A personal journey of exploration and the discovery of a technology.
By David John Oates
IMPORTANT NOTES
This book details the events and theories that led to the discovery of Reverse Speech (TM ) and its associated technologies. These technologies, including theoretical developments, were discovered, designed and developed solely by Australian researcher David John Oates who claims ownership of all rights pertaining to these technologies. These ownership rights include but are not limited to, all intellectual property rights and copyrights and trademarks, including the trademark Reverse Speech (TM) and other names and processes mentioned in this document.
Whilst all historical events detailed in this book are true and accurate, some of these events have been presented in a metaphoric form to protect the identities of those involved. For example, Denny Sludge is a combination of several people and the Mexican restaurant meeting is a parable for many similar talks and phone conversations that occurred during that era. The lectures presented in this book are based on actual lectures given but the information of many lectures have been incorporated into one. The dialogue is fictional although it has been based on my recollections of actual conversations that occurred over the years.
All reversed dialogue is shown indicated in text with bold type and has been quoted exactly as it occurred. All examples can be heard with prior arrangement and documentation can be provided to verify many claims made. This includes an extensive tape library covering tapes analyzed since 1983 together with transcripts prepared. Specific references include written documentation, academic endorsements, personal correspondence, videos and tapes of media interviews and private conferences since 1987.
PREFACE
“In the realm of consciousness we are our own masters; we seem to be the factors themselves. But if we step through the door of the shadow we discover with terror that we are the objects of unseen factors. To know this is decidedly unpleasant, for nothing is more disillusioning than the discovery of our own inadequacy. It can even give rise to primitive panic because the anxiously guarded supremacy of consciousness is questioned in the most dangerous way.”
Archetypes Of The Collective Unconscious. C.G. Jung
WARNING WARNING WARNING
This book is a trance. I am a hypnotherapist. The purpose of this trance is for you see who you are. I want there to be no deception or misunderstandings about this fact. If you do not want to experience this trance, do not read this book. Close it now and continue no further.
Please. I am not joking. I mean it!
Already there have been some very unusual happenings in the lives of those few people who have read the first drafts of this book.
If, however, you want to experience this trance to the fullest you may choose to put on some headphones and listen to any music you wish. Then you might like to find a COMFORTABLE PLACE and continue reading. Read from the beginning to end straight through first, then go back and start again. It will take you several readings to digest all the information and it will take you several months after that to experience and process it all.
I wrote this book in a little more than two months. During this time, I continued working in my busy practice and raised my two daughters with the help of my sister, Annie, and office manager, George. I have written several books in my lifetime but never before have I felt that a book I manifested was truly inspired. This one was. I can barely remember writing it and I was in complete shock when I finally came out of my long trance and read what I had written.
I want to give you a couple more warnings before you decide to continue reading. That was the first one. It was obvious. Many of the others are not.
Next warning. Some of the language and a couple of the scenes are unsettling. If you are offended easily, do not read on because the unconscious mind is not a fairy tale and I would not want my kids to read this book yet. However I have been compelled to write in this manner because this is the language and metaphor that the phenomenon I am trying to present uses. My conscious mind tells me it too harsh for public consumption but my instincts tell me I must remain faithful to the original manifestation. So the manuscript is going to press essentially unaltered. In point of fact, those people who edited it were amazed. It needed very little editing and only minor proofing, grammar and plot clarifications were necessary. You will understand why after you have finished reading.
I wrote the book mostly in the early hours of the morning before I went to work and I wrote with headphones on music, usually playing full blast. I was constantly switching between classic rock and heavy metal on the dial. Sometimes the music I was listening to bore incredible similarities to the story I was creating so I included them in the manuscript. They are in brackets ( ) and I can assure that they were inserted in the manuscript at exactly the time I heard them. It was very eerie to read those little inserts after I read my original manuscript. I must confess that some of them were so uncanny that they have been deleted. However, they remain in the original draft which is locked away in my secret vault along with all my other research notes and tapes.
In many ways, this book affected me as much when I read it for the first time as it will affect you now. I still cannot put it down and I still examine some sections with magnified eyes. I believe this book contains a most important message that our entire planet must hear now. The time is right.
Welcome to the world of Reverse Speech.
David John Oates
Founder and Developer of the Reverse Speech Technologies.
