Hypnotherapy

"Your eyes are getting heavy, go ahead and just let them relax." The man says. "Now with your eyes closed, imagine you are standing at the top of a flight of stairs. At the bottom of these stairs is a door."

The door at the bottom of my stairs is brown, old flimsy wood paneling veneer that's peeling covers it.

The man continues. "As I count down I want you to descend the stairs to the doorway. 10, 9..." He continues slowly counting down to zero.

I slowly and nervously climb down the well worn carpeted stairs. At zero I reach for the tarnished brass style door knob, and begin to twist it open.

I hear the voice again. "When you open the door in front of you. You see the most beautiful and safe place imaginable. The entire rest of the world cannot enter this place." When I open the door and peer in, I'm immediately hit with the smell of musty carpet and old furniture. That all too familiar childhood basement lounge smell. It surges me with too many feelings to count and my heart begins to race. I step into the room and everything within comes into sharper focus. It's a place I've never seen before but when broken into its constituent parts it's made up of fragments of my own memories and adolescence all smashed into this one room. The carpet is thick and brown, maybe it was green or orange once. The walls are paneled in a cheap wooden paneling. All of the furniture is old but remarkably comfortable looking, and everything seems just a little too low to low to the ground. The side wall has little transom windows letting little light in to compliment the dingy light given off by the feeble lights hanging from the ceiling. And under those windows are book shelves covered in dusty but loved books, old gaming consoles, and role playing game guides.

The voice was right. It is wonderfully beautiful to me.

It calls out again. "There's a comfortable looking couch or bed next to you. Go ahead and sit or lay down on it." To my right is an old style sofa bed, in front of that is a small coffee table with rule books and dice haphazardly strewn on it, like some game has been interrupted and it's owners just left for a break. On the other side of that is a brown overstuffed recliner that has to squeal beyond belief if ever reclined. I take this moment to lie down on the sofa bed.

"Now that you're completely relaxed, there may be someone there that you are completely safe with, completely comfortable with."

I blink my eyes and there YOU are. It's you, I'm in disbelief. It was so sudden that I didn't have time to process. And you're sitting across from me on the recliner. You brush a strand of your hair behind your ear and are utterly at ease and wonderful. I slowly rise back up to a sitting position and reach out to take your hands. With your hands in mine you smile at me with that mischievous and knowing smile. Like no time has passed between us at all. I begin to weep softly, both from joy and knowing that this will come to an end. What I wouldn't give to just stay here, there's nothing out there or back up those stairs worth losing this moment. Even if it is all just in my head.