A SKEPTIC'S EXPERIENCE WITH DOUGLAS  

A Canadian-based author, who has followed Douglas' career for three decades, relates the following humorous story about an experience a skeptic had with Douglas and the DTM.

When Douglas was younger, he would do three or four sessions a day, sometimes to a length of 1:45 each. At this stage of his life, a typical reading lasts just over an hour. The Conductor gives Douglas specific suggestions not merely to wake up, but to increase respiration, heart rate, blood flow, etc., to levels approximating normal. Nonetheless, it is not a fun process, and history may well note (if interest in the DTM process continues to grow and more research is done) that Cottrell's body has reached the level of a professional athlete's, handling daily shocks and changes to core systems that might seriously damage another. When Douglas wakes up, he not only has no memory of what was said, but he may have in his head images from the reading that make no conscious sense to him, much the way we might awaken from a dream with only the very last bit stuck in our heads.
For example, during one of the only times in Douglas' exceptionally long career that he attempted to use a speakerphone to deliver a live real-time session to someone across the globe, something rather odd happened. The recipient of the session was a highly successful TV producer from Los Angeles, who, ironically, revealed himself to be truer to that particular stereotype than Douglas is to the one that shadows his own calling. The LA fellow not only assumed that he was able to handle on the spot any situation that might arise, but, unknown to Douglas and his Conductor, he had not bothered to read any of the material on the deep trance process which had been couriered to him the day before. After all, what could be complicated about dealing with just another fortune teller...?
So the session was started in real-time (after Douglas was put under) over the phone with the client having no concept of the DTM, or the dynamic he was about to be involved in. "Doug, tell me something about health," said the client, who, the taped record will show, insisted with ever-increasing desperation on calling Cottrell "Doug" as the session progressed, even as it became ever so clear that he really was not actually talking to "Doug" at all).
"The question is not specific. What would you have us do?" came the response.
"Come on, Doug. There must be something you can say." At this point, the Conductor broke in, and diplomatically directed the sleeping Cottrell to scan the physical form, locating the area of the most stress, discussing the problem and then offering a solution. Following the usual pause, Douglas, in trance immediately began discussing in the most minute detail the client's prostate gland, its size, colour, shape, blood flow, etc. The degree of detail would have made even a urologist squeamish. To borrow a 1960s expression that is not nearly as popular as it once was, the client, having no understanding of the power or scope of the DTM, "freaked out," and immediately tried to change the topic by interrupting over the speakerphone.
"Hey, now, Doug! Wait a second! I have this other medical condition that is very unusual. Everyone knows about it. What is it?"
"One second, we will examine," said Cottrell, and another long pause followed. "Indeed," said Cottrell in trance, "we find that from time to time there would be a restriction in blood flow to those areas of the brain, occipital lobe, medulla oblongata [ED: many more medical terms followed, relating specifically to brain components] resulting in what would be considered a slowing of the heart beat, respiration also, affecting ultimately that of the optical nerve, causing the effect of "seeing stars." If this condition would be allowed to develop without intervention, in the full course, within a matter of mere moments, the body would lose awareness and consciousness in a fairly sudden and dramatic manner..."
At this point, for reasons that have never been fully understood, the client began to literally scream into his phone at the other end of the connection: "Doug, never mind all that! Just give me the name of the condition! Everyone knows the name! Everyone knows that I have this! JUST GIVE ME THE NAME! THE NAME!"
It is worth repeating that Douglas in DTM is the most relaxed, patient, and in-control conversationalist most of us will encounter in our lifetimes. Yelling at him when he is in DTM is not likely to elicit much of a response. In this case, the reading merely started over from the top, almost as though it were playing back a tape of itself. "We find that from time to time, there would be a restriction in blood flow to those areas of the brain...." This instant replay was way too much for this client who, it must be recalled, had no concept of what he had gotten himself into (yet another reason why Douglas now refuses to do live, over-the-phone DTM sessions) and he promptly hung up.
The Conductor immediately gave to Douglas the suggestions to end the trance in the normal way, and awake. When Douglas did finally awaken, he looked at the Conductor and asked quizzically, "Why do I have the word Narcolepsy going round and round in my head?"