“Awake and rise from your sleep and hear the words of your letter. Remember your robe of glory and your splendid mantle which you may wear when your name is written in the book of life and is read in the book of heroes.
And serving as a messenger the letter was a letter sealed by the King with his right hand against the evil ones, the children of Babel and the savage demons of Sarbug.
It rose up in the form of an eagle, it flew and lighted beside me and became speech.
At its voice and the sound of its rustling, I awoke and rose from my sleep. I took it, kissed it, broke its seal and read. And the words written on my heart were in the letter for me to read.
I remembered that I was a son of Kings and my free soul longed for its own kind.
As I gazed upon it suddenly the garment seemed to be a mirror of myself. I saw in it my whole self, and in it I saw myself apart, for we were two entities yet one form. The treasurers bought me one robe, they were two of the same shape with one kingly seal.
All its seams were fastened with stones of adornment and the image of the King of Kings was embroidered on it, and it glowed with sapphires of many colors.
I saw it quiver all over with the movements of gnosis and as it prepared to speak it moved towards me murmuring the sound of its songs.” The Deeds of the Apostle Judas Thomas; The Hymn Of The Pearl
INTRODUCTION
“Preach from your housetops that which you hear with your ear and in the other ear.”
The Gospel of Thomas v. 29
GIDDAY MATE
My name is David John Oates and I am a forty year old Australian researcher. I claim to have made a discovery and developed a technology that has the potential to change the whole face of society. This discovery is so profound, its implications so vast, that at first glance it may seem to be preposterous, almost too good to be true, certainly too fantastic to be taken seriously. With these caveats, I ask that you open your mind as you read this book and remember some of the other great discoveries in history. Remember how they at first seemed strange, unbelievable almost. Then remember how these discoveries changed civilization. Discoveries like electricity, magical forces transferred across wires. Or radio waves, even more magical, speaking to people across the planet without the use of wires. Then there was the horseless carriage, the airplane and now we have technologies that can take us to the moon and beyond.
These discoveries and inventions permanently changed the course of history when they were first made, yet we take them for granted now because we grew up with them. They seem normal because they are a part of our everyday lives. Yet many of them had very rocky beginnings, were born in ridicule and repression, and sometimes even labeled as “the work of the devil”.
So it is with the discovery I made in 1984. Like other discoveries in history, this discovery may also have a significant impact on civilization. Its implications are likewise vast and may seem threatening. Once taken seriously, I expect that the ideas I am presenting will challenge society’s concepts of language, psychology, and maybe even our concepts of the soul itself. My discovery goes to the very core of who we are as people, our personalities, our internal behavioral structures and why we do the things that we do. Then it offers a tangible, realistic method to alter these structures and to permanently rewrite dysfunctional behavioral patterns that exist within humans, both individually and collectively.
I make these claims with great confidence. They have been researched and proven many times during my twelve year career. My research has led me to believe that I have discovered the covert voice of the unconscious mind. Or, to be more accurate, I have uncovered a hidden method, existing outside of conscious control and awareness, that the human psyche uses to communicate verbally at all levels of consciousness. This hidden voice will speak of things that were not spoken of consciously. For example, if a person speaks a lie, the hidden voice may correct that lie. If a person leaves facts out of a statement made, the hidden voice may add those facts. The voice may also communicate unspoken agendas and motives. Additionally it will describe, in metaphor, the precise reason and cause for any person’s behavior. With prompting, it can also detail methods that will alter that behavior according to desired outcomes.
This discovery will significantly affect the state of civilization because it means that the human mind is no longer inaccessible. We now have an accurate way to go in and shift things about. With this discovery, any hidden secret can be revealed, any part or function of the mind exposed. I am about to present you with a set of keys that will unlock the mind, lay the human soul bare, and open up a doorway to the Infinite. What religion and psychology have been seeking for centuries has now been found: A reliable and concise method to access, to hear and to alter, the blueprints of Mankind and to gain conscious control of our evolution, possibly for the very first time.
This is my discovery and this is how you can avail yourself of its many benefits.
CHAPTER ONE
“The regions of the south will receive the word of the Light. He was hiding in a desolate place. A wind will come forth from his mouth … Then nature will have a final opportunity. The mouth of error will be opened in order that the evil Darkness may become idle and silent.”
