Communion

"Twelve."

"Where were you?"

"I was sittin' up in bed. And everybody else was asleep. There's a whole bunch of beds . . . [Sounds of distress. Long sigh, as if resigned.] 'I'm glad you let me be awake.' I'm sittin' on a chair . . . dust this gray thing in front of me. 'What is that?' It's got red spots on it. 'I'm tired. I feel sick.'

" 'Do you want to go home?'

"'I don't care if you never take me back home again.'

"'You have to go home.'

"'Who are all those people?'

"'They're all soldiers.'

" 'Why'd they end up in here?'

"'Because they were alone.'

"'What do you do to them?'

"'We look them over and send them home.'

"'What's the point of that?'

"'The point of that is — the point of that is — well.'

"'Why do you look so awful?'

"'I can't help that.'

"'When did. you find my sister?'

' 'She's just down the hall.'

"Patricia? E-p? E-p doesn't look good. E-p looks like she's deader'n a doornail.'

"'She's all right."'

(I then saw my father for the first time. He was standing u , apparently quite conscious.)

"'Daddy!' I'm scared now. They've- 'Daddy! Don't be so scared, Daddy! Dad, don't be so scared! Daddy. don't be so scared! Oh, Daddy! Daddy, don't be so scared! Come on, Daddy. Daddy, it's all right!'

"He says. Whitty, it's not all right! It's not all right!'

"'No, I know it's not all right.'

"'Oh God, what is it?' he asks.

"'I don't know what it is either, Daddy. How'd you get up here. Daddy?' [Gasps, stifled screaming. Slowly subsides. Long breaths. Silence. Emerges spontaneously from hypnosis.] We were on a train. Were we on a train? [Long pause.] I'm not hypnotized."

"Do you recall what went on?"

"Do I recall what went on?"

'The last part of your hypnosis.'

'The last part? We were on a train. I was scared to death. just scared to death. Something had happened to my father. Is that — is that true — is that what I? No. because it's not true. We weren't on a train."

Budd Hopkins: "You talked about your sister."

"Yeah, my sister was there with us."

"Edie?"

"E-p."

''Ebie?"

"No, E-p. Did I say E-p? That was her nickname '

"Do you call her that?"

"That was what we called her back when we were kids. How did I end up back in the — I'm a little confused, because, uh . . . I remember saying I'm twelve at some point, and then I remember seeing that thing again, the same thing that I saw when —"

Budd Hopkins: "What was the thing?"

"The thing is a — why, I keep saying it's a woman, you know. But it's a thing. But I saw her. On the train? What in the world is this all about, because I seem to remember seeing her on a train. On a train? But it's not — it's just not a train. I'm telling you that right now, Budd."

Budd Hopkins: "Your father was there?"

"Yeah. He was there. He was scared to death! And when he le scared I got scared. And my sister was there but she was out like a light. And there was a whole bunch of soldiers there too."

"Regular soldiers?"

"In uniforms."

Budd Hopkins: "And they were out, too?"

"And they had uniforms. They were all lying on —"

Budd Hopkins: "Unconscious?"

"Tables — no, they were beds, but they were solid — no legs. They were going out in both directions, sort of."

Budd Hopkins: "Many?"

"Lots of them. Yeah."

"You were allowed to sit up?"

"I was sitting up. I was happy and sitting up. Very excited. Then the next thing I knew I saw my father and I was terrified because he was so scared."

Budd Hopkins: "Was this the same scene or a different place?"

"No, this was the same lace. It was not quite. I was sitting in a chair and here was a gray thing in front of me like a gray box that came down — totally gray — I could see the edges of it and the bottom but not the top. Because I was restricted sort of in my movements. You know, I keep thinking that this was on a train. I'm still thinking that, but it can't be, can it? I'm talking about memories that didn't happen on a train obviously, am I not? Did I say it happened — you know, I'm beginning to — I'm very confused here! [Laughs.] I don't know what the hell's going on."

Budd Hopkins: "What made you say train?"

"I don't know."

Budd Hopkins: "Did you see —"

"No, no we were on a train. We really were on a train! We were on a train, and I'll tell you, the goddamndest thing happened when we were on the train. We ended up in this thing when we were on a train. The three of us were on a train. I'll tell you what we were doing, too. We were coming back from Madison, Wisconsin, on a train. In the year 1957. and that's when all this happened. I have no idea how I ended up there from being on a train."

Budd Hopkins: "Did you see like seats going back —"

"No, no, we were — you're kidding. My father didn't go on trains in seats. We were in a great big drawing room."

Budd Hopkins: "You were in a drawing room, OK."

"Yeah. Together in a room. And all of 'a sudden I'm not on a train, I'm sitting up in bed, and all these soldiers —"

"Did you have any covers?"

"No, no — yeah — there was a little — don't go so fast for me, Budd. I know you're eager to know, but my mind, my mind keeps-there's something in me that keeps saying,

'You're on a train, you're on a train, you're on a train.' And it's like I'm — it's very hard — but no. there weren't covers. There was — my impression was there was something soft under me. It wasn't an unpleasant place to be, in that sense. It had solid sides that came up a little bit above the edge. Then I was sitting up in it. Then I was sitting on the edge. You see, I don't remember moving. That's the thing that's funny about it. I remember being in one place and then in another place. That's 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."