A hypnotist took me back to a former life last week. He gave me a lift and we drove past my old council house.
After that, he used his skills to transport me mentally to a previous existence. It was, frankly, disappointing. I was a penniless Irish labourer with a gammy foot and criminal record. To make matters worse, I was allergic to potatoes. I may have also been impotent, believes the hypnotist, but as I never had sex with a woman, that remains a supposition. I wouldn't mind, but I only went back to 1967. Got the foot injury while using one of those wacka plates on the motorway.
Perhaps I should’ve forked out a little extra for the two hour session, but one can regress too far. My mate had to endure the harrowing experience of being trod on by a dinosaur. I pointed out there were no people around when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
“Who said anything about people?” tutted my pal. “I was a lump of mould on a volcano edge. It was bloody boring until the dinosaur came along.” It hurts to fork out good money to discover in a previous existence you were a struggling nobody. “At least it didn't come as a shock,” reasoned the hypnotist. “You were confronted by a role you are very used to.” I gave the bloke an old-fashioned look and pointed out, unlike my ancestor, I've got two good feet.
“We can't all be members of the aristocracy in a former life,” he said, before adding: “Admittedly, the last 93 of my ‘patients’ have been.” Colin was the foppish captain of a ship that discovered a tropical island. He and his crew spent months romping with nubile native women. “I did a lot of groaning in that hypnotist's couch,” he winked. It's hard to believe. Last summer staff at a fun park had to send out a search party after he and his wife got lost on the boating lake. They found the traumatised couple in the nick of time: Mr and Mrs Colin were drawing lots to see who was going to eat whom. They'd only been missing for an hour-and-a-half.
“You must have achieved something as Seamus the navvy,” consoled my companion.
I did – roughly 100 yards of M5 hard shoulder. The hypnotist reckons my disappointing time trip may have its roots in low self-esteem and lack of ambition. Next time, he says, I should focus on something I yearn for in life: a desire, a goal that haunts my inner-thoughts.
I'm not spending good money to be a Twix bar for one hour. He's making a packet from the latest fad – regression parties where guests are ‘put under’ and mingle round nibbles as their former selves. Last month two fought a duel with Twiglets.
“You ought to try it,” advised the hypnotist. “It's great fun.” “Although,” he warned, “there is rather a strict dress code. I doubt they'd let you in with a donkey jacket.” | 
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