The paraphrase of Shem; The conflict of Light and Darkness. Codex VII 1-49.9
MAKING THE DISCOVERY
The whole thing really began as an accident. It was October, 1983 and I was living in Los Angeles at the time. It was a week before my 28th birthday and I was in the bathroom preparing to go out for the evening. I had a portable walkman attached to my belt and I was listening to music at full volume. Suddenly I tripped and my walkman fell straight into the toilet bowl. Somewhat upset, I retrieved my water logged walkman and tried to repair it. However, my electronic skills were not as good as I thought and I somehow managed to wire up the unit so that it only played backwards. Attempts to return it to normal failed and I was left with a somewhat useless portable tape player.
I returned to my home country of Australia a few weeks later after hitch hiking through Europe for a short time. I had thrown all my belongings away in London to lighten my load and for some strange reason I took my backwards playing walkman with me. I also carried a sleeping bag, a thick brown sheepskin jacket and Ugg boots. These kept me warm as I slept in the snow. After many adventures the reversed walkman ended up back in Australia in my junk drawer gathering dust.
A few months later in April, 1984 I was the director of a halfway house for teenagers in Berri, a small South Australian country town. This town was the central hub of the Riverland, a major wine manufacturing region, and was totally surrounded by grape vines. The halfway house was situated on the banks of a large river that flowed through the center of the town. The river was called the River Murray and the halfway house was called The Abode.
While running this halfway house, I heard about rumors, perpetuated by American evangelists, that rock and roll was the devil’s music. It was said that if certain records were played backwards, subliminally suggestive and occultic messages could be heard. My mind immediately raced back to my teenage years and I remembered that some of the Beatles’ records were supposed to contain backward messages. These messages reportably gave clues that hinted Paul McCartney had died.
There seemed to be nothing too sinister in that, just a marketing exercise. However the evangelists’ claims went further, stating that many of these backward messages had not been placed on the record intentionally, but rather seemed to “appear out of nowhere”, mixed in the gibberish. Some of them even claimed that they had been placed on the record by the forces of Satan himself with the sole intent of brainwashing the youth of the world. Eventually I had several frightened teenagers on my hands who believed they had heard demons speaking to them backwards on rock and roll records.
I was somewhat intrigued but more angry at this ridiculous rubbish scaring the teenagers in my charge. I remembered my broken walkman that only played backwards and decided to investigate these claims with the sole purpose of debunking them so I could calm the teenagers down. I retrieved my walkman from the junk drawer, somewhat amazed that I had actually kept it, and began my project by beginning to play tape recordings of music backwards. I fully expected to hear nothing but meaningless sounds that had probably excited someone’s over-active imagination.
I was wrong. As I played these tapes backwards I began to hear intelligent words and statements mixed in among the gibberish. My first thoughts were that they were merely random sounds or the product of my own over-active imagination. I checked my hearing by asking friends and associates to confirm my findings. Initially I would play them the tape backwards and, without prompting, ask them what they heard. In nearly all situations, people could hear “something”, if not close to the exact words that I also was hearing. As time went on, I conducted more controlled and elaborate tests.
I prepared a standard tape that had ten reversals dubbed onto it, isolated from the gibberish. I chose people at random and divided them into three separate groups. In Group One I would ask them to tell me what they heard. In Group Two I would ask them to hear something that wasn’t there and in Group Three I would tell them what I thought was there. The results of these tests were encouraging.
In Group One most people could hear a word or two, if not most of the phrase as I had documented it. In Group Two, people could not hear what I asked them to hear, and in Group Three there was often an instant recognition of the backward phrase as soon as they heard it. These results demonstrated to me that there was clearly something at play here other than imagination.
Random occurrence eventually seemed to be highly unlikely as the backward phrases I was finding were occurring with far too much precision and design for them to be dismissed so easily. I did find that a small number of sounds often reversed to say the same thing each time the words were spoken and I eventually compiled a separate list of these sounds. However the vast majority of backward phrases could not be explained away by random generation.
