How can you remember things which haven’t yet happened? Surely memory involves retaining and reviving impressions from incidents which have passed. If this is so, how is it possible to have a memory of the future?

It is possible if you have gone forward in time and glimpsed the future and returned to the present with memories of what you have glimpsed. How is this possible? It is possible through meditation and I believe that it may be possible through hypnosis.

I came across the possibility quite by accident in 1987. I was attending a self development course and the teacher offered us a surprise exercise. He offered us the chance to “go back through time to a past life.” As a clinical hypnotherapist who specialised in past life regression, I raised my hand to ask if I might do something else instead, as it seemed too much like work to me. He generously accommodated me by offering me a chance to go forward through the rest of my life, to see what awaited me.

I was stunned. Why had this concept never occurred to me before? My partner for the exercise took sketchy notes as she guided me forward yearly for six years and then every five years until 2025. I glimpsed 18 books I’d write, some of which where re-written as screenplays for films. At that time I barely managed to write a postcard a year.

Eleven years later I recalled the exercise and decided to test it through meditation. It was late February and I took myself forward to 10:00 am on December the 1st of that year. I saw myself driving a new car which was a deep blue. My car at the time was 13 years old and burnt orange. When I awoke from the meditation I became excited by the possibilities for this exercise.

One week later I began the search for a new car. I visited almost 15 car showrooms, examining, sitting in and test driving all sorts of cars. I narrowed the choice down to four possible cars. Tiring of this laborious process I decided to use the exercise again, to clarify the make of car.

While in meditation I progressed forward two weeks to a Monday morning to glimpse the car I was to purchase. My parked car was usually visible in the garage when I looked out from the living room, so in meditation I walked into the living room and looked closely at the new car parked in my garage. It had long, thin headlights. I returned to my list of four possible cars and one of those cars had long thin headlights.

I visited the showroom and test drove that particular car again but I didn’t like it. It felt too small for me. I decided to ignore what I had seen in meditation and purchase the car I wanted, which had oval headlights. I bought it and had to wait for some extras to be installed. A week passed without having received my new car so I phoned the dealership to complain. The salesman offered me a loan car until mine arrived and I accepted the offer. A few days later (it was on the Monday morning that I had progressed forward to in meditation) I walked out into the living room and glanced out to see my loan car in the garage. It had long, thin headlights.

My meditation had proved correct, but had I progressed forward three weeks instead of two, I’d have seen my new car and not the loan car. Sometimes a glimpse of the future can be misleading as you may incorrectly interpret what you see.

I was hooked on the possibilities. I meditated using the forward motion techniques for two weeks and was astounded by the results. I ventured forward to see the finished cover of the book I was writing and I was shocked. It had a different title. The working title was The Other Side of the Gate and the title on the cover turned out to be A Secret Door to the Universe. In meditation saw the cover design clearly and I was happy with it. I recall thinking at the time that a part of the cover was too pale or unnoticeable but after the meditation I couldn’t recall which part. 12 months later I glanced at the book and laughed, noticing my name on the cover was unreadable as the colour blended into the rest of the title. I’ve since re-designed the cover for a new edition and the text is sharper.

Deciding to experiment with the possibilities I set up a clinical trial. I gathered 42 volunteers and began to hypnotise them one at a time, giving each person three sessions of hypnosis, during which I progressed them to specific dates and times in the future. I carefully avoided each subject’s birthday, anniversaries of the deaths of friends and relatives and any dates which might have predictable behaviour patterns, such as Christmas or New Year’s eve.

Each subject described to me what they saw in hypnosis and what they were wearing that day. If they saw a film or read a newspaper they gave me precise details, including film names and newspaper headlines. I then noted these dates in my diary, following up with a phone call to each volunteer the day after their “glimpsed day” to confirm what the had seen in hypnosis was accurate. Results were poor and not sufficiently accurate to make the technique useful and reliable for clinical purposes, so I was back to the drawing board.

I know that the technique works for me, but this might be because I’m a clairvoyant. I want to find and to offer a technique that almost anyone can use with relative ease and safety. I want a practical technique which delivers the high levels of accuracy I have experienced. I guess I’ll have to go forward in meditation to glimpse the technique I eventually discover, in order to save myself some time and frustration.

I’m convinced that linear time can be circumvented if we know how to do so. I still use the technique for myself and I’m regularly proving that it works. I’ve yet to distinguish between the energetic state I create when I meditate and the state my volunteers created when they were guided into the future. When I find the difference I’ll ask for more volunteers. I must go now as the future is calling me.