In my years as a Past Life Regression Therapist I've come across many interesting and intriguing cases, but one in particular changed my life in ways I would never previously have thought possible. An apparently straightforward series of regression sessions has forced me not only to reinterpret aspects of our history but also to formulate a justifiable reason for Western society's abiding arachnophobia. But one with frightening implications.

Western society has long feared the arachnid. For centuries arachnophobia – fear of spiders – has ruled the consciousness and tempered the psyche of millions of ordinary people, frightened into submission by a creature much smaller than themselves.

In a study of 261 UK adults, 32 per cent of females and 18 per cent of males found that spiders either made them feel anxious or very frightened. Another study, conducted in the UK and Netherlands, found that the spider was one of the top five most feared animals.

As a scientist – one who suffers from acute arachnophobia – I have tried to account for my fears in a logical manner; quantifying the evidence, examining the contradictory and, let's face it, foolish fear responses which at their worst result in a flight response, and at best see me standing atop the nearest piece of household furniture, brandishing a weapon and cowering like a whipped dog.

Why fear the spider? Most spiders are nocturnal, unobtrusive, often pretending death if attacked, whilst those that frequent human habitations usually remain in undisturbed, dark or dimly lit places. Most spiders won't bite humans without a great deal of provocation, such as being held or squeezed. Bites only occur are when spiders crawl into a victim's clothing or shoes; and only the larger spiders can penetrate human skin with their fangs. While the bigger spiders, such as tarantulas are certainly frightening to look at, they are in fact pretty harmless and are even kept as pets, their bite causing little cause for alarm despite their large size.

But evidence can sometimes hide – or at least obscure – the truth. Facts make little or no difference to somebody suffering from arachnophobia (which derives from two Greek words, "arachne", meaning "spider" and "phobos" meaning "a fear").

A phobia is an irrational, persistent fear of things or situations and can result in strong anxiety reaction such as sweating, heart palpitations, or trouble breathing. Even thinking about or seeing the cause of your fear can provoke unease.

Yet a phobia makes a mockery of the science of rationality. Being a scientist, I cannot deny the facts. And yet...

...to me spiders are to be feared. It's as though my rational mind has been closed off, my apprehension diverted to the primal, subconscious mind where it ferments and turns into a fully formed fear, illogical but undeniably real. Arachnophobia is responsible for an overriding, mortal terror of something that can't harm me. Or can it?

Only those who suffer from arachnophobia will understand. Described in unflinching detail, the humble spider is the stuff of nightmares. They don't move they scuttle; they're usually covered in hair, with eight legs and eight eyes, and possess fangs which can dispense a deadly venom. These predatory creatures – which aren't insects but a category of creature all its own – lurk in dark, shadowy corners and ensnare their victims in silken threat, a sticky substance excreted as a liquid which dries when it hits the air. To the human eye, their movements are sporadic and unsettling, a series of stop-start scurries conducted in silence, viewed from the periphery of one's vision. Prey are paralysed and injected with a substance which liquefies its insides so that the spider can feast on the unmoving creature while it is still alive – from the inside out.

I use Past Life Regression (PLR) to take people back to their former lives in an effort to explain – and hence cure – their maladies. It's an interesting profession, and I will explain more about it later, but first I'd like to clarify the purpose for this article.

About 12 months ago a patient was referred to me by one of my colleagues in The International Association for Regression Research and Therapies, of which I claim British membership. My patient's name was Amanda (for reasons of secrecy and in order to protect both my patient's and my own name, I will use pseudonyms throughout this article), a young woman of 22 years old, healthy, employed, with a high IQ and an active social life. Amanda suffered from acute arachnophobia, not to mention a series of terrifying dreams in which she felt she was dying over and over again, every night and in great pain.

Our first meeting was uneventful. After dispensing with introductions, I asked her to make herself comfortable in the chair in my small "treatment" room. Amanda appeared pasty-faced, gaunt and unsmiling, her hands in a constant state of movement. She appeared very nervous and her eyes kept sliding away from mine. This immediately alerted me to the fact that she was uneasy about the treatment. In fact, nearly all my first-time patients exhibit similar responses. Put simply, regression is a last resort. If a patient is referred to me it's usually because he or she has exhausted the opportunities afforded by traditional medicine or psychoanalysis. For many, Past Life Regression (or Past Life Healing) is a last resort, an attempt to explain the unexplainable and as such they are naturally cautious.

So, what is Past Life Regression? In essence it can be defined as a journey back to a past life, usually undertaken while under hypnosis. Whilst in this state, numerous people have recalled the details of previous lives, even to the point of taking on the personalities of their "former selves".

One has to be especially careful of fraudulent PLR claims. Although not disproved by science, PLR is nonetheless treated with at best indifference. Many in the scientific community view cases of PLR as a phenomenon known as cryptomnesia, which may be defined as an instance of abnormal or extraordinary memory. In such cases, a person is able to recall in incredible detail something which he or she has read, seen or heard for even the briefest of moments. As if the brain has taken a mental photograph of that moment and stored it in the subconscious. In the trance state, argue the scientists, the subconscious mind is able to dredge up these consciously forgotten experiences which may in turn form the substance of what happens in a past life.

PLR has many adherents, especially given that the best modern psychologists have yet to explain the nature of mind. Scientists in general regard PLR as hallucinations and fancy, though as a respected professor in the field, Prof. W. Knight has previously noted, "the absence of memory of any action done in a previous state cannot be conclusive argument against our having lived through it." If an old man can remember the incidents of his youth, despite his being physically and mentally changed, why then is not the recollection of past lives brought over to us from our last birth into the present birth?

I have personally seen many clients change their lives through the process of PLR. Whether or not one has really lived before cannot be proved and arguments for or against reincarnation are based solely on what someone chooses to believe.

On the other hand, science has established the existence of the subconscious mind; its impact on all human physical and mental processes. Nearly every week some new study announces it has once again proven the mind/body connection. The subconscious mind does not appear on x-rays or CAT scans, and yet it is regularly referred to by scientists the world over. Indeed, it has been shown that communication with the subconscious mind can reduce stress and relieve pain.

Past Life Regression is based on the notion of reincarnation. The peoples of the east have long accepted multiple lives and have developed the idea of karma – where one's good and bad deeds in one life contribute towards a person's personality and character in the next. Hindus, for instance, accepted this principal with their early Vedas and Upanishad teachings; Buddhists too adhere to the principals of reincarnation. The ancient Tibetan Book of the Dead fully described what we today refer to as near-death experiences and the process of death and rebirth. Furthermore, reincarnation was accepted in ancient Egypt, Greece, China and even by the early Christians.

At the fifth ecumenical council of 553 AD it was "decided" by three votes that human beings only have one life – a vote taken when the then pope was being held in custody and in the absence of any western bishops. It then became punishable heresy – burning at the stake, in other words – to believe in reincarnation, so naturally the ban informed western thinking for many centuries afterwards. Only at the end of the 19th century was there a resurgence of the idea in the west (via the Theosophists).

