My Past Life Experience.

In a past life, I was an English bookseller in the 19th century, who cheated on my wife with a buxom blonde babe.

No, really. My psych teacher took us through this "past lives" hypnotism exercise in college, and that's what my brain dredged up. I still remember that afternoon... it seemed so real.

"Close your eyes," Ms. Gustilo says, "and turn back time. When you come to the end of the tunnel you're going through, I want you to open your mind's eye, look around, and remember everything you see."

I saw a dusty, cozy bookshop. Some faces I recognised - regulars in the place, still searching for that antique book that fit in nicely with their collection. Others were visitors from France (exiled noblemen, perhaps?), or some other strange nation. I remember the clink of the lock as I closed for the day, I remember the comfortable home I retired to in the evening, and the wife that waited on me as I unwound after the not-so-considerable pressures of a day at the office.

I also remember... her. Blonde, curvaceous, and incredibly bouncy between the sheets. I saw only snatches (pun unintended) of a secret life that, sadly, ended in my bloody death at the hands of a wife who could take no more of my lies.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a rationalist; a true believer (if that may be said of me) in Occam's Razor. I don't think we reincarnate into endless lives throughout time, despite what some "experts" might have us believe. I really, really think there are rational explanations for coming up with these "past life" fantasies under hypnosis. Looking back at my "past life" session, I probably loved (and still do) the idea of being a wallflower intellectual with a dirty dirty secret life. This fantasy manifested itself in its purest possible form - a dream of a shy English bookseller who closed up shop every night, went home to his ever-reliable wife, but who snuck out every so often for some Victorian whoopee.

I know the difference between fantasy and reality. I know that it was a horny Victorian daydream instead of a peek into a life that truly happened. Fantasy is nice, but give me real life anytime.