Joseph Burkes MD 2026
Introduction: an American Psychological Association article provides background on the controversial role of hypnosis in memory retrieval. I link this subject to the Virtual Experience Model’s “Virtual Memory”, a Virtual Experience of the Third Kind (VE-3)
The use of hypnosis as a memory retrieval technique has been and continues to be a controversial topic in the UFO interest community. Over the years I have read about some of the scientific literature and have posted blogs about several topics concerning memory, hypnosis, and false memory syndromes.
These topics are of special interest to me because three decades ago I developed a theory concerning what can be described from a physicalist point of view as psi mediated “illusory” mechanisms of contact with UAP intelligences. I call this theory “The Virtual Experience Model.”
Among both UFO researchers and contact experiencers, it is accepted that UAP associated non-human intelligences (NHIs) not only can render witnesses amnesiac concerning contact events (missing time) but can also implant what are called “screen memories.” These are thought to be false recollections, presumably used to mask what are popularly known as “alien abductions.” If one accepts the existence of “screen memories” one can logically ask the following: Why can’t memories of Close Encounters of the Third and Fourth Kinds, in which witnesses see an alien being or are taken a aboard an “ET” craft respectively, also be “screen memories”, i.e., memory implants.
Within the Virtual Experience Model, I call such false recollections “Virtual Experiences of the Third Kind. (Virtual Memory). I suspect that such false recollections might be so convincingly “real” that experiencers believe that physical contact events have occurred, whereas in reality the interactions are predominately psychic with false memories being implanted.
In 2011 the American Psychological Association (APA) published a brief report discussing the clinical applications of hypnosis as well as its potential to induce false memories. In terms of the use of hypnosis to recover memory, the following quotes from the APA article are pertinent:
“Hypnosis may not succeed in all cases and can actually be detrimental in some instances, especially in the realm of retrieving memories…
Joseph P. Green, PhD, a psychology professor at Ohio State University at Lima, researched how hypnotic suggestions can produce distorted or false memories. He also found that people may believe hypnotically induced memories are more reliable, mirroring a mistaken cultural belief that hypnosis acts like a truth serum. Hypnosis is “on thin ice” when used to recover memories, as is the case with most other memory retrieval techniques, Green says,
“Hypnosis got a bad name in the 1990s when some therapists convinced patients they had been molested or abused as children because of hypnotically induced memories, which often had no evidence to support them. As a result, many innocent people were wrongly accused of abuse in hundreds of court cases.”
Michael Yapko, PhD, a psychologist and fellow of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis, states in the online journal linked below,
“Hypnosis works and the empirical support is unequivocal in that regard. It really does help people,”… But hypnosis isn’t a therapy in and of itself. Most people wouldn’t regard it that way.”
Dr. Yapko also stated,
“People didn’t really understand the suggestibility of memory. That whole issue has pretty much fallen by the wayside now” because of advances in research.”
Other pertinent sections of the 2011 online article:
“In a 2007 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada established a precedent that post-hypnosis evidence is inadmissible in court because of its unreliability. In R. V. Trochym, the court overturned a murder conviction after a witness changed her timeline of events following a hypnosis session that was requested by detectives. The jury wasn’t told that the witness had been hypnotized or that she had changed her recollection…
In summary, while it is not generally accepted that hypnosis always produces unreliable memories, neither is it clear when hypnosis results in pseudo-memories or how a witness, scientist or trier of fact might distinguish between fabricated and accurate memories, the decision stated.”
The utility of using hypnosis on contact experiencers is based on the assumption that memories retrieved might reflect physical interactions with UAP associated NHIs. From the information in the online article, one should probably not accept the use of hypnosis as a memory retrieval tool without reservation.
Dr. John Mack in his investigations of contact experiencers described the unusual way that memories of Close Encounters sometimes surfaced months, years, even decades after the contacts are recalled to have happened. If contact experiencers are having ongoing psychic interactions with UAP NHIs on an unconscious level, then could not the surfacing of memories reflect memory implants, i.e. Virtual Experiences of the Third Kind.
Contact experiencers (I consider myself to be one as well) please note the following. In proposing Virtual Memory as a mechanism of contact I am not asserting that all recalled contact events are non-physical, i.e. psychic. I believe that both physical encounters and psi mediated ones are happening simultaneously, perhaps even in the same witnesses. The challenge for researchers and experiencers alike is to distinguish between physical and psychic components of the contact events.
For the complete article here is the link:
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/01/hypnosis.aspx#
For other blogs in this series on memory and the Virtual Experience Model, the following links are provided:
The Virtual Experience Model, an Overview
The Reasons why Flying Saucer Intelligences might stage “Virtual” Instead of Physical Encountershttps://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/11/the-reasons-why-flying-saucer-intelligences-might-stage-virtual-instead-of-physical-encounters