Most Past Life Regressionists – myself included – believe in some form or reincarnation. The theory postulates that we each have a soul (also known as a psyche or oversoul) and, not being confined to earthy dimensions, it can take on many different selves or personalities. Ever come into contact with someone you believe you've met before but can't place their face? By accessing the subconscious mind one can experience aspects of former lives, lives in which we might have met that person who seems so familiar; who might, in fact, have been our best friend, our enemy, even our lover.

So why don't we remember our past lives? Imagine having to cope with your present life; all the trials and tribulations it brings. Then imagine having to cope with this life if you also had clear memories of everything you had witnessed or done, and everyone you had ever met in your previous lives. The interesting thing is, we do remember certain aspects of previous existences. "This has happened to me before!" is a universal experience. Déjà vu, a commonly felt emotion, means we often meet people with whom we feel a certain empathy. Of course, there are also those we instantly dislike, even fear – though such beliefs may seem irrational. We may not be able to explain it but the feelings linger nonetheless.

There are many explanations for why we experience past lives, particularly when hypnotised. Some Regressionists have suggested that since one is to a certain extent dealing with the spiritual that linear time is only a human invention which we use to keep our lives on schedule. In spiritual reality time is happening all at once. There is no future or past – only this moment. You are living your future now and setting up your next lifetime as you live the current one.

Others have suggested that perhaps we're all living more than one life – simultaneously! Another theory states that our ancestors' experiences are passed down as genetic memory, and that when you recall a past life you are actually remembering the life of your great, great, great grandmother. It's also been suggested that some form of telepathy may be at work; or even that past life recall is a fantasy generated by an overworked imagination.

Whatever you choose to believe, the facts speak for themselves. Hundreds of case studies have revealed peoples' ability to recall events with such precision and in such detail that it begs the question of how they have access to such information.

My patient, Amanda, was initially distressed about the possibility of being hypnotised. As I've stated, it's natural for a person to feel uncertainty about an unfamiliar process. One of my first tasks as a Past Life Regressionist is to examine and probe my patient's fears. To encourage them to describe their, often recurring nightmares and to decide on an appropriate strategy. Amanda's intense dislike of spiders was, in a way, the least of the problems. I deal with phobias on a daily basis and my work means that I have come into contact with all manner of strange fears, from common phobias such as vertigo, fear of heights, to katagelophobia – fear of ridicule!

The fact is, scientists have yet to fully explain phobias. While some researchers blame learned responses – such as finding a spider on your bed under subdued lighting – others blame it on coincidental associations. For instance, finding a spider in your shoe just as you trip and bang your head on the corner of the table-top.

Yet phobias – and arachnophobia in particular – seem to run much deeper than that. As for my own arachnophobia I might point to the spider's sinister shape and movements as being responsible for triggering reflexive responses buried deep in the limbic system. A primal response, unconnected to reason or analytical thought.

But Amanda's terror went far beyond a fear of the spiders. She was mortally terrified of them, even going as far as to seek prescribed treatment, a process charmingly known as "systematic desensitisation". In this scenario the arachnophobic writes down the situations which scare them least, and those that terrify them most. The patient is then encouraged to learn relaxation techniques in order to deal with their fears. Patients imagine coping with the least frightening situation and gradually work towards being able to cope with the most frightening situation. Working with a therapist, the patient is encouraged, finally, to expose him or herself to real spiders. When they are able to hold a real live spider without feeling nervous, they have conquered their phobia.

Therapy has advanced leaps and bounds in the last few years, with studies being performed in the University of Washington's Human Interface Technology Lab and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, using virtual reality simulators to treat arachnophobics. During this process, patients wear a VR helmet or glasses and a virtual reality glove. The patient is then exposed to a 3-D, computer-generated spider on a VDU which he or she is encouraged to move their glove closer and closer towards. Eventually, the patient will "feel" it crawl across his or her hand.

But exposing patients to traditional treatments can have very serious side effects. In Amanda's case, she chose to attend several traditional therapy sessions which proved not only costly but also resulted in an unexpected emotional pay-off. By her own admission, the treatments made her feel worse. The initial sessions – exposure to photographs of spiders triggered the usual fear response. But during subsequent sessions, she was to experience an unreasoning terror. During the third session – and with the knowledge that she would soon have to be in the company of household spiders, albeit behind glass – she quickly terminated the session. As she later explained, "You can't imagine the fear I felt. It was as if they were waiting for me. I know how preposterous this sounds. But I can't put into words my dread of getting up close and personal with those ghastly creatures."

Rather than help her with her phobia, the sessions somehow attenuated them. This gave me more than a little cause for concern. Whilst not always as effective as hypnosis, psychotherapy in whatever form usually does more good than harm. The American Psychological Association has proven that patients who submit to hypnosis in conjunction with psychotherapy show a greater improvement than 70 per cent of the patients who received only psychotherapy. Therefore I could only conclude that the original therapy had somehow been completely unsuited to her psychological makeup; and that a course of PLT, induced under hypnosis, had a high likelihood of producing favourable results.

But Amanda's arachnophobia was only the tip of an iceberg. It would seem her fears were built on an overriding and unexplainable dread of events unknown or worse, unremembered. If it had simply been a severe case of spider phobia, then I might have been able to help Amanda using hypnosis (I have trained in clinical hypnotism). However, when she described her terrifying nightmares to me, I soon concluded that hypnosis alone would be not be enough.

As any normal person knows, dreams – and nightmares in particular – are often experienced as a series of frightening images and emotions, which though vivid at the time of dreaming are often difficult if not impossible to recall when one awakes. Dream researchers often encourage patients who suffer with bad dreams – or those who wish to recall and even interpret their dreams – to write down the contents immediately upon awakening. Amanda hadn't done this for the simple reason that her dreams terrified her. In fact she'd even begun to fear sleep itself. As such she was experiencing constant lethargy and suffering all the symptoms of an insomniac, including decreased attentiveness, irritability and detachment from one's surroundings.

In common with many of my patients, when Amanda tried to recall the content of her dreams, she became very uncomfortable, exhibiting all of the classic fear responses, including clammy palms, nervous ticks and increased breathing rate. Her recall was hazy at best, though the emotions she felt during the dream process were plainly terrifying to her. Vague, uneasy memories of huge, threatening shapes; fear of an unknown presences; a dread of capture; and the certain knowledge that capture would result in terrible, seemingly unending pain.

As a Past Life Regressionist I am familiar with the concept that present life anxieties are often the result of traumatic events in former lifetimes. By exploring these fears with a patient, I can often identify the point at which that person experienced a harrowing or pain-filled moment – and in the worst case scenario, guide him or her through the actual moment of death. The client, in the personality of the past-life, is guided through the traumatic experience in that lifetime. As a result the therapist is often able to resolve remaining emotional or unfinished business in that life and to integrate the experience with their present life situation.

In certain cases, one may actually experience a past life in the dream state (as well as during mediation or even massage). Since Amanda was experiencing particularly strong and uncomfortable dreams – combined with the fact that she suffered from acute arachnophobia – I began to suspect that the root of her fears may well lie in a traumatic event experienced during her past life, or a series of past lives, and that by using regression therapy I might be able to root out the cause of her distress.

