The CE4 Corner

The Cosmic Bridge, Close Encounters and Human Destiny

by Craig R. Lang, Certified Hypnotherapist

 

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Hypnotic Growth, Exploration and Healing for Mind, Body, Spirit and Beyond

Brooklyn Center, MN  763-257-7334  e-mail: craig@craigrlang.com

 

January/February, 2007: …Is it real?

©2006 by Craig R Lang, MS CHt

 

In the last article, we began with the question, "what is UFO Abduction?" We examined ideas about what UFOs and abductions may be. Some perspectives were skeptical, some blindly accepting, and others somewhere in between. Among them were theories about earthlights, false-memory and possible Jungian models of reality. But what is really going on? This mystery vaults to the forefront of my mind every time I meet another experiencer. It continues to tease our understanding of reality. What is the true nature of the encounter experience?

 

On occasion, following a regression, an experiencer will tell me that the material he/she has described to me feels "made up." In particular, one person, while in deep trance, described a classic abduction scenario in which she awoke in her bed to see a being standing over her. The being took her up and out of her house in a manner common to abduction accounts. Her next memory was of being aboard a UFO, seeing classic small-gray aliens, etc... In short, it was a description of a classic abduction. 

 

This particular abductee had read the book Communion, by Whitley Strieber. However, she insisted that since then, she had not read any further material on UFO abduction. In fact, she said that the thought of reading such material gave her the creeps. Thus, to my understanding, she had not been exposed to the more recent ideas of David Jacobs, Budd Hopkins, etc.

 

Many UFO abduction researchers maintain a list of "secret details," often found in abduction accounts but not publicly known. Researchers can often compare these details against abduction accounts. As a result, we note common themes, details not available to the experiencer except by extraordinary means. In this case, the experiencer described a number of these details during her narration - describing the interior of the UFO, activities of the aliens, etc. Yet, following the regression, she told me that she felt as if she had made the whole thing up...

 

Following the regression, as I have at other times, I asked myself, is this stuff real? It is commonly accepted among psychologists and hypnotherapists that memory is a very plastic medium. Ernst L. Rossi, in is book, The Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing, states, "every access is a reframe," meaning that anytime memory is accessed, it is potentially altered. It is as if a file on your PC were being repeatedly accessed by a word processing program and then re-saved, altered to some unknown degree. In summary, the human mind is not a tape recorder.

 

Yet I am often reminded just how effective hypnotic regression can be at reliving memories when during trance sessions, a person experiences material in vivid reality. I have both experienced this myself, and have seen experiencers undergo it as well. In many cases, the recall can be vivid and detailed, as in at least one case in which a hypnosis client sketched lettering he was viewing through a mirror, automatically drawing it backwards with photographic clarity. Thus, I am convinced that in deep trance, accurate retrieval is possible. Yet I often hear the question, what is being retrieved?

 

The close encounter phenomenon is a combination of many mysteries, a riddle wrapped within a mystery wrapped within an enigma. On multiple occasions, experiencers have described reality paradoxes, which Jenny Randles referred to as the "Oz Factor." [Note: See my article, Reality Anomalies in CE4 Cases, on my website at: http://home.comcast.net/~lang.craig/reality.htm.] This suggests to me that there is a plastic nature to reality. The CE4 phenomenon seems to expose this aspect of reality - something presently beyond our understanding.

 

In my "Reality Anomalies" article, I stated that, "In some of the most intriguing CE4 cases both psychological (dream-like) aspects, and verifiable physical events both exist." To me, this suggests that there is an overlay of the physical and psychological (or parapsychological), as if dreams and the waking world were present at the same time. Typical of these is the northwestern Wisconsin experiencer case [http://www.mnmufon.org/abdinv.htm#ecwi1], in which an encounter, which seemed dreamlike, also left a burned spot on the experiencer's lawn [See the Nov 96 "Pulled out of Bed AN4/CE4: http://www.mnmufon.org/abdinv.htm#1096]. Clearly something physical happened, yet at the same much of the encounter seemed metaphysical in nature.

 

In the last edition of The CE4 Corner, we briefly alluded to a Jungian view of UFO encounters, in which the phenomenon had a meta-reality. Carl Jung referred to such phenomena as being "psychoid" in nature. It is a meta-reality, manifesting in our world, yet somehow spiritual or dreamlike. This superposition of realities suggests a model for many other paranormal phenomena such as Bigfoot, Mothman and other cryptanimals, crop circles, religious apparitions, etc. Ultimately, perhaps, such mystery manifestations come into our world through the collective human consciousness, from archetypal realms - perhaps what Jung referred to as the collective unconscious. Others refer to as them as the superconscious, the Akashic records, or simply nonlocal consciousness. I have often wondered if some encounter memories come from such nonlocal sources.

 

If this is the case, then can one "remember" other peoples' experiences? Could some "memories" be coming from the collective unconscious?  Could some even have a purely creative source? Thus, the question remains, what is the experiencer recalling? To this question, I do not know the answer.

 

It is not possible to tell absolutely whether a memory is purely biographical in nature. Yet it is often helpful to use "reality checks" to determine whether or not remembered material is accurate. Various tests, such as the "dream test" (does a memory have specific characteristics of a dream?) can help to discern the difference. In addition, we must always use clean, careful, non-leading regression techniques. We can also employ "false leads" in which the therapist suggests a mundane but presumably false event - which the experiencer nearly always rejects. We can also (as mentioned above) check for "secret details." All of these can help to clarify the accuracy of events described in hypnotic regression.

 

Yet the most important reality check is possible corroboration by other witnesses, physical evidence, etc. - externally verifiable details that are as valuable as they are rare... Once the flow of events carries the experiencer into the extraordinary realm, we have little way to objectively verify his/her account. However, in many cases, we can verify aspects of the entry and return scenarios of the encounter - where the UFO landed, etc. Thus, we can establish a logical foundation of the experiencer's account - a solid bridge between the human and extraordinary realms.

 

First and foremost, we must remember that hypnosis is a healing tool. It allows access to the subconscious and offers a powerful way to come to terms with the extraordinary events occurring during the UFO encounter. Yet we have seen that in many ways, literal accuracy of an account related during hypnotic regression may be open to question. Hypnosis is indeed, a valuable tool in close encounter research as long as we understand its limits.

 

So, did any given event, related during hypnotic regression, actually occur? Yes - to the experiencer the abduction event is absolutely real. Is it physical? Possibly - and verification, including in-depth field investigation, can help us to better discern the objective details. In the mean time, the UFO encounter remains at the cutting edge of our knowledge, testing our understanding of the human mind, of the alien presence and motives, and ultimately, of reality itself.