth, you have to remember so much less.'). In many a close encounter regression, I have done just that. I have had the client repeatedly pass through the narrative. In some cases, the narrative does not remain stable, suggesting that this is a metaphor, a dream or some type of creative material. In other cases, the narrative develops just exactly as described above - stable with increasing detail.
In one case, which I describe in The Cosmic Bridge, an experiencer described having childhood memories of playing with elves in her back yard. I figured that once in trance, this would probably resolve into an encounter with aliens, probably the classic small grays. However, when we began regression and she described once again how she played with elves - and the were elves. We examined this event in several different ways, recounting it forward and backward. And the elves remained elves. Finally, I had pushed it enough. I had examined the narrative from every angle I could think of and to do anything more would potentially result in leading the experiencer into describing something that she hadn't actually experienced. And so, as far as I'm concerned, this little girl played with elves in her back yard.
Do I really believe that this little girl played with elves? Her narrative was consistent and bore all the hallmarks of a biographical (i.e. true) memory - but of elves? Ultimately, we just have to take this as being one of those strange mysteries the universe throws at us, and put this in the file drawer next to all the other mysteries. I can only accept that for this woman, her story is true - it is her story and she's sticking to it...
In many other cases, I have found the narrative deviates from the classic small-gray abduction scenario, what I refer to as the "Standard Model" of alien abduction. In several regressions I performed this weekend, the beings experiencers described were quite different from the classic small grays. Their mannerisms and description differed. The abduction scenario was very different from one experiencer to the next. Even the descriptions of the beings themselves were different. While there is a core commonality to the experience, I tend to find wide variations on that theme.
According to the presenter I talked with, this meant I wasn't pushing enough, yet I was as persistent as I dared to be. Anything more than that would require me to lead the witness beyond the data inherent in their actual experiences. So what does imply for the claims that the alien abduction narrative seems to be standard across the entire world population? To me it raises questions, and I will let the reader conclude exactly what those questions should be (without leading them to the answer).
In summary, while there does seem to be a core consistency to the alien abduction narrative, there are also a lot of difference - Alien variations on a theme. Who is right, the clean regression school or those hypnotists who consistently produce the same narriative each time.
What do you conclde?
Yet even among my own efforts at normalcy, it appears that the UFO phenomenon has been pretty busy, and as a result, so am I. But what am I actually finding? What are experiencers telling me? Is there a single coherent message? A single set of events that repeats over and over? Actually, no. Instead, I'm seeing a lot of different types of things happening in the abduction experience - a wide variety of variations on a theme.
At the MUFON conference a few weeks ago, a lecture by one famous abduction researcher (I won't mention his name) talked about how the phenomenon appears to have a very definite agenda, one quite unhealthy for humanity and it's sovereignty over Earth. UFO abduction seems to follow a defined process and gives rise to some well-documented events. According to this hypnotist's findings, everything seems very consistent from one abductee to the next. In subsequent discussions with him I pointed out that in my hypnosis work with experiencers, I don't get the same consistency he does. In response he told me that (roughly paraphrased) I must not be looking hard enough.
Could this be the case? Could there be a consistency that somehow the aliens are concealing? Or is there another explanation? To push much harder, would I be peeling layers off the onion, or adding new layers?
One of the foremost tenets of the hypnotherapy school, through which I trained and certified, has been the absolute necessity of clean, non-leading regression. Especially when trying to understand events as the experiencer lived them, it is vital that we avoid any suggestion that might artificialy influence the clients biographical memory. Thus, when doing hypnotic regression for close encounter work, I try to limit my questions to generic ones such as "please continue", "what's happening?", "what else do you notice?" and similar. Perhaps as a result of accepting whatever arises, I find the client's biographical memory (memory of physical events as the client lived them) tend to be quite varied.
One's memory is a mixture of physical perceptions, conscious interpretations, subconscious metaphors, etc. Each person's story, as told by their subconscious during hypnosis is exactly that - their story. Perceptions are seldom the same. Yet in cases such as multiple participant UFO sightings and close encounters, details and different people's narratives do sometimes corroborate each other. Thus we can surmise that at least some of the time, we are getting objective recall of events as the experiencer lived them.
So, what does it tell me when different experiencers describe very widely varying types of close encounters? Does it mean that the actual encounters themselves are different? Or as the speaker at the MUFON conference stated, does it mean that the experiencers, themselves are changing the narrative?
One way of eliciting detail in hypnotic regression is to have the client repeatedly pass through the event during hypnotic regression. If the narrative is of a biographical memory, the account should be identical from one pass to the next, yet with increasing detail. (as Mark Twain said, 'Tell the truth, you have to remember so much less.'). In many a close encounter regression, I have done just that. I have had the client repeatedly pass through the narrative. In some cases, the narrative does not remain stable, suggesting that this is a metaphor, a dream or some type of creative material. In other cases, the narrative develops just exactly as described above - stable with increasing detail.
In one case, which I describe in The Cosmic Bridge, an experiencer described having childhood memories of playing with elves in her back yard. I figured that once in trance, this would probably resolve into an encounter with aliens, probably the classic small grays. However, when we began regression and she described once again how she played with elves - and the were elves. We examined this event in several different ways, recounting it forward and backward. And the elves remained elves. Finally, I had pushed it enough. I had examined the narrative from every angle I could think of and to do anything more would potentially result in leading the experiencer into describing something that she hadn't actually experienced. And so, as far as I'm concerned, this little girl played with elves in her back yard.
Do I really believe that this little girl played with elves? Her narrative was consistent and bore all the hallmarks of a biographical (i.e. true) memory - but of elves? Ultimately, we just have to take this as being one of those strange mysteries the universe throws at us, and put this in the file drawer next to all the other mysteries. I can only accept that for this woman, her story is true - it is her story and she's sticking to it...
In many other cases, I have found the narrative deviates from the classic small-gray abduction scenario, what I refer to as the "Standard Model" of alien abduction. In several regressions I performed this weekend, the beings experiencers described were quite different from the classic small grays. Their mannerisms and description differed. The abduction scenario was very different from one experiencer to the next. Even the descriptions of the beings themselves were different. While there is a core commonality to the experience, I tend to find wide variations on that theme.
According to the presenter I talked with, this meant I wasn't pushing enough, yet I was as persistent as I dared to be. Anything more than that would require me to lead the witness beyond the data inherent in their actual experiences. So what does imply for the claims that the alien abduction narrative seems to be standard across the entire world population? To me it raises questions, and I will let the reader conclude exactly what those questions should be (without leading them to the answer).
In summary, while there does seem to be a core consistency to the alien abduction narrative, there are also a lot of difference - Alien variations on a theme. Who is right, the clean regression school or those hypnotists who consistently produce the same narriative each time.
What do you conclde?