As it turned out, the deciding factor was Amanda herself. One thing that the arachnophobia sessions had revealed to her – apart from the fact that they didn't work! – was that they appeared to be inexplicably linked to her recent bout of nightmares. Indeed, it was only after the second session that the nightmares began, and if she was certain of one thing, it was that the dreams were the direct result of her misguided attempts to cure her arachnophobia.

As she explained to me, "It's strange, but much of what I feel when I see a spider – disgust, fear, repugnance – was magnified a hundred-fold during the nightmares. And, of course, they only began after I'd sought treatment. Instead of helping me I think the treatment acted as some kind of trigger, dredging up what I can only describe as memories of some sort; that something awful happened in a past life and I'm remembering bits and pieces of it when I dream. Or at least, as much as my subconscious mind allows me to see."

To any Past Life Regressionist, such an explanation is the equivalent of waving a red flag at a bull. How could I not be intrigued? It had all the ingredients of a past life trauma. The more times I interviewed her the more I became convinced that PLR was a viable solution.

By now I was fairly certain that I could regress Amanda through one or several past lives and help root out the cause of her troubles. Thankfully she needed little persuasion and quickly agreed. After a few pre-regressive sessions, I officially "accepted" the case.

One area in which hypnosis is not as effective is that of memory. Research shows that rather than aid in memory recall, hypnosis can in fact result in a distortion of the facts; a muddling of memory and fantasy. In fact there is evidence that if the wrong sort of hypnosis is used the patient's brain may actually encourage memories that are not of true events. These can be induced by suggestion, which, combined with the patient's willingness to respond to suggestions can distort the past life experience and create memories of events which never occurred; or, worse still, events the patient wishes had occurred.

Body-centred therapists – of which I am one – believe that a person stores memories of everything that he or she has done in every lifetime: the so-called akashic records. These are stored in the DNA memory. As we tap into our past lives, we discover along the way the notion of "Self"; our unique soul print. During a PLR session it is possible to experience snapshot views of a former existence which may take the form of looking at a moving picture; or confer a feeling of being present in the body of another person.

It isn't difficult to make a hypnotised patient imagine events. A good hypnotherapist can, with ease, guide a patient's thought processes such that post-session, he or she is able to retrieve the information in the form of a manufactured memory. Stage hypnotists do this all the time. However, a properly trained and competent Past Life Healer (for my own part, I studied at the College of Past Life Healing and Associated Therapies and obtained an Accredited Past Life Healer qualification) is able to use hypnotism to guide the mind out of its natural individual state and into the more expansive state of the subconscious and superconscious. In this state "memories" appear to come from the far deeper reaches of the mind – they appear "real".

In Past Life Regression, we must allow our subconscious mind to "tell us a story in which we are the main actor". Like the best teachers, the subconscious uses parables to explain in simple terms the object of the lesson – in this case, the regressive experience itself. In the hypnotic state, when one is not concerned with many things at once, it is possible to communicate with the subconscious.

I use several techniques in order to hypnotise my patients. In Amanda's case I led her through a relaxation process which involved using simple commands based on her preferred system. One way of determining this is to ask a client to describe in her own words a favourite holiday – what she liked best about it. If she enjoyed the feeling of laying in the sun, and swimming in the warm waves, she is described as kinaesthetic. If she describes the sound of the pounding surf, or the loud nightclubs, she is auditory. If she uses visual terms, she is visual. After establishing that Amanda leaned towards kinaesthesia (while still being able to describe visually in sharp detail), I was able to use an appropriate method with which to hypnotise her.

One technique is to begin by encouraging the patient to relax individual muscle groups and to release tension. As the body relaxes, so do the busiest non-stop functions of the mind.

Linked to this is the suggestion to go progressively back in time. In Amanda's case I asked her to imagine she was walking down a corridor and being drawn towards a door through which a previous mind might have entered. The trick here is not to guide the patient in any way, but simply to ask open questions. The patient's responses are then evaluated post-session to determine what if any relevance they may have.

In the hypnotic state the patient is by no means asleep – though to the casual observer she would appear to be. She experiences heightened awareness and is always aware of what is happening around her while still being able to recall in minute detail her experiences under hypnosis. Recalled information is channelled from the subconscious mind to the conscious mind, and is later "remembered" by the patient.

In this line of work, the emphasis is not on names, facts or dates but emotions and deeply felt experiences.

Thankfully Amanda proved to be a very willing and co-operative subject for hypnotism, and I had no trouble inducing an hypnotic state. During our second session (the first being used to gauge her receptiveness to hypnotism), I decided to attempt regression – which I achieved by inviting her to take a trip along a corridor in her mind, only stopping when she encountered a "door" she felt impelled to open. With no idea how far back her past life traumas were, I was intrigued to discover just how far she appeared to travel down her metaphorical corridor. As she later explained, "It was so strange. I felt myself drifting along, not in control of my movements. My feet barely touched the floor. Even though I travelled for what seemed like miles, I didn't feel tired. Eventually I felt myself slowing down though I felt a great reluctance to do so."

This experience – whereby the hypnotised patient is hesitant to open a "door" in their mind, a portal to a past life – is quite common, especially in cases where the patient feels that he or she may have suffered in a previous existence.

One thing I commonly encounter when regressing a patient is their unwillingness to volunteer information. This makes it difficult for both myself and the patient (post-session) to validate the facts. Often patients are evasive about names and dates. In this respect, Amanda was no different.

Amanda's description of events were terse and lacking in specifics, though I gleaned enough from her dialogues to establish that she had almost certainly "tapped into" another time and place. And that she had assumed the guise of a past life character, though as to her (Amanda was very clear about the unknown person's sex) identity, little is actually known.

The following represents highlights from several taped conversations I conducted with Amanda during her second PLR session, just after she had mentally "latched onto" what we may refer to her past life character.

Therapist: Where are you?

Amanda: I don't know. It's very cold. I don't much like it here.

Therapist: Can you describe your surroundings?

Amanda: Lots of grassland. Few small trees. Some mountains behind. Can't see very much else. Lots of mist. Very cold.

Therapist: Are you with any other people?

Amanda: Yes. I'm with my family. They're with me on the hunt.

Therapist: The hunt?

Amanda: To find firewood. It's very cold in the nights. We need to built fires to cook and keep them away--

Therapist: (interrupting) Them?

Amanda: Yes.

Therapist: Can you tell me about them?

Amanda: No.

Therapist: Why not?

Amanda: I don't know what they are. I've never seen them – but everyone is careful at night.

Therapist: Tell me about where you live. Are there buildings nearby? Caves? Cars?

Amanda: (frowns) Caves. But we'd never go in them.

Therapist: Why not?

Amanda: Because they live there. In the caves and...

Therapist: Yes?

Amanda: (Long pause) ...in the ground. Around the trees (her voice trails off)...

Therapist: OK. We won't talk about them right now. Tell me about the place you live in. Do you know where you are?

Amanda: Yes.

Therapist: Where is that?

Amanda: It's my home.

Therapist: Do you know why it's so cold?

Amanda: No. We all feel cold. Constantly afraid. I hate it.

Therapist: Can you tell me your name?

Amanda: (Long pause) No.