The phrases were often long and eloquent, sometimes with rich, poetic language and metaphor, consisting of several words that made complete grammatical sense. Additionally, their occurrence appeared to have intelligence and design. Sometimes I would find several backward sentences in one song, each sentence relating to each other. Then there was the sheer volume of these sentences. Backward phrases were being found in approximately 50% of all the songs I looked at. It seemed to me that the chancesof these phrases occurring all by themselves was almost incalculable, similar to throwing letters of the alphabet randomly onto the floor and expecting the Lord’s prayer to magically appear.
For the most part, I discounted random chance along with imagination early in the research. This is not to deny the effect of these two factors and when I eventually began to teach this process to others they became formidable enemies. Yet it was still obvious to me that something separate and distinct was occurring in addition to incidences of random chance and imagination. I was convinced that this separate phenomenon could be documented, proven and tracked. I became obsessed and all other activities in my life rapidly faded into insignificance. I wanted to know what these backward phrases were and how they were getting there.
Another explanation I pursued in the early days was that the musical tracks had been altered and some recording technician had cleverly placed these messages backwards into the soundtracks. This explanation turned out to be true for a small percentage of songs. Using a recording technique known as Backward Masking, it is possible to place backward messages onto recording tracks. It is very easy to recognize when this has occurred. The superimposed track can be heard as gibberish if the tape is played forwards and recognized as an intelligent statement when the tape is played backwards.
However this explanation did not explain the vast majority of backward phrases that I was finding. Most of them were obviously not occurring by technical tricks. There were no superimposed soundtracks and they simply appeared like beacons of light in the midst of a sea of gibberish. Their occurrence was determined solely by the unique way that the forward speech sounds were sung at the time of recording. In other words, the backward phrases were a reversal of the phonetic sounds and structure of the forward speech sounds. These sounds were being formed and delivered by the brain in such a way that they communicated two messages at once: One forwards and the other one backwards.
This was certainly a curious phenomenon. Two modes of speech occurring simultaneously yet in the opposite direction to each other.
There is one other explanation for these backward phrases that bears mention and that is Satanic manipulation. I must admit that in the first few weeks of research, I did get eerie feelings walking into my house late and my emotions became somewhat edgy. But fortunately all the dreams faded in time and the phenomenon itself disproved this fundamentalist explanation. For a start, not all the messages were occultic in nature as had often been claimed. It depended on the song. If the song was about the occult, then the backward message would also be about the occult. Love songs contained backward messages about love, political songs contained backward political messages and so forth. Even gospel songs had their own messages, and they were usually about God, but not always.
I found myself growing increasingly angry at the fundamentalist preachers as my research continued, for they had either misrepresented the phenomenon or jumped to hasty conclusions based upon only minimal findings. These were not backward messages about the occult. They were backward messages about anything! And the content of these messages seemed to be determined, not by demons, but by what was on the forward soundtrack.
FORMULATING THE THEORY
We thus come to the first of many observations about this phenomenon that I noted in the first years of research. There were intricate relationships between the forward and reversed phrases, as well as a definite structure and form to the reversed phrases. The most significant of these relationships was the fact that the forward and reverse would usually relate to each other. The subject matter of the forward would be the subject matter of the reverse.
I called this simple observation, the principal of Complementarity. It eventually grew to become a foundation cornerstone of my future theoretical development.
I spent most of 1984 and ’85 researching a wide cross-section of music ranging from classical to hard rock. I remember being amazed that the Hallelujah chorus from Handle’s Messiah was almost exactly the same backwards at it was forwards. I began to keep an organized filing system of all my tapes and notes. I researched libraries and computer nets trying to find any information I could. I was convinced that with something as significant as this, there must be some work or research being conducted somewhere else. But I searched almost in vain, finding only the odd book by religious fundamentalists and the early work of Californian researcher, William H. Yarroll II.
Yarroll worked primarily in the area of rock music and its effects on the brain from 1980 to 1983. It was his initial scientific research that unwittingly prompted much of the religious hysteria of the ’80s. William Yarroll was also responsible for backward messages being discussed in the Californian State Assembly and also in Arkansas. Both cases occurred in 1983 and the Arkansas case resulted in Governor Bill Clinton’s signing a bill requiring all rock and roll records that were suspected of containing backward messages, to be labeled with the following warning:
“Warning, this record contains backward masking that makes a verbal statement which is audible when this record is played backwards and which may be perceptible at subliminal level when this record is played forward.”
