But I Digress

I was inspired to post this after reading a post on Jessica-Who.com

This past April, my wife wanted us to go to a "past life regression" hypnosis group thing. Do I believe in past lives? I'm open on the question. I've done this twice before, once unsuccessfully, once with interesting results (two female "past lives", one where I picked up the name Meg).

There was a (male) hypnotist, and ten subjects ~ not surprisingly for an event like this, there were nine women and me. One was my wife, one was her friend who we've known for about fifteen years; the rest were strangers.

The session was fairly typical for this sort of thing (as I understand it). You walk down a flight of stairs; as you walk down you go deeper into sleep. At the bottom is a door (maybe more than one); go through the door and into a "past life". From there, you're instructed to look at your feet and legs; this usually lets you determine your sex. See what you can of your clothes, look around, see other people, etc etc etc.

I went through the door and I was wearing tan moccasins. I was also wearing tan buckskin-kind-of pants. All of my clothes was the same soft hide material; my shirt was open. I had straight black hair and no chest hair. I remember seeing some turquoise jewelry. But I didn't FEEL native American. I looked for fringes (my idea of N-A dress) and didn't see any. I think I was wearing a belt; not exactly N-A. I was standing on a grassy plain, but the grass was manicured, not growing wild. I had no sense of a name or anything else. I was disappointed that I wasn't female. I noticed that my hands, however, were VERY feminine. I thought that odd, and tried to change them to match the way I looked. That didn't happen.

Scene change requests by the hypnotist just passed me by ~ I stayed on the field, still unsure of who or what I was.

After the session, each person writes as much as she remembers, in great detail. The hypnotist then does a debrief: each person tells what they experienced and the hypnotist asks questions and helps find important details and flesh out your experience. This is where he shined!

Last time we did a debrief, I declined; I'm normally quite shy. I thought I'd go outside my comfort zone and take advantage this time. I went third. I told pretty much what I told here, but left out the hands (not deliberately; he started asking questions). I did mention that I wasn't sure if this was authentic, a costume, or a clothing affectation. He glommed onto the "costume" part.

"Do you often wear costumes?" he asked. "Not usually," I said. Now I'm thinking: as an adult, I've never been to a costume party, although Meg has. Well, I've done Halloween AS Meg. Actually, the whole dressing up is a costume, isn't it? Hmmmm.... It's not fair to mislead him; maybe he'll change the subject or drop it.

No such luck.

He really wanted that "not usually" comment qualified, and I wasn't ready to do that. He said "can I ask your wife a few questions?" I said "sure." What could I say?

He started asking her about my "costuming" and I kept thinking and then I interrupted. She'd have to dance around the issue instead of me. "I don't want you to put her on the spot. I crossdress. So yes, you could call that a costume."

I didn't hear gasps, giggles, or anyone passing out, so that's a good thing. I wish I was looking at the bulk of the room, to see reactions, but I wasn't.

He made a connection I did not: berdache. He knew the term, but was fuzzy on details. I hadn't thought of that for a long while, but I'm familiar with it. Hey, I do my research. :) I also remember a movie that had a berdache in it, but I couldn't remember the name. Later I did: Little Big Man.

He expounded on the connection between what I do, and the Indian, and made quite a bit of sense.

I also mentioned the hands at this point, and the fact that, as I was walking down the stairs, I was wearing heels.

When he was done, I got my friend's attention and called across the room "SURPRISE!"

Afterwards, I apologised to our friend for catching her off-guard, but she didn't seem to care one way or the other. We spoke more about her hypnotic experience than about the "other me".

The other women, I'll most likely never see again.

The woman who was there is part of a group of my wife's friends that meet at our house once a month or so. My wife often says "why don't you join us?" and I've said "maybe I will, as Meg, so I fit in."

Maybe I will.