Therapist: Do you know how old you are?

Amanda: Not old.

Therapist: Do you have any children?

Amanda: I don't want children. They wouldn't be safe.

Therapist: Can you tell me anything about where you live?

Amanda: We move around. I prefer living in the open – away from dark places.

Therapist: What's in the dark places?

Therapist: (Frowns) Only stupid people would live there.

And so on.

Amanda's reminiscences – and I'm 95 per cent sure she did connect with a past life character during this session – seemed to suggest a nomadic lifestyle, one based in cold climate in an unidentifiable geographical location. In keeping with her kinaesthetic nature, she was able to describe feelings, and strongly felt emotions during the session.

Most clients who experience past life situations say they have knowledge of specific emotions, even if they don't fully experience them. Whilst some clients find themselves returning to around the moment of their birth, others feel themselves entering the consciousness of another life-form, even going so far as to experience a "between lives" state. Amanda appeared to connect with a past life character, someone with whom she felt a strong emotional tie. But who was she? Where did she come from? And from what era?

It is crucial that both the client (or "experiencer") and the therapist (or "facilitator") set aside some time after a session to "process" the experience. This helps the client to integrate and help make sense of what he or she saw or felt during the session.

In Amanda's case, she "remembered" her past life experience with a surprising amount of detail, being able to describe features of the physical landscape as well as the emotions she felt under hypnosis.

"It was very gloomy", she recalled. "Everyone was constantly afraid of something, though I can't explain why. I know my character had heard rumours, seen pictures drawn. She – I – remembered being told never to go near mist-covered land; and certainly never near caves or dense forest areas. But for the life of me, I can't recall why she feared these places. Or how she imagined these dangerous presences; or even why they were so dangerous.

"I'm convinced part of the reason she was so afraid was because so many people were scared. All the time. The overwhelming feeling I experienced was of having to constantly look over your shoulder. That these nomadic people (tribes? I don't know) were always moving on so that they could find more secure places to live.

"When I recall that constant 'sick' feeling my character felt in the pit of her stomach – which I can only liken to your first day in a new job or a severe telling off from a boss at work, only many times greater – I feel great pity for her. I don't think that was a happy time, wherever and whenever that was. I mean, who wants to be scared all the time? That's the impression I got. That people lived their whole lives without ever being able to fully relax, even if they located and stayed in a place they deemed to be reasonably safe."

I asked Amanda if she could remember details of the physical landscape. Trees, hills, landmarks of any kind. Here her recall was a lot sketchier.

"I don't remember much. There didn't seem to be any noticeable landmarks, if that's what you mean. Certainly nowhere that I've ever been to.

"I think we were camped out in the open. And that it was very cold, and we didn't have anything to eat. I remember thinking that we should start a fire because I was very hungry.

"There were a few barren trees about half a mile away from the camp. Some mist-covered hills (they could have been mountains – I'm not sure) to the south. Couldn't see much in any other direction, though I think I was looking in one direction for most of the time. I do recall feeling extremely cold, but at the same time I remember thinking that the fire would soon warm us up. And maybe then we could settle down and sleep – for a few hours at least."

Amanda's recollection of "events" seemed to be dictated by emotional responses, combined with occasionally vivid memories of physical characteristics such as bushes, mountains and so on. By her own admission quite a sensual person, Amanda was able to accurately describe her feelings, or at least those of the character whose mind she had "inhabited". However, efforts to discover more about her past life character proved frustrating for us both.

"I wish I could remember more," said Amanda. "I know for sure that she was young. Around the same age as me. I didn't feel any of the aches or pains you might associate with old age. In fact I felt very fit and strong. She must have done a lot of walking – her legs felt very muscular. Also, she seemed to be used to the cold temperatures, even if she didn't particularly enjoy them.

"I know she wore a lot of clothes. All the travellers did. But I felt something that went beyond cold. As if my bones were frozen and pressing against my skin from the inside – and I could never get warm. This may have had something to do with the latent fear among those people. I guess it had become infectious and transferred into a feeling of, I don't know, encompassing dread."

From my point of view, the PLR session was a complete success. Not only had Amanda managed to get in touch with a character from her past life, she'd also experienced some of the emotions felt by that person. She'd even been able to survey a little of the geographical landscape – though we were no closer to identifying its origin or the time period her character inhabited.

Certainly Amanda was more than ready to undertake another session – and I wasn't about to discourage her. This time we would try and discover more about the place she had visited. And the nomadic and enigmatic character whose life she had briefly touched.

For the purposes of continuity and to help increase her awareness of her surroundings, I would encourage Amanda to reach out and make contact with the same character. I also felt strongly felt that there was something "right" about her experience; that she had made contact with some unfathomably distant relation whose existence might help us to illuminate the reasons for her disturbing dreams. We might even be able to explain the link to her arachnophobia.

Grand ambitions perhaps. But in this profession I've learned to trust my instincts. With so many unknown variables, answers often reside where you least expect them. I've witnessed many strange and unexplainable things during my years as a Past Life Regressionist, and if nothing else these experiences have shown me never to discount a hunch; never to blindly trust empirical data and research documentation. All approaches are acceptable, so long as they benefit the patient.

Yet never in my wildest dreams could I have guessed what the next session would reveal. Or how great an effect it would have on my life.

Our third – and final – session was held four days later. Amanda arrived, eager and ready to "re-enter" the life of her mysterious past life character. She was convinced that since she'd already established contact, it wouldn't be difficult to reach her again – something I was inclined to agree with.

On this occasion I was keen to guide Amanda towards a different period in her character's history. Given the strong empathy she felt with her during the first session, I believed I could take Amanda through her character's actual death experience. I felt – as did she – that this was the pivot upon which rested the reason (or reasons) for her nightmares.

A common misconception is that it is painful for you to experience the "death" of a past life character. Although you are "know" what is happening, you do not actually re-experience the full sensations.

I was therefore disturbed to find that when Amanda finally made contact with her past life personality, she was thrown, in her own words, "into a terrible dilemma".

"I felt physically sick with pain," she reported, "though I didn't truly feel what my character was suffering. I felt something – an echo. I couldn't see, hear, feel or think properly. It was as if all my limbs, even my thoughts were paralysed."

The following transcription is taken from several taped conversations from that session:

Therapist: Where are you?

Amanda: It's terrible. Oh God ...

Therapist: Tell me where you are. What's happening?

Amanda: It hurts. Oh God!

Therapist: What is it?

Amanda: I'm dying...

Therapist: Be strong.

Amanda: I can't see properly. My hand – ah!, it hurts. I can't move it. It hurts.

Therapist: What's wrong with your hand? Describe it to me.

Amanda: It's too big. I can't move it. I feel sick...

Therapist: You're safe. What's wrong with your hand?

Amanda: Hurts ... bad. It's ... it's black. My hand's black! I can't feel it. It's ... huge. Uh, I ... (begins to choke)

Therapist: You're OK. You can't feel the pain. You're just an observer. Nothing can harm you. Nothing.

Amanda: Uh ... uhhh...

Therapist: I need to know what's happening to you. Where are you? Do you recognise your surroundings? Is anyone with you?