The bill did not proceed to become law but the questions persisted. Other than the aforementioned cases, I could find no other work on the subject. This seemed to be a new area of research and I felt a renewed sense of excitement. I was like a pioneer exploring a new frontier.
Then in 1986 my work took a significant turn. I decided to research the history of backward phrases in the broadcast media since its inception to see if any further trends could be unraveled. I find it difficult to believe, looking back now, that up until that time I had researched only music and hadn’t seriously considered looking at normal speech. All that was about to change.
I obtained a recording of the history of radio from the 1920s to the present and began to play it backwards. One of the very first things that I heard backwards said, “Man will space walk”. This was a remarkably clear phrase that seemed to “jump out at me” from the gibberish. I immediately played the tape forwards and heard Neil Armstrong’s famous first words on the moon, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
I was stunned both at the clarity of the backward phrase and at its direct connection with the forward phrase. Later that day I was to be stunned again when I heard the clear words backwards, “He’s shot bad. Hold it. Try and look up.”
I played the tape forwards and heard a live commentary of the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas. I isolated the precise forward words responsible for the backward phrase. They were, “…Parkland hospital, there has been a shooting…” They occurred at the precise moment that the radio commentator realized that a shooting had occurred.
This was amazing to me. It was a live commentary and the backward phrase occurred as the reporter spoke in the field, not in a recording studio. There was no way this could have been orchestrated and the phrase seemed to be a logical reflection of the thoughts this man might have had at the time. These are, horror at the realization of an assassination, “He’s shot bad”, and a frantic search for the source of the gun shots, “Hold it. Try and look up.“
The moon walk was similar. It was a live commentary with the backward phrase communicating what I assumed would have been Neil Armstrong’s logical thoughts at the time. That is an expression of hope for the future of Mankind in space or “Man will space walk”.
I continued to find significant backward phrases on this one record. There was the backward phrase found on JFK’s Presidential inauguration. His famous words, “Ask not what you country can do for you, but what can you do for your country”, contained the backward message, “Give Jack all your food.”
Other famous historical events contained similarly amusing or poignant backward messages that completely related to what was being spoken forwards, including one reversal on Lee Harvey Oswald that said: “Hear them. Wish to kill the President.” This reversal was found on a radio broadcast recorded two weeks prior to the assassination of JFK. Oswald was talking forwards about the Fair Play For Cuba Committee.
One particularly amusing example was found on Australia’s Prime Minister at the time, Bob Hawke. He was asked, after he won the 1987 Federal election, how he planned to celebrate. He replied with the comment, “Ah, several cups of tea.” Backwards this said, “Used to smoke the best marijuana.” This example was later played repeatably on Australian television as news of my research began to surface.
I should point out here, that the moment of discovery of these phrases was particularly exciting for me because I usually had no idea what was on the forward tape. I would do my research by playing my tapes backwards only. I did this deliberately to try and reduce my own bias. Thus a tremendous excitement was created simply by the process of hearing a backward phrase and then discovering its incredible relationship, or Complementarity, with the forward soundtrack.
1986 and ’87 were exciting years. I ceased researching music and concentrated my efforts solely on speech. This added an entirely different dimension to my work. I started to record normal room conversations and found backward messages to be occurring constantly, often as frequently as every ten or fifteen seconds of speech. These backwards phrases were nearly always complementary. I started to find hidden secrets of my friends. – Things like lies they were telling, facts they were hiding, an affair someone was having including the name of the person involved.
Backward phrases would often discuss topics such as thoughts and feelings people had about each other. Then I started to find reversed conversations. Questions were being asked, answers were being given and it was all occurring backwards.
My entire world was turned upside down at that point. Any doubts I still had about random sound or imagination vanished. This was something very real and tangible, something very significant. This was the voice of truth, the real self speaking. It all seemed to fall into place in the early months of 1987.
I had discovered something. I had to give it a name, write a theory, tell people about it. I pondered my research notes. I thought and theorized. Then in April, 1987, at three o’clock in the morning, I awoke with two words etched on my brain. The words were Reverse Speech. That is what I called the phenomenon from that day onwards and the backward phrases became known as speech reversals.
