Case Studies

Hypnosis and regression work

by Gayla Reiter

Over 12 years ago, I met an earnest young man while doing readings at a psychic fair in Sacramento, a. He later explained he'd attended the fair on a lark with an old high school buddy he enjoyed, but who was always pretty "out there." He'd never explored metaphysics much and I had done a palm and card reading for him at the event. He said he was "blown away" by how accurate the information was from someone who had just met him. His wife was standing nearby and he said when she heard some of the things relayed about his father, she became frightened and had to leave—he described her as being a strict Catholic who reacted fearfully when someone could describe circumstances so precisely. He had kept my card and noted that I did hypnotherapy and past life regression.

Some weeks later, he contacted me asking to schedule a past life regression. When he arrived for the session, he nervously explained that he had been suffering extreme anxiety following an incident at his work. He had been working as an x-ray technician for the California prison system and often worked overtime as a guard. One weekend, he was doing cat scans at Lompoc federal penitentiary near Santa Barbara, when alarms started sounding. He rushed from his paperwork to the prison unit where there was a cell fire. The entire tier of the prison was filled with smoke and he worked very hard to get into the cell where the fire was located to put the fire out and to move the prisoner to another cell. A lockdown occurred due to the breach of security and he and other guards were locked in with the prisoners. He noticed that he was becoming very lightheaded from inhaling so much smoke and before he knew it, he had passed out. He was taken to the infirmary, given oxygen, seemed to recover and then resumed his paperwork.

As he was writing, he started feeling panicky, noticed his heart racing, felt lightheaded, so knocked on the door of the pharmacy. The Dr. noted his heart rate was 160 (about 70 to 80 is normal), hooked him up to a monitor in the Pharmacy area and observed sporadic racing of his heart followed by normal rhythms and then the return of extremely rapid heartbeats. The Dr. believed he was going into arterial fibrillation and had him transported by ambulance to the Emergency Room of a local hospital. This caused him to become more panicked and he started gasping for air. He was given beta blockers in the ER to slow his heart rate and was later discharged when his heart rate/blood pressure and other symptoms stabilized.

Following this initial "trauma", he indicated he was usually OK until he had to go into work and would generally be OK if he were busy, but when things started to slow down, he noticed the symptoms of racing heartbeat, difficulty breathing and panic returning. During the next two to three weeks, he made several trips to the emergency room and described feeling like he was going to die. He said he was constantly monitoring himself, taking his pulse, had difficulty sleeping at night; but had most difficulty at work when things were slow. The Dr. prescribed Zanax, which did not help.

He changed jobs leaving the prison industry, thinking if he took a job in a private clinic where there would be less danger and feeling of confinement, the intrusive panic would abate. It did not.

One day, while driving over the San Francisco Bay Bridge, he suffered a major panic attack....he described being so nauseated he could hardly drive. He said it felt like "fight or flight"....all of his muscles were twitching, he was dizzy, his heart was racing, he was sweating profusely and he did not know how he would be able to make it to the other side of the bridge. He noted that anytime he was alone or felt stranded or without access to help, the extreme panic would return. He was leery of the side effects of the medication the Dr. had given him for panic attacks, yet the intrusive fear was significantly interfering with all aspects of his life. He wasn't sure he believed in reincarnation, but during the earlier reading I'd done for him, I had suggested he read Brian Weiss's book, "Many Lives, Many Masters." The situations in Weiss's book were so close to his own experiences, he felt that a regression was worth a try. He feared he would not be able to be hypnotized as he felt he "had control issues."

Using an induction keyed to his breath, we began the journey into his past. His breathing slowed, he started to relax, but his armor was still up. We went through stages of physical relaxation....focusing upon relaxing the feet, ankles, calves, etc. and he sunk into a more deeply relaxed state. He described the inner debate that often occurs to our analytically trained psyches when entering a hypnogogic state....feeling we may "just be making it all up." I continued the process of suggestion and relaxation, taking him backward in time through a tunnel, suggesting he go to the time that would be most helpful to assisting him with his current issues of panic.....noting that a guide or teacher might well assist him in this process. He said he kept thinking: "am I dreaming this or making it all up?" I suggested he look for a guide and initially he did not "see anyone".....but when suggested to "pick someone", said his grandmother suddenly appeared and made him feel safe and relaxed. I was describing a fountain and used a rainstick to create a gentle sound....he said he actually felt rain on his head and felt the drops penetrating his body and "knew he was there."