Amanda: (laboured breathing, followed by a long pause) Somebody. I can't see him... He's ... I think he's ... I don't want to see him. There's stuff in my mouth – I feel sick. Oh, please...

Therapist: What stuff?

Amanda: Tastes horrible. Oh, I want to... (long pause) I've been sick. I've been sick. It tastes horrible. I'm a mess. Please, I can't look at him. He's ... like me. He's...

Therapist: Please try. What's he look like?

Amanda: ... something's in my eyes. It's only his face. His mouth is ... open, he's ... I think he's ... screaming. I can't hear...

Therapist: It's OK, it's OK. Calm down. Why can't you see him?

Amanda: White. Covered in... He's ... I think ... oh, I'm so scared...

Therapist: Please try. Try and see him. Can he see you? Can he help?

Amanda: No. I ... his face ... his mouth, it's open, but I don't think ... I think he's ... dead.

Therapist: Try to...

Amanda: Ahhhhhh...

Therapist: Try and...

Amanda: Sssssss... ssso... Make it stop! Please make it STOP!...

Therapist: Tell me!

Amanda: My insides ... burning. I'm going ... oh, make it to stop. I can't breathe. I'm going to be sick ... I'm afraid. I mustn't...

Therapist: Mustn't what? What is it!?

Amanda: I'm afraid. I'm afraid...

Therapist: It'll be over soon. I promise.

Amanda: (quietly) I'm dying...

Therapist: It's OK. It'll soon be over. You won't feel pain for much longer.

Amanda: Caaaaan't breeeeeeathe...

Therapist: Don't fight it.

Amanda: My hand's... black. I can't move it, I (coughs, gasps, starts to choke).

Therapist: Soon. Soon.

Amanda: burrrr ... burrrn...tight ...tight...

Therapist: It'll soon be over. Soon.

Amanda: I ... uhhhhhh... I ...I... oh, GOD! (sits bolt upright) It's COMMMMINGGG!...

Therapist: What's coming?

Amanda: (white faced) Pleeeeeeeeeessssssssssssse!

Therapist: Describe it!

Amanda: (dry heaving, choking, sweating) BLACK! Blllllaaaaacccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkk!!! (racking cough) Protect me. PLEASE! Don't let it COME! Help help help HELP!...

I terminated the session. Amanda had had enough. To have continued would have been extremely unwise.

Though I have taken several of my clients through past life death experiences, few were as traumatic as this. Amanda's past life character had obviously died a painful, lonely death, and it was my job to help her discover why.

The fact that Amanda had re-established contact with this person seemed highly significant, at least as far as her present life was concerned. Being a kinaesthetic person, Amanda was able to experience vivid feelings and emotions during the session and as such, the mind link she created was very strong.

There are many case histories where a patient's present day concerns have been explained during regression. For instance, in one case a middle-aged man complained of excruciating "phantom" pain in his left foot which came and went without warning. Under hypnosis, he was regressed and "discovered" that, in a past existence, his foot had been crushed under the wheel of a heavy goods wagon, crippling him for life. Another, more disturbing case refers to a young woman who suffered from acute and sporadic neck pain being regressed to one of her previous lives. She claims to have experienced the death of her character in a fatal car accident, trapped in the passenger seat, her neck crushed at an unnatural angle.

Living through the final moments of your own death – even if it happened to a former incarnation – is always a harrowing, not to mention exhausting experience. It was important that Amanda relax and take time to absorb what she had been through.

I asked her to lay back on the couch, close her eyes and relax. She was very weak and looked alarmingly pale. I noticed that her skin was clammy, one of the symptoms of shock. The last thing I wanted was for her condition to deteriorate out of control. Whether she wanted to or not, she had to try and unwind, and for at least fifteen minutes.

After spending time alone in the treatment room, Amanda eventually called me back. With a visible tremor in the hands, she told me she was ready to answer my questions. She seemed to recognise that progress could only be made by some form of self-analysis. And, however traumatic, that entailed re-experiencing, dissecting and describing the death throes of her character.

I started by asking her to describe what she felt had happened to her past life incarnation. Was this the same person she had "contacted" during the first session? And did she have any idea what might have frightened her so terribly?

"It was awful. I feel so badly for her (shaking her head). I remember the terrible things that happened to me – her, I mean – as if they happened a long, long time ago. Perhaps they did. Or maybe it was all a nightmare though it seemed so real.

"I think ... I think I know what she went through. Some of it anyway. I don't want to believe it though. It's so incredible. (Closing her eyes) Oh, God. How she suffered. That poor, poor girl..."

At this point she broke off from her narrative. Obviously she still felt a strong empathetic bond with her character.

When she had composed herself, I invited her to continue.

"To answer your first question," said Amanda, "yes, it was the same person. I can't tell you why I know exactly, I just do. It's as if she called me to her in her time of greatest need. It felt like I was being pulled through a door in my mind – that she was reaching out to me in her pain."

I asked her to describe what she'd felt when she'd re-established contact.

"A nightmare. That's the only way I can describe it. I was about to die. I knew this, and I was so scared and alone and in so much pain. You can't imagine.

"I couldn't move. I was completely paralysed. It felt as though ... it makes me ill to think about it. Like terrible indigestion, only a thousand times worse. I was gagging on something, and yet at the same time it was like there was nothing in my stomach to sick up. No ... that's not right. It was as if I didn't dare be sick – I knew I might choke to death, but at the same time I had no control over my reflexes. I could feel my insides churning and wanting to come up. And I couldn't breathe properly. That was the worst thing. It was very difficult to draw breath. And there was this stuff on my face, and it was in my mouth and stretched across my eyes."

Did she have any idea what this "stuff" might have been?

"Not really. It felt ... kinda sticky. It was tickly and light and I wanted to sneeze to get rid of it. But I couldn't because I might breathe in more of it. It was all around me. That's why I couldn't see very much. I was bound up in the stuff. It was like being in a tent of some sort.

"I think I must have been ... suspended. I was aware of being, I don't know, higher somehow, like my feet didn't touch the floor. I could feel a really cold wind, and it was blowing that stuff into my face; then it would catch; then blow away again. I knew it would keep on doing that, blowing into my face and getting caught in my hair. I could hear it too, gusting around me.

"But that wasn't the only thing I could hear. I could hear her – she was screaming inside her head. These terrible, despairing cries."

What about her hand? You mentioned something was wrong with it.

"It hurt, really throbbed. I couldn't move it at all. It was ... all swollen up; black in fact. I remember thinking it didn't belong to me. It was too big – it didn't feel a part of me. Looking at it made me feel queasy. I remember thinking, 'How will I pick up things, cook, hold my father's hand?' Things you take for granted. Why was it so damaged? I couldn't remember – and that upset me even more."

She'd mentioned someone else nearby. A male. Could she remember anything about him?

"I felt this horrible sticky stuff in my eyes and it was difficult to make out exact details. On the few occasions the stuff moved away from my face, and I could breathe a bit better, I caught glimpses of ... something.

"The first time I saw it I thought it looked like the outline of a man. But I couldn't be sure. The strange thing is, I was sure he was dead – even though he was still moving. His body seemed to ... I don't know. Sort of ripple, unnatural-like. As if something was pushing and pulling him from behind.