I had achieved my original research objectives. I had determined to my satisfaction what these backward messages, or speech reversals, actually were and I had some plausible theories concerning their source. I theorized they were another form of communication, possibly an undiscovered human sense. There was nothing occultic or bizarre about it. Those were merely sentiments people expressed when faced with the unknown or unexplained. The actual truth was far simpler and far more logical. The phenomenon was a natural function of the human mind.
I wrote my theory on that morning in April, 1987 while I pondered these thoughts. The theory initially contained two points. Implicit in these points, but not specifically stated, is the assumption that the human brain automatically creates, hears and responds to both speech modes. A third point was added at a later stage. Here are the first two with some minor editing over the years.
I entitled it: “The Theory of Reverse Speech and Speech Complementarity.”
(1) Human speech has at least two separate yet complementary functions and modes. One mode occurs overtly, is spoken forwards, and is under conscious control. The other mode occurs covertly, is spoken backwards, and is not under conscious control. The backward mode of speech occurs simultaneously with the forward mode and is a reversal of the forward speech sounds.
(2) These two modes of speech complement and depend upon each other. One mode cannot be fully understood without the other mode. In the dynamics of interpersonal communication both modes of speech combined communicate the total psyche of a person, conscious and unconscious.
This was truly a revolutionary discovery. I knew that if my theory could be proven, the implications would be staggering. It could certainly be the ultimate truth detector. It might help explain aspects of human intuition, possibly even provide an explanation for some forms of ESP. Maybe it could help us understand the human mind and discover the causes of behavior and personality. And in my wildest musings, I pondered the religious possibilities. Could Reverse Speech help us discover the nature of the soul? What indeed was speaking backwards? Was it the unconscious mind or something deeper? Maybe even the spirit of the person. And what did those terms mean anyway?
At that point I knew my research was not over but had only just begun. I had opened a pandora’s box. I needed to tell others of this discovery and obtain help from people whom I assumed would have far more knowledge than me. After all, I was only a moderately educated youth worker from the outback, the son of a simple Methodist preacher. I was actually aspiring to be a writer at the time I started my research despite a few rejection slips already.
Who was I to be putting forward new theories about the nature of language and the unconscious mind? The entire concept was overwhelming. The task daunting. Where should I start?
CHAPTER TWO
“Normally consciousness is quite narrow. You see what you have to see and no more. Even that is quite difficult, because the left brain and right brain are usually fighting like a couple of dinosaurs. You can knock them out with booze or valium but in the long run it blunts your concentration even worse.”
The book of the SubGenius: The Sacred Teachings of J.R Bob Dobbs
DOCUMENTING STRUCTURES AND TRENDS
I contacted the media and academic institutions but was met with rejection and sometimes open hostility. An example of this was a series of correspondence I had with Manfred Clyne of the Melbourne University in 1988 who was quite forceful and opinionated in his letters.
“These are nothing more than illusions of the mind … for the sake of humanity and your family I emplore you to cease this endeavor and put your energies into something more useful … the road of research is long and tough and few survive it.”
Letters like these only spurred me onto new heights, for I knew the phenomenon to be real. At the very least, I had sufficient documentation and enough evidence to warrant more consideration than I was receiving. I decided to prepare a convincing case and I began to compile all of my work into manuscript form. I would write a book. Maybe then people would listen to me. I enlisted the help of my good friend, Greg Albrecht. Greg assisted me for the first few months of 1987 as I began to prepare the book manuscript. I entitled the proposed book “Beyond Backward Masking – Reverse Speech and the Voice of the Inner Mind.”
It was a significant step in the research because during the time of manuscript preparation, other trends and linguistic structures of the phenomenon began to emerge.
The first of these observations grew out of the principle of speech complementarity. I knew that the forward and reverse would usually relate to each other, yet I also knew that these relationships were not necessarily congruent. For example the reverse phrase could sometimes contradict the forward phrase or it might say the same thing. I divided the different types into several separate categories of complementary relationships. I called these The Categories Of Reverse Speech.
(1) Sometimes reversals would confirm what was being said forwards, saying the same thing with different words. I called these Congruent reversals. On rare occasion, I would find reversals that said the same thing in exactly the same words! I found these examples fascinating, especially when they were six or seven words long.
(2) Then there were Contradictory reversals These reversals were incongruent and contradicted what was said forward. In time, I began to understand that it was the reverse statement that was the correct, or true, statement.
