REGRESSION

Many moons ago, when I was a newspaper columnist and much enjoying the experience, I spotted a small ad in one of our local titles from someone offering his services as a hypnotist and, as part of that service, offering to help smokers give up their tobacco. Intriguingly, the ad also said he could hypnotically regress folk in order to unearth their former lives. Uncertain about any of my former lives, I thought the stop-smoking element was nevertheless interesting, and went to see him.
I have to say at this point that my editor, when I discussed the matter with him, was less than enthusiastic. He was not into 'hocus-pocus,' he said, and he did not think our papers should be, either. Still, he did also admit it sounded interesting - providing I kept a sensible lid on it. 
The chap concerned - an ordinary chap, as far as I could tell, and not at all an eccentric - lived in a bungalow on the outskirts of the city, and he described his work to me. Yes, he had helped people to give up smoking, but his main interest was regression. He would hypnotise someone and then draw from them, and in their own words, descriptions of their former lives. Indeed, he had tape recordings, many of them, and he played some of them to me.
Here were the voices of Roman soldiers stationed on Hadrian's Wall, Egyptian labourers toiling to build the pyramids, kitchen maids in 18th century stately homes. And so on. It was all terribly interesting and impressive. All you had to do was believe it.
I have to say that in some of my daftest moments I have envisaged the creation of a library to hold copies of all unwritten books, and the digging of a reservoir - something like Rutland Water, I thought - to contain and preserve everyone's memories. Now, it seemed to me, there was a need for a warehouse to care for and preserve all our former lives.
Back in the bright light of day, I have to say that things did not go too well. First, I went back to the bungalow to see if he would regress me. Yes, he would try. But his attempts to 'get me under' hypnosis failed, and it was entirely my fault. I think I got a fit of the giggles. So I never did discover what any of my former lives had been, or where and when I had lived them. And then, having written a couple of pieces about the whole affair, the editor finally said, 'That's enough,' and it all fizzled out. 
Oddly, this idea of regression did stick around for a time, and I did begin to draft a novel about it, but never completed the task.
Perhaps one day I shall unearth the incomplete manuscript once again in my library of unwritten books. Or more likely, perhaps another attempt at hypnotic regression will simply uncover the fact that, in at least one former life, I was a simple fellow who often started things and never finished them.