Episode Deep Dives

It was late July, the year was 2020, and the only constant in my life was change. I no longer had a job, and my relationship at the time abruptly ended. I packed everything I own into my car, and had nowhere to take it to. I drove to an empty parking lot, and cried. My phone buzzed at me -- it was a calendar reminder. I had told a good friend of mine months ago that I would call her to catch-up. Did I have an update for her! My stomach sank, I really didn’t feel like talking to anyone about my shit-hole of a situation. I decided to text my friend and tell her I couldn’t chat today. 

There was a -- pause -- right before I sent her the message. You may know the feeling. Everything slowed down, there was stillness in the air, and then I received a strong internal message, an insight, if you will. Call her. 

The message came through very clearly, and I acknowledged it as, I don’t know … my intuition, or something. I let out a big sigh, gave myself a mini-mental-pep-talk, and gave my friend a ring. She answered, her mood was uplifted and bubbly, “Hey! How are you!? It’s been forever!” 

I swallowed the frog in my throat, and we went back and forth for a few minutes. I asked her how her last term at school went, if she was taking summer classes, when she would be studying for boards, how the pandemic was treating her...blah, blah, blah. I decided I wouldn’t mention my situation. She had enough on her plate, and I really didn’t want to give her a reason to worry about me. 

She then mentioned that she had a roommate who went back to Washington for summer break to visit family, and wouldn’t be back until mid-September. My ears perked up. “Wait, you have an empty room at your house for another month and a half?”, I said. 

“Yeah, my roommate will be back the second week of September when the fall quarter starts.” she said. 

“I’ll take it!” I said…and then had to spill the beans about my mess of a life. 

A few days later, I drove up the coast from southern California to spend the last of the summer months in Oregon. This wasn’t my first trip to the Pacific Northwest. I’d made this drive almost exactly two years prior. Only, that time I drove to Oregon from Denver, Colorado. It was the first time I’d moved out of my hometown, but the umpteenth time I’d pack everything I own into my Subaru. I had just finished my undergrad, and been accepted to an alternative medical school in Portland. I had high hopes to become a Naturopathic Doctor, and plans to spend the next four years in deep, excruciating study. I made it six months before I withdrew from the university and moved to California. I digress, however. That’s a story for another time. 

When I arrived in Portland, my friend told me she had been seeing a therapist for a few months, and that she would be happy to pass along her contact info if I was interested. I welcomed this gesture, considering I had a great deal of problems I was currently dealing with, and besides, who wouldn’t benefit from a little therapy? There was a small consideration, however. The therapist she referred me to specialized in hypnotherapy, specifically in past-life regressions. 

I’ve known several people who have undergone this kind of hypnosis. I had been given the book Many Lives Many Masters a couple years prior and found it to be a fascinating read. I was open to trying something new, but also very skeptical. 

I decided to do a little research. I found the therapist's website, watched a few YouTube videos that explained her work and what to expect. She seemed personable, and experienced, so I scheduled an appointment with her about a week after I arrived in Oregon.

I spent my days leading up to hypnosis in quiet reflection. I would read in the mornings, hike around the local trails in the afternoons, and cook meals with my new roommates in the evenings. Before going to bed, I would write questions to bring to my session. The therapist recommended having at least twenty “well-thought-out” questions ready to go for the session. 

About three days after I settled into my new living space, a spider found its way into my bedroom. It was a garden spider, a male, I was certain. I love garden spiders and they are all over the city. The spider made it into my room through a door I’d left open to get some fresh air. He was spinning his new home in a corner of the bedroom, and seemed harmless, so I decided to let him stay. 

The European garden spider, also known as the orb weaver, is one of my favorite spiders. The females build gigantic webs, usually in the open space between two trees, and sit right in the middle of them, as if to be floating in mid air. The females have huge abdomens, beautifully decorated with geometric shapes and vibrant stripes. These spiders are all over the Pacific Northwest, and parts of California. If you’ve spent any time on the west coast, I am sure you’ve seen one. 

I woke the next morning to find that my new spider friend had moved from the original spot. At first I thought he disappeared, but he was readily building a new home in the adjacent corner of the room. It went on like this for several days. I’d wake up to find the spider in a new spot, go about my day, and by evening the spider would be perched in its new home. 

After three days, the spider found its way a little too close for comfort. I woke in the morning to find the spider in the corner right next to my bed. Ugh! We had been coexisting so well up to this point! Annoyed, and a bit disturbed, I tried my best to shake off the heebie-jeebies and went about my day. 

When I returned home that night, the spider was directly above my bed. This was a much worse situation than before. “Why spider, why would you choose this spot!?” I whined, literally, out loud. As creeped-out as I was, I couldn’t bring myself to take the web down. I let the spider stay, and eventually I fell asleep. 

In the morning, I was startled when I remembered the spider above me. I peeked at the ceiling, but the spider wasn’t there. I couldn’t find it anywhere. Damn! It probably crawled in my mouth! I thought to myself. I felt squeamish. But today was the big day, I had a hypnosis session to get too. I got dressed and made my way out the door. 

