Communion: A True Story (25 page)

She was then brought out of the trance, after making a continent under hypnosis that she thought her memories had been "taken out," an assertion chat the hypnotist assured her would not be true in the future.

Subsequent to this hypnosis Anne felt disturbed that her memory seemed to blank at crucial moments. After hypnosis she did not recall her comment about seeing the light behind her eyelids. When questioned about this, she said she was very unsure about it. Maybe the light she was referring to was simply that in Dr. Naiman's office. She decided to attempt hypnosis again, and a week later was hypnotized by Dr. Naiman, who still had not been informed of the results of my sessions.

Before this hypnosis, Anne was talkative and her memory was excellent. During hypnosis it was found that she was still incapable of remembering much about the crucial nights, except that she had a powerful image that the screaming she had heard was me, not our son.

She also saw my face as I screamed, and was terrified by the idea that something could frighten me that much. The elusive female presence that is referred to in the first session acquires a more specific existence this time.

Unfortunately, during discussions about her first session I inadvertently let slip that I thought I had been screaming on the night of October 4. Even though her memory may thus have been tainted, her recollection of this is so vivid in the transcript that it may also be that it really happened.

As most of the session was taken up in a futile effort to dislodge memories that either are not present or cannot emerge, I will transcribe only the relevant part of the material. Prior to hypnosis Anne and Dr. Naiman spoke about her reasons for returning.

"I couldn't remember very many things experientially like you were there. I only remembered one or two things in the whole hour and a half as an experience, the way you think of a real memory . . ."

"Just addressing myself to the tape that is rolling, this is the twenty-first of March, .1 86, and Anne is here answering . my questions on her reflections about her last visit here, which was a week ago today, and that's what she's been talking about. How about the hypnosis, do you have any feeling about that?"

"Well, I found two things. One is, I don't know how very deep I was into it because I did find it very hard to bring up pictures in my mind. But that's I suppose for other people to determine, or myself to determine with more experience. Number two, the wonderful thing about hypnosis, the reason that it gives you a good feeling, is that the barrier that is always there when you are talking to other people — even about very mundane things about which you have no secrets — is lifted, and you feel that you're being very honest, not in a way that someone's going to make you say something you don't want to say, didn't get that feeling —but you feel a sense of freedom, that you can really be honest. It's very refreshing because you feel that you just have to think about what you want to answer, not how the other person is going to perceive it."

"How come you're back in here today?"

"I think because this is my, project as well as Whitley's, and I don't think-I think we have to try once more before I get let in on things . . . and it was kind of odd, I thought, because the things I did remember were not to me very clear memories at all, and I almost feel that they seized upon them. If I have a faint thought that it looks a little light behind my eyelids, but I don't know if it's because this is a white room or because I'm remembering it was light then . .

. it was so vague .... I feel kind of bad when people try and be very fair ... I just don't think.. ."

"One of your last comments was, 'Now I can go home and hear Whitley's tapes.'"

"But I decided not to. I went home and talked to Whitley about it and at that point we decided not to."

"I see. And at that point you had nut vet decided to came back here today."

"Well, I figured if I didn't listen to them I would come back, but I said to Whitley, 'What do you think? I think perhaps I ought to do this again before I listen to the tapes,' and Whitley said yeah. "

"But you initiated this?"

"Oh, yes. I'm here voluntarily. If I had said, 'No. I'm through with this,' I wouldn't be here."

"How do you feel about this?"

"It's interesting."

Budd Hopkins: "A basic ground rule today: Don't worry about saying anything you think Whitley or I may want you to say."

"Or I may want me to say."

"Don't worry about it. Don't try to decide if it fits or doesn't fit."

"I'm not worried about that. What I'm worried about is more unconscious motivations.

Consciously I'm not going to do that."

Budd Hopkins: "Try not to censor, not to judge, is what I mean."