"And then, with the next gust of wind, that curtain of white would press up against him, and I could see the outline of his head and face. I think his mouth was open though he wasn't making a sound. Worst of all, I felt certain he'd been trapped there a long time and that what I was seeing was no longer a person, merely an empty shell."

That sure gave me pause for thought, as did her mention of a "curtain of white". Indeed, her unsettling descriptions seemed to have a personal resonance I found difficult to explain. Without being fully aware of it, Amanda's PLR memories appeared to have unlocked a dark room in my own subconscious. It was as if her descriptions – and the session that preceded them – had helped establish some form of weird symbiosis. On a deeper level, what she was describing – fantastical and unsettling as it was – felt like echoes of something I had encountered long, long ago. Something my conscious mind had blanked out completely.

The more I analysed our conversations, the more I began to attach a darker significance to Amanda's words. The reference to the white substance, allied to her pronounced arachnophobia had ominous implications. Could she have been describing some sort of web? Conjuring a vivid fantasy to explain her fears? Had she, indeed, made contact with some unimaginably distant individual, someone who had suffered a terrible death she believed to be arachnid-related?

I decided to trust my instincts. From the beginning there'd been something strange about this case. Indeed, from the moment Amanda had first walked into my consultation room alarm bells had started ringing in my head.

A mere two sessions had revealed many unique and puzzling things, and I soon realised that the only way in which I could shine light on these dark areas was to use intuition; to apply logic whilst admitting the fantastical into the equation.

Amanda's past life memories – if indeed that's what they were – refused to leave my waking thoughts. For weeks to come, I pursued a love affair with logic; took a sojourn into the subconscious. I listened to my heart, followed its leads, recorded its deepest, darkest whispers. I demolished all barriers to my thinking and opened my mind up to the previously unthinkable.

I researched my ideas and gave free reign to my most outlandish thoughts. In some ways I was compromising my ethics – but at the same time, by applying cold, clinical data I was able to construct a logical explanation for Amanda's experiences. Even if it meant I had to keep my these ideas to myself – at least for the foreseeable future.

In the days that followed I conducted further interviews with Amanda, and was able to use these transcripts to help supplement my later, more unusual conclusions.

Slowly but surely my ideas coalesced. The more I probed and evaluated, the more unshakable became my beliefs. And little by little the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Even though I've treated several patients with phobias, I rarely need to regress them. On the few occasions I have I've noticed he or she is able to establish contact with little or no input from myself. It's almost as if the person in the previous life draws their life-force towards them; as if the cause of a present day fear or trauma has its own special resonance which echoes down the years, remaining in the individual's psyche through all his or her subsequent lives. Understanding and being cured of the phobia is simply a matter of being returned to the origin of the experience, and in most cases, reliving it vicariously.

The fact that Amanda had been drawn back to the same person on not one, but two occasions held a deep significance. Furthermore, the fact that she suffered from acute arachnophobia and had started to experience particularly vivid and frightening dreams suggested that she may have been experiencing a milder form of PLR whilst asleep – and in so doing, had made contact with another mind albeit unconsciously.

Herein lay the problem. Was I to conclude that Amanda had been, in effect, reeled in by this person because she held the key to her fears? Had she acted as a kind of spiritual magnet – a key to explain her fears and unlock her phobia?

If I believed this then I also had to accept that that same character had died a terrible death. And that possibly it had been ... spider-related.

Of course, the very idea was preposterous. It defied all the rules of logic and sense, not to mention making a mockery of everything that scientists, biologists and historians held true.

Yet it was Amanda's account of the final seconds of her character's life, her last terrifying memories, that helped crystallise my conclusions.

"They were the worst," she recalled. "I felt a sort of detachment; almost as though I was an onlooker at a tragic event. I sensed she wanted to die, and quickly. Yet despite her pain, she seemed to fear something worse. Her mind was full of fleeting images of a huge black shape, one which held terrifying associations for her.

"By then she was experiencing an awful shortness of breath. And of course, she – I – began to panic.

"But then, all of a sudden I felt my scalp tingling and tightening and I knew it was coming.

"From above me.

"I couldn't move a muscle. I knew something terrible was descending and I couldn't even turn to face it. All I was aware of was this huge shadow falling over me, and a rippling in the white stuff.

"It happened so fast. I sensed a presence and knew this was it. I didn't know how it would happen. Only that I would be over as soon as that thing touched me.

"I was aware of pain and blackness and an awful, pulsating fear unlike anything I'd ever experienced.

"And then it arrived. It hadn't made a single sound but I knew it was just inches above my neck. I could sense it watching me, waiting to touch me. I felt a very light touch on the top of my skull, then intense pain, as if my head had caught on fire. Then...

..."you woke me..."

Just what had Amanda's past life character "seen"?

I've experienced many cases which cannot easily be explained or comprehended. With several of my patients I've pieced together details supplied under hypnosis, enabling me to reconstruct aspects of lives already lived. And on every occasion the client professes no prior knowledge of the person he or she "met" during regression.

I am able to instinctively sense when someone has had a PLR experience, and it has nothing to do with empirical data, facts or post-session research.

In Amanda's case, I knew she was telling the truth.

As simple as that: intuition and experience combined with a more nebulous quality. An indefinable feeling of something long forgotten.

Amanda certainly believed she had contacted a past life character. I believed that she believed she'd made contact. At the same time I found it difficult to accept the more incredulous aspects of her story. Surely these couldn't be memories? Yet I had used the same PLR techniques on Amanda as on all my other patients. More to the point, her recollections of her experiences under hypnosis appeared genuine and sincere. Yet to acknowledge her "recollections" entailed a radical re-definition of everything I believed in.

I'd hit a brick wall in my thinking.

Weeks went by during which I turned and probed and analysed my thoughts. However, it was Amanda's reference to the dark "presence" that gave my thinking its initial focus. As she described the encounter, I remember the oddest feeling of bolts clicking into place inside my mind. Almost as if the final pieces of a frustrating puzzle had coalesced, spelling out the answer.

An answer I didn't want to accept.

Amanda's vivid account combined with her arachnophobia led me to believe that her character had encountered some kind of spider. Or at least, a spider-like intelligence. After all, what other creature uses a web to ensnare its victims? I could only assume that an arachnid of unfathomable proportions had cocooned her in silken thread and injected her with venom. Its bite had paralysed her, and she'd suffered a slow, agonising death.

Was that it? Could I dare give free reign to such abstract thinking? If I was to consider such an implausible scenario then I had to follow it up with research. To give some meaning to Amanda's accounts, disturbing as they were.

Imagine such a world had existed. A world where, as improbable as it sounds, spiders viewed humans as prey. What would happen if, by some bizarre turn of fate you were captured and preyed upon by an arachnid?

When an arachnophobic encounters a spider in an enclosed environment, such as in a room or a garden shed, he or she, though likely to panic is able to retreat to relative safety. Imagine then a spider as large, or larger than yourself. Imagine the feelings you might experience. How the creature would look close-up. How utterly alien and monstrous it would appear.

