False Memories

For as long as I can remember, every time I wondered about my family and the reasons why we were so hostile, I had the feeling that something significant had happened around the time I was four or five years old. It seemed to me that before that, we had normal interactions. In any event, I hardly have any memory of my childhood from that age on until I was well into my teens. This is actually the first subject I brought up when I first met with John. I thought it was odd that feeling I had. It felt like I had been sheltered from crucial information. No amount of therapy managed to get me to the breaking point. We tried, but every time my mind went completely blank or refocused its attention towards something apparently more manageable. It really frustrated me. I wanted answers and they were slow coming. That’s when I started doing research on hypnosis.

So, there I was, sitting in the hypnotist’s office. I was prepared to let him do his tricks on my mind, but only under certain conditions. I knew enough about the subconscious to know that false memories could easily be created if he was to start projecting preconceived opinion into the hypnotic regression. And if indeed he was wrong to start with, it could taint my entire recollection of things, making it difficult afterward for John and me, to differentiate between repressed memories and false memories. I had enough on my plate without creating my own tragedies from scratch.

Therefore I asked the hypnotist to regress me to the age of four, without suggesting a setting or a location. He was allowed to ask me details about the rooms, the time of day, whether there were people around me but nothing about their interactions. I was afraid he may start asking leading questions and that was a scary though. If I was witnessing something of importance, he would let me observe for a while; otherwise, he would suggest moving forward by a few months.

These were my conditions and he agreed. I did not feel comfortable discussing the most intimate part of myself with a complete stranger, especially when I did not know myself what could be found in the first place.