Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber

the damndest thing. I never remembered anything like that before."
    "Now in that situation, when you're sitting up, was your father there?"
    "No, I sat in front of this gray thing for a while, in a little chair. And then, all of a sudden I saw my sister down here, kind of [points down and to the right], lying there just totally out.
    And I was real surprised and scared, and I feel scared again. Then when I saw my father he was standing up and he looked totally bereft and terrified. Scared, so scared. And he put his head down and started doing this, and it just scared the hell out of me." (I made a convulsive mouth movement, imitating my father. It was as if he was trying to get something out of his throat.) "And then I heard him screaming, but real faint, you know. I could see him — he was no farther away than you are" (about four feet) "but I could hear him very faintly, dust screaming and screaming. The second I heard him it put just a — a — terrifying fear in me. I remember that, right sitting here, the way that felt, it just went right through me. It was worse than the last time, last week, only the difference is that when you started out you said to be calm, and it was breaking through that, and that's why I woke up. When Daddy was scared, I was just scared to death."
    "You said you took a trip."
    "Yeah, the trip happened. And not only did the trip happen, something did happen on the trip. Because, on that trip, on the way back I was as sick as a dog. Vomiting and vomiting, up bile. And my father was just having a hell of a time. God, he must have had a rotten trip, poor man."
    "You mean —"
    "He was having a hell of a time with me because I was so sick."
    "Your sister still alive?"
    "Yeah."
    "There was something — you were describing as if you'd seen it before."
    "You know what I saw before? The woman. The same person."
    "That occurs in hypnosis. We have these spontaneous age shifts. Frequently what will happen is that somebody will under hypnosis see something they've seen before, or something like it, and age shift will occur."
    "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