But does the fear complex go deeper still? Might it be that far from fearing the spider because of its historical association with disease and the disgust response, mankind is repelled because it remembers a time when spiders preyed on them?

Admittedly, it takes a huge leap of faith and imagination. It requires the researcher to probe into unknown and unproven territory. To admit to things no sane scientist would even dare dream.

Yet isn't this how we make new discoveries? Weren't the radical and treasonous theories of yesteryear eventually embraced by a reluctant public? Is not the once magical and mysterious now the mundane and accepted?

I felt a physical need to get these ideas down on paper. To bring some order, however skewed to this enigma. For my own sanity as much as my patient's.

But where to start?

Had Amanda's past life character stumbled into a web of some kind? And been caught by an unimaginably huge spider?

During the first regression session, in the guise of this character, Amanda had spoken of a widespread fear amongst her "tribe". A fear of some unknown but dreaded creature. One that appeared to prey on its victims should they stray too close.

Had she done just that? Had the creature ensnared her as it would any prey item unfortunate enough to stray into its embrace?

It would help explain much of what she'd described. The character's reference to not being able to move suggests that a spider, if indeed that's what it was, injected her with a paralysing venom.

Most venomologists agree that it's not yet possible to satisfactorily classify spider venoms on the basis of their chemical or pharmacological properties. Certain venoms, such as that of the black widow spider, provoke a number of symptoms in humans, including hypertension, muscle spasms, weakness and even paralysis. The bites of other spiders, such as Phidippus formosus result in sharp pain, a wheal, and various tissue reactions, such as swelling and edema.

If Amanda's character had indeed been bitten by magnified version of the same creature, the results would have been catastrophic. Pain would be felt immediately, reaching its maximum in 1 to 3 hours, and continuing for 12 to 48 hours before subsiding.

It's likely her larger muscles would have felt rigid and started to spasm, particularly the abdomen which has a tendency to become "board-like". Her body temperature would start to rise and her blood pressure would increase. She would perspire profusely and feel nauseous. Other symptoms might include chills, urinary retention, constipation, a burning sensation of the skin and tissue damage.

This would certainly help explain the burning sensations she experienced, along with the blackening and swelling of her hand, which may have received a separate bite. The tissue affected locally by the venom would be killed and gradually slough away, exposing the underlying muscles. This form of necrosis is also seen when a victim has been bitten by a rattlesnake, with whole limbs sometimes swelling and splitting as the poison takes hold.

The venom would have a debilitating and painful effect on any human unlucky enough to fall prey to one of these animals, resulting in total paralysis. Zombification, if you like. And allied to the knowledge that the spider would almost certainly return at some point – to finish eating.

Given that the venom released from the bite of a huge spider would almost certainly be enough to kill its human victim, it's odd that Amanda's past life character remained alive at all. Since we don't know the size of the spider she encountered, one can only assume it administered enough venom to subdue but not kill her. A normal size spider, when attacking insects, injects a dose of venom commensurate with the size of the victim. Whereas when threatened by a human, it will discharge its entire dose. Can we therefore assume that the spider she encountered didn't consider her a big enough threat to discharge its entire supply? Given its undoubted size, this would have resulted in instant death.

Which raises the question of whether it was used to preying on victims this size. That it was the spider and not the human that posed a threat.

Amanda had made reference to her character's inability to breathe. Could it be that the poison injected into her system had ruined her lung capacity?; that they had started to liquefy or burn away? And what of her reference to the other person? It's possible that a combination of heightened fear, pain and fever may have caused her to hallucinate. However, her allusion to the victim being "merely an empty shell" made me think that perhaps the same creature had ensnared a human male. And that he had been injected, paralysed and, like a fly caught in a web, drained of his bodily fluids leaving a drained and lifeless husk.

Yet this didn't explain his apparent movement. Amanda's insistence that despite his lifeless appearance, "something was pushing and pulling him from behind." Might this have been due to the fact that the spider was feeding on its prey? Was that the movement she'd seen? Had the arachnid, hidden by sheets of web and perhaps suspended above or behind the victim been feasting on the poor unfortunate?

But if we are to accept this, we must also ask how a human might be captured by a spider in the first place.

In the natural world, black widow spiders commonly live under stones and pieces of wood, in hollow stumps and burrows, and less commonly among leaves and in low undergrowth. Might a larger variation of this type of spider have lived in bushy, densely populated undergrowth? Was this why Amanda's character feared these areas?

Black widow webs, for example, are built one to one-and-a-half metres from the ground, stretched between trees. In normal black widows these can extend several centimetres across much of which accounts for the "catching portion". The remainder of the web is used as a retreat for the spider, which is alerted to the arrival of its victim when there is a tug on the threads spun around its body.

The webs of other spiders, such as the brown recluse spider, are not used specifically for trapping insects and other prey, but as a retreat for the spider. So it's likely that if Amanda's character had been captured by an arachnid of some kind, it would have more closely resembled a black widow. Or even a mutated relation of the humble house or garden spider.

A nightmarish enough prospect. But given the fact that Amanda's character never once glimpsed the creature, we will probably never determine its origin. Suffice to say, the type of spider (if we continue to run with this assumption) is unimportant.

Perhaps the most horrifying aspect of the PLR session involves the character's final moments. It's possible based on taped dialogue that her fate was sealed by a simple reflex act ...vomiting. As unpleasant as it sounds, this involuntary action may well have acted as a "dinner bell" to the waiting arachnid. In the wild, spiders usually only attack their prey when it moves. Many insects have learned that if they do not move, the spider won't detect their vibrations. It's possible that by vomiting she set off a vibration which alerted the creature.

All I had were unanswered questions, wild assumptions and an hour or so of taped transcription.

The major stumbling blocks to accepting my own fantastical theories boiled down to just one thing: In what crazy, upside-down world could spiders have grown to such a huge size? And during which evolutionary period?

I could supply only one reasonable answer: That if such a species had ever existed, they must have done so during a time not recorded in human history.

This isn't as fanciful as it sounds. Many theories exist surrounding lost civilisations. One respected researcher in the field, Graham Hancock, suggests that: "Human society may indeed have evolved in a straight and essentially unbroken line from primitive to 'smart' just as the historians say but it is also possible that there could have been major discontinuities in the record which have severely distorted and 'edited' the data about the past that historians work with ... a great 'lost' civilisation could have flourished far back in remote antiquity and that it could have been so completely destroyed that its very existence was eventually forgotten."

There exists a whole array of academic "experts" who have devoted their lives to confirming the orthodox theory of prehistory. However, contrary to accepted wisdom, an "alternative" past might have existed where the civilisations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Pre-Columbian America may not have risen spontaneously. We should consider the possibility that such cultures benefited from a shared cultural and ancestral legacy handed down to them from an earlier civilisation. Indeed, it's possible that human beings might actually have forgotten major periods of their own history.

Is it possible that a world had existed where spiders were actually big enough and cunning enough to hunt humans? And that the evidence had been erased from the physical landscape as well as our collective subconscious? Might western society's steadfast arachnophobia be explained by citing a once very real and necessary but now forgotten fear?

If such a time had once existed, there would be no fossil record to support it as spiders don't possess vertebrae, fossilisation could not have occurred.

