EJ’s Dark Hypnosis Spirals Out of Control While Kristen Issues a TERRIFYING Request!

The walls of Salem are about to crack under the weight of secrets, betrayal, and terrifying discoveries during the explosive week of May 18, 2026 on Days of Our Lives. What begins as a shocking resurrection quickly spirals into a nightmare involving dangerous obsessions, hidden identities, and psychological collapse. By the time the week ends, several lives will be permanently changed — and some relationships may never recover.

The biggest shock arrives when Lexie Carver returns from the dead.

For years, Salem believed Lexie’s tragic death from a brain tumor was final. Her family mourned her, buried her, and slowly tried to rebuild their shattered lives. Abe Carver eventually learned how to survive without the woman he loved, even opening his heart to Paulina Price. But everything changes in one horrifying moment inside University Hospital.

On Monday morning, an employee working near the hospital morgue hears movement coming from one of the cold storage chambers. At first, they assume it’s mechanical failure. But when the drawer slowly opens, the impossible happens. Lexie emerges alive.

Only this is no miracle.

Lexie is weak, confused, and terrified. She remembers dying. She remembers the pain fading away. But instead of peace, she woke up trapped in a freezing steel room while the sinister Dr. Wilhelm Rolf stood over her like a scientist admiring an experiment. Hidden beneath the hospital, Rolf has secretly operated an underground medical lab where he used Lexie as a test subject for years.

The treatment that kept her alive came from a twisted experimental formula tied to the same orchid-based science once connected to Stefano DiMera’s survival experiments. But the procedure left devastating consequences. Lexie’s memories are fractured. Entire years of her life are missing.

In her mind, almost no time has passed.

She still believes Abigail is preparing for her wedding. She has no knowledge of recent tragedies in Salem. Worse yet, she has absolutely no idea that Abe remarried after believing she was gone forever.

When Abe finally comes face to face with Lexie in the hospital corridor, he is emotionally destroyed. Lexie reaches for him through tears, asking innocent questions about Theo and wondering why everyone looks so frightened. Abe cannot bring himself to explain the truth. How could he possibly tell the woman he buried that her death was real to everyone else?

The emotional fallout becomes even more heartbreaking once Paulina witnesses the reunion.

At first, Paulina’s protective instincts immediately surface. She fears losing the man she fought so hard to love openly and honestly. But once she realizes how traumatized Lexie truly is, her anger turns into compassion. Lexie jumps at loud noises, panics when nurses approach too quickly, and behaves like someone trapped between life and death.

Midweek, Paulina makes a painful sacrifice. She privately tells Abe to spend time helping Lexie adjust to reality, even if it means reopening old emotions. Paulina insists she will wait for him while the situation settles, but deep down she fears Salem’s cruel twist of fate may steal her husband away forever.

Meanwhile, another nightmare unfolds inside the DiMera mansion.

Kristen DiMera reaches a terrifying breaking point after losing nearly everything. Brady Black has finally had enough of her manipulative schemes, especially after her fake pregnancy scandal explodes publicly. Rachel begins distancing herself from her mother, while Brady pursues legal protection to keep Kristen away.

Consumed by desperation and jealousy, Kristen becomes convinced that Chloe Lane is the reason she’s losing her daughter forever.

Instead of trying to repair the damage she caused, Kristen makes a horrifying decision.

In a chilling secret meeting, Kristen contacts the dangerous criminal Orpheus. But unlike previous schemes fueled by rage or revenge, this request is cold and methodical. Kristen doesn’t simply want Chloe frightened or humiliated. She wants her permanently removed from the picture.

And she wants it to look accidental.

The terrifying part is how calm Kristen becomes while arranging everything. There are no emotional breakdowns, no dramatic threats, and no hesitation. She quietly hands over information about Chloe’s routines, including her daily jogging path, and authorizes payment without blinking.

For the first time, Kristen fully crosses the line into calculated murder-for-hire territory.

But Orpheus has plans of his own.

Rather than killing Chloe immediately, he decides to use the situation for leverage. On Thursday, Kristen receives a disturbing video message showing Chloe alive but kidnapped. Orpheus smugly explains that Kristen now owes him permanent access to DiMera resources and finances in exchange for Chloe’s continued survival.

Kristen suddenly realizes she has trapped herself in a nightmare she cannot control. If Brady discovers what she’s done, she could lose Rachel forever. But refusing Orpheus could place Chloe’s life in immediate danger.

As panic spreads across Salem, the week’s darkest psychological story centers on EJ DiMera.

EJ has recently suffered disturbing blackouts. Entire chunks of time vanish from his memory. He begins waking up in strange locations with no explanation for how he got there. Matters become even more frightening when he discovers a bloodstained shirt hidden in his car trunk.

Terrified that he may be turning into Stefano all over again, EJ seeks help from Marlena Evans. He fears either someone is framing him for terrible crimes — or his own mind is collapsing.

Marlena reluctantly agrees to attempt deep regression hypnosis.

At first, the sessions appear normal. EJ recalls fragmented memories and emotional trauma connected to the DiMera family legacy. But during Friday’s climactic hypnosis session, everything spirals dangerously out of control.

Instead of uncovering one buried memory, EJ falls into multiple layers of suppressed memories hidden inside each other.

Under hypnosis, he suddenly relives a mysterious night from years earlier. Although everyone believed he left Salem for a business trip, the trance reveals something entirely different. EJ secretly returned to the DiMera crypt in the middle of the night.

Inside the crypt, he approached Stefano’s portrait and opened a hidden compartment concealed behind the painting.

There, EJ discovered a flash drive.

Then the truly horrifying moment occurs.

A voice whispers from the darkness: “Don’t watch it.”

The voice belongs to EJ himself.

Even Marlena becomes alarmed as EJ begins screaming uncontrollably in the hypnosis chair. His pulse spikes while he mutters fragmented phrases about lies, bloodlines, and betrayal. Before Marlena can fully pull him out of the trance, EJ suddenly whispers one shocking name:

Susan Banks.

The revelation changes everything.

EJ slowly remembers that Susan uncovered a devastating secret before her death. According to the hidden evidence, EJ may not actually be a biological DiMera at all. Instead, he may have been stolen as a child from a rival crime family and raised under false pretenses.

If the flash drive confirms the truth, EJ could lose his entire identity overnight.

The DiMera inheritance. His power. His legacy. Everything.

The psychological damage becomes unbearable as EJ realizes his entire life may have been built on a lie. The man who spent decades fighting to uphold the DiMera name could discover he never belonged to the family in the first place.

By the end of Friday’s episode, EJ completely unravels.

Ignoring Marlena’s warnings, he races toward the DiMera crypt carrying a crowbar, desperate to uncover the hidden evidence once and for all. Marlena immediately contacts Rafe, fearing EJ is emotionally unstable and capable of destroying himself before the truth even comes out.

The final image of the week leaves Salem shaken to its core: EJ standing alone inside the crypt, breathing heavily as he prepares to pry open the hidden compartment that could erase everything he believes about himself.

The week of May 18 delivers far more than shocking twists. It forces Salem’s residents to confront devastating emotional consequences. Lexie’s return reopens wounds everyone thought had healed. Kristen’s obsession mutates into something truly monstrous. And EJ’s hypnotic breakdown proves the most dangerous secrets are often the ones buried deep within the mind.

In Salem, the dead never stay buried for long — but sometimes coming back is far worse than dying.