Dr. Naiman: "Not only will we not hold you responsible for your unconscious motivations, we welcome them. Just let your unconscious run free. There's nothing wrong with that. We want those associations. You look kind of puzzled."

"You mean if unconsciously inside I say, 'Darn it, everybody else saw light, I really want to see light —'"

"That's not so unconscious! That's very conscious! That's what was operating last week."

"That's like if there was an auto accident and everybody else got the number of the car and you didn't. You feel like a jerk."

(She was then put into a trance. For a time she reflected on a dream of a big, beautiful Victorian house on a grassy hill. It soon became evident that this was no symbol for a flying disk but rather for our family life.

"OK, are we ready to leave that dream now, of that white Victorian house?"

"Yes "

"OK. if it's agreeable to you while you're to this trance. I'm going to change places with Budd and he'll take over questioning.

"Yes."

(All questions that follow were asked by Budd Hopkins. There were further questions about the "little white thing," which elicited the opinion that she did not remember it from her childhood after all.

Hopkins, moving to the night when the white thing had appeared in our apartment, tried to get her to describe any feelings she might have had about it.)

"I thought it was very odd that it had revealed itself, because if it had just poked Whitley it would have been just one of those odd things that Whitley says, and I'd say. 'Well, it was just an experience he had.' But since it poked me and our son, it kind of gave him away, and I thought it was odd of him to do that. With poking all of us . . . he revealed himself. Even appearing on the fire escape to the sitter, we wouldn't have tied that in. We'd have thought she'd gone crazy. Or that it was a prowler, and we would have been worried. Even that wouldn't have done it. Even if our son had seen it too. I wouldn't have believed it. I would have thought he'd just been influenced. Except that he was poked .... If he hadn't been poked, if he'd just said he saw something like Casper the Friendly Ghost, which is what he said, well; you'd just think it was a dream. Even if child and father had the same dream — well, sometimes they have a kind of ESP together, and they always have had. So even that's interesting, but it's not something you can go much further with. It really interested me that it would give itself away like it did "

"Take a few minutes and think through a dialogue, an imaginary dialogue — questions you might ask, answers you might get. What Whitley or your son might am . , . "

"I can't imagine talking to it. It doesn't seem like something that would talk. I mean, I can't — it just doesn't seem like something that would talk. They aren't capable of talking. I dust can't imagine that. l dust wouldn't even think of asking it anything. I don't get the feeling it wants to talk, and I don't get the feeling that it can talk, or that if it could it would necessarily want to communicate. I don't think it does."

"Just one last question about it, since we know he came there, and was seen several times.... Do you ever have any feelings that he was there any other time, any inkling, any sense of another time you felt he was there?"

"No. I know Whitley does because he sees things out of the corner of his eye. That's why I think n made a mistake poking me. Because that gave it a kind of reality testing. Then appearing to the babysitter gave it further reality testing. It's almost like he was making a mistake there, wasn't thinking through his plans well enough."

What do you think his plans were?"

"Well, that I don't know. Seemed impish to me, to poke people and run."

"So, we'll move on to something else. I want to go to the October fourth night again. And this is a strange night, and you've had glimmerings of things and half-memories. Describe hearing your son crying. I want you to take a few minutes and hear that sound, as if you were in bed that night, hearing the sounds, listen for the sounds . . . any words, what kind of voice..."

"I don't know if he said 'Mommy, Mommy' or 'Daddy, Daddy.' It seems like he screamed.

It seems like he called me, but everybody says he called Whitley. Screaming, though. [Long pause. Becomes visibly tense. Gasps.] Well, I don't want to say it because I feel it's been influenced and I don't want to say it."

"Don't worry. Say what you feel."

"Well, I know Whitley told me it was him screaming. He told me that. Now, when I take that thought into my mind. and then I think about the screams. I can hear Whitley screaming.

