Becoming and Beyond is a non-fiction, true account of complex trauma re-enactments or repetitive events.

The opening paragraph of the first chapter records an experience of de-personalisation or de-realisation which is an dissociative disorder. It is defined as ‘a feeling of disconnection from one’s identity’ or an estrangement from one’s self and typical related to individuals who have experienced a severe trauma or prolonged stress/anxiety. De-personalisation is the third most common psychological symptom, after feelings of anxiety and feelings of depression.

In mediumship training this same ability or character trait – of being able to enter into someone or them enter into you – is considered a key to effective practice. Whilst to operate in the ‘now’ – not the past or the future – is a key tenet of meditative practices throughout the world. The dream sequence, recorded in the article below, has a vision-like quality given it’s predictive nature.

Beyond Time (or chapter one) was published in Watkins Mind, Body, Spirit online magazine in September 2020.

But, what became of the ancestor spirit of that old lady, bent over and wearing a soiled apron?’

As I write in the afterword of Becoming and Beyond.

‘My experience was very real yet, an external reflection of myself and of my life at the time, as these programmes only exist in relationship. For whatever reason – trauma, inherited gifts, drugs – some have an ability to connect with people, the land, the afterworld. However, life stories get stuck – for the living and the dead. My space – my psyche – and its external representation, my cottage, resonated with her world. For me, it was one of multiple deaths, grief and loss which broke my heart.’

Depersonalization is defined as ‘a feeling of disconnection from one’s identity or an estrangement from one’s self and typically related to individuals who have experienced severe trauma or prolonged stress/anxiety.