When I arrived at the session, I was greeted by a radiant woman, with large blue eyes. She locked her eyes on mine, and warmly welcomed me into a room full of crystals, fragrant oils, feathers and artwork. I set my coat and bag in the corner of the room, and she youthfully plopped on the floor, and folded herself into a pretzel, still locking her gaze on me. “What beautiful blues, and magentas, you have around you” she said, as she gazed past me. I sat down next to her and we introduced ourselves. She asked me to read her my list of questions and help her understand what I wanted to get clarity on from the session. 

She offered me a glass of spring water that her and her son had hiked to collect a few days prior. She gestured me to the bed, gave me a blend of essential oils to rub into the bottoms of my feet, and when I laid down, she placed a selenite rod in each of my hands. She explained that she would be recording the session, so that I could watch it later, and strongly recommended that I do. She slowly began to instruct me to relax my whole body, starting at my toes and moving up to my head, and I went into a state of deep relaxation. 

I remained coherent, and aware, as she took me through hypnosis. I never felt like I was “under”, or dreaming, or altered in any way, really. She would ask me questions about what I was seeing and experiencing, and I would answer her to my best, descriptive ability. An hour or so went by like this. She began the process of taking me deeper into relaxation. She repeated the series of relaxation cues, and began counting down my breaths from five to one: “Five...becoming even more calm...more relaxed …” her voice was soothing.

I felt a small tickle on the right side of my neck. I tried to ignore it, thinking it was an itch that would go away. The sensation became more intense, and I felt as if there was something crawling on me, a bug, or something. With my eyes closed, I took my hand out from underneath the sheet and swept it across my skin to catch whatever was crawling on me. To my surprise, my hand caught nothing. I set my hand down, my eyes still closed, my brow furrowed, and I must have looked confused because the therapist asked me if I was okay. At that moment, I felt it again! Little legs crawling on my neck.  

I opened my eyes, for the first, and only time during the session. The room, which was white when I walked in, had transformed to an ocean of turquoise-blue colors and swirls. The therapist was attentively watching me when I shifted my eyes from the room to her. I was slightly apprehensive to look at her face, she was literally glowing, her big blue eyes were secured to mine. “I think there is a spider on my neck,” I said, shakily. She could tell I was disturbed, and I’ll admit, a little frightened. I knew immediately by her response, that there was nothing there that she could see. “Ah, a spider,” she said. “Does the spider have a message for you?” 

A chill came over me, and suddenly I was covered in goosebumps. I closed my eyes, and tried to focus, and relax. She could tell I was still bothered by the sensation. She repeated the cues for relaxing my body. After a few minutes, I was calm, and the sensation was gone. “I want to know more about the spider,” she said. “What do you feel it was trying to tell you?” If my mind was a TV screen at that moment, it was unplugged, everything was black. I had no response for her. In a second, a message came to me, and I spoke it out loud, “I will build a home, it will be torn down, and I will rebuild again.” 

“Ah, yes,” she said. “I want you to remember the time when your home was taken from you.” She began to count down from five. I listened to her voice, and let my mind go blank. With her instruction I was immediately brought to a new place in my mind. I was outside, it was dark, and there were a few small cabin-like homes around me in a dense forest. The cabins were on fire. I was standing, a good distance away from the cabins burning, but could feel the warmth of the fire. I was describing this to the therapist when she asked me to look down at my hands, and feet. “Can you get a sense of what you look like, what clothes you have on?” she said. 

I was wearing, what seemed to be, a night-gown of some sort. It was a loose, white cover, hand stitched. My skin was dark, and my hair was long and black. I was barefoot, with only the long shirt-cover on. 

“Describe to me how you are feeling, seeing these cabins burn down,” she said. 

A sad, helpless feeling slowly found its way to my chest. I suddenly knew that there were several of us women living here, and that we had been snuck-up on in the middle of the night, our homes burned, and some of the women remained trapped inside. There seemed to be nothing I could do, and I knew I couldn’t stay there much longer. I had a feeling that it wasn’t safe, and I had to leave this place.

She gently guided me away from the — dream? Memory? Tears filled my eyes. A sense of peace finally came to me. We continued the hypnosis session a little while longer. When we ended, she gave me more water, instructed me to listen to the recorded session daily, gave me a warm hug, and sent me on my way. 

My hypnosis experience was not as profound and mysterious as I thought it would be. I resumed my normal daily activities and went about the next several days listening to the recorded session. Nothing noteworthy happened, and I didn’t have any more insights or spontaneous past life regressions. 

It wasn’t until eight days later that I would have an experience that dramatically changed my view of reality. 

I invite you to listen to the rest of the story in my episode on sleep paralysis, and read about my experience in the next episode deep dive. 

Resources

Many Lives, Many Masters - Dr. Brian Weiss