It's very hard, because Whitley's not the one who's supposed to scream. He's supposed to protect us. But I can hear him screaming. I can see his face, very frightened. Terrified. His eyes widen and get very white. Just so frightened. I don't know — is that real or not? Because maybe my imagination is doing that."

"Don't worry about that."

"If he was screaming it would be so unusual. He's always so calm. But he does get frightened. He gets very frightened sometimes."

"The way you describe his voice, his face —"

"Oh! I can picture it! I'm trying to remember when I would have seen it. I just hear the voice of a woman . . . he's so frightened . . . and I think at the same time he would have been a bit ashamed of himself. because whatever he saw, he would have been frightened for us, not just for himself. But he was so frightened that he had to feel mostly frightened for himself."

"Did he seem very far away from you when he screamed?"

"No. because I can see his face. No, not far away

"Was he in the room?"

"That I don't know at all. I don't picture any room."

"Can you remember another time he screamed like that?"

"Well, I'm trying to picture if there ever was a time. There've been some times when he's seemed frightened, but I don't think there's ever been a time when he screamed. You know, it's frightening to see a man scream, because men don't scream. Maybe they should or could, but they don't. So it's an experience you don't have. You never feel a man scream. I think most men don't even know if they could scream."

"Why is he screaming?"

"[Whispers.] I don't know. [Long silence.] It's fading away now. I was trying to think about that time, what I remember about it."

"You said you heard a woman's voice? Annie?"

"Mumbling in a soothing way

"Mumbling?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember words?"

"I don't remember them. Maybe it was the tone of voice that made them sound soothing.

Saying like, 'That's OK, don't be afraid.'"

"Did it sound like Annie's voice?"

"It was deeper. She has kind of a highish voice. [Long pause.] I get the feeling of ignorance being a kind of protection for me."

"Tell us what you're feeling now. Anne."

"I feel like I don't want to say anything. I don't know why that is. Usually I say a lot of things. [Long pause.]"

"I want you to say what you feel. Can I ask you another question?"

"Yes. If you ask a question, I might actually talk."

'In all of this, can you tell how Anne relates to all this?"

"I know my role, and it's rather a tiresome role, but — born with a certain personality.

you can't fight it. I'm the one who's not informed, except through Whitley. I'm the one who responds emotionally. I know if it feels right. Whitley doesn't have any talent for that at all.

Sometimes he can't feel the most obvious things."

"Do you feel your roles have been chosen? Did you choose these roles?"

"I feel they're inevitable roles."

"Because of the person you are?"

"Yes. I also feel that they're roles not only because of who you are but who you're with, and therefore you plan certain parts. according to who you're dealing with."

"I want you to take a few minutes and think over all of this, your role, your son's, Whitley's, the little white thing, Whitley's screaming . . . mull over these images and think, what is central, what is marginal, what does it mean?"

"A feeling that Whitley was vulnerable. That's a rather frightening feeling. I would rather not know about these things that make Whitley vulnerable."

"Anything else, Anne?"

"No."

She was then brought out of the trance.

"Whitley's supposed to go. They came for Whitley."

I listened to the recording of Anne's first hypnosis on March 17, 1986, the Monday after the "confirming" encounter in the country. I hadn't listened to it on the previous Friday because she told me she hadn't remembered anything much. And indeed, on careful questioning, that was her perception.

I asked her, "What do you mean, 'Whitley's supposed to go'?"

"Well, that's what I said."

"Do you see me go?"

"No. But I hear it. There's a lot of noise sometimes. I keep my eyes closed."

"But don't you worry?"

"No. You're always there in the morning."

Fortunately, by the time I did listen to the tape I had become so used to being shocked that I did not really react too badly. I didn't end up stalking the streets or sitting in my office staring into space.

But her testimony had a powerful effect on me. It was by no means a "typical abduction scenario" that could have been drawn from subconscious memories of things she had read in the paper over the years. It was unlike other testimony — and thus was almost certainly taken not from her cultural background but from her actual memories and perceptions.