(3) Expansive reversals were reversals that added additional information and expanded upon the forward speech. They would insert facts that were left out either wittingly or unwittingly from the forward dialogue. They also showed hidden motive and agenda behind the things that were said in forward speech.
(4) Internal Dialogue reversals showed actual thoughts the person was having at the time of speaking. Sometimes these reversals would show internal conversations that someone was having with themselves. For example, if part of you wanted to go out for the evening but another part of you wanted to stay at home, the entire struggle might appear backwards as a dialogue with self.
(5) External Dialogue speech reversals were specifically directed out to others in the form of requests, commands, questions and conversations. Have you ever thought something else was going on underneath the conversation? For example, boy meets girl and they talk about the weather but we all know what they were really talking about. Sometimes I would find an entirely different conversation backwards than what was happening forwards.
(6) Lead and Trail reversals would occur that said something several seconds or even minutes before or after the same thing was said forwards. Have you ever had the feeling that you have said something before? Or, you know that someone is just not “letting something go”. You were probably quite right. It was just all happening backwards. Or maybe you have been about to say something but someone else said it first. Possibly you thought, “Gee. I was just about to say that.” You were probably experiencing the action of Trail and Lead reversals starting a conversation before it started and continuing it after it has finished.
(7) Eventually I found a category of speech reversals that initially had me puzzled. I called these Comparative reversals. I had originally called them Non-related because they seemed to have no relationship whatsoever with what was being said forwards. They annoyed me because they were the only hole in my theory of Speech Complementarity. It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I finally saw the relationship. It was emotional. These reversals talked about events in someone’s life, or detailed statements, that had exactly the same emotion as that being expressed forwards. Someone might say forwards that they had a bad day at work and then say backwards that they had a flat tire last week, or even talk about Fred Jones who they didn’t like at the supermarket two years ago. The complementarity was not in the words. It was in the emotions. I breathed a sigh of relief. Not only was my theory intact but it added an even greater dimension to complementarity.
The next observation was one relating to grammar and linguistic structure. I noticed that many reversals had a standard structure, usually between two and five consecutive words in a single sentence. However there were those reversals that obviously deviated from this. I noted all these different forms and called them The Structures Of Reverse Speech.
(1) There were Long sentences. Not very often, but sometimes, I would find reversals of staggering length. There were perfectly formed, long flowing sentences that could be up to fifteen or twenty words long sometimes with two three sentences in the one reversal.
(2) Then there were Single words. I was very suspicious of single words backwards. They could easily be explained by random occurrence. In time, though, I began to feel safe about documenting certain types of single words such as the expression of an emotion or an external command.
(3) Cause and Effect reversals had a unique grammatical structure that was very common to find backwards. They usually consisted of two sentences that related to each other. They would frequently make a statement a fact and then suggest a course of action. For example: Book. Please read it or Pain. Let it go.
(4) Sentence Building reversals were amazing and helped dispel any lingering doubts I still had about all this. The forward and reverse would combine to form a complete sentence. For example: “…I think they should eradicate all the crime in [Washington DC].” Reverse Is the capitol of America. The words Washington DC represents the actual forward words where the reversal might occur. They would thus expand upon complementarity yet again by reversing to create another sentence all together. “Washington DC is the capitol of America.
(5) Mirror Image reversals similarly defied the imagination. The forward and reverse would be a mirror image of each other. For example: “I love my husband very much”. Reverse: I love my husband very much.
(6) Finally came Semi-formed reversals: Nearly all reversals I was documenting were well-defined. They were separated from the gibberish and it was very obvious where they began and finished. However some reversals disappeared into the gibberish. They would always begin very clearly but the last word simply vanished. This was frustrating especially when it said something like “The plans are in the…”
As I formulated categories and structures, I noted that certain people tend to run the same type of reversal structures. For example, someone may have a majority of long sentences or sentence building reversals. Then came other significant findings.
IT TAKES TIME TO FIND REVERSALS
I was comparing the transcripts I had compiled over the last year when I noted that many more reversals were being documented in normal conversation compared to public media broadcasts. So I started to do a time and reversal count on all my transcripts using a stop watch. I then prepared charts that compared the average rate of reversal occurrence in any given conversational setting. This was a task that yielded tremendous results but one which significantly added to my already overloaded research time.