Could it be that instead of the physical legacy left us by, for example, the dinosaurs, a species of giant spiders had "survived" through to the present day as a residual, genetic memory? That mankind's abiding fear of spiders has remained in the subconscious the breeding ground for our worst fears and desires and still informs our thinking thousands, even tens of thousands of years later?

I was reminded of the first session where, in the guise of her assumed character, Amanda had described the extreme cold of her environment. The way she never seemed to be able to get warm. Perhaps, here too, there was an explanation.

Several researchers, such as Hancock, have suggested that a culturally advanced maritime civilisation flourished around the globe at the end of the last Ice Age less than 12,000 years ago. This culture was then destroyed by rising sea levels resulting in devastating floods, accompanied by the meltdown of ice sheets covering millions of miles of northern Europe and North America up to a depth of three miles thick for approximately 100,000 years.

Indeed, the vivid and terrifying memories of the end of the last Ice Age are preserved in more than 600 myths and legends from around the world, including references to super-floods that rose to mountainous heights and that brought about the virtual extermination of mankind.

But could these memories have stemmed from more than simply a fear of enormous waves and lethal floods?

My later research uncovered several mythologies that indeed hinted at an arachnid "intelligence". One Polish legend, dating from around 1560 AD, tells of an odd cult called the Bóg wielu oczu, a small of band of holy men who worshipped a strange, multi-eyed god which, in description at least was "spider-like". Though a relatively minor religion, it's rumoured that adherents were so afraid of their god's retribution that crime was almost unheard of. Another legend of Spanish origin (circa 1400) tells of the bizarre story of a terrible enemy that never slept and which was all-knowing and all-powerful in battle. The most interesting aspect of this story concerns the unknown creature's ability to lie in wait for its victim, which was then "entrapped" and killed, or worse paralysed and dragged away. It's rumoured that parents used the myth as a bedtime story to scare their children into behaving themselves. Even the feared Indian goddess, Kali, 8-armed and with a lethal reputation could conceivably have derived its origins from buried spider myths.

One doesn't have to look to the past to find evidence of spider fear. Filmmakers the world over have utilised this latent fear in films such as Arachnophobia, The Incredible Shrinking Man and the popular Alien movies. Nursery rhymes and fictional stories regularly use the arachnid to instil fear in the reader. All suggest a creeping intelligence. A creature that fails to fit into any acceptable species category. An alien animal.

Is society simply confronting long forgotten memories by fictionalising them? By symbolising them in children's stories and best-selling novels? Does the reality of what once might have been still infect our dreams? Is it subconsciously expressed through our art?

Maybe our memory of a forgotten species has been unconsciously buried in the same way that millions of square kilometres of land mass were buried by the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and the Atlantic hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Because Amanda's observations of the territory were restricted to her immediate locality, with little to suggest the "wider picture", it isn't possible to be certain of her character's location - if indeed it once existed.

And Amanda was unwilling to undergo another PLR session.

As she later commented: "No way would I be regressed again. I'm too scared of what I might learn." Which is understandable. Nevertheless, she appeared to salvage something positive from her experiences.

"I'm convinced I connected with a past life character. Someone around my age. I'm also sure that it was a very long time ago; thousands of years maybe. Perhaps longer. I felt drawn to her. Almost as though she was reeling me in, and I had no choice but to follow.

"One good thing came out of it. I haven't had a nightmare since, which I'd say is down to those sessions. Strange, but they're almost like a memory now. As though it happened to me, and not the person whose mind I contacted. In a way, I suppose it did though I try not to think too closely about that.

"Unfortunately I still fear spiders. I can't see this ever disappearing though I live in hope."

Spider fear seems to have been around for a long time. So long in fact that it's difficult to dismiss it as merely a dread of things that scurry in the periphery of our vision.

Until the late seventeenth century many European spiders were thought to be "poisonous" in the sense that their bites could be attributed to different illnesses. In fact, from the 11^th century, the bite of some spider species was associated with a mass hysterical reaction known as "tarantism". Sufferers complained that a spider's bite caused dizziness, nausea, stomach pains and heart constriction. Various forms of the "disease" were reported in Spain, Sicily, Persia, parts of Germany, America, Asia Minor and, most famously, between the thirteenth and eighteenth century among the people of Apulia in Italy.

It wasn't until the 1770s that the "apulian tarantula" was shown to be harmless. It was suspected that the sickness was caused by the bite of a completely different spider or merely by the heat of the midday sun.

Recent studies of spider phobia have shown that the fear response is closely linked with the disease avoidance response of disgust; the result of its association with disease and illness in European cultures from the tenth century onwards. This disgust response appears to be linked to the devastating and inexplicable epidemics (for example, the Great Plagues) that struck Europe from the Middle Ages onward, when the spider became a suitable target for the anxieties caused by these epidemics. A widespread phobia found most commonly in Western societies – particularly among Europeans and their descendants – which suggests a cultural rather than biological origin.

Perhaps mankind has projected its fears of disease and unexplainable illnesses onto the spider. Maybe arachnophobia is merely a genetically inherited process. Or possibly something deeper and more primordial is at work.

One must be careful not to demonise the spider. Arachnophobia is by no means universal. For instance, in many areas of Africa the spider is revered as a wise creature, its dwelling places cleaned and protected by the local inhabitants. In Indo-China, the Caribbean and the Australian aborigines, spiders are considered a delicacy. Furthermore, many cultures view spiders as symbols of good fortune. The Hindus of eastern Bengal release spiders at weddings as a good luck symbol. And in Egypt spiders are commonly placed under the beds of newlyweds.

Nor should one project one's own fears on the spider. Fear and disgust are often learnt responses resulting from, for instance, imitation of facial responses. Folklore, prejudice, superstition and cultural influences also play an important part. And let's not forget that the spider has a beneficial effect, preying on the ubiquitous insect population and creating extraordinarily detailed and visually stunning web designs.

If by some extraordinary turn of evolutionary fate a breed of huge spider did once exist, it cannot be blamed for preying on humans. To such a spider, a human being would be viewed as a legitimate food source. The same way a spider today might view a insect as prey. The arachnid surviving the only way it knows how.

An absurd concept? The stuff of fiction? Then consider this. Around fifty million years ago, huge birds ruled the land, and the most ferocious actually preyed on horses. Yes, horses. Not the large, streamlined and sleek animal we know today, but a smaller, more agile prototype. I ask you, is a breed of giant spider any more unfeasible?

Was it possible I had regressed Amanda to a past life so unimaginably distant that her character's ancestral origins were a complete mystery? A "missing link"? Or might Amanda's experiences under hypnosis have been a series of fantastical images conjured by a fevered, frightened mind?

So many questions, too few answers.

However, another, altogether more disquieting idea occurred to me. What if Amanda hadn't been regressed at all? What if instead of moving backwards in time, Amanda's experiences had been prophetic? Perhaps human beings are destined to meet a race of terrible spiders in thousands, perhaps millions of years to come.

A notion that has startling implications for my profession. No longer to be called a Past Life Regressionist but instead Future Life Progressionist. The mind truly boggles.