72
MISSING TIME
happened next, and was, in effect, marking time by dwelling on details of the moment. Ted signaled Dr. Clamar and she began to bring him out of the hypnotic state, assuring him that he would easily be able to integrate these newly conscious memories into the texture of his life. It had been a long, illuminating session, though the tension had been emotionally draining. Today's most important revelation was the sense we had of a consistent, though still-unfolding, sequence of events. Seven months before, we knew that Steve's car was stopped alongside the road, and that he had stepped outside of it, a piece of the story to which I will attach the letter "B." Letter "A, " how the car came to stop in the first place, we had not known until today, accompan ied as it was by his description of the involuntary swerve at high speed, as if " a huge magn et j ust sucked it over to the right. " As he stood by his car, " C " occurred-he saw and heard the still-myste rious black leather obj ects. And then "D"-the approach of the white creatures. Interestingly, in today's retelling he did not in clude their actual arrival on the scene, an obviously extremely frightening moment which he had recalled vividly in the earlier session. This time, he began with their presence as a fait accompli and coupled it with a new detail-the repeated, calming message: "There are other things standing around me . . . there's nothing to be afraid of. " This situation, "E," immediately follows "D" (their arrival]. Steven moved on to "F," the episode of the figure digging while he was somehow held motionless. "G" we will designate as the placing of the clamp on his shoulders, another part of the story omitted here, and obviously another particularly terrifying memo ry. So, one could say, his first hypnotic session dealt with "B," "C," "D," and "G". Seven months later, we learned of "A," some new details of "C," and " E " and "F," a perfect narrative dovetailing. On a smaller scale, other revelations served to illuminate a few unexplained and dangling memories from before. In May, Steven recalled bending down-perhaps to turn on the car's inte rior light-for a reason he could not supply: "I have a strange memory of looking at the dashboard. I don 't know if I was looking at the clock or not but I remember seeing it, and I don 't remember why." In his later session, this apparently inconsequential act was again described: ''I'm reaching down for something. I dropped something, or I'm adj usting the seat or doing some thing . . . that's when I see the (car) light go on. I'm reaching with my right hand." Minutes later, the significance of his move came