It takes an incredible amount of time to analyze tapes for speech reversals. At that early stage in 1987, one thirty minute tape would take me three or four days to analyze thoroughly. Consequently I would spend hundreds of hours at my desk with headphones on, listening to tapes, making notes. This process would include the following steps:
(1) First I would do an initial run-through of the tape backwards only and prepare a preliminary transcript of the reverse phrases.
(2) This was followed by a second run through of the tape from beginning to end, checking for reversals as I went by rapidly switching between forward and reverse directions.
(3) A more detailed transcript was then prepared, initial reversals checked, more reversals found, and sections of the forward dialogue transcribed.
(4) Then I did a final third run through and checked all my results.
(5) The transcripts were then analyzed and complementary relationships were determined.
(6) Finally, I began to conduct a precise time count of all reversals from the beginning of the tape to the end.
THE RIGHT BRAIN SPEAKS
Within a few months, I had a sufficient cross section of transcripts from different settings to make some preliminary observations. In normal relaxed room settings, speech reversals occurred on an average of one reversal every ten seconds of conversation. If you were to add some emotion such as a heated argument the reversal rate would go up rapidly sometimes as often as one reversal every second, or almost continuously. On the other end of the scale, in structured settings such as lectures, the rate of reversal occurrence would drop to an average of one reversal every thirty to sixty seconds. Sometimes it would drop to as low as one reversal every one or two minutes if someone were reading without emotion from a prepared script.
So consistent were these observations that I used to test myself by randomly picking up tapes and playing them backwards only. I could usually tell what type of conversation it was simply by the number of reversals that were occurring in any given minute of tape time. Soon I began to recognize other differences such as differing tonality and expression in speech reversals. These differences were determined not only by the type of conversation, but also by the topic being discussed at the time.
Thus another hypothesis was formed. This hypothesis stated that the amount of reversals occurring in any given conversation will be directly determined by the amount of emotion involved and the free flowing, spontaneous nature of this conversation.
The similarities of my observation compared to the functions of the right brain hemisphere are striking. The right brain is considered to be highly emotional and creative. It is also believed to be responsible for the tonal inflections of speech, or the emotional content. The left brain hemisphere, on the other hand, is considered to be logical and ordered, responsible for the actual verbal content of speech.
Given these comparisons, I theorized that forward speech was coming from the left brain hemisphere and Reverse Speech was coming from the right brain hemisphere. I noted further similarities with other similar mental phenomena such as Dyslexia. I found it fascinating that vision was reversed before being processed by the brain and I wondered if there might be a connection between these phenomena and reverse speech.
THE METAPHOR MYSTERY
Probably the most significant observation that was made as the book manuscript was being prepared was that concerning metaphors. Ever since I had began research in 1984, I had noted the appearance of many unusual words and mythological motives in backward phrases. These included references to the Garden of Eden, Camelot and Merlin, Satan and Lucifer, Wolves and Eagles, Whirlwinds and Saucers, even Hitler and Nazis, to name just a few.
In music they had been easy to explain by the imagery of song and my main concern at the time had been to validate their actual existence without getting too concerned about possible meanings. Yet as I now reviewed the transcripts of speech, it became strikingly obvious that these metaphors were just as frequent as those found in music and I realized I needed to understand what they meant.
My first clue came from my historical research of music and radio broadcasts since the 1920s. Reversals that I found here had indicated that these metaphors were not constant over the years but they rather seemed to ebb and flow with the changing tides of history. For example, I frequently found the words Jesus or Lucifer in the 1920s and 30s and Nazi or Hitler in popular recordings from the 1940s and 50s. Then in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s, a new theme began to appear with words like Satan and Whirlwind. I assumed it was these references that prompted some of the early religious hysteria.
I was faced with a new problem. What did these words mean? I began my research with religious writings and was eventually led to the works of Carl Jung who extensively explored mythology and metaphor in the early twentieth century. I was particularly attracted to his work because of the many similarities between his findings and that of my own. The metaphors I was finding in Reverse Speech were also present in other phenomena, such as dreams. Jung theorized that these words were archetypes of the mind. Although I didn’t really know what that meant at the time, it put me on a new direction and I went back to the transcripts seeking answers with a fresh approach.