He not only saw vivid images, other senses were activated as well..... he saw a forest, teepees, smelled the odor of smoke, and started to feel that familiar beginning of panic. He saw himself as a 14 year old Indian girl on a high cliff overlooking a shallow stream. He said he could see a very steep path leading up to the cliff where the young maiden was standing. He saw an older Indian male on a horse higher up on the mountain. He recognized his ex-wife in his current life as his mother in that lifetime and noted an intricate medicine shield with a white feather on her shoulder.

Suddenly the young girl was falling down from the cliff into the small river below and he said before he knew it, he was in the frigid water. He was terrified and could not move.....he wasn't sure if he had broken his neck in the fall and was paralyzed or just extremely cold, but knew that he could not move. He did not want to go on, but I encouraged him to look at this scene as an observer, knowing that he was safe and totally protected—to think of it as a movie that he could exit from at anytime. This gave him the impetus to continue, and he said he felt like he experienced himself actually drowning. He lost all sense of time and space, did not realize he was in a room being hypnotized, he was totally "there" experiencing his very frightening death. He saw an enormous white glacier at the end of the stream of water and remembered looking up through the water. He felt water filling up his lungs and the terror of not being able to breathe. Extreme fear and panic set in, he was shaking and beads of perspiration covered his forehead. I placed my hand on his shoulder reassuring him that he was safe, that his grandmother and guides were with him; that he was only an observer to this scene and could not be harmed. His breathing became less labored, he relaxed somewhat and began to see the face of the young woman he had been in that far away time. As he started rising above what was his body in that lifetime, he felt an increasing warmth and sense of reassurance....the higher he floated, the more comfort and warmth he felt until he experienced a tremendous sense of love and connection with all life. Tears streamed down his face and he glowed with the transcendence of this experience and sense of his soul's immortality.

The intense emotions that had remained submerged in his subconscious had been released, providing tremendous catharsis. From that day on, he did not suffer from another panic attack. He indicated that whenever he felt a hint of the old fear, he would utilize part of the induction used in his regression, where he focused upon his breath, visualized a white light coming from above and entering his crown chakra and then spreading out to envelope his entire body in a magnetic healing light. The glimpse he had of the afterlife instilled a deep sense of peace and desire to explore his spirituality. He began meditating daily, listened repeatedly to the tape I had made of his session, using the induction portion of the tape as he went to sleep at night to train himself to relax and to access additional information from his subconscious and super-conscious.

In the more than twelve years following our session, he has not had another panic attack. His almost daily visits to the Emergency room due to arterial fibrillation stopped the day of his regression and did not return. He was able to work efficiently even during "slow periods" at his job and did not suffer the intrusive panicky feelings that had previously been a daily occurrence. An added benefit was the complete disappearance of his severe hay fever. He explained that prior to the regression, each spring he would have violent hay fever attacks with his eyes watering profusely, constant sneezing, great difficulty breathing, but following the regression, the hay fever and all accompanying symptoms disappeared. Ironically, the young Indian girl had died in the springtime. Once the underlying trauma had surfaced to the conscious level, there was no longer a need for the physical body to mimic the symptoms to induce healing.

Hypnosis and regression work can provide access to our subconscious and allow unresolved issues (whether it be terror, pain, anger, fear, guilt, etc.) to come to the surface where it can be healed. If you have a deeply imbedded splinter in your hand, you can put salves on it, do Reiki and all manner of energy healing techniques which may temporarily assuage the pain, but until the splinter is removed, it will periodically continue to fester and bubble up with pain. Regression allows the splinter to drift to the surface where it can be released.....and the cathartic healing can occur. (http://www.gaylareiter.com/; email: gayla@mindspring.com; phone (707) 745-0105)