"I remembered vaguely before hypnosis that I knew someone there. But I just put that out of my mind because that's impossible. You can't — I mean, it's one thing to deal with something like that, and an entirely different thing to find out you know one of them already.

[Laughs.]"

Budd Hopkins: "What about this thing about the woman —"

"This is just so strange! Will you stop for a minute, Budd, I just can't stand this. I mean, it's just we're gonna have to talk about this another time because I just need to rest."

"Let's go up and relax."

"Yeah, I've just had enough."

THREE

Farewell, green fields and hazy groves,

Where flocks have ta'en delight;

Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves

The feet of angels bright;

Unseen they pour blessing,

And joy without ceasing,

On each bud and blossom.

And each sleeping bosom.

—WILLIAM BLAKE, "Night"

THE COLOR OF THE DARK

Insight Lost

When I left that last session, it was with a deep sense of concern. I felt that I was entering an unknown region of the mind, perhaps of experience. I was doubly worried now for my sanity.

First, I still felt that I might be the victim of some rare disorder. Second, I questioned my ability to live with the notion that my whole life might have proceeded according to a hidden agenda. Neither of these alternatives was acceptable — hardly endurable — and yet one of them had to be true.

I walked the streets of New York, not thinking, Just absorbing the comfort of ordinary life. I walked but my impulse was to run. I was trapped: If I did not accept that something real was hiding in the deep of my life, then I had to accept myself as a disturbed man. But I did not feel or act disturbed. I felt afraid, and all my irrational actions could be seen as a response to unacknowledged fear.

I was a responsible husband and father. There wasn't any sign of psychosis in my personality. Don Klein was an acknowledged expert and, even after this hypnosis session, he told me that he thought I was sane.

But how could anybody not be psychotic and yet have these spectacular delusions?

As I walked I considered the problem. What should I tell my wife? And how about my son? To what degree were they involved? Never in my life had I felt as I felt then: trapped in a mysterious cavern of a life that had once seemed so clear and understandable.

How could it be that this went back into my childhood? How could it be? And if that wasn't true, and my mind had chosen to do this to itself